Gifts

If you like fantasy, this book is for you. Not quite fairy tale fantasy, but science fictiony fantasy where everyone's names are all weird and they talk like medieval people but something's different. Not usually my style of reading, but whatever.
Meet Orrec, a boy who has the gift to undo, or kill, by looking at things with meaning. He supposedly has a "wild gift," though, meaning it could go off at any time, so he has to wear a blindfold to avoid killing everyone he loves. Gry is his best friend, she's been his friend since birth, because their parents were friends. She has the gift to summon animals and people often want her to use that gift for easy hunting. She doesn't like killing either, so she avoids using her gift too.
Together this pair will discover that just because their powers are destructive doesn't mean they have to be.
Like I said, fantasy isn't really my thing, but this book was okay.

Jacob Have I Loved

You know how sometimes there's a book that seems to haunt you-- it pops up on every reading list, you always see it in the library, hear stuff about it everywhere, but you never really want to read it? Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson haunted me, I regret to say. But there is a cure for book haunting: you have to read it.
And I did read it. And it was pretty good. There is no other way to describe it than as a coming of age story. Sarah Louise is growing up on the little and VERY religious island of Rass and is always being eclipsed by her twin sister Caroline. Caroline has had attention from birth, because she was the fragile one, the delicate beauty, where, as their mother put it,
"Sarah Louise never gave them a bit of worry." Caroline grows up calling Sarah Louise "Wheeze," so that Sarah Louise doesn't even have a name anymore, she is just called Wheeze all the time. (And who would like that?) And what's more, Caroline can sing. She gets to go to the mainland every week and take music lessons and become a star while Sarah Louise stays home earning money with her father crabbing on the island to pay for Caroline's lessons. Sarah Louise takes secret satisfaction in this, because even though Caroline gets tons of attention, she knows she is paying for part of it.
So this explains the title. It's after a line in the Bible, "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." (Which is fitting because of the whole super-religious island thing.) Sarah Louise knows the minute she reads this line that she was never meant to be loved by God, if that's how God treated the unwanted twin in the Bible.
I think everyone feels overshadowed by their sibling at some point in their life; I know I do. This book really shows how one girl grows up with so much change in the world and on the island and how she discovers she can get away and be herself after all, twin or no twin. I'm glad I read this, and now I'm not being haunted.
Now if I can just get rid of Bud, Not Buddy...

Fahrenheit 451

My dad told me this book was boring. HE WAS WRONG! Which is weird, because all the books he think are boring, I usually dislike too. Like Lord of the Flies and 1984.
Anyway, Fahrenheit 451 was really good. It was written by Ray Bradbury a while back, but it's about a DISTANT future, probably somewhere are 3000 or 4000. But it's always cool to see how people from the past predict the future will turn out. In this novel, Mr. Bradbury imagines wallscreen size TVs, mechanical beasts run on artificial intelligence, walkie talkies that fit in your ear, and doorbells that can announce who's there. For someone who has a huge imagination, he wasn't that far off. Think of what we have today: plasma screens and movie screens, robots, earphones and cell phones, security systems... Movies and books like that always fascinate me.
But the main point of the book was about a fireman, Mr. Guy Montag. Montag is not the type of fireman we know today; in fact, the occupation of fireman as we know it today isn't believed in anymore in our time, because nothing ever catches fire on accident. Fireman in Montag's time are used to burn houses containing books down. But one day Montag meets a girl named Clarisse. She's seventeen and instead of asking how, asks why. Why is nature like it is, why are humans on Earth, and just why? One day she mysteriously disappears and Montag's wife Mildred said she diedm which isn't uncommon these days. Montag starts getting curious, though. What if... he took a home a book he was supposed to burn? What if he read it? What if he discovered that reading gave him ideas, and power, and things that were needed to change the world? And what if someone found out he possessed a book?
For a book that was written a long time ago, it sure is a page turner, and a quick read. Fahrenheit 451 turns out to be a classic I'm so glad I read.

A Girl With A Huge Mouth

Yeah, if you're looking for that, try reading Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot. It's one of her adult novels, though, so BEWARE the inappropriate scenes.
All the "inappropriateness" aside, this book was really good.
We start off with Lizzy Nichols, who has dropped thirty pounds since the last time she saw her adorable British BF. In fact, she's going there to visit him right after her graduation party. But at the party, she gets some bad news: she hasn't really graduated college! She has to write a thesis, which she neglected to do, so while she's in England, she has work to do to complete her self-developed major in History of Fashion. So she gets to England and discovers: her boyfriend's a gambling addict who wanted to "borrow" money from her to pay for his matriculation fees! Actually, he was trying to pretend he was unemployed to get dole benefits, but Lizzie accidentally spilled the beans to the guy behind the counter there. Good for her. Lizzie decides she can't stand any more of her loser boyfriend Andy and breaks it off with him. Then she gets on the first train to France, where her best friend Shari is staying in a fancy chateau.
On the train, though, things take a turn. *plot twist!* Lizzy ends up crying her eyes out to a complete stranger who happens to be the only American on the train. She tells him all about her thesis, and Andy, and all her problems, thinking she'll never see him again, so what the heck? Little does she know he is actually Luke, the owner of the chateau her friends are staying at. And he's surprisingly cute. Unfortunately, he's taken, by the spawn of evil known in this book as Dominique. Things can only get worse.
Meg Cabot always has good books, but this is one of my favorites. There are also excerpts between the chapters of Lizzy's thesis paper. These excerpts are hilarious! Here's one:

Clothing. Why do we wear it? Many people believe that we wear clothing out of modesty. In ancient civilizations, however, clothing was developed not to cover our private parts from view, but merely to keep the body warm. In other cultures, clothing was thought to protect its wearers from magic, while in still others clothing served merely ornamental or display purposes.
In this thesis, I hope to explore the history of clothing-- or fashion-- starting with ancient man, who wore animal hides for warmth, to modern man, or woman, some of whom wear small strips of material betwen their buttocks (see: thong) for reasons no one has yet been able to adequately explain to this author.

Isn't that classic Cabot? This book is very hilarious. The excerpt above proves it, and that's her being serious! This is a must-read for anybody needing romantic comedy in their lives. Namely, everyone.

S is for Silence

So this is possibly the best Sue Grafton book I've read so far. I've always like reading about cold cases that happened decades ago and are just getting solved now, with all the people involved older and memories to sort through and suspense and the whole shebang. So this one was really good to me.
Kinsey Millhone gets hired by a woman named Daisy Sullivan to help find her missing mother. The problem is, the mother, Violet Sullivan, has been missing since July 4th, 1953. So has her (at the time) brand new car. Kinsey takes the case against her better judgment and starts talking to everyone involved. She doesn't know where to start: all the men Violet had affairs with, the babysitter Violet used, Violet's formerly forever drunk husband, the man who sold Violet her new car, and many others. Almost everyone has a motive, and Kinsey finds out she's not safe even while searching in the past, some things just shouldn't be found. Someone else feels this way too, because they slash Kinsey's tires.
Here's the shocker: Kinsey finds Violet! Only Violet, and her car, and her little dog, have been buried on an old property and it looks like Violet died in that car, buried alive, July 4th, 1953. The case only gets juicier from here.
Also in this book, every third chapter or so is a chapter told from someone else's point of view, usually a suspect, and it takes place in 1953. Slowly we get the information Kinsey still needs to find.
This was a good mystery, and it kept me guessing right up until the end. I have renewed hope for reading A to Z Mysteries by Sue Grafton.

Oh. My. Gods.

I finally read it! The finale of all grand finales! Percy Jackson Book 5: The Last Olympian!
Oh my gods it was so good. The plot's too complicated to even start on a summary for this post... Especially since there were tons of loose ends being tied up. I mean, Annabeth finally resolves everything with Luke, Luke makes the choice that saved the world, Percy finds out the truth about the Great Prophecy, Grover helps the Wild to the best of his ability, and it was just SO GOOD. I literally could not stop reading. Sure, there were some boring battle scenes, but in books about Greek gods, sometimes you gotta throw in one or two of those. Overall, it was just the best series clincher ever. Besides Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, of course, and maybe Breaking Dawn... but that's beside the point. This book was amazing! And thank gods Percy didn't die like everyone thought he was supposed to. Otherwise he wouldn't have been able to have that great scene with Annabeth at the end of the book...
Of course, we have to honor all those who fell. The first two were Charlie and Silena, a match made in heaven... or Olympus. They end up together again in the end though.
One thing I have realized while reading these: Percy Jackson's series is a lot like the Harry Potter series. You have a teenage boy who finds out he has great powers, goes away to an enchanted place to develop them, and discovers he is the one destined to fulfill The Great Prophecy... and also end up falling in love with one of his best friends. And Kronos is SO like Lord Voldemort! Both are insanely evil, supposedly immortal, greedy, arrogant, etc.
Wow, what am I going to read now that I'm done with this book? What can live up to that?

P is for Peril

Another day, another Sue Grafton A to Z Mystery. This one is by far the most tedious one of them I have read. Of course, somehow I ended up with the large print edition, so it was six hundred pages and the words were biggest than my bookmark. But whatever.
In this one, Kinsey Millhone, Private Eye is hired by Fiona Purcell to find her missing ex-husband, Dow. Dow disappeared weeks ago and the police haven't been able to find him, so why should Kinsey? But Kinsey takes the case, and talks to all the leads: Dow's ex-stripper wife, Crystal, Crystal's wild daughter, Leila, everyone at the nursing home he worked at, his friends, everyone. Meanwhile, Kinsey's also making acquaintances of her own. She has met Tommy Heavener (she's renting her new office from his brother, Richard) and has kind of grown to like him. They've dated a little when Kinsey finds out from a complete stranger that Tommy and Richard might be dangerous to be around. Danger surrounds Kinsey once again.
I think the reason this one kind of bored me was because the entire case was built around medical fraud. Cases like that, all about the money with no really dramatic background story, don't keep me entertained for long. But in real life, there are probably a lot more of these than you think, and Sue Grafton tries to keep her novels real.
There were some good moments in this book, though, like when Kinsey bribes a nursing home resident with a Big Mac and some fries to keep watch while she sneaks into the medical records room and ends up being witness to more than she can stomach. Still, I'm kind of glad I'm done with this book. The disappointing part: there wasn't even a cliffhanger for the ending!

Accidents of Nature

This book was okay, but just okay. It all takes place at a camp for "special" kids in the 70's, so there's a lot of lingo and stuff that's hard to keep up on.
It's about a girl with cerebral palsy, Jean, who goes to this camp, Camp Courage for ten days in summer. All her life she's strived to be just like everyone else, and everyone respects her for it and says she's a miracle, something which she's very proud to be. Then at camp she meets Sara, a girl who challenges everything she knows about being a cripple. Sara has muscular dystrophy, and thinks that they shouldn't try to be like "normal" people, they have the right to be just the way they are. They shouldn't be forced to walk or displayed on telethons. Jean doesn't know what to think.
The author, Harriet McBryde Johnson, definitely places herself in the story as Sara. From the flap on the back of the book about her, you can read that she became a lawyer, like Sara in the book, is disabled, and went to summer camp and special schools herself.
I must say, this book wasn't my favorite and it bored me at some parts, but it has some good strong messages about society and how normal people treat different people.

Hanging on to Max

WARNING: A GOOD VIEW ON TEEN PREGNANCY AHEAD.
I really liked this book: witty teenager, cute baby, difficult obstacles, romance, all the usual stuff that's fun to read about. Oh yeah, and teen pregnancy.
The story is about Sam Pettigrew (no relation to Peter Pettigrew, also known as Scabbers) and his son. Sam is 17. His son is 11 months. Do the math. The mother, Brittany, moved to Boise after she decided she didn't want baby Max anymore. Sam just can't let Max go, and decides to be a father. So he's trying to graduate high school and be a father full-time and figure out his life, a big part of which is paying back his dad for room, board, and baby care. Plus, the SATs are coming up. Sam knows he can't go to college with Max, but still, he takes the SATs... and aces them. The sad part comes at the end though... If you aren't afraid of spoilers, highlight the black text.

Sam gives up the baby for adoption! No!

Isn't this enough to make you want to read this book? And Best Supporting Character in this book goes to Claire, Sam's crush from middle-school that also has a baby and thinks there's nothing wrong with that, thank you very much. Thank Margaret Bechard for such a good book on teen pregnancy to read. Especially from a male point of view, you don't find truly dedicated teenage fathers very often.

Eva Ibbotson Books

At the library, I checked out a collection of three novels by one of the great beloved children authors, Eva Ibbotson. Yes, she wrote A Countess Below Stairs, which I didn't like that much, but a couple of her other novels are really good. This collection included:
Which Witch?
The Secret of Platform 13
Island of the Aunts
I've read The Secret of Platform 13 before, so I skipped that one this time. I read Which Witch and Island of the Aunts. Now, I've also read Island of the Aunts before, and it is my favorite book by her, so of course I had to reread it. Actually, that's what I was looking for in the library in the first place.
So this is the one I hadn't read before. It's about a wizard, Arriman, who wants to take a wife to pass on his incredibly black powers to because he is getting old. He holds a competition with all the witches from his hometown to see which one can do the blackest magic. Now, everyone wants Belladonna to marry Arriman, but she is a white witch, white since birth, and can do no black magic, so she doesn't stand a chance. Or does she? When her new friend shows her an earthworm named Rover, she finds she can do any black magic she sets her mind to and is sure to win the competition and Arriman's heart for sure. And then Rover disappears. Yep, CLIFFHANGER!
This is like The Sword in the Stone combined with Cinderella, a very good combination if you throw in a little witchcraft. I have to admit, I was starting to think Eva Ibbotson had no other really good books besides Island of the Aunts, but Which Witch was pretty good.
Speaking of Island of the Aunts... This book is CRAZY GOOD. It's about these ladies who live on an island with their extremely old and daft (love that word) father. They care for all sorts of mistreated creatures on the island, from seals to birds to crabs to mermaids to boobries (I know, what the heck is that?). But these ladies are getting older so they decide to get a couple of children to help run the island. They finally find some kids that aren't spoiled brats and take them to the island. But the last aunt, Myrtle, has no luck and ends up with a rotten kid named Lambert. Lambert accidentally knocked himself out with her chloroform, and she didn't want to leave him there, so she brought him to the island too. The two good kids, Fabio and Minette, spend every day caring for the creatures on the island and getting along. They don't even miss their old life. But what happens when Lambert makes contact with his rich, greedy father? Or when the kraken, biggest and most respected creature in the sea, comes to stay?
I read this book first when I was like eight or nine years old. I loved it then, and it is SO a children's book, so I'm a little old for it now, but I still love it now. All the creatures make you want to go stay at that island, and the aunts seem fun to get to know.
So if you don't read Which Witch, at least read Island of the Aunts, because it is a children's classic for any kid who likes to read. Actually, even if the kid doesn't like to read, force them to read it anyway. It's good for them.

Best Foot Forward

Yes, this is my last Joan Bauer book for a while. Before I say anything, though, let me just mention this is th sequel to another one of her books, Rules of the Road. So if this one sounds, good, read that book first because you'll understand a lot more. Click here for more info on that book:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/014240425X/ref=s9_simz_gw_s0_p14_t1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0D4TACWZ2ZQPF6SEEG2F&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846
So anyway, this book was about a girl named Jenna who works in a shoe store. (Remember when I said Joan Bauer makes you want to pick up the main character's hobbies in her books? Well she must be a frickin' genius multitasker to know so much about so many different passions.) Jenna loves her job and has a real passion for selling quality shoes, which is what Gladstone Shoes is all about.
Unfortunately, Gladstone recently merged with another shoe company, one that focuses on cost instead of quantity. They put Mrs. Gladstone, Jenna's boss, in the position of Quality Control Manager, which gives her no real power whatsoever. When things start going downhill in shoe sales, Jenna does a little investigating and discovers a huge scheme. Will she and Mrs. Gladstone be able to bring the company back under control?
This book was really funny and a good story. Quick read, too. Above all, I liked how it was about a high school girl with the normal everyday life dealing with huge company problems and taking charge of this business even though she feels like she can't even take charge of her own life. Pretty good book.

Squashed

You know how I wrote that Joan Bauer makes you want to BE the main character? I should have put it this way: she makes you want to pick up the main character's hobbies. If you read Thwonk, you want to start taking pictures right away, and if you read Hope Was Here, you'll immediately want to skip college to become a waitress (so try not to read Hope Was Here if you're debating whether college is the path for you). In Squashed, for example, I got a sudden craving to become a farmer/baker.
Because Squashed is about Ellie Morgan, who is trying to grow a giant pumpkin for Rock River, Iowa's pumpkin fest. Her competition is Cyril Pool, who has won four years in a row now and is as nasty as vegetable rot. This is no easy feat, and to make it harder, Ellie's father doesn't understand and thinks she should give up growing because he did. On top of that, Ellie's put on a little weight, which isn't going to help Wes, the new kid in town who has a passion for growing corn, fall in love with her...
I loved this book because Ellie was a totally believable character. She has to deal with everything people in real life deal with on top of her prize pumpkin troubles. Plus, she has a bit of a sense of humor through the book, too, which keeps you hooked. All in all, a good read.
This book also made me want to do a little research... for instance, what is the world's biggest pumpkin ever?
It looks like it's this giant grown by Joe Jutras, weighing in at 1689 pounds. That's freakin' insane! Just a little bit of pumpkin knowledge for you there.

Stand Tall

Joan Bauer is another one of my favorite authors. Whenever she writes, she makes you want to BE the main character. This book was a little bit weaker, maybe because it was written about a 12-year-old boy instead of a teenage girl, but whatever, still a good book.
It was about Tree, a boy who's over six feet and in the seventh grade (and, for the record, has never been held back). He's having a lot of trouble fitting in... At home, where his dad's struggling with a messy divorce and their mother just seems more and more anxious to cut herself off, at school, where Tree is forced into a basketball team with a coach that doesn't want anything to do with him, and pretty much everywherew else too.
Luckily, his grandpa, a Vietnam veteran, helps Tree feel wanted. Having just lost a leg, he needs all of Tree's help to relearn everything, from walking to sitting down. And Sophie, the new girl at school, also needs Tree as a friend, because she's not fitting in so well herself.
With these quirky, meaningful characters, Tree discovers everyone and everything has a purpose, even himself.
This isn't my favorite book, but it has a good message and it's pretty short so it's worth reading really quick. I usually don't like it when a preteen boy is the main character unless the author is really witty and takes the character places. I don't think Joan Bauer really stepped up to the plate, so to speak, but her other books are really good.

"Beware the short terminal guy with nothing to lose."

Yep, that's right, I finished Deadline from Chris Crutcher. As far as Crutcher books go, this one wasn't my favorite, but it still was pretty good.
Ben Wolf, an 18-year-old cross country runner with everything going for him, finds out from his doctor that he has a terminal disease and only about a year left to live. He has two choices: Start treatment that will leave him bald and puking, but prolong his death for a little while, or live his life normally up until the last moment. Guess what he chooses. He also chooses not to tell anyone, but to live each day like it may be his last-- because it just might be.
Throughout the book he signs up to play football and becomes a star, asks out the girl of his dreams, Dallas Suzuki, and finds out she's in love with him, and helps the town drunk clean up his act. He also makes some mistakes: the town drunk, Rudy, may not get better from Ben's "help," and not telling his loved ones may have dire consequences.
The cover art's really interesting on this book. I'm going to see if I can find the back cover, too.
Yeah, so I can't find the back cover, but it has the kid on the front cover falling into the sky in the same pose, only he's transparent and there's two of him. It's really cool, I wish I could post it on here.
Aside from trying to live his short life to the fullest, Ben also starts having weird dreams, dreams about a man named Hey-Soos. (That name, when spelled the traditional Hispanic way, is Jesus.) Hey-Soos tries to help Ben through life, and Ben's therapist thinks he might be a part of Ben's unconscious mind. Ben disagress, because Hey-Soos says stuff Ben never dreamed of knowing.
I think the reason I didn't like this book as much as his other ones was that it was a football book in a lot of parts. So nonjocks, BE WARNED.
There were some good messages about life, too. I especially liked the one Ben's therapist used:

"My favorite professor at the university said he gets his best piece of therapeutic information every time he boards an airplane. The flight attendant says if the oxygen mask drops down, be sure to put on your own before helping anyone else with theirs."
(pg. 140)

Can't we all learn something from that message?

Keeping The Moon

Has anyone else noticed that all the main characters in Sarah Dessen's books have famous parents? In This Lullaby, the main character has a dad who wrote a Number 1 hit song and a mom who writes popular romance novels. In Someone Like You, Halley has a famous therapist for a mother and her father has his own radio show that the whole town listens to. And in Keeping the Moon, Colie's mother is Kiki, an aerobics queen/fitness trainor. You know, the type who makes her own exercise tapes, has her own brand of workout material, wears Spandex and leotards, and has her own brand of low-fat food, complete with her own transformation story on the back.
Because in Keeping the Moon, Colie and her mother used to be fat. Really fat. But after a strange twist of fate, they lost all the weight and became rich after Colie's mother went from Katharine to Kiki and became rich and famous. That's why she has to leave Colie over the summer, to go on a fitness tour in Europe. Colie's being forced to stay with her aunt Mira in a middle-of-nowhere town in South Carolina called Colby. So, for Colie, this summer's going to suck. Until she gets a job at The Last Chance, a little restaurant up the road from her aunt's house. And until she meets her neighbor, a guy named Norman who seems to really like her...
The problem with Colie is, she has no self-esteem. She's spent so many years being fat and teased all through school that she walks along looking like a wounded puppy. But hopefully, with a little help from the other waitresses at The Last Chance and her aunt Mira (who has no problem with being eccentric and overweight and the talk of the town) she might be able to see herself not a caterpillar, but as a butterfly.

Here's an excerpt from the beginning of the book, when she's getting off the train in Colby and discovers Norman has been sent to pick her up and take her to Mira's.

"I was immediately mortified to see the entire Kiki line right there next to my stuff. The Kiki Buttmaster, a carton of Kiki-Eats, the dozen new FlyKiki videos and inspirational tapes, plus a few more boxes of vitamins and fitness wear with my mother's smiling face plastered across them.
"Wow," Norman said. He picked up the Buttmaster, turning it in his hands. "What's this for?"
"I'll get that," I said, grabbing it from him. For the entire trip down I'd imagined myself in Colby as mysterious, different; the dark stranger, answering no one's questions. This image was significantly harder to maintain while lugging a Buttmaster in front of the only boy I'd seen in the past year who didn't automatically assume I was a sl**."
(pg. 8)

Here's another really inspirational part of the book.

"I don't believe in failure. Because by simply saying you've failed, you've admitted you attempted. And anyone who attempts is not a failure. Those who truly fail in my eyes are the ones who nevery try at all. The ones who sit on the couch and whine and moan and wait for the world to change for them."
(pg. 209)

Someone Like You

Why is it that all the books I've been reading lately involve a conflict between the main character and their parent? In Twisted, it was Tyler and his abusive dad. In Boy Girl Boy, Elliot's parents had issues with his girlfriend. Even in Dear John, John's having trouble forming bonds with his dad that may have Asperger's Syndrome. Someone Like You is no exception. In this book, one of the main struggles occurs between the main character and her mother.
Halley is having trouble surviving her mother, which is odd because they used to be best friends. At least, up until the point where she and her best friend Scarlett start sneaking out with Scarlett's wild friend Ginny. (WAY different than the innocent, beautiful Ginny Weasley.) Things really start to change when Scarlett's boyfriend Michael is killed in a motorcycle accident. Later, Scarlett discovers she's pregnant-- with Michael's baby. *gasp!* Halley's trying to be there for her best friend, break free from her controlling, overpowering mother, and date Michael's best friend Macon whom she truly thinks she is falling in love with. But is he really as sweet as the candies he keeps leaving for Halley?
I've always been a big Sarah Dessen fan, but it's fun to see how she's grown from her earlier works. I've read This Lullaby, which I found hysterically funny, and this book definitely has a more serious tone with a good message about true love and where your priorities should lie. At least, that's what I got out of it.
Also I loved the climax. I have a thing with quoting the climaxes of books. See the excerpt from Twisted if you don't believe me.

The truth was I knew, after all those flat January days, that I deserved better. I deserved I love yous and kiwi fruits and flowers and warriors coming to my door, besotted with love. I deserved pictures of my face in a million expressions, and the warmth of a baby's kick under my hand. I deserved to grow, and to change, and become all the girls I could ever be over the course of my life, each one better than the last.
(pg. 243)

God, that paragraph says a lot. Of course, it means more if you read the whole book first, but whatever, it was such a good paragraph I had a need to post it.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH *passes out and hypventilates*

I just saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night at midnight. And let me just say, OH MY GOD. It was the best Harry Potter movie by far, even though they cut a lot out and added stuff in. But whatever, SUCH A GOOD MOVIE. The whole Harry-Ron-Hermione-Lav Lav-Ginny-Dean-Cormac thing really heats up. And there was tons of action and great scenes.
Dumbledore had some weird lines though. Both of these he said at some point in the movie:

"I notice you've been spending a lot of time with Miss Granger. Are you two...?" I KNOW! DUMBLEDORE'S CLUELESS!!!
"Harry, you need a shave my boy!" WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN'S BEARD? I guess they're finally picking up on the fact that Harry's stubble's been showing since, like, the third movie.

I guess they were just trying to play up Harry and Dumbledore's relationship in this movie, since, as we all know, it's Dumbledore's last movie.
The only thing I didn't like about the movie was how they cut out a few key things that will be really hard to explain in the 7th movies. Like how the Order wasn't even at Hogwarts the night Dumbledore died! It was supposed to be a major battle and all it was was a couple of Death Eaters showing up and trashing the place! It was sort of pathetic. And Bill Weasley was supposed to get attacked by Fenrir Greyback! An he was supposed to be dating Fleur Delacour throughout the whole movie. At the end, when Mrs. Weasley says she might as well pack her bags now that she doesn't want to be with a part werewolf, she gets offended and says of course she will stay, she is good-looking eenough for ze both off zem, she theenks! And last but not least, what about when Remus Lupin and Nymphadora Tonks finally come clean about being in love with each other? Where'd that scene go? And Tonks and Lupin only had minor parts in the film. They were supposed to be in a lot more.
And they put stuff in that was never in the book. For example, Ginny doesn't kiss Harry in the Room of Requirement. Harry kisses Ginny right after his team wins the Quidditch match he wasn't allowed to play in, in the common room! And that whole battle scene at the Burrow? What was up with that?
Whatever, still a great movie.

"Childhood is a bloodthirsy period."

My second finished library book: Boy Girl Boy. I actually checked this one out once before but forgot (got too lazy) to read it. This time I got it thinking it was on this humongo booklist I'm supposed to be reading from and I started reading it and then discovered it wasn't on the list after all. By that time, though, I was too into this book.
The three friends in this book are the best friend trilogy I've seen in a while, right up there on the list by Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Teresa is a girl whose mother abandoned her, so she runs every day to get away from it all and eats close to nothing. She is also in love with her two best friends, Larry and Elliot. Elliot is having trouble thinking he's worth anything. He has amazing good looks, but is getting tired of the same story with every girl he meets. Larry is the smartest of the three, but is having trouble being himself, especially in a small town like Wendleville.
These three best friends, together since childhood, are planning on relocating to California after graduation. But what happens when te plan starts to fray and they start to grow apart?
The other cool part about this book is that each chapter is split into three parts: one part told in first person from each character. And all the chapters have really interesting titles. I'll list my favorites.

Everything looks different told from different ways.
But the future, I've been there, and it's not what it used to be.
What is the body, anyway, but a drawer of old valentines?
This is the day not dissected by minutes.

This book really makes you think.

"Everybody told me to be a man. Nobody told me how."

So, I read Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson (author of Speak, another good book) yesterday. You gotta love a book that has a cynical, sarcastic, witty teenager. Especially if the story's told from first person.
Meet Tyler, a kid who screwed up his life by covering his high school in graffiti and accidentally leaving his wallet behind at the end of junior year. After fulfilling community service with the school janitors and working his summer job at a landscaping company, Tyler has gone from Nerdboy to Tyler, the Incredible Hulk. Somehow, he ends up responsible for breaking the hottest girl in school, Bethany's foot. Slowly she starts getting interesting in him, and finally they end up going to a wild senior party together. Bethany wants to go too far, however, and Tyler puts a stop to it and drives her and her also wasted brother home. The real surprise comes later, though... Some pictures were taken of Bethany at that party, and everyone thinks Tyler did it...
This book also involves Tyler's relationship with his strict, hard-to-please father. All in all this book was a great read. This next part is from the climax of the book.

From the toilet I could see the bottom half of my face in the mirror. A guy could only hate himself so much, could only get sucker-punched a couple million times before he'd finally get the hint that maybe the world didn't want him around.
Why bother trying? What was the point? So I could go to some suck-*** college, get a diploma, march out into a job I hated, marry a pretty girl who would want to divorce me, but then she wouldn't because we'd have kids, so instead she'd become the angry woman at the other end of the kitchen table, and the kids would grow up watching this, until one day I'd look at my son and he'd look just like that face in the bathroom mirror?
If that was life, then it was twisted.

Oh, the suspense!

A Countess Below Stairs

Now, Eva Ibbotson is one of my favorite authors, but this book just didn't cut it for me. I'm not the type to read historicly based novels on royalty, they kind of bore me. Anything past The Other Boleyn Girl is a bit much. And A Countess Below Stairs was a little dull (no offense, Cara). But whatever, the story was basically about a countess (Anna) that escaped the war and became a housemaid in England. She slowly falls in love with the head of the house, Rupert, who is getting married to this beautifully evil lady named Muriel. Of course, everything turns out all right in the end, so la de frickin' da.
I recommend this book only if you like Girl in a Cage by Jane Yolen (which I didn't) or things like that. It was okay, but the best part for me was that it was relatively short and the font was huge.

Dear John

This book was by the same author as the Notebook, Nicholas Sparks. I haven't read The Notebook, but now I want to. Dear John looks like a war survival story, especially since 9/11 has a major impact on some of the characters in this book, but it's not. It's a wonderful story about loving, losing, and caring about someone so much you'll let go of them.
The main character is John Tyree, and while on leave from the marines, he falls in love with Savannah. They're deeply in love and he visits her on his leaves, but whrn 9/11 rolls around he reenlists and gets sent to Kuwait. Savannah falls in love with another man, and John is heartbroken. Meanwhile, he's trying to keep his relationship stable with his father, which is hard considering his father may have Asperger's...

This book is so great, but it's one of those ones that when you get to the end, you go, "Crap, such a good book, such a sad ending." But then you think that if the book had a happy ending, it might not be as good.
And so ends all the books I read and finished at Bass Lake.

What's Eating Gilbert Grape

This is another one of my favorite books. It has so many great characters, starting with the family.

Gilbert: Takes care of his retarded little brother, dreams of getting away, can't cry, is having an affair with his insurance man's wife.
Amy: Gilbert's sister who has an Elvis obsession, cooks for the family and is starting to put on weight which worries her.
Arnie: The retarded brother mentioned above. He snaps the heads off crickets using the mailbox, climbs the water tower every now and then, loves crunchy peanut butter, and is about to turn eighteen when the doctors said he wouldn't live past ten.
Ellen: The youngest sibling in the family who has recently become the prettiest girl in the small town of Endora, works at the Dairy Dream, and loves to bring religion into every argument she has with her big brother Gilbert.
Momma: Is the mother of all the Grape children, just wants to see Arnie turn eighteen (is that too much to ask?), eats enough for an entire family, rarely leaves her chair and watches TV 24/7.

Then throw in a couple of minor characters, such as Becky, a girl who perplexes Gilbert and tries to help him in strange ways, Mr Lamson, who owns the grocery store where Gilbert works, and Tucker, Gilbert's best friend who just became assistant manager of Burger Barn, and it makes for an interesting story. I'm going to post some excerpts, because I can't help but love this book.

This conversation is between Gilbert and Arnie:
"Good night, Arnie."
"Good-bye."
"Good night, Arnie. It's not good-bye. It's good night."
"Yeah."
"Good-bye is for when you're going away. " He mixes those words up. "And you're not going anywhere."
(pg. 48)

A conversation between Momma and Gilbert:
"One day you might understand what it means to create. To know the feeling of looking into a person's eyes and know that you are the reason for those eyes." Momma thinks a second. "I'm going to say something I'm not supposed to say. I see you and I know that I'm a god. Or a goddess. Godlike! And this house is my kingdom. Yes, Gilbert. This chair is my throne. And you, Gilbert, are my knight in shimmering armor."
"Shining, Momma, is what you mean."
"No, I know what I mean. You don't shine, Gilbert. You shimmer. You hear? You shimmer. Now good night."
(pg. 187)

I love this book so much, it's a must-read and one of my favorites. I like reading it at Bass Lake because it has that feeling of simplicity that everyone loves on vacation.

TRISTAN AND IVY FOREVER

So I just finished Kissed By An Angel, which is actually three books in one... Kissed by an Angel, The Power of Love, and Soulmates. It was such a sweet love story!

In Kissed by an Angel, Ivy and Tristan start going out, then he dies in a car accident because their brakes were cut. Ivy was in the accident, but she survives. As she tries to get over losing her boyfriend, her stepbrother Gregory turns out to be a great source of comfort. Meanwhile, Tristan has become an angel and he and his friend Lacey are watching over Ivy even though they can't do much. At the end of this book, Tristan figures out that the accident he died in was not an accident... it was attempted murder, and it was aimed for Ivy.
In The Power of Love, Tristan continues to watch out for Ivy, and he talks to her through Will and Beth even though she doesn't know it's him doing it. Also, Ivy starts to see some romance with Gregory, her stepbrother, and Will, he friend. The killer gets closer and closer.
Finally, in Soulmates, Tristan saves Ivy... from Gregory! It turns out Gregory thought Ivy saw him murder his mother, which he did, and decided to kill her too. He also killed his best friend Eric, who was going to tell Ivy.
This was a good murder mystery, as well as romance... Just like Harper's Island, you didn't see who the psycho killer was until the very end and then it may have been too late. This book is like 700 pages, but it's well worth it. (And the print's kinda big, and the margins are kinda small.)

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!!

I'm back from Bass Lake! Yes, I had a great time, thanks for asking... I went tubing, slid down a waterfall, ate my weight in Tootsie Pops and Blow Pops, sang freecreditreport.com commercials, and it was fun. I also read a lot, too. So this post is about a book I read...

Yeah, it's a Sue Grafton A to Z Mystery. I've read a couple of others and my long-term goal is to read them all. They all star detective Kinsey Milhone, who lives alone, eats a Quarter Pounder almost every day, runs three miles in the morning, and has an 80-year-old landlord who gives her cheap rent. This book also featured a very prissy old lady and her dead cop husband. I'll just write the summary the book gives on here, since it's as accurate as I can find:

Tom Newquist had been a detective in the Nota Lake sheriff's office--a tough, honest cop respected by everyone. When he died, the townfolk were sad but not surprised. Just shy of sixty-five, Newquist worked too hard, drank too much, and exercised too little.
Newquist's widow, Selma, didn't doubt the coroner's report. But still, she couldn't help wondering what had so bothered Tom in the last six weeks of his life. What was it that had made him prowl restlessly at night and brood constantly? Determined to help Selma find the answer, Kinsey Millhone sets up shop in Nota Lake, where she finds that looking for a needle in a haystack can draw blood--very likely, her own...


Yep, that's the book.

Let Your Mind Blume

I think Judy Blume is one of the best childrens' authors ever, even though most of her books were written back in the 70's. She really knew how to relate to children, and her books are really funny. So to go back to what I used to read, I reread two of my favorites. The books I read were actually my mom's old copies, because she read them when she was little.
Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing: I first read this book a long time ago, when I was like 6 or 7. It's about Peter Hatcher, who has a little brother named Farley Drexel, but everyone just calls him Fudge. Fudge gets into lots of trouble... from covering a suitcase in stamps to dumping peas on his head. I think every kid should read this book, it's a classic and short, too, so a quick read.
Otherwise Known As Sheila the Great: Meet Sheila, Peter Hatcher's annoying neighbor who's scared of everything from dogs to thunder storms to spiders to swimming. She and her family (the Tubmans) go away for their summmer vacation and Sheila has to confront all of her fears... with some new friends. I loved this book too because I can sort of relate to Sheila, how she makes up lies so her friends won't discover how scared she really is.

Yep, great books Judy Blume writes.

The Calling

Okay, as soon as I stop hyperventilating I'll talk about The Calling (The 7th book in the Sweep series) but for now I'm too traumatized by what happened.
In this book, we get to read Ciaran's Book of Shadows entries and we discover he's Morgan's father, not Angus, as we all were led to believe. I kind of had a hunch about this, so it wasn't a big surprise.
Cara came very close to ruining this book for me, though. She wanted to tell me the ending, but I said no, so all she would say was, "The ending made me cry." I don't cry easily, but I can see why she did... Morgan breaks up with Hunter! She did it because she thinks that, being a full Woodbane, she's incurably evil and doesn't want to hurt Hunter. I think that the gesture was sweet, BUT SHE'S AN IDOIOT. And Hunter finally confesses he loves her! Even before he said it out loud, you could SO tell he did, though. Like here:

"You were a vision, you know," he said, his voice soft and low. "Standing there in the hall in that innocent gown, your hair shining, holding a toothbrush of all things. I just wanted to run away with you."
"Really?" I whispered. "Where?"
"I don't know. Didn't think it through that far." He brushed back a strand of hair from my face.
(pg. 63)

And the ending...

"Things-- things have changed," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I'm sorry, I just don't love you anymore."
Hunter looked at me. We both knew I was lying.
"Listen." His voice was ragged. "I came here to tell you something else. I never really believed in all this muirn beatha dan stuff. I thought it was just romantic nonsense. But Morgan, you are my muirn beatha dan. I realized that when I thought I was going to lose you to Amyranth. I love you-- absolutely, totally, forever. You know that."
(pg. 188)

OMHP!! Isn't he awesome??? This next line is the last thing he says. I think it means that she can choose to ignore him and distance herself, but he'll just keep trying.

"We all make our own choices," he called after me.
(pg. 189)

I ♥ HUNTER

OMHP so I am falling head over heels for Hunter even more than Morgan is, if that's possible. Because I just finished Spellbound, Book 6 in the Sweep series.
And in this book, there are a couple of big surprises... good and bad.
First, CAL'S BACK!!! I was like, NOOOOOOOOO!!! I didn't want Morgan to fall for him again over Hunter, and that did cause a rift between them at first. But at the end, we see that SELENE AND CAL ARE GONE FOR GOOD!!! Even better for Morgan and Hunter, now there's nothing to come between them!
I feel sorry for Mary K., though. She was always another of my favorite characters, and she gets put into some danger in this book too.
We also get to read Selene's Book of Shadows entries at the beginning of each chapter. You find out some surprising things...
The ending was pretty good too: "All I could do was hold Mary K.'s hand and start to think up what I would tell my parents. Every version started with, 'It's because I'm a witch.'"
One last part about this book (besides the fact that there are so many good Hunter-and-Morgan scenes): Morgan finally gets caught up with all the other blood witches, knowledge-wise. She mindmelds with Alyce and gains a lifetime of knowledge. Sure, she almost dies, but I thought it was worth it.

A Very Corny Braid!

If you read Party Princess, you will know what I'm talking about. I love Meg Cabot's books... Something about them just makes you want to read them all (if you're a teenage girl, at least, which I am). Party Princess is part of her Princess Diaries series... It's Volume VII, and the only one I hadn't read.
I can't believe I haven't read it, though! I mean, there are so many little inside jokes and things I didn't pick up on later in the series... This is where they all were. I think I need to list the inside jokes.

Inside Jokes in Party Princess I Missed Out On Before I Read It
1. Mia's dancing
2. When The Guy Who Hates IT When They Put Corn In The Chili actually gets a real name
3. When the Drs. Moscovitz got divorced *sob for Michael*
4. Fat Louie's Pink Butthole
5. The Zine
6. Braid!

I don't think anyone can live without knowing what these mean. You will only know what these mean if you read Party Princess. While you're at it, read the whole series...
Although the movie adaption of the first book (Disney's The Princess Diaries) kind of sucked. First off, it says specifically in the books she has blonde hair, not brown, like Anne Hathaway does. And Grandmere's not supposed to be NICE! I'm sorry, Julie Andrews, but you're not evil enough. Also, Michael leaves after the second movie! They're together for almost the whole series, no way did he just leave her!

But yeah, the books are AWESOME. So if you are a hysterical teenage girl who fell in love with Twilight, read these, because The Guy Who Hates It When They Put Corn In The Chili has some Edward-from-Twilight-ish qualities... But Michael's way better.

Black and Blue

Yes, the title does refer to bruises, but in a totally disturbing way. You'll see on the front cover that Time Magazine said it was "Heartbreaking." They are quite right... This was a very suspenseful story about a lady (Frannie) whose husband abused her, physically and I would say emotionally, too. To save her son, she contacts an agency that can help battered women "disappear" from their husbands and previous lives forever, never to be abused again. She and her son run away to Florida, but she has a feeling her husband Bobby, a New York cop, will find her again.
The thing I liked about this book was the minor characters; people like Cindy, Benny, Grace, etc. They really came to life, and they reminded me of people I already knew. (Example... Cindy reminds me of Genieva, my brother's friend's mom.)
The real shock in this book, however, comes at the end...
I also know I'm not the only one who liked this book so much, because as you can see in the picture, Oprah recommends this book too!