Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

Hey everybody! I finally have another review for y'all today. Max says she'll be doing a music picks thing, too, but I don't know about Tessa. Anyway, here's a review of Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card:

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card

Ender hasn’t really had much of a life yet; he’s six, after all. He does go to school, though, where he’s bullied for being a Third, all the while being tested for something he doesn’t know, but knows it’s important. Turns out he passed, when his siblings didn’t. And his brother Peter resents him for it. When Ender gets to the Battle School to train to fight the buggers, an alien race that has already attacked humankind twice, he is again hated on for being so intelligent, but he excels, and everyone notices. In the Battle Room, Ender is a genius, knowing how to defeat his enemies even though his commander won’t let him even step inside the room. Nobody else seems to understand how to think in zero gravity...

Okay, so you probably know that to me, there are two types of books: boy books and girl books. This book happens to be a boy book, and even though I melt for a good romance, I loved this book. That summary up there is kinda long, so in a nutshell: it’s about six-year-old geniuses that the world government is training to fight an intergalactic war. Basically. There’s a bunch of other things, too, especially at the end. Sometimes it was slow, but it held my attention.

A good word to describe this book is “interesting”. Not in a bad way, though. You can tell right off the bat that Orson Scott Card is a very intelligent man. Now, don’t go thinking it’s a Dickens novel and you have to basically wade through all the language. It’s not an easy read, but it’s not a hard one, either. I guess you could say it opened my mind a bit to new perspectives, and some knowledge. For example: I’ve never really thought about what it would be like to fight a battle in zero gravity, or how to angle yourself when you bounce off a wall, or military tactics. It really is interesting, and I enjoyed it.

The protagonist in this book is Andrew Wiggin, aka Ender. (Don’t start thinking of him as Andrew; it only really refers to him as Ender.) I like him, and he’s one of those characters that is hurt so much, emotionally and physically, that all he really wants to do is survive. I admire those characters; they’re strong, and just grin and bear it. While the point of view is mostly Ender, it sometimes goes back to Earth to his siblings, Peter and Valentine. Peter is a murderer and hates Ender. Valentine, on the other hand, loves Ender and has always saved him from Peter’s wrath.

Card tells a story through intelligent eyes, all wrapped up in a sci-fi world, and ties it all up with a twisted ending.

Four stars!

Goodbye for now,

Cassia


P. S.  You wanna know a really good song for this book? "Know Your Enemy" by Green Day. Good song, and it really shows the theme of the book: know your enemy. If you don't know your enemy, then you can't pinpoint their weaknesses, and then use those weaknesses to your advantage. If you can't do that, well...good luck. Also, maybe you think you know who the enemy is, but you might be wrong. Those are two main themes of the book, all wrapped up in one song, and one phrase: "Know your enemy." This should be on the movie soundtrack, in my opinion. It's kind of repetitive, but a good song nonetheless. I would post a lyric video, but he doesn't mumble too much and it's easy to understand. Instead, I'm posting a link to the lyrics and a link to the music video so you can check it out.

"Know Your Enemy" Lyrics

"Know Your Enemy" Music Video