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It has been a while since I almost devoured a complete novel in one sitting… too long, I loved reading this book… I just wish I would have read it back when I was in middle school. Ender is everything that I aspired to with my inflated GT (Gifted and Talented) ego. He was brilliant, a strategist, determined, courageous, and able to earn the respect of all of his peers. He was able to meet the expectations of all his superiors and eventually earn recognition as the ultimate hero. For the self conscious GT kid, this was the ultimate challenge and achievement.

This book took me back to the world of grade school competition and power plays. At the age of 30 and now a few years separated from my youth group responsibilities… I have all but forgotten what it was was like to be a scared grade school student trying to find my way through a maze of performance expectations and potentially hostile class mates. I remember what it was like to have teachers tell me I was “smart” and other kids tell me I was “retarded”. Both of these were half truths… I was just a kid. Ender represents everything that I wanted to be when people told me I was “smart”; a quick witted genius with a nack for survival and coming out on top of every competition. I would have gladly traded everything else for the superiority of true genius with immediate practical benefits.

You get so caught up in Enders ability to be an inventive genius and perform under pressure that you quickly forget why he is going though all of his training and “games”. The moral point of the book is fully realized in the last few pages of its culmination and after math. A warning to the human ability to win, dominate and plan a victory. How do you define victory as an ultimate destination of humanity… is it merely survival?

More to come…

While reading it, I could not help but to keep thinking… this would make a great movie…

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400403/

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  Ender’s Game (Ender, Book 1)
  Author: Orson Scott Card
  Rating: 4

Categories: Books