*******

The title of this book is The Year of Secret Assignments*, written by Jaclyn Moriarty. So why is this post titled '********'? Because that's what stood out to me uniquely in the actual book title.
So I think Australian young adult literature is my new favorite genre. Mainly because there's enough pop culture crossover to be funny to me when the author alludes to things, but there's also many differences in our cultures that stay in the book and make it more interesting. Like how it's not a big deal if the kids in this book drink. Wow, Australian parents must be... um... INSANELY COOL.
So more in particular, this book was about three girls, Lydia, Emily, and Cassie.
Cassie is recovering from the loss of her father, Lydia aspires to be a writer but doesn't know if she can, and Emily is... Emily. *ahem* When their English teacher gives them the assignment of becoming pen pals with students from the rival school, they write very apprehensively. What they don't know is that they each got paired up with a DUDE!
Emily, who loves chocolate and shopping and filled her first letter with thoughts of these, gets Charlie, whose reply is mainly: "Um, do you want to write to my sister instead?" This starts an argument that leads into a grudging friendship.
Lydia writes complete and utter nonsense, including the fact that she is a fish. Her pen pal Sebastian writes back that he doesn't know if he can trust her, but after a while they meet in person through Lydia's Secret Assignment of seeing who can identify the other person first in a coffee shop. Insane, right? Wait till you see how that plotline turns out.
Cassie has the worst luck of all. She writes away not only to get an A on the pen pal assignment, but because her grief therapist told her to become friends wth a stranger and tell them all about herself. So she writes to this pen pal with the hopes that she can spill her guts and get their opinion. Instead, she gets death threats from a freak named Matthew Dunlop. But after these friends find out who Matthew Dunlop really is, the story's just getting started.
Also, did you want to know why the book is called The Year of SECRET ASSIGNMENTS*? Well... it's secret. Yes, you do find out in the book, this isn't one of those annoying books where the title meaning is hidden deep under layers of mindnumbing analysis, but you have to read to find it because it really makes you appreciate the book all that much more.
And the best part about this book is: it's told all through notes and journal entries and memos and emails! This isn't as tedious and confusing as it sounds. In fact, I usually forgot about the fact that it was letters these kids were writing and not a straight-out story. It's really good, and if I could keep this book and hide it away forever in my closet I would, but sadly it's a library book. ♠♠♠♠♠

CAROLINE B COONEY!!!!!

She's one of my favorite suspense/teen/thriller authors, and she is AMAZING. She wrote The Face on the Milk Carton and other bestsellers... welcoming Caroline B. Cooney!
And thank George's holy ear (HP humor) that I finally got to read her newest book, Diamonds in the Shadow. It looked kind of boring from the summary, but I loved it.
The summary? This naive, ignorant white American family takes in a family of four war refugees from Africa that have seen horrific things... and in some cases, committed horrific crimes. The white family consists of the mother, Mrs. Finch, who is on practically every church committee known to man and does her best to help but sometimes smothers, the father, Mr. Finch, who is almost a minor character because he's almost never home and when he is he doesn't say much, Mopsy, the middle-school daughter who goes by Mopsy instead of Martha and is unusually naive for her age, seeing good everywhere she goes, and Jared, the selfish high-school brat of a son. The African refugee family is made up of Mattu, the "son" who has a clean British accent and is very smart and ambitious, Celestine, the "mother" who is amazed by all the new American appliances but seems to be hiding a deep sorrow somewhere under her curious and joyful disposition, the "father" Andre, who has no hands due to the fact that they were cut off by soldiers and now he has the huge problem of having very specific job requirements, and the daughter, Alake. Alake does not talk, but unlike Mr. Finch, she is not a minor character. In fact, she is almost the centrivigal force to this whole story, tying everything together and keeping the storyline running steady. And then there's the mysterious fifth refugee.
Yes, this story was really freakin' good. I'm so glad I read it, even though it took me a week with everything else going on, but I read, I loved, I want her to write more, darn it!
I loved how the story is told from everybody's point of view, showing how new simple concepts like a microwave and opening a juice carton can be mysteries to somebody from a wartorn world. There were also many good observations pointed out about how we as Americans act, which can change the way you think. I know I think of America as a much different place after reading this book. It was really interesting how the author worked that in through such a short, complex, really-completely-awesome book. Because on the thriller front, it was pretty compelling, you just had to keep reading.♠♠♠♠

Does My Head Look Big In This?

The question is, does my head look big in what? Actually we're talking about Amal's head, and if it looks big in a hijab, or a traditional Muslim headscarf.
You see, Amal has decided it's time to start wearing the hijab fulltime to her public school and everywhere else to take the next step in her religious life. The thing is, in Australia people don't always appreciate you for who you are, especially if you've got your head wrapped up and you have to pray five times a day. Amal has to deal with all the prejudice and racism coming from her classmates and community (who are sadly misunderstood) and she also has to deal with the everyday pressures of a teen life: getting away from overprotective parents, dealing with a crush when she can't date before marriage, helping insecure friends, keeping up in school, and all the other teenage drama in a girl's life. Because as most of us know very well, there's a lot of it.
Amal's story does have a happy ending and a bright side: be yourself, that's all that you can be. I'm pretty sure that's an Audioslave song lyric, too, but whatever, it's a good message and it's found in this book.
My favorite part of the book, however, were not about Amal exactly but about her friends. First there was Leila, who was also Muslim, except her mother was REALLY overprotective. Like she wouldn't let Leila go out after dark for fear that she would "bring shame upon the family." Amal has to help Leila live her life in spite of her mother, and eventually they have to figure out a permanent solution or their family could fall apart. The other friend with the big problem was Simone, Amal's slightly chubby friend from school. Simone was really insecure about her weight, and she tried every diet in the book even though she had this great body that she couldn't see in herself because she thought she was too fat. Simone keeps trying to diet and then binges until finally she's decided she's had enough and starts smoking. She also is the other one in this book with a love interest, besides Amal.
The last thing I liked about this book was the authentic Australianism. I have an Australian friend and he explained how they get American pop culture stuff a bit later than we see it, so they're watching Friends and Big Brother for fun and thinking it's just great! instead of crap TV like some people do. So Amal is always making allusions (vocab word!) to Friends, Big Brother, Celine Dion, etc. It's really funny and brightens up the book, making it very teenager-understandable.
People have been telling me to read this book for a while and I neglected because I thought it looked too chick-flicky, but it was really good and I'm sad I put this off for so long because I liked it a lot. ♠♠♠♠

VMHS Library Readathon October 2009

My first major readathon. It was so much fun, I'm so happy I missed a playoffs game for it!
Basically I showed up after school and we all sat there in dead silence and read. For two hours. It was amazing. You wouldn't think that sounds fun, but actually it's really relaxing.
After that we got pizza! I didn't have any because I was going to eat dinner with my mom after, but I got to talk to Michelle and a few senior girls that are as book-nerdy as I am. It was insane how well we got along.
I also got 20 bucks for Barnes&Noble because I raised the most money (75 dollars... it pays to have seven grandmas). So tomorrow I get to go there and get more books!
But yeah, the readathon was awesome, I'm glad I did it. I think they're doing another one in spring, I'll be sure to sign up.

What Happens When Five Bestselling Authors Write About Prom Horror?

You get PROM NIGHTS FROM HELL. This book is a collection of five stories, each relatively short but long enough to be pretty dang good on their own. Not exactly a short story, but not a novel either. The five authors are: Meg Cabot (Princess Diaries series), Kim Harrison (Dead Witch Walking), Michele Jaffe (Bad Kitty), Lauren Myracle (Rhymes with Witches), and of course the well-known Stephenie Meyer (Twilight, duh, if you don't know this you need to make sure you're in 2009 and not 1995 when Harry Potter was still THE BOOK).
I've decided to go over each of the five stories separately, because they were, after all, separate in the book. It's only fair.
The Exterminator's Daughter by Meg Cabot: About a girl who is the daughter of a vampire hunter who gets turned into a vampire. So she's in the family business, basically. When Mary has to save her best friend from the evil grasp of her vampire prom date Sebastian, she almost gets sucked in by Sebastian's powerful spell. Luckily her new friend Adam comes to the rescue by shooting Sebastian with a squirt gun full of holy water *gasp!* and all is well. Plus Adam and Mary fall in love, so a classic Cabot ending. I liked this story pretty well, it was interesting seeing the "Cabot flair" coming out of Adam's mouth in this story. It was a bit short and I wish there had been more, but that's probably just me. I give it ♠♠♠♠

The Corsage by Lauren Myracle: A girl goes to a gypsy with the hope that the gyspy will tell her she's destined to be with her crush, Will. The gypsy tells her a vague prophecy and the girl, Frankie, is fed up, so she asks the gypsy for the corsage that's on her shelf. It's this old dead corsage, and it's falling apart, and the gypsy says it grants anyone three wishes. Frankie is curious, so she takes the corsage home and wishes that the boy she loved would ask her to prom. Then Will mysteriously leaves. The next day, Frankie finds out her had climbed the water tower to spraypaint "Will you go to prom with me, Frankie?" on the tower and had slipped, fallen, and died the day before prom. Frankie's devastated, but she decides to use her next wish to bring Will back. Let's just say, not a good idea. This story was my FAVORITE because it's really sad and a little gory, kind of like Titanic meets Stephen King for teenagers. So good. And pretty short, but it doesn't need to be any longer than it is, at the same time. ♠♠♠♠♠

Madison Avery and the Dim Reaper by Kim Harrison: This story was a bit of a letdown after The Corsage, but still okay. Basically Madison goes to prom on her birthday and is offered a ride home by a handsome stranger. Seems like everybody except Madison knows you shouldn't take rides home from handsome strangers. Anyway, he rolls the car on purpose and kills her, and Madison ends up stuck in limbo because her guardian angels won't let her move on and her grim reaper, the guy who killed her, wants her. So she's got to stay "alive" by holding a talisman from her guardian angel at all times, and it's only a sort of half-life. But everything's okay, because she falls in love with her guardian angel and gets to fly! Kind of a disappointing ending and a little long to keep me interested, but okay. Probably my least favorite, maybe... ♠♠♠

Kiss and Tell by Michele Jaffe: The title is appropriately named because one of the main characters, Sibby, kisses every boy she meets as an effort to fit in. And she pays some of them, too. Kinda weird. The main story is about this girl who is a foster kid at a boarding school and her names Miranda. She's a total spaz. Watch, when she talks her crush/true love/whatever this is what she's thinking:
"Insert head in oven now.
Leave until no longer HALF BAKED.
(pg. 223)
Yep, such a spaz. But Miranda has special powers, and she's kind of a superhuman. She has to rescue Sibby from these weird people and a twisted deputy cop on prom night and try to talk to her true love. Difficult, but she does it. I liked all the action in this story and how it wasn't your average paranormal prom story. It stood out from the others. A bit confusing, but worth the read. Very suspenseful, too. ♠♠♠

Hell On Earth by Stephenie Meyer: This was the one I was waiting for, the one by the min author in this book. However, this story was kind of a letdown. It was just about this demon, Sheba, who is busy ruining prom for everybody by making them all cheat on each other and wreaking havoc, etc. It's kind of like she's playing Sims. Then she falls in love with this angelic boy who actually is half-angel, although he doesn't know it. And suddenly everything's happily ever after, the end. I was disappointed because I guess I expected more from the lady who wrote Twilight. Yeah, I guess I built it up too much in my mind because I wanted to read something like Twilight, but whatever, I still don't think it was her best. Maybe I just didn't pay attention enough or something. ♠♠

All the stories overall were good, though, and I think it's a great Halloween, prom, or anytime read. Fun, too, it gives you a break from the tediousness novels sometimes become.

School Book... Ew.

We had to read The Pearl by John Steinbeck in English. Only 90 pages, so technically it counts as a novella, right? I should join that novella reading challenge...
Anyway, we had to annotate like CRAZY. You should SEE my annotations, it's freakin' scary, man. I want to post pictures to scare people. Actually, it works out okay... now people are trying to hold an auction over my book to use for their class and get away with no annotating. Too bad I wrote my name inside the cover.
Summary time: Kino and his wife Juana and their little baby Coyotito live in a brush house on the beach in La Paz. They're poor because this dominating other culture took over their original culture and now instead of practicing the "ancient magic" they say Hail Marys and instead of being good in society they're lower level fisherman, etc.
One day Coyotito gets bitten by a scorpion. The doctor, being extremely prejudiced, won't see them. Juana cures it on her own and later they go out and go fishing and GUESS WHAT THEY FIND:

A PEARL!!!

Now everyone wants Kino's pearl and it's a battle to the end to see who will keep it and what it means to them and how much is at stake to get it. Lots of themes running through this book.
I had to write an essay on this book too, so I would know.
My rating: ♠♠♠

2009 100+ Reading Challenge

My second reading challenge! This one is a piece of cake, all I gotta do is start a list. I've already read like seventy books since July, and I'm sure by December I'll be at a hundred easy. I'm really liking these challenges!

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
2. The Coven by Cate Tiernan
3. Blood Witch by Cate Tiernan
4. Dark Magick by Cate Tiernan
5. Awakening by Cate Tiernan
6. Saint Maybe by Anne Tyler
7. Otherwise Known As Sheila The Great by Judy Blume
8. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume
9. Kissed by an Angel by Elizabeth Chandler
10. What's Eating Gilbert Grape by Peter Hedges
11. Dear John by Nicholas Sparks
12. A Countess Below Stairs by Eva Ibbotson
13. Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson Boy Girl Boy by Ron Koertge
14. N Is For Noose by Sue Grafton
15. Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen
16. Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen
17. Deadline by Chris Crutcher
18. Stand Tall by Joan Bauer
19. Squashed by Joan Bauer
20. Best Foot Forward by Joan Bauer
21. Island of the Aunts by Eva Ibbotson
22. Which Witch? By Eva Ibbotson
23. Hanging On To Max by Margaret Bechard
24. Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson
25. P Is For Peril by Sue Grafton
26. The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan
27. S Is For Silence by Sue Grafton
28. Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot
29. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
30. Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Patterson
31. Gifts by Ursula K. Le Guin
32. Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
33. Brooklyn Rose by Ann Rinaldi
34. You Know Where To Find Me by Rachel Cohn
35. The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber by Lauren Mechling and Laura Moser
36. The Intruders by E. E. Richardson
37. The Diary of Pelly D by L. J. Adlington
38. The Shack by Wm. Paul Young
39. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks
40. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
41. Darkest Hour by Meg Cabot
42. Alcoholics Anonymous handbook by many authors
43. Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot
44. Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick
45. Desperation by Stephen King
46. Ten Little Indians (the play) by Agatha Christie
47. The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks
48. The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
49. Bag of Bones by Stephen King
50. Dead Man's Folly by Agatha Christie
51. Spellbound by Cate Tiernan
52. A Painted House by John Grisham
53. Teen Idol by Meg Cabot
54. The Client by John Grisham
55. Strife by Cate Tiernan
56. The Calling by Cate Tiernan
57. Changeling by Cate Tiernan
58. The Blue Girl by Charles de Lint
59. The Pelican Brief by John Grisham
60. Seeker by Cate Tiernan
61. The Rules of Survival by Nancy Werlin
62. The Prince of Tides by Pat Conroy
63. Origins by Cate Tiernan
64. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
65. Harry Potter Should Have Died by Emerson Spartz
66. How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent by Julia Alvarez
67. The Angel Experiment by James Patterson
68. The Alison Rules by Catherine Clark
69. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
70. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin
71. Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson
72. Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson
73. I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier
74. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta
75. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
76. Before I Die by Jenny Downham
77. The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson
78. The Pearl by John Steinbeck
79. Prom Nights from Hell by various authors
80. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah
81. Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney
82. The Year of Secret Assignments* by Jaclyn Moriarty
83. Aimee by Mary Beth Miller
84. M or F? by Lisa Papademetriou and Chris Tebbetts
85. Beauty Shop For Rent: Fully Equipped, Inquire Within by Laura Bowers
86. Bad Kitty by Michele Jaffe
87. The Firm by John Grisham
88. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
89. K Is For Killer by Sue Grafton
90. Marked by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
91. The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L. J. Smith
92. Heroes in Greek Mythology by Karen Bornemann Spies
93. Betrayed by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
94. The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
95. Chosen by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
96. Jumping Off Swings by Jo Knowles
97. Vegetarianism for Teens by Jane Duden
98. Untamed by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast
99. Everything You Need To Know About: Being a Vegetarian by Kim Serafin
100. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

CHALLENGE COMPLETED

2009 Young Adult Book Challenge

This is my first book challenge, I'm so excited! I found the link on J-Kaye's Book Blog, click here to follow it: http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/2008/11/2009-young-adult-book-challenge.html
So yeah, I'm really excited. All I have to do for this one is read 12 young adult books by December 31st, 2009. Easy-peasy. I'll start with the books I have out from the library, and here's where I'm listing them.

1. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-know-book-thats-rife-with-vocabulary.html)
2. Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/catalyst-by-laurie-halse-anderson.html)
3. I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/i-am-cheese.html)
4. Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/when-i-grow-up.html)
5. The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/chocolate-war.html)
6. Before I Die by Jenny Downham (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/before-i-die-by-jenny-downham.html)
7. The Key to the Golden Firebird by Maureen Johnson (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/key-to-golden-firebird.html)
8. Prom Nights From Hell by various authors (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/what-happens-when-five-bestselling.html)
9. Does My Head Look Big In This? by Randa Abdel-Fattah (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/does-my-head-look-big-in-this.html)
10. Diamonds in the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/caroline-b-cooney.html)
11. The Year of Secret Assignments* by Jaclyn Moriarty (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/10/blog-post.html)
12. Aimee by Mary Beth Miller (http://thebookiemonster.blogspot.com/2009/11/aimee-by-mary-beth-miller.html)

CHALLENGE COMPLETED

The Key to the Golden Firebird

Maureen Johnson is one of my favorite young adult authors, and this book is no exception. Actually, I really liked this one because there are three main characters as opposed to the usual one.
There were also some really funny little dictionary-ish entries in this book, which reminded me kind of like the excerpts in Queen of Babble by Meg Cabot where there's bits of the fashion thesis paper between chapters. Here's one of them:
"Firebird, golden"
[largous automobilus yellowish]
1. A car manufactured by Pontiac. In this particular case, a car painted a color called Signet Gold and built in Lordstown, Ohio, in 1967. Almosy sixteen feet long, with extremely poor gas mileage and no modern amenities. Has a cream-colored interior and black convertible top and belches clouds of instant-cancer fumes whenever started. Attracts an unreasonable amount of attention from car buffs [for its collectability] and others [because it's brightly colored, noisy, and as big as a battleship].
2. A mythical creature prominently featured in Russian folktales. Possesses magical powers. Wherever the Firebird goes, princes, princesses, kings and mad wizards are sure to follow.
3. Presumably, any golden bird that's on fire."
(pg. 1)
That's how the book starts out, with these excerpts. So we can tell the title refers to the car that this family owns. So who are the characters?
Brooks: The eldest, a junior. When her father dies she starts drinking, lets her grades slip even farther than usual, gives up softball, and starts dating a juvenile-delinquent-in-the-making.
Palmer: The youngest, a freshman. Has no idea how to interact with people other than through her pitches on the softball field, has gifted softball skills just like her older sister. When her father dies, she retreats into watching TV with the volume up LOUD and following her pitching practice religiously.
May: The middle sister, and also the responsible one. Is working in a coffee shop and working her butt off to get good grades in AP classes for a scholarship to a good college so she can make something of herself and escape her dysfunctional family. Is good at passing every test but sucks at baseball, which creates a huge barrier between her and her sisters. This book is mainly about her and how she cannot pass the driving exam, so she can't get her license. Until her longtime friend/prankster/nemesis Pete Camp starts to teach her how to drive, but then everything changes.
This book is a little weird with the whole omniscient third-person-point-of-view thing (look at me, big vocabulary words!) but it was a good story and I like the ending, it reminds me a lot of Little Miss Sunshine.

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

ONE OF THE SADDEST BOOKS EVER. Hands down. I mean, all books where the main characters are set to DIE are undeniably sad, just look at Deadline by Chris Crutcher or Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. But seriously, this book? So devastating.
16-year-old Tessa is perfectly normal except that she has a very limited time left to live. Why? Because cancer is robbing her of a healthy life. So she makes a list of things to do "before she dies." There's all the usual stuff teens always want to try but can't because of self-preservation instincts and morals, but now that she's got nothing to lose, Tessa's up for anything. The thing is, her list is also full of other stuff that will be harder to get, like falling in love or getting her estranged parents back together. And sometimes, when she does get something crossed off her list, it leaves Tessa feeling emptier than ever.
Tessa's best friend Zoey also comes into this story quite a bit. Zoey is the wild one who's up for anything, anytime... until a bad night leaves her pregnant. Tessa wants her to get an abortion, but Zoey, wild, uncontrollable, dance-club Zoey decides to keep the baby and name it Lauren Tessa.
Meanwhile Tessa's cancer is progressing, just when her life starts to get meaningful again. She can't bear to see everybody else in her life move on and watch her wither away while she's stuck, and it turns into a race against time to squeeze all she can out of her short life.
This is the part that really tears me up: near the end, when she knows there's not much time left, she writes notes for her whole family, instructions for each of them, and her best friend and her boyfriend. (Oh yeah, she does get a boyfriend, successfully filling the "Fall In Love" requirement on her list.) For her dad's instructions, she tells him exactly how she wants to be buried, the song she wants playing at her funeral, how she wants them to use her savings to eat lunch after the funeral and buy a huge dessert, and how she says it's fine if they don't visit her, but if they can, would they bring a picnic and sit by her grave?
I was bawling. This book is so good, and it shows how life continues even as parts of it end in tragedy. I'm forever going to miss Tessa, and I only knew her for the four days while I was reading this book.

The Chocolate War

This book was Robert Cormier's big break in the literary world, and it's the one he's still most known for today. I have to say, it was practically barbaric.
This book is about a kid named Jerry Renault who is at a private school and he's kinda quiet and shy. The school's secret society, the Vigils, headed by this little pig of a boy named Archie, hands out assignments to people at school for fun... and they've chosen Jerry for the next one. Every year the school has a giant chocolate sale to raise money for the school and this year they're supposed to sell twice as much chocolate per student, meaning each boy has to sell fifty boxes. The Vigils give Jerry the assignment of refusing to sell chocolates for ten days. Jerry does this, getting him on the bad side of all his teachers, especially cunning Brother Leon. But then after the ten days are up, Jerry still refuses to take part in the fundraiser, and now he's really stirring things up. Now the Vigils have joined forces with the school authorities to get Jerry to sell the dang chocolates.
The book ends in a horrific showdown of childhood violence.
I found similiarites between The Chocolate War and Lord of the Flies, because in both books the kids are having their own battles and it's so terrible and barbaric. Good book, bad kids, bad situation, BAD TEACHER.

When I Grow Up...

Guess what Melina Marchetta wrote about in this book, Saving Francesca? Italian people living in Australia. I suspect this is because she is Italian and lives in Australia and she's one of those authors who writes based on what she knows/can relate to.
But I bet HER mother didn't get really depressed, like Francesca's did. And this is big for Francesca, because her mom is the type who's always in her business and always giving pep talks and playing inspiration music when Francesca wakes up at 6 in the morning. You know? So when her mother, Mia, goes on a huge CRASH Francesca and family (Dad and little brother Luca, named after the Suzanne Vega song!) have no idea how to deal with it.
That's the main problem Francesca has, or one of them. The other one is where she now goes to a formerly all-boys school. It almost still is all-boys, except there are about 30 girls now in this huge school. And what's worse, Francesca only knows three others because they're the only ones who went to her old school. These four girls (Siobhan, Tara, Justine, and Francesca) are stuck at St. Sebastian's Formerly All-Boys School *insert evil music here*. What are they gonna do?
Well, Tara's the rebel fighting for every cause, and now she's mainly fighting to get equal rights in the school for both genders. Justine was always the band geek at the old school, and she still is, just now Francesca finds this other dimension to her that she never knew she had. Siobhan is... Siobhan. You'll see what I mean. And Francesca doesn't know who she is.
Francesca also starts to reach out to the guys. She meets: Will, the control-freak senior who randomly falls in love with her... and back out of love again, Jimmy, the bully who intimidates by talking to people and catching them off guard, and Thomas, the loud, crude, prankster who is cracking fart jokes half the time.
All of these characters come together for a really good tapestry of a story.
And the reason this post is called When I Grow Up is not because that song by the Pussycat Dolls is really good (although it kind of is, if you listen to it long enough). It's called that because every once and a while, when a new character helps Francesca somehow, like when the cop takes her home (don't ask) or when her teacher starts having therapy sessions with her (long story), she says, "When I grow up I want to be a teacher." Or "When I grow up I want to be a police officer." You get the point. But towards the end of the story, when everything starts falling together she says "When I grow up I want to be my mother." That to me was one of the best lines in the

I... AM... THE... Cheese?

I Am The Cheese by Robert Cormier sounds like a really wimpy title, right? WRONG. The title actually is a reference to that old song, 'The Farmer in the Dell'. Remember how it ends with 'the cheese stands alone'?
Well, Adam in this book is the cheese. He is alone. The book starts off with him pedaling, taking a package a couple towns over to his father. (This is the seventies, so I guess people just let their kids leave home for a couple days on bike with no money...) Then, a few pages later, we see Adam talking to this dude, Brint, who claims to be a doctor. This is actually a medical tape, and it's all being recorded from Brint and Adam's conversation with Adam's thoughts in between. And from the first few pages, we can tell something's up.
This book turns out to be like The Firm for kids, except backwards. Like in The Firm he finds out about the whole criminal organization thing and then goes on the run, and in this book Adam has to struggle to remember what he was on the run from in the first place.
Even though this book was written 35 years ago, it's still really great. I love 70's kids' fiction,
a) because of the lingo they use and
b) because the parents in these books let their kids go EVERYWHERE.
I've never read anything by Robert Cormier before, but I'm gonna go hunt down The Chocolate War after this.

The OTHER Laurie Halse Anderson Book

This book didn't seem like one I should read at first because war stories bore me after a little while. I've a read a bunch of them, like Amelia's War, the American Girl series, a lot of historical fiction and all that good stuff, just sometimes it doesn't appeal to me and this is one of those times.
But this book surprised me; it wasn't really about the revolutionary war at all, that's just the background of the story. Really, it's about Isabel, a slave seeking freedom under the cover of war.
I just want to tell Isabel that she's about a hundred years early for freedom, though, and two hundred years for actual respect.
Isabel is a slave with her sister, Ruth. When their master dies they know they were set free by her will, but the will is lost and Isabel and Ruth get sold to the evil Locktons. The Locktons are Loyalists pretending to be Patriots, and we watch as their situation goes from bad to worse. Along the way, Mrs. Lockton, the evilest of them all, a wicked stepmother, if you will, sells Ruth because she is feeble-minded. (NOOOOOO!!!)




Isabel goes insane in a way. She realizes that technically her soul is free, because Mrs. Lockton can do whatever she wants with the rest of her but her soul cannot be bound, especially now that Mrs. Lockton can't hold Ruth over her.
Still, Isabel seeks freedom. And she gets it! It probably had to be a one-in-two-million shot that she would succeed, but she does, and she takes her friend Curzon with her. And now there's going to be a sequel called Forge, and I gotta read it.
But yeah, I've read one other historical fiction novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and that was Fever 1793. That was also my favorite for a while, and this book doesn't really disappoint.

Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson

So what's cool about this book is that it's based in the same school as another one of her books is (Speak). And the character actually runs into Melinda from the author book and refers to her as "Melinda-something!" How awesome is that?
Catalyst is about this control-freak girl who admits she has two parts: Good Kate and Bad Kate. Good Kate will willingly do chores because she knows it helps her family out and it it sort of calming while Bad Kate says, "Screw chores, they need to learn to pick up after themselves."
Kate is trying to get into MIT. She applied only to that school and not to any other safety schools, which was probably a Bad Kate move, and when MIT doesn't accept her, her whole perfectly-cotnrolled world starts to spiral. Actually, it acts as a CATALYST to start the spiraling, haha.
There's also Teri. Teri is a girl from the wrong side of the tracks who has a soft-in-the-head mother and a little brother that lights up everyone's day. After their house burn down, Katre's preacher father takes them in. Now, Kate and Teri are worst enemies, and now they're sharing a room. Not good.
You'll be surprised how it turns out, though.
I love Laurie Halse Anderson for writing about huge problems with such a good sense of humor, this book was really good and I loved how it tied into Speak.

I Know A Book That's Rife With Vocabulary References...

Sorry, it's just that we have to get references for our vocabulary words in English, where we find the words used in real life, and I got like five from this book. Oh yeah, the book: Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin. She also wrote one of my favorite books, Elsewhere and she's a really good writer. I'm so glad I was able to find this book at the library.
Anyway, the book's about this girl who wakes up in the hospital and has amnesia. No, not total amnesia, but she can't remember anything from sixth grade to the present, which is her junior year. So she wakes up and doesn't know all her new friends, why she's not on speaking terms with her mother, that her parents got divorced and now she has a half-sister (it's like, WHEN IN THE HECK DID THAT HAPPEN???) or that she has a jock boyfriend named Ace and that they met through tennis.
She also doesn't remember her best friend Will, or why he calls her Chief. So it's no surprise he's always so ticked with her.
The freaky part of the book comes when she gets her brain back. Sure, she can speak French fluently again, but she also remembers everything that went down between her and Ace, and more importantly, her and Will.
I love Gabrielle Zevin's books (like this one) because hse comes up with such implausible scenarios that would be extremely difficult to work your way through and then she throws in these life-like characters that have all the same problems we do and even more working through their own unique problems.
Also, this book was good because normally when there's three main guys vying for a girl's attention she dates one, dumps him, falls in love with the other one, and number three just kind of diappears. In this book, she gets around to all three and still the story continues.

"I just want to matter."

This book was a mad complex of crazy ideas mixed with the whole boy meets girl thing. Read this...
..."Well, it's not as good a story if you dumped her. That's how I remember things, anyway. I remember stories. I connect the dots and then out of that comes a story. And the dots that don't fit into the story just slide away, maybe. Like when you spot a constellation. You look up and you don't see all the stars. All the stars just look like the big ****ing random mess that they are. But you want to see shapes; you want to see stories, so you pick them out of the sky. Hassan told me once you think like that, too--that you see connections everywhere--so you're a natural born storyteller, it turns out."
(pg. 202)
The title: An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. At first I couldn't figure out why this book would be on my mega reading list, because from the summary it seems like a straightforward boy-gets-dumped-19-times-by-girls-who-all-have-the-same-name-slash-romantic-comedy story. You know, your average light read. But then you start reading and the whole book's this amazing story that relates to freakin' LIFE. Like, there's everything from why relationships fail to why we all basically want the same thing to people who matter and people who don't. A masterpiece of teen literature written by John Green.
That paragraph was probably a bit confusing, especially with the random quote right above. The only reason I tossed that in there is because I love that quote, and if you read the book you'll get it, but FYI that line was said by Colin's could-be-girlfriend, Lindsay.
So quick summary: Colin is a child prodigy who just got dumped by K-19. That is, Katherine #19. Yep, he's dated 19 girls named Katherine and he's somewhere around high-school age. After he gets dumped for the 19th time in a row by a Katherine, he starts working on a Theorem that supposedly can predict the length of any relationship and who will dump who. While composing this theory, his best friend, Hassan, drags him on a crazy roadtrip and somehow they end up in rural Tennessee meeting Lindsay, a girl who seems like one of the popular crowd but really has a lot more underneath the surface.
Lindsay's mother, Hollis, hires Colin and Hassan to do very little actual work and they get free room and board at Lindsay's house. This is when Colin has what I think of as a VERY premature midlife crisis and starts asking himself what he wants in life. His answer: "I just want to matter."
After a lot of thought, a few sitzpinklers, a secret cave, a string factory, a lot of swearing, and a feral-pig-hunting expedition, Colin comes to the conclusion that he is the second-most self-centered person on Earth.
You'll have to read to find out who's first. Remember how I said this looks like a romantic comedy at first sight? I'm trying to explain how it ISN'T right now, so that's why I left out that whole aspect of the story. But that part's just as good, SO READ THIS BOOK. I'm gonna recommend it to Cara and Dom tomorrow.
The only unbelievable part? The book describes Colin as a TOTAL NERD. One who had zero popularity. So how the heck can he get 19 girls with the same name before age 21? I mean, come on. I'm pretty dang nerdy too, so I know for a fact that this is not actually possible.
One last thing: while reading this book, DO NOT SKIP THE FOOTNOTES.

"You think you have it figured out... You don't know anything."

THAT is a quote from The Alison Rules by Catherine Clark, and it pretty much sums up the book. When you're reading it, you think you know right where the book is going and then WHAM, everything is water under the bridge. Literally. Read the book and see what I mean.
How I got this book (put up with the short backstory for a second): I was in the library and since they STILL didn't have Sweep #12 (I was TICKED) I was kind of just roaming, looking for a book to read that looked good, when THIS book popped out, for obvious reasons. And I had to get it, for obvious reasons. Only today, when I started the book, did I realize that the author, Catherine Clark, has also written another really good book I read a couple years back called Truth or Dairy (and the sequel, Wurst-Case Scenario). Anyway, backstory over.
This book was kind of sad right from chapter one: we meet Alison, a sophomore, who is avoiding her ultrajock exboyfriend Ryan who is still into her, and spending all her time with her longtime best friend Laurie, when Patrick Kirk moves into town. He's a freespirit, a screwup, someone who makes everything a little more interesting. And Laurie likes him. But so does Alison.
So Alison just kind of keeps avoiding the problem, like she's been doing with everything else from flunking geometry to mourning her dead mother. Yep, that's right, one of the main downers in this book, DEAD MOTHER.
I mean, the whole book is kind of like one quirky, gradual downer... even the short little paragraphs like this seal the deal:
"I went over to the bulletin board and saw that the picture of me and Ryan from the yearbook, the one that Patrick had found, was still up there. I stared at it, for a second remembering how it felt when he'd whisked me up in his arms like that and twirled me around. Ryan could be sweet, a little too sweet sometimes.
I looked at myself in the small oval mirror over my dresser. How had I looked like that photo? That girl didn't look like me at all.
I reached over and pulled out the pink pushpin. I removed the photo and stuck the pushpin back into the middle of the bulletin board. Then I reached onto the top shelf in my closet and pulled out a shoebox--size seven, from last year.
I lifted the lid and dropped the photo on top of the stack inside, then I put the lid back on and pushed the box to the back of the closet shelf."
(pg. 64)
But like all chick-flicky books, her plan blows up in her face and she's forced to confront all her problems. That's where the chick-flicky book thing ends, because after this A HUGE TRAGEDY occurs that I don't want to specifically mention because I would ruin the book for anyone who might actually read this and since this is one of the rare few I would actually beg you to read, I don't want to ruin it for anyone.
But let's just say that is was a classic Bridge-to-Terabithia moment, one that poor Alison will never recover from.
This book was really good, though, despite all its sadness. (How come any book with my name in the main title is instantly a tragedy? How foreboding...)

ALERT: ALERT: NEW SERIES

People have been trying to get me to read this series since seventh grade and I just never had the time, but I saw it in the school library and figured I'd finally get a chance to start it since they never have Sweep #12, dang it. So I checked out MAXIMUM RIDE #1: THE ANGEL EXPERIMENT. (by James Patterson.)
What I didn't expect was for the print to be huge and for the book to be written from ages anywhere between 8 and 18. I thought it would be science fictiony, and it was, but there was a lot more to it than that.
We start off with these kids living in a house. Max, the main character, explains how she and her fake siblings, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and Angel, are all escapees from a place called the School where they experiment DNA mutations. That's how Max and her "siblings" ended up being two percent bird. They've escaped from the School with the help of their sort-of-foster-father Jeb, who has mysteriously disappeared for four years, and now they live on their own, dreading the prescence of the other mutation group the School uses to track down and hunt people like Max: the Erasers. (Yes, sort of lame name, but they're kind of like hybrid werewolves, how awesome!)
One day Erasers show up at Max's house and kidnap the youngest of them, Angel, and take her back to the School. It's up to Max and her siblings to track Angel down and break her free again. The thing is, Max gets sidetracked, then captured herself. And THEN, once the tearful reunition scene is over with, she starts hearing a voice in a her head... and the voice is ALWAYS RIGHT.
This book has huge print and the longest chapter is like four pages. How cool is this? It's like an extremely long EZ Read book, which is a nice break when you've been reading a lot of John Grisham and annotating The Pearl by John Steinbeck for the past month.
And Melissa said she didn't like this series so much, but I find it kind of good, and it's quick and easy to read, it's not something heavy that becomes a burden to follow. I can't wait to check out the next book, I think there's five total right now.

How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent

This title makes the book sound like a really good, funny, quirky story, huh? That may be a little off. I only checked this book by Julia Alvarez out of the school library because it was on that gigantoid book list I'm reading from (see sidebar), but it still wasn't the best.
First of all, it confused me for the first half of the book! Maybe that's because I've been too spastic this weekend to pay attention as much as I should have, but it was about 70 pages into the book that I figure the story's being told BACKWARDS. As in starts in the 70's and 80's, ends in the 50's and 60's.
The story starts with these four sisters, Carla, Sandi, Yolanda, and Fifi, and they're all grown up, mid to late twenties, and moved out. They're a Spanish family that emigrated to America, and yes, these Garcia girls HAVE lost their accents at this part of the story. Part 1 of the book is all this, with them grown up, how they're estranged from their father, and it's kind of sad.
Part 2 is the girls from college to back when they first moved to America. We see how America corrupts them, how they do things they shouldn't, dishonor their parents, and this part's also kind of sad to watch these four naive girls get ruined, in a way. I think that's what the author was going for.
Part 3 was my favorite, because I loves stories about childhood back in the 50's and 60's when times were simpler. And that's what this is; we watch Carla, Yolanda, Sandi, and Fifi grow up on the Island before they flee to America. From Sandi's painting lessons to Yolanda and her cousins' toy swappings, this book has a bit of good nostalgia in this part.
Another thing that made the book hard to follow was how the point of view was switched around so much. First we'd be reading from Yolanda's point of view, who is kind of the main narrator of the book, then we'd be in the eyes of the parents, the servant Chucha, or just third-person. And it switches with no warning at all, in the middle of a chapter, so you have to be careful with who you think you're reading from.
Am I confusing you? That's what this book felt like.