sapphire wanis' BOOK REVIEW (MY/ENG)

2. Nine Lives - Teoh Choon Ean (ENG/MY)

Nine Lives  written by Teoh Choon Ean

English Review.

       Summary (NOT THE WHOLE SYNOPSIS, I just summarize it): Bee Lian is just a 15 years old orphan girl, being raised by her poor grandparents. To cope with loneliness, she often talk to her best friend - a mangy yellow cat who lives next door. She talks and vent everything she wants to to the cat, as if the talk can really understand her.

    I could feel a deep connection with Bee Lian character. She was sad and lonely. There are things that she can't just share to anyone. Does not follow the trend, does not have extra money to pay paid tuitions classes, always being timid and behave, learn how to cook like a orang kampung.. while her friends knows nothing about her family lifestyle..

    In this novel, we can see what kind of life that our teens face. At least in my generation. We were teenages. Youths who are curious in exploring new things. The high that we feel in our youthful days. There are times that we want to be a cool (model) student, and there are times that we want to be a cool (delinquen-ish) student. There are times where we wished that we were born in rich family, or at least strict-less family. We witnessed what kind of mistakes our peers made, and we learnt to not repeating the similar mistake in our life. We learnt to not judge a book by its cover. We learnt to be tolerant. We learnt "whys". We learnt to be a kind person.

   Growing up, we all often throwing tantrums, rebelling againts family. We think that it is unfair. We live in a obviously different generation than them. We're losing friends - not everyone wants to befriend with someone who doesn't follow the trend, have no money and could not hang out often. But somehow, it makes our life better as we can filter our circles more efficiently.

   At a certain point in life, we are grateful that our family raised us in hard way. Maybe we were poor, but it made us to be more thankful for the gifts from the God. Life, health, strength.. We learnt that money could not buy happiness, but money are important for us to keep living with a warm meal and a house for shelter. Maybe our parents are too strict and traditional, but it's because they don't want us to live a hard live to survive when they're no longer around us anymore.

    Life is hard, but running away from problems would never solve it. We have to face it with our knowledge. Learn how to better, strive to be a better person everyday.

    This light novel is suitable for students who wants to start learning English language.