Kim's First Book Haul of 2013!

Happy New Year everyone! I hope your 2013 has been fantastic so far! I went to Half Price Books yesterday and got a couple of books, so I thought I'd share them with you!

Exit Here by Jason Myers and I Know What You Did Last Summer by Lois Duncan

Sing You Home and Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult, one of my favorite authors!

And here are the books I got the day after Christmas (shoutout to my family for knowing me well and getting me more bookstore gift cards than anything)!

Char got me Numbers by Rachel Ward--thanks!

I also bought Life of Pi by Yann Martel and I Know This Much Is True by Wally Lamb.

Finally, I got Tilt by Ellen Hopkins and The Brick (also known as Les Miserables) by Victor Hugo. ;)

That's all of them! What did you guys get for Christmas?

Book Recommendations for YOU! Happy 2013!

First off, Happy New Year everyone! I decided to do something a little different and out of the ordinary today. Since its a new year and everyone is starting their reading challenges for 2013, I decided to give out some recommendations to start some people off. I picked my top five books that I would recommend and gave a short summary to get you started. Now, most of these books are fairly popular but I did throw some others in as well. Enjoy and I hope you find something great to read to start off the new year!

~ Marissa




1.  The Book Thief  By Markus Zusak 
This is one of my all time favorites. Set during the time period of World War II, a young girl named Liesel is living in a small town in Germany. During these dark times, Liesel finds comfort in not only reading books, but stealing them too. Whether its from Nazi book burnings, or the mayor's library, Liesel goes wherever there are books. As her foster father shows her how to read, Liesel begins to show everyone in her neighborhood the comfort of reading. This is a truly unforgettable story and I highly recommend it.

Click here for my full review.


2.  Fahrenheit 451 By Ray Bradbury 
I think this book is very appropriate to start off the new year. This book is arguably one of the most realistic dystopian novels ever written. It is set up in a future world which bears many alarming resemblances to our world we live in today. The scary part about this book is that it was written in 1953 and now thats its 2013, we can see how we are moving in the direction that Bradbury was trying to warn us about. We follow the story of Guy Montag, a fireman whose occupation is to burn books. Montag does not question it as he "thinks little at all about nothing in particular". Suddenly, he meets a girl named Clarisse who tells him about times when things were different. He starts to think about things he has never thought about before. When Clarisse disappears, he now knows what he has to do. I definitely recommend picking this book up!
Click here for my full review.


3.  I Am The Messenger By Markus Zusak
Another Markus Zusak book, because he is just that amazing. This book is completely different from The Book Thief but just as good. Enter Ed Kennedy. He is an underage cab driver, in love with his best friend, and lives with his dog. Ed thinks of his life as pretty ordinary and routine, until he goes to the bank. While it was never his intention, he surprisingly stops the robbery. Now he is labeled as a hero, but he still feels like just an ordinary person. Suddenly, he receives his first ace in the mail. And thats when the adventure really begins, as he becomes the messenger. Once you start this book, you will not put it down!




4.  Paper Towns By John Green
If you have yet to read one of the legendary John Green books, then this a great book to start with. Quentin, but everyone calls him Q, has been in love with Margo his entire life. Its no surprise though, since she is his next door neighbor and they used to play together when they were little. As they grew apart as they got older, Q's love for her never subsided. One night, she comes back to his life as she knocks on his window in the middle of the night, inviting him on a night full of adventure and revenge on people. When the night ends, Q is happy to be reunited with Margo and looks forward to seeing her at school the next day. One problem: she disappeared. Known to leave clues when she disappears, Q and his friends must figure them out and find Margo. This book is full of humor, romance, and adventure. Click here for Kim's full review.

5.  Divergent By Veronica Roth 
I recently just finished this book and I have to say, its amazing! The world in dystopian Chicago is divided in to five factions where people reside. Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). Beatrice has lived in Abnegation her entire life until it is time the choosing day, where every sixteen year old chooses where they will live for their entire life. Their options are given to them through a test which gives them their faction result. During Beatrice's test, there is a problem and she is faced with a tough decision of staying with her family or becoming who she really is. She makes a surprising decision and braces herself for what is about to become of her. I definitely recommend this book if you love dystopian novels. It even has some romance in there! I am currently reading the sequel now.

Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Summary: Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris - until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home. As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near - misses end with the French kiss Anna - and readers - have long awaited?

Review: Marissa and Charlotte have been telling me to read this book for ages, but I never got around to it. It just didn't seem like my kind of book. But this month, my school chose it for the book club, so I figured I'd finally give it a shot, and I'm so glad I did!

Honestly, this book is amazing. While it is technically a romance novel, it didn't seem like one. The characters were interesting and flawed (in a good way), and the plot was riveting. I was mentally screaming at the two main characters the entire time, dying for one of them to finally make a move. Stephanie Perkins's writing is so fantastic, I was in awe.

This book is somewhat of a fantasy romance, but I think Anna's experiences are relevant/relatable to teens today. The characters and the story broke my heart and then put it back together again and tore it out of my chest again and again in a vicious cycle, but when I finished it I was smiling like an idiot. It's not a challenging book in that it makes you think or makes you cry (too much), but it's just so darn cute, and you can't help but love the characters.

The past few books I've read I've managed to find flaws in, and I was beginning to worry that I wasn't enjoying books as much as I used to. However, this novel restored my faith. It is literally flawless, and if you haven't read it yet, you're missing out! It doesn't matter if you're a sci-fi or nonfiction fan--go out and buy/borrow this book, and I can guarantee you'll find yourself sucked into the story in no time.

(When you finish this book, there's a companion to it titled Lola and the Boy Next Door, which I plan on reading soon. You can find Char's review of it here!)

(Also, I'm currently reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo, which is about 1500 pages long, so if I don't post anything else for a while, I wish you all Happy Holidays! :D)

Review: Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

Summary: Guy Montag is a fireman. In his world, where television rules and literature is on the brink of extinction, firemen start fires rather than put them out. His job is to destroy the most illegal of commodities, the printed book, along with the houses in which they are hidden.

Montag never questions the destruction and ruin his actions produce, returning each day to his bland life and wife, Mildred, who spends all day with her television “family.” But then he meets an eccentric young neighbor, Clarisse, who introduces him to a past where people didn’t live in fear and to a present where one sees the world through the ideas in books instead of the mindless chatter of television.

When Mildred attempts suicide and Clarisse suddenly disappears, Montag begins to question everything he has ever known. He starts hiding books in his home, and when his pilfering is discovered, the fireman has to run for his life.

I know I've become somewhat ancient on here, but I finally decided to post a review on here again! - Marissa.

Review: Wow. I am speechless. This book has left me thinking about so many things in new ways. How often do you come across a book that literally changes your way of looking at life? A better question would be, how often do you read a book that changes your way of looking at life and makes you want to do better? This is one of those books. Just yesterday I was talking to my mom about this book and how similar the society is to to ours. I mean, how often can you find a book that is just so good that it sparks conversations so easily? This is a book that really makes you think. 

Now, through my experience, there has only been one other book that has had this effect on me. And that book is The Book Thief. Ever since the day I finished that book, I've held it on a pedestal. Any time i read another book, I would try to see if it would surpass it, but nothing ever did. After finishing this book, I can safely say that this comes in a close tie with The Book Thief. 

Needless to say, this book was wonderful. I can't use my words to express any more of my feelings towards this book. I recommend this book to everyone. I know that this is one of those books that will stick with me for a long time, maybe even forever. But let me warn you before you do start reading this book, keep this question lingering in your head "Are we moving in the same direction as them?".

**A little side note**(Also I might as well add this in because of my great English teacher this year. This is the second book we have read this year and during class he would really leave us thinking differently and every class when we discussed this book really left a big impact on me. For the first time in a long time, I am happy to say I have an English teacher who can finally bring books to life in great ways.)

Review: Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

Summary: The tragic story of the complex bond between two migrant laborers in Central California. They are George Milton and Lennie Small, itinerant ranch hands who dream of one day owning a small farm. George acts as a father figure to Lennie, who is a very large, simple-minded man, calming him and helping to rein in his immense physical strength.

Kim again! Two reviews in one week? I'm on a roll! :)

Review: This was another one of those required readings for my English class. Despite the fact that my English teacher, while trying to teach us about foreshadowing, spoiled the ending for my class before we even opened the book, I still enjoyed it a lot.

As it is with many of the classics, there is a lot of symbolism in this book, and it also says a lot about society back in the 1930's. When you read this book, you can really see how much society has progressed (and is still progressing) since then. Lennie, one of the two main characters who seems to have a mental disability, is ignored or looked down on by many of the other men. The African American stable buck is an outcast, forced to live in the barn instead of sleeping in the warm ranch beds. There is only one female character, the boss's son's wife, and we never even learn her name. It sort of shocked me when I really thought about it, and it made me wonder what people a hundred years from now will think about today's society.

I also found the characters to be quite interesting. I was most intrigued by Lennie, George's friend who struggles with a mental disability. Maybe it's just because I love psychology, but I thought his character was so interesting. He causes trouble at the ranch, killing animals and getting into fights, when he only means well and does not know his own strength. Curley's wife, the one female character mentioned above, was another one of my favorites. She is neglected by her husband at home so she wanders around the ranch and tries to talk to the other men, who ignore her. At first glance, she seems a little whore-ish, but once we learn her backstory and begin to analyze her character a bit, you realize she is just a young woman who wants a friend.

Besides important messages and engaging characters, there are also a couple intriguing plot twists in this story that made me let out a gasp or made my heart stop for a second. This book is a little hard to get "in to," but after a few chapters the plot begins to pick up the pace. Even if classics aren't your thing, I suggest you give Of Mice and Men a chance. I can guarantee you'll be disappointed. I loved this book (although I'm dreading the inevitable essay I'll have to write on it).

Review: Forever... by Judy Blume

 Summary: Katherine and Michael meet at a New Year's Eve party. They're attracted to each other, they grow to love each other. And once they've decided their love is forever, they make love.

It's the beginning of an intense and exclusive relationship, with a future all planned. Until Katherine's parents insist that she and Michael put their love to the test with a summer apart...

Hey everyone! Kim here. I apologize for not posting lately; school has left me with very little reading time, and with finals coming up I doubt it'll change. This week, however, I managed to squeeze in this little romance novel by Judy Blume titled Forever.... Here's my opinion on it.

Review: I'm not one for romance novels; I'd much rather curl up on a couch with a good mystery or action book. But this one sounded interesting,  so I figured I would give it a shot. I remember reading a few of Judy Blume's Fudge books in second or third grade, but I've never read her young adult books, and I was very disappointed. The only good thing about this book is the story. I'm not a fan of the writing at all; I swear to god, I've never seem so many ellipses in my life. Each time the character spoke, it seemed like they took a three second pause between every phrase. Here's an excerpt to show you what I mean:

"It's about the summer..." I waited for some reaction from him. "You see...my parents...they arranged..." I sat up. "Oh God...I don't know how to tell you this..."

He opened his eyes and sat up too. "Just say it, Kath. Whatever it is...just say it."

"I've got to go to New Hampshire for seven weeks...my father got me this job at Jamie's camp...they needed an assistant tennis counselor...I said no...I told them to forget it...but they said I have no choice...they're making me go, Michael...but I figure you could drive up at least once, maybe twice, because I'm sure I'll get some time off...and..." I looked over at him. "I know what you're thinking," I said. "that I'm eighteen...that I should be more independent...I should have asserted myself...but, I don't know..." I stopped for a minute. "Say something, will you..."

That's what happened every single time a character spoke. It was nearly unbearable.

On top of the writing, the characters were horribly underdeveloped, as were the sub-plots. Blume covers many sensitive topics in this book, from sex to suicide to sexual orientation to pregnancy, but they were handled very poorly. There was little to no development in subplots that had a lot of potential, and the characters are one-dimensional and unrelatable. I didn't like Katherine that much; she seemed like the stereotypical jealous girlfriend. Pretty early in the story, Katherine tells the reader that her decision for college basically depended on where Michael decides to go, and just...ugh. There are very few things I hate more than clingy girls who let their boyfriends decide their future, especially when there are great opportunities out there for them.

As you read in the summary, this book is about two teenagers, Katherine and Michael, who fall in love and decide to start having sex. Katherine asks Michael to take it slow at first because she wants to wait until she's sure she is ready. However, after a chapter or two, Michael subtly pressures her into it. The sex scenes are pretty graphic (and just plain weird) for a YA book; I was shocked and a little uncomfortable at times. As I kept reading, it began to seem like their relationship was more about sex than love. 

If you're undecided as to whether you want to read this book or not, I'd say don't waste your time. There are more cons than pros to this novel.

Happy Halloween!

Sorry for the lack of reviews, and posts in general. We've all been very busy with high school.

Hope your holiday is fun!