Hi, Page Turner here! I'm back for--guess what!--another book review. That's right, folks. Book reviews are now officially part of the blog and will be labeled under movie reviews. What's this one on? Just one of the greatest graphic novels of all time. Okay, so when I said 'graphic novel' I guess I should be more specific. According to the dictionary a graphic novel is "a novel in a comic strip format." This book combines pages with words with pages covered in beautiful drawings that tell a story almost as clearly as the aforesaid written pages do. If you haven't guessed it all ready, this is the story of "The Invention of Hugo Cabret." If this doesn't sound like your kind of book, does mystery, danger, an orphan kid living in a clock tower, an old man with a secret, the history and magic of movies, or a secret hidden in a metal automaton strike your fancy? Here's my review!
Hugo Cabret lived a good life. He had a loving dad, and they did everything together. Hie and his father went to movies--it was like seeing dreams in the middle of the day, his father said. Together they built and fixed clocks, machines--even an old, metal man called an automaton. . Magicians in the early 1900s used them for their acts and when wound with a key, the machine did something: write, dance, or play music. Hugo Cabret's life stopped one day when his uncle showed up to tell him that his father was dead, and that the boy would be living with him, repairing clocks in a Paris train station. When his uncle died, Hugo Cabret was left all alone. He couldn't let anyone know that his uncle had died, or he himself would be sent to the orphanage. Left to steal, Hugo silently worked on the clocks. The only thing he kept from his previous life was a blue sketchbook and the unfinished automaton his father had worked on. Hugo feels that if he can fix it, there might be a message from his father; all of his thoughts are consumed with the repair of the machine. He even steals parts and tries to reconstruct it for himself. He gets away with it, too--until one day. The older man at the small mechanical shop, selling wound up toys, catches him and takes his notebook that was filled with automaton drawings that Hugo and his father had created. "Give that back!" Hugo demands. When the man declares that he'll burn it, Hugo follows the man's daughter, Isabelle, who assures him that she won't let the man burn it. Soon, an unlikely friendship unfolds as Hugo shows Isabelle his world. On top of the bell tower, over looking Paris, Hugo confides in Isabelle. "“Sometimes I come up here at night...just to look at the city. I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”
This is only half of the story. There's a mystery in the automaton, a mystery somehow connected to Isabelle, her father, and Hugo's father's love for movies. As Hugo and Isabelle try to discover the mystery, they encounter danger, peril, fear, and the cost of friendship. "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" had a surprise ending that I didn't see coming, and for the first time ever on this blog, I rate a book with five stars.
Hugo Cabret made a lot of mistakes in his life. As he tells Isabelle, he's afraid that he doesn't have a purpose. What happens if you mess up? If you're broken? A lot of machines seem like they can't be fixed, and Hugo thought that went the same way with people. The good news is, no matter how busted up you are, no matter what you've done or what you haven't done or what you are, God can forgive you. A lot of people think they have to fix themselves up a little (or a lot) before they can ask God to do the rest. I think we've all tried that, and it doesn't work. God knows that and He forgives us even though He knows just how broken we are, even though we've broken ourselves! He's good and the ultimate Fixer. God is amazing! And even better, God doesn't just fix us and put us on a shelf, He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us! God is the only thing that's going to fill the void inside of us, the brokenness like all of those clocks in the Invention of Hugo Cabret. Following Him is what we're designed to do, and being saved by Jesus is the only way not to be broken. Praise God that He's the Fixer! Page Turner, over and out.
tick, tock, page turner
Hugo Cabret lived a good life. He had a loving dad, and they did everything together. Hie and his father went to movies--it was like seeing dreams in the middle of the day, his father said. Together they built and fixed clocks, machines--even an old, metal man called an automaton. . Magicians in the early 1900s used them for their acts and when wound with a key, the machine did something: write, dance, or play music. Hugo Cabret's life stopped one day when his uncle showed up to tell him that his father was dead, and that the boy would be living with him, repairing clocks in a Paris train station. When his uncle died, Hugo Cabret was left all alone. He couldn't let anyone know that his uncle had died, or he himself would be sent to the orphanage. Left to steal, Hugo silently worked on the clocks. The only thing he kept from his previous life was a blue sketchbook and the unfinished automaton his father had worked on. Hugo feels that if he can fix it, there might be a message from his father; all of his thoughts are consumed with the repair of the machine. He even steals parts and tries to reconstruct it for himself. He gets away with it, too--until one day. The older man at the small mechanical shop, selling wound up toys, catches him and takes his notebook that was filled with automaton drawings that Hugo and his father had created. "Give that back!" Hugo demands. When the man declares that he'll burn it, Hugo follows the man's daughter, Isabelle, who assures him that she won't let the man burn it. Soon, an unlikely friendship unfolds as Hugo shows Isabelle his world. On top of the bell tower, over looking Paris, Hugo confides in Isabelle. "“Sometimes I come up here at night...just to look at the city. I like to imagine that the world is one big machine. You know, machines never have any extra parts. They have the exact number and type of parts they need. So I figure if the entire world is a big machine, I have to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason, too.”
This is only half of the story. There's a mystery in the automaton, a mystery somehow connected to Isabelle, her father, and Hugo's father's love for movies. As Hugo and Isabelle try to discover the mystery, they encounter danger, peril, fear, and the cost of friendship. "The Invention of Hugo Cabret" had a surprise ending that I didn't see coming, and for the first time ever on this blog, I rate a book with five stars.
Hugo Cabret made a lot of mistakes in his life. As he tells Isabelle, he's afraid that he doesn't have a purpose. What happens if you mess up? If you're broken? A lot of machines seem like they can't be fixed, and Hugo thought that went the same way with people. The good news is, no matter how busted up you are, no matter what you've done or what you haven't done or what you are, God can forgive you. A lot of people think they have to fix themselves up a little (or a lot) before they can ask God to do the rest. I think we've all tried that, and it doesn't work. God knows that and He forgives us even though He knows just how broken we are, even though we've broken ourselves! He's good and the ultimate Fixer. God is amazing! And even better, God doesn't just fix us and put us on a shelf, He loves us and wants to have a relationship with us! God is the only thing that's going to fill the void inside of us, the brokenness like all of those clocks in the Invention of Hugo Cabret. Following Him is what we're designed to do, and being saved by Jesus is the only way not to be broken. Praise God that He's the Fixer! Page Turner, over and out.
tick, tock, page turner
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