If you don't get it, you don't get it.

Some people are not born to write. This is something I've been thinking about while I read Scott Westerfield's latest ham, Leviathan. He's got the ideas, and certainly the structure, that a decent young adult's novel should have. But like so much of today's media (film, video games, birthday cards), the world of literature is infected with a disease of stamp-em-out, factory-like, competently written novels. This book is one of them. It does not sing, though it has ideas that are worthy of much better authors.

I really wanted to like this book. This was, for me, Scott Westerfield's chance to redeem himself after the lackluster Midnighters series. That was another series of competently written books, that hung on because of some readers' penchants for teens with powers. Even with bad description, cardboard characters, and laughable plot, there can be good parts (for some) if people are levitating or reading minds. Still, I could barely get through the first book, and what I read of it was unsatisfying.

And such a missed opportunity! Midnighters is about a series of kids who have to live through a twenty-fifth hour every day. There are beasties that try to attack the main characters, there's some all-right backstory about how midnight creatures are from the Stone Age and don't grow old as quickly... but the book was clunky. And weak.

So, Leviathan. Take a deep breath, because this will take a minute to explain. It's an alternate version of World War I (the "Great War", if you will). Germany and Austria-Hungary have developed an enormously mechanized army, with two-legged walkers worth of George Lucas, James Cameron, or Hayao Miyazaki. Britain and the rest, meanwhile, base their military and means of transport around Darwinian creatures, fabricated from bits of other creatures. The Leviathan, for example, is an airship that is (literally) a whale. In the midst of all this, we meet Alek, the son of a Serbian duke who is murdered to begin the war, and Deryn, a young female posing as a male in order to work on airships, her dream.

It took me a paragraph to explain the premise. Westerfield does not have a weak idea, folks. But Westerfield never figures out how to introduce his world in a way that is organic. He clunks down paragraphs of description, or provides it in truly unoriginal ways (such as during a fencing match between master and pupil). He finds no way to keep the discovery of new things interesting, in contrast to Philip Pullman with The Golden Compass. And after a while, Westerfield's new ideas dry up, and we're left with a boring novel where a war hasn't really begun yet.

I'd keep going if I felt like there'd be payoff in battle scenes, but we've already had at least one by the point I stopped and it was unexciting. There is one new thing about this prose, though: I've never seen anyone use the word "cilia" as much as Westerfield. It must have been on his word-of-the-day calendar or something.

Look: maybe I'm not the kind of person who'd like Westerfield's prose. He's got plenty of ideas. I did, however, find the writing uninspired, even after the introduction of the premise. There's some mild debate as to whether Darwinism is heretical or not, but it's only alluded to. Mostly this is accepted as a fact of life. No character ever tries to really understand these creatures that have been fabricated. The mechanized army is also boring, even if they do have zeppelins or whatnot. The art by Keith Thompson almost saves it. However, it is sometimes hard to tell what's going on because of the stylized brush strokes.

It is, in short, a very boring book, and one in which Scott Westefield once again fails in my eyes. Ignore this author as long as you can, because there's plenty better out there.

You're reading about reading about reading.

One year ago, I started a book called How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read. It was genius, it was full of literature trivia, and it made me think about books in a different way. It made my list of the best books of last year. I told everyone I knew to go out and read it.

And I never even finished it.

Never let it be said that I cannot follow instructions.

I do seem to have trouble reading nonfiction. (Hence why I got five nonfiction books on my last library run. Cause, you know, I'm smart like that.) But this time, once again, I really had no excuse. Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers by John Sutherland is, well, book trivia. Which is what I love, right? Why wouldn't a reader like to read about books?

The subject do seem to be fairly popular, or at least common, among writers. Half of Stephen King's novels are about writers (for example, both 'Salem's Lot and Under the Dome). Inkheart by Cornelia Funke was a popular children's novel about individuals who could make books come to life, and I've seen that trope somewhere else before (but I'm not sure where -- probably in picture books).



Yet (in the proud tradition of How to Talk) I never finished Curiosities of Literature. I think there are two big reasons why it fails. One is that the profession of reading and writing is not as glamorous as people make it out to be. The other is that the book is too trivial.

Let's look at that first factor. This is less a problem with this particular book and more a problem with the genre of book-books in general. Writing, as I've found, takes a really long time. I spent somewhere upwards of two-three hours a day in the last days of National Novel Writing Month, when I was behind about ten thousand words. It was fun. It was fulfilling. It was not dramatic.

Reading isn't dramatic, either. (Nor is looking at paintings -- thank you, Dan Brown.) Inkheart tried to disguise this by quoting from other (better) books before each chapter, but the fact is that you can't describe much about words flowing from someone's mouth. It's like reading a piece of sheet music without hearing the music itself -- pointless.

There is one exception to this. Avi wrote an excellent book (introducing me to the author) entitled Who Stole 'The Wizard of Oz'? It pulls trivia from several popular young adult books, like Winnie the Pooh and Alice in Wonderland, to solve a mystery. So trivia can be intersting, and that's what would draw a reader to Curiosities of Literature.

Alas, you have to be a really involved reader to enjoy Curiosities. I knew only a few of the authors mentioned by Sutherland, and those were bits of trivia I already knew because I had found out all I could about Stephen King and J.K. Rowling beforehand. You see, the problem with making a book of trivia overarcing an entire medium is that I'm not going to be interested in most of the trivia. If I've never read Bronte, I'm not going to be interested in her. These pieces of trivia -- about relationships, lost manuscripts, and such -- are so tiny that I can't be interested in them if every other name is unfamiliar to me.

So that's Curiosities. Mildy diverting, but not enough to make you curious. And I really must remember to stop getting so much nonfiction.

Obliterating the gender barrier

Who doesn't love treasure hunts? Or traveling? Or weird artwork? Or crazy aunts? Or chick lit?

Oops. I know a lot of guys who would disagree with that last statement. Well, so what? I was introduced to Maureen Johnson during the very stressful month when I was writing my novel, last November. Her writing was a beacon of truth and wit in what felt like a muck of my bad writing. (Observe that previous sentence, for example.) So I dutifully ignored the pink and blue cover to 13 Little Blue Envelopes, one of Johnson's more popular novels, and dived right in. (Though I did resolve to finish it before my three-day weekend finished, in case people wondered why I was reading such a book.)

Really, though, this novel only looks like chick lit. It has a female protagonist-- okay. But really, I find it very close-minded of male readers to have an aversion to that sort of character. Look past the stereotypes you might think of with chick lit and this is a really astoundingly good story.

Virginia (Ginny) has an aunt who is kind of insane. The aunt takes off to Europe, and unfortunately dies there, but not before she has a chance to send Ginny on a quest. Ginny is given 13 little blue envelopes (we have a title!) that lead her across London, Paris, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, and Venice. Along the way she meets some savory characters and some not-so-savory characters, with varying degrees of permanence in the story. Seriously-- even the person you might consider the main male protagonist has an uncertain ending. (Oops. Spoilers.)

The settings are pretty much exactly as they should be. Amsterdam is damp. Paris is intimidating. London is... well, London, with its weirdly awesome British culture and confusing train maps abounding. Since I've been to most of these locations, I can attest to the decent descriptions of them, though sometimes the characters are a bit stereotypical. I have Danish friends, and they don't shout all the time. I'm just saying.

I can overlook them, though, because of the writing and the engaging protagonists. Ginny is introverted and shy and relatively intelligent, so I can relate to her easily. (On that last one -- I mean to say that there is rarely a moment when the audience knows something totally obvious that the protagonist hasn't figured out yet. Unless you look ahead and realize that (spoilers) there are only 12 envelopes.) Keith and Richard are layered characters, too, even when viewed through Ginny's eyes.

Of course, I best like Aunt Peg's character. Going on a huge road trip through Europe is just the sort of thing that I (and a lot of teens I know) would love to just loosen me up and get me ready for the world. Maureen Johnson's best gimmick is that the envelopes' contents get more and more vague as the book goes on, reflecting her developing illness at the same time as they let Ginny make more decisions on her own. There is a very organic separation of Ginny's and Peg's characters by the end of the book; the final auction seen more than anything reflects the difference between what Ginny would want done with her aunts' items and what her aunt would do.

The best feature of the novel, though, is that aforementioned biting sense of humor, that usually comes as a surprisingly true observation of daily life. Like Stephen King and J.K. Rowling before her, Maureen Johnson has an uncannily good sense of how to tell a story. The book has engaging characters, prose, and ideas for people of any age, but particularly for teenagers -- male or female. Maybe electronic readers will help to decrease readers' judgments of a book by their cover. Then romantic or pulp drivel might be foresaken for quality writing like this; and all without a pink and blue cover to scare off the males.

Library Visit

I've just posted three times in a row in the space of thirty minutes. I only do that because I have something separate to say about each subject. What will follow is a list of the books I just got from the library; scroll down to read about The Republic Books I-II by Plato and The Lump of Coal by Lemony Snicket and Brett Helquist.

The first three books, I found sitting in the front of the library. The first Great Book is in order to read my next selection; the second contains Berkeley, who I want to read since he's my namesake. None of these are my next book, though-- that would be the last book from my last library run, Maureen Johnson's 13 Little Blue Envelopes.

The books are:
Curiosities of Literature: A Feast for Book Lovers (John Sutherland)
How NOT to Write a Novel: 200 Classic Mistakes and How to Avoid Them -- A Misstep-by-Misstep Guide (Howard Mittelmark and Sandra Newman)
How Barack Obama Won: A State-by-State Guide to the Historic 2008 Presidential Election (Chuck Todd and Sheldon Gawiser)
Great Books of the Western World: Volume 9 (Aristotle)
GBWW: Volume 35 (Locke, Berkeley, Hume)

It's less likely that I'll finish these because they're nonfiction, but I'll give them a shot, and make my best effort at least on the Great Books.

The Miracle of Diversions

And thus completing Plato, I moved on to something on the complete opposite end of the spectrum in terms of writing: Lemony Snicket's holiday tale, "The Lump of Coal", illustrated by Series of Unfortunate Events partner Brett Helquist.

It took me about five minutes to read the book, so I'll try not to spend more time on it than that. Simply put, after the polarizing finish to Snicket's Series, it's refreshing to see a Snicket book reach a logical and ironic conclusion, which is what I hoped for The End.

Snicket's focus is the beauty of miracles (or coincidence, if you want). Since the book is written under the penname Lemony Snicket, a lot of the tropes from A Series of Unfortunate Events are here -- non sequitur inserts from the author's personal life, a hilariously specific definition of a word. The illustrations are more realistic than the few present in Series, and it's nice to see them in full color. Finally, it was easy to relate to the lump of coal, and I could not be more happy with his ultimate fate.

Hardcore

After an extended break from the Great Books, I've returned to my not-quite-pretentious obsession. Previously, I've read:

Apology (Plato)
Crito (Plato)
The Clouds (Aristophanes)
Lysistrata (Aristophanes)

And now we return to Plato with The Republic. Or Books I-II, anyway: The Republic is a mammoth ten-book composition that takes up about half of the portable Plato I've been carrying around. Sadly, there's no analogy of the cave here, but here's a brief rundown of what we do get:

--An extended discussion of whether justice or injustice is better.
--A proposition on the benefits of injustice
--A construction of Socrates/Plato's perfect State
--And the origin of the phrase, "necessity is the mother of invention".

You may think it very risky-- or perhaps unnecessary-- to post a "review" of what is arguably one of the greatest works of literature. (It is, after all, part of the "GREAT BOOKS OF THE WESTERN WORLD" collection.) I say to you, pooh-pooh. I'm going to talk about this on its own merits, and relating to its relevance in society today. Plus, if it's good enough, then it won't need your defense, right?

Indeed. Plato is hardcore writing. The first book of The Republic is the more entertaining of the two, with Plato's protagonist Socrates shutting down nearly every argument against justice in a humorous way. Should it be up to the physician whether someone gets his medicine? Of course not. A discussion of the nature of the Arts (meaning any area in which one can excel) features prominently, too.

There are more problems with logic in Book II of The Republic. Part one is in defense of injustice, as observers wait for Socrates to retaliate. The defense is so fleshed-out that Socrates only has time to begin his defense of justice in a State in the remainder of the book, but he can at least put forth his view of a perfect state. There is no argument here: only Socrates's observers confirming his beliefs. That said, it was interesting (having not read The Republic before) to note that Socrates (and Plato, who puts the words in his philosopher's mouth) advocates a society built around the pillars of capitalism and monotheism. Plato notes that a perfect society should be one in which nothing bad can originate from God, and therefore everyone behaves themselves. He also relates that since the necessity of a State is based mainly around the trade of arts that people can provide, the laws of a State keeping justice should be ones built around the continued benefit of trading. Even if Plato's points have been altered a little in the USA, they are still there, and it's ridiculous how relevant large parts of the discussion really are.

Made of Gold-- or perhaps Amber

NOTE: I'll try to spoiler guard ending details from now on, and keep them to one paragraph. I can't avoid talking about them, it seems. Any other spoilers that squeeze their way into the rest of the review will be minor.

I've been incredibly lucky with the quality of the stories I've picked up recently, and The City of Ember by Jeanne DePrau is only the crowning jewel of the bunch. I'm biased-- I had high hopes for this book, and liked it from the beginning. It's essentially another dome story: the City of Ember, isolated from the world, is rapidly running out of supplies and power, and two kids hurry to find a solution. What's interesting is the ignorance everyone has of a world that came before Ember was founded over two hundred years ago. Because there was another world, as quickly becomes obvious when such widely-used modern supplies as pineapple and corn are mentioned.

The story begins in earnest when two kids (Doon and Lina) unearth Instructions for... something. Probably to save the city, or else escape it. Predictably for a children's book, the adults are essentially useless, providing room and board with a breakfast of beets and then stepping out of the picture to let the kids take the spotlight. This is done much more organically than other books, but it's still pretty obvious. The kids are the ones who explore the city, and it's easy to relate with them. They're flawed, but their intention is to explore the city and figure out what's what, which (as a reader in a new world) is exactly what I would want to do. The City of Ember is a pretty epic sprawling place, developed as fully as Philip Pullman's Arctic locales in The Golden Compass or Ray Bradbury's censored future in Fahrenheit 451.

SPOILERS
I had minor issues with the ending. First, like The Golden Compass, it is obviously set up with the assumption for more sequels. It stands alone -- barely -- but the characters essentially walk off into the sunrise to see what they can find. The origin of Ember is not as interesting as the city itself, but it makes a little sense. What disturbed me was the sense of remove these characters had from their parents or parental figures. Lina is an orphan and Doon doesn't get on with his dad, but both Doon's father and Lina's foster mother (and grandma, for that matter) are sympathetic figures who play important roles in the story. In real life, I find it hard to believe that the children would abandon their parents and friends in the city so readily, no matter how into exploring they might be.
END SPOILERS

These are minor qualms, however. The City of Ember, I thought, dealt with the concept of an isolated city better than Stephen King's Under the Dome. While the reduction of supplies became a minor factor in King's story, here they are treated as a crucial means of plot motivation. Some of the same story beats are here -- a government conspiracy, a city visited by infrequent disasters. Altogether, though, it's an enjoyable book which created a compelling vision, somewhere I'd definitely like to return.

As I was reading David Ives...

Theater, besides being a good outlet for me to release extra energy, is a nice way to refresh my mind between books, and keep my mind clear of other novels while I wait for a chance to blog about the most recent one I read. So after finishing Stephen King, I picked up a collection of David Ives plays that my voice teacher lent me.

Time Flies is the successor to All in the Timing, David Ives's previous collection, which contained such famous one-act comedies as Sure Thing and Variations on the Death of Trotsky. Those two plays alone should be enough to cement Ives's position as a classic of modern theater. In Time Flies, Ives presents us with thirteen additional quirky plays from two productions. They feature two mayflies, the construction workers for the Tower of Babel, a man who decides to be Degas for a day (Edward or Edgar?), a mechanic in love with his washing machine, a faulty interpreter, and a bunch of others.

All analysis has to be thrown out the window when you read these. I expect a few bits are better seen onstage, but Ives's writing is witty enough to read well on the page, too. I was put off by the fact that his endings rarely make sense, but pay them no mind-- the gold is in the situations, here. "Babel's in Arms" had me laughing out loud the most, but "Arabian Nights" (with a joking interpreter) is touching, and "Captive Audience" is excellent (in which two characters are transfixed and influenced by a television, reminding me of a sketch from Twilight Zone: The Movie). A lot of them are simply weird-- "Time Flies", about the aforemenetioned mayflies, is not your ordinary one-act, and "Enigma Varations" is a duplicated play that's terribly hard to follow on the page but also brilliant in staging its parallel universes. There is sex and cursing here, oh yes-- Ives claims to be influenced by David Mamet, who "knows that when men go to the theater, they want to hear familiar words", in the word of Ives's characters. The touchier elements are used to great effect-- before the word "lever", construction workers used the term "that fucker"-- and while the sex gets overwhelming, I loved "The Mystery at Twicknam Vicarage", whose victim has been in bed with literally everything and everyone in the room.

Some I still haven't grasped. "Lives of the Saints" is weird, with two women preparing a funeral dinner in a pantomime kitchen. So is "Bolero", where two hotel guests try to figure out what's going on next door, until the police come and... a building falls? Huh? And "Speed-the-Play", a parody of David Mamet's works, blew over my head since I'm not familiar with the man. Others, though, are good despite their weirdness. "Soap Opera" is about a mechanic in love with his washing machine, for crying out loud! Yet it's downright hilarious! Who would think to combine a weird child's fantasies with literal soap opera?

The only one I haven't mentioned, "Dr. Fritz, or: The Forces of Light" is due to be produced at my school's next collection of one act plays. I would have picked one of the others, but hey, these are supposed to translate better on the stage, anyway. Any Ives on stage is good enough for me-- I might be in love with a book. Is that any worse than being in love with a washing machine?

Under the Dome

I've never said this before, but there be spoilers in this review. Still, if you've ever read a Stephen King book then you won't have a problem, because the spoilers are vague. Plus, King books have a lot in common with each other after a while.

Well, I did it. I successfully finished Stephen King's latest behemoth, Under the Dome. Believe me when I say it was quite an undertaking -- 1072 pages -- and after failing to finish 'Salem's Lot last year, I didn't at first expect to get through this one. But there are several reasons why this book is better than 'Salem's Lot.

A brief summary: as the title would infer, Stephen King places the town of Chester's Mill under a humungous dome, fishbowl-style, for no immediately apparent reason. Then he introduces a huge cast of characters and systematically kills off most of them. (Sheesh, who are we dealing with here, anyway? Shakespeare?) So okay, it's a bit like Gone, which I recently read... and The City of Ember, one of my next books, is going to have a similar theme... so maybe I wasn't super hyped about the premise, but we'll roll with it and see how King does, because Gone did not satisfy me at all.

First, let me say yet another word on pulp fiction. Stephen King is often accused for writing pulp, and those people are partly right. King's books are so dense-- every character is so finely detailed-- that, especially when the story starts picking up speed, you're going to have to skim over some of the denser stuff.

Are the characters cardboard cut-outs? Eh. I didn't really notice, actually, because Stephen King really excels at telling a good story. Even with a cast that's probably bigger than 'Salem's Lot, King manages to balance all the plotlines and character motivations and turn out a nicely sprawling story.

That doesn't mean I don't have qualms, though. Under the Dome is extraordinarily depressing after a while. King has a pretty pessimistic outlook on life; the antagonists plan for a lot of the good guys' moves, and tend to have more luck than the protagonists do (except at the end, where you have to kill off the bad guys, too). Any rash moves taken by the protagonists is rewarded with death or extreme injury. It's like watching someone beat their head against a concrete wall-- you know that little to no progress will be made for your side until you get to the end. (Actually, King keeps the protagonists moving just enough to make it depressing when their rashness gets them punished. He's pretty good that way.)

Looking back, this downer philosophy may have been one reason I stopped reading 'Salem's Lot, but there's another reason, too. 'Salem's Lot will keep you coming back for more if the vampires terrify you, and I was entirely unaffected. Under the Dome, meanwhile, is an interesting science-fiction story (with the scifi elements only revealed near the very end), which I can't seem to get enough of. Could the ending have been more satisfying? Yeah, okay. But it was pretty good, and the opening scene was delicious. (And it lasts for-- get this!-- 200 pages.)

So, yeah, I guess I give it a thumbs-up. And if you get it and don't like it, you can always use it as a lethal melee weapon. 1072 pages weigh a lot.

Best of 2009

2009: a very good year. I attempted over 40 books this year, and completed nearly three-quarters of them. I liked many of them, but here are the ones I loved -- the ones I'd read again. Their number ended up being 10 out of pure coincidence. They are in roughly the order I read them.

10 BEST BOOKS OF 2009
How to Talk About Books You Haven't Read (Pierre Bayard)
Far from the cheat sheet it sounds like, Pierre Bayard's book discusses how to grasp a global library containing millions upon millions of volumes. It made me look at reading in a different way-- and I didn't even have to finish the book to discuss it!
The Clouds (Aristophanes)
A smart and funny satire on philosophy and education. I read the 1990s translation, which may be one reason I liked it better than Lysistrata.
Into the Wild (Jon Krakauer)
Read this after I saw the movie. It's an enthralling creative nonfiction book, even if we already know the ending, and it has some interesting philosophical ideas second only to Walden (which I read last year, and doesn't count for this list).
World War Z (Max Brooks)
Despite the fact that I praised Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book above World War Z in my horror post, World War Z ended up being a more fun ride. I recommend either, but this one above Neil Gaiman's.
Flatland (Edwin A. Abbott)
My favorite book this year. Witty and intriguing.
The Hobbit (J.R.R. Tolkien)
A re-read for me, but I finally appreciated how strong the storytelling is.
The Road (Cormac McCarthy)
Strong in prose and story.
Mimus (Lilli Thal)
Turning the tables on the feudalistic system, a surprisingly relevant and refreshing novel of complex morals.
Point Blank (Anthony Horowitz)
It is not required that you read the first book in the series (Stormbreaker), but it helps. A fun ride all around.
The Light Fantastic (Terry Pratchett)
This one really does read a little better if you read its prequel, but I liked this significantly more than the first in the series, so you could be forgiven for skipping it.

And on a slightly related note, here are the 31 best movies I saw this year. I tried to reduce the number on the list, but I simply couldn't.

Across the Universe - The Beatles medley is a fitting tribute to the Beatles with some good artistry in its own right.
Breach - Took place in my area, so it was particularly relevant for me. It's very well done.
Burn After Reading - The first Coen movie I've liked.
The Commitments - A stellar soundtrack and some good acting make this a (for once) decent band film.
Coraline 3D - It was a good year for animation, and especially so for Focus Features. Here's their first good decision: give Neil Gaiman's creepy Coraline novel to the Nightmare Before Christmas team of Henry Selick and Tim Burton. The 3D was the most immersive of the year.
Death of a Salesman - Dustin Hoffman was really good in this.
District 9 - Forget Avatar. This film used its special effects responsibly, and had a good story.
Duplicity - Not Tony Gilroy's best, but pretty good.
Fame - I was surprised to like this one. Between this and Across the Universe, I have a new appreciation for the complexity of choreography.
Field of Dreams
A Fish Called Wanda - It's hard to go wrong with John Cleese.
The Fountain - Ethereal. Really good moviemaking.
G.I.Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Oh, what? I had fun with it, even if I was usually making fun of it.
Into the Wild
The Matador
Memento - Complex, and better than Nolan's Batman films in some ways.
Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian - Was not trying to be more than it was, which is more than I can say for the first movie. Fun, with some good performances and special effects gags.
9 - I've already defended this one. Another good Focus Features animation release.
Pan's Labyrinth - Good escapist fantasy.
Ponyo - Surpassed only by Spirited Away in the Miyazaki canon, this is my favorite new movie of the year.
The Prestige - Another Nolan pick.
Pulp Fiction
Risky Business
Slumdog Millionaire - Released last year, but I saw it in January so it counts.
Star Trek - The best Star Trek movie? No, but they did an impressive job with the new cast and direction.
Twilight Zone: The Movie - A good representation of the show, and a nicely varied horror film. My new favorite horror movie.
Up 3D - Not the best Pixar film, but a step in the right direction
Up in the Air
V for Vendetta - A surpising number of good set pieces for a graphic novel adaptation. And plenty of explosions. That's always a plus.
La Vie En Rose - A really good musician biopic, with a gutwrenching long tracking shot near the end, and a touching ending.
Watchmen - Not as good the second time, but a required viewing if you've read the book, because it's more cohesive than the book. Also, it's the other good motion capture performance of the year, with Jon Osterman as Dr. Manhattan. Yeah, you probably forgot that one, didn't you?

Avatar is not on this list. You should probably see it, but I was unimpressed. On a blog where I'm so obsessed with story, I found Avatar's story just stupid.

Happy new year!