The Future of Us

Recently I started reading the Future of Us by Jay Asher, deciding to since I really enjoyed reading Thirteen Reasons Why over the summer.

First off let me start by saying if you read Thirteen Reasons Why and liked it, that doesn't necessarily mean you should read the Future of Us. While the former book deals with the topic of suicide and the motives for a girl who committed it, so far the Future of Us has been light hearted and honestly not as grabbing as I would of expected.

This book is set in 1996, and Emma has just gotten an aol disk for her computer. However, when she opens it up it automatically logs her onto Facebook, which of course hasn't been invented yet. The premise is that Emma and her friends are able to see some 30 years into their futures, and because of this are starting to base their actions off of things they've seen that they don't want to happen.

While interesting at first, honestly I don't think that this is enough of an idea to base a book around. Yes, it's exciting that they can do this, but some 200 pages of it? I honestly don't want to hear about how Emma used to eat macaroni as comfort food but then because she was feeling bad that night when her dad made it for her she no longer eats it in the future. There's no real imminent danger, nothing interesting happening.

I can probably guess what happens in the rest of the book from having read about 70 pages in so far. I'm going to say that Emma and her friends end up trying too hard to change their futures and get into some sort of trouble, but then they all sort it out eventually and resolve their problems by no longer having access to Facebook. They go about the rest of their lives having learned to live in the moment, and not look so far ahead into the future that they can't see what's going on now.

I don't think I'm going to be finishing this book.

Jane Eyre

Have you ever read the modern retelling of a classic novel? I have. I read Jane by April Linder. This is the modern retelling of the classic story Jane Eyre. Finally, after knowing the story, I tackled the 550 page book. I have read other classic novels, but this one I liked reading better. It wasn't because of the story, I like all the classic novels I have read, (they must be good to be around for so long), but I liked reading Jane Eyre because I already knew the story. Sometimes when I was reading Sense and Sensibility for example, I got very lost in the old fashioned style writing. By reading the modern retelling first, I already knew what was going to happen so by looking up the words I didn't know, I could get the gist of what the author was describing. This way, I could focus more on the story and compare the differences between the two without having Charlotte Bronte's style of writing be the main factor in the equation. I really enjoyed Jane Eyre for that reason. It was much easier to get through, knowing what would happen next and knowing that the boring spots would eventually resolve into something better.

One thing I didn't like about the story was St. John Rivers. I really disliked his character because of what he thought Jane was. He thought Jane, who was a declared "sister" would happily marry him and move to India without even knowing more about her. He never asked about Mr. Rochester, and never even thought for one second that she would say no. He also seemed very dry compared to Mr. Rochester and the fact that Jane considered going to India to me is just inconsiderable, and an outright atrocious idea.

House Rules

After being thoroughly impressed by Jodi Picoult's Nineteen Minutes, I decided to read House Rules as well and enjoyed it just as much.

House Rules stars an eighteen year old autistic boy named Jacob, who is struggling to make his way through a world of people who do not think like him nor understand how to interact with him. As typical of Picoult's books, along with Jacob she explores the points of views of his mother, his fifteen year old brother, a police officer, and Jacob's lawyer.

The plot of House Rules starts to kick up when Jacob's social skills teacher, Jess, is found dead in her dorm room. Because of the fact that the last person noted to have seen her was Jacob, Jacob gets called into court and accused for the murder of Jess.

What I found most unique about this book was that because of Jacob's aspbergers syndrome, he cannot relate to others socially or emotionally, has to keep to a strict routine to stay sane, and will take everything said to him extremely literally. For example, if someone were to tell Jacob to "take a seat", he would assume that they meant for him to pick up a chair and take it with him. This creates difficulties for him and his family in the legal system, which comes into play throughout the book.

I also really enjoyed Jodi Picoult's attention to detail. You can tell that she obviously did a lot of research to write this book, whether it was about the legal system, autism, and how autism affects loved ones who aren't diagnosed. All of her background research really made the story more authentic and made you believe in it, and of course her realistic and unique characters added to it as well.

Again, Jodi Picoult's books are more challenging to read than teen novels due to the subject matter and length of her stories, however I would recommend this book to anyone who is up to the challenge.

Kill shot

After finishing my book American Assassin by Vince flynn I started and finished his second prequal, Kill Shot. kill shot starts off with Mitch rapp scouting out a hotel room to kill his next target. Once he sneaks in he realizes that it was an ambush. He kills off most except or one. He escapes the building after being shot in the shoulder. The terroist who survived kills 3 innocent civilians. Rapps handler and Hurley think that mitch was the one who killed them. So for the entire book it is hurley sending men trying to kill rapp. This book was written in the same style as American assassin, however I thought this book was much better than the first.

Among the Free

I just finished reading Among the Free by Margaret Peterson Haddix. This is the last book,(book 7) in the shadow children series. In this book Luke Garner, an illgeal 3rd child, is volenteering for the population police because they would only give people food if one family member worked for the population police. Luke is seperated from his family and he needs to survive. Luke is a stable boy, the lowest rank, where all they do is tend to the horses. One day during expection a high ranked population police officer comes buy and takes three boys to help hand out new ID's to everyone. Luke gets chosen and has to go to Chiutza with one other boy. The first house Luke goes to is an elderly womens. She refuses to go to the gathering to get the new ID's. She is sentenced to death by Luke's supervisor and is to be killed at the meeting to show everyone why you can't disobey the popultion police. Right before the gereral is about to shoot her his phone rings so he gives the gun to luke and tells him to shoot her. Luke panics and drops the gun and runs away. He lives in the woods and meets groups of people that don't like the population police. The last group he meets takes him and others to the population police headquaters where there was an uprising and the people had taken over. On the second day of the uprising things start to go bad. One person in the crowd says how 3rd children are to blame and everyone belives him. What was a hatred of the population police changed very quickly to a hatred of 3rd children. The next day Luke thought of a very good plan to sabotage the population police. He gets on his favorite horse and makes her jump onto the stage because no one was alowed on the stage unless they were going to say how great the population police were and how bad 3rd children were. When Luke got on stage he told his entire life story and that he was a 3rd child. He reviled information about the leader of the population police and scared him so much that he left. The government was back in the hands of the people and 3rd children were now free! I really liked this book and the whole series. Luke is only 13 and has to go though so much and changes the world. It is a very intriguing series and you wont be able to put it down. I would recomend it to anyone that likes a good series.

Rendezvous with Rama

I just finished reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke. This book is about an alien spacecraft that comes into the solar system. At first, we think it is an asteroid, but we then discover that it is a perfect cylinder and go to investigate it more. We send the spaceship Endeavor (a different one) to the ship, but they only have a few weeks to work on it before they will have to abandon it because it will go too close to the sun and because it will leave the solar system. When they go down inside, they find that it is completely dead, most likely because their recycling system didn't work efficiently enough to sustain them. Still, they do a lot of exploring, including trying to figure out why there is no life there anymore, especially since the atmosphere is actually breathable for humans. But after a few days of exploring, the ship suddenly comes to life and everyone is forced to consider what is happening. Eventually, small creatures start to populate the ship, but none capable of being the builders. Throughout this process, time is ticking away, and Endeavor will soon have to leave. Near the end of the book, the people of Mercury decide to send up a missile to destroy Rama, the name of the alien ship, because it could easily threaten their well being as it could probably destroy their planet or do other bad things, but the crew of the Endeavor decides to disable the missile because blowing up Rama could trigger an inter-stellar war which could be disastrous for humans. At the end of the book, Rama ends up using the sun to get a boost of speed to get to their ultimate goal which will never be known by humans. Overall, this was a very well written book and comparable with his other series A Space Odyssey. It is interesting how Arthur Clarke uses a lot of small details to really paint a picture in the readers mind of not only what it looked like, but also what it felt like to be going though. I would recommend this book to any science fiction fan, especially those who enjoyed the Space Odyssey series, though I would also recommend this book to pretty much everyone else because it was a short read, but it still had a very good plot, good character developing, and a lot of details.

Executive Power

I am currently reading Executive Power by Vince Flynn. It is an interesting book that is part of a series that centers around Mitch Rapp, an assassin who works for the CIA. In this book, two plots are occurring as I am reading right now. In Flynn's books, this is usually the case for a portion of each story. First of all, a covert operation to rescue a family that was taken hostage while on vacation in the Philippines goes wrong and two of the soldiers involved in the operation are killed, and two more are injured. Mitch Rapp and his boss at the CIA, Irene Kennedy, find out that the mission was compromised by two government officials who couldn't keep their mouths shut. Mitch is fuming about this, as his usual distrust of politicians is fueled by this unfortunate incident. Also, the other plot that is going on at the same time centers around an assassin from the Middle East who has killed an important Iraqi general and is working for some very important people, like a rich prince who wants to see Israel destroyed. The reader know the assassin only by the name of "David".
So far, I have enjoyed the book, and there has already been a good amount of action and suspense. I hope the author ties the two plots together sooner rather than later, because that usually makes the book more interesting for me. Also, I think this book touches on something very important: keeping secrets. Vince Flynn has demonstrated before in this series what can potentially happen if politicians decide to talk about things that they shouldn't be talking about. This can lead to the deaths of people out in the field, whose lives may depend on the fact that nobody knows about the operation that shouldn't know about the operation. Overall, this has been a good read so far and I would recommend this book (and the rest of the books in the series) to anyone who enjoys books about espionage, assassins, and political scandal.

The Knife Of Never Letting Go

If you’re looking for an engrossing action mystery set in a post-apocalyptic world than look no further than The Knife Of Never Letting Go. Written by Patrick Ness, The Knife is a spectacular example of balanced creativity, premise, and mystery. Ness grips his readers with The Knife, a bold beginning to the Chaos Wallking Trilogy. Though the book begins quietly enough, in seemingly ordinary Prentisstown, the home of almost-a-man, Todd Hewitt, it quickly picks up the pace and reaches its heart-racing, explosive ending.

Todd Hewitt can’t wait until he becomes a man. He has lived 12 years of 13 months each in his isolated village, Prentisstown, made up of only men since the Spackle released a vicious disease, which killed all the women, including Todd’s mother.  Only a month from his birthday, Todd’s life is uninterrupted farm life, until Todd learns a shard of Prentisstown’s murky past and is forced to flee Prentisstown. However soon, Prentisstown is hunting Todd.

Patrick Ness combines creativity, emotion, mystery, and action in The Knife of Never Letting Go. Ness skillfully balances many tricky components of his story flawlessly. He not only establishes a new world, filled with realistic tensions, habits, and relationships, but also mirrors plausible relationships that cause his characters and his readers to question the limits of humanity. On top of this, Ness blends themes of innocence, maturity, and humanity in The Knife’s haunting plot. Even with this long list of attributes, I found The Knife Of Never Letting Go’s plot a little slower to begin than I would have liked. Written in the 1^st person, The Knife Of Never Letting Go can also be an adjustment to read as Ness underlies Todd’s limited education by spelling many words incorrectly.

I find the The Knife Of Never Letting Go is a promising read for readers, who are not put off by the book’s length, 479 pages, and looking for an exciting adventure story. 

Everything That Rises Must Converge

I recently finished reading the short story Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O’Connor. It takes place in the 1960’s not too long after bus integration in a southern city. The story covers a short period of time, probably no more than half an hour, of a mother and her grown up son trip from their house to downtown.

 The bulk of the story develops inside of the bus as the main characters observe the different individuals that share their ride and react to them. Mother and son have opposing views to integration and civil rights. The mother grew up in a plantation, though she is poor now, and sticks to the old practices. The son, a want to be writer, sees himself as progressive and open minded.

            The author follows both characters but focuses mostly on the feelings of the son who is ashamed of his mother’s patronizing tone to the African-American riders. In the short period of time, we see all the different characters, not just the mother and son, acting meanly and selfishly towards each other, which prevents the reader from sympathizing with any of them.  Ms. O’Connor does a great job describing the essence of characters with just a few reactions to what is going on.

             Although this story is contemporary to To Kill A Mockingbird, it feels very different. In this short story there are no heroes, no one to look up to, and no one with redeeming qualities.

            I would recommend this story to anyone interested in understanding the problems of integration in the South and very good writing.

The Last Song

Recently I took a break from Gone With The Wind, and read The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks. It is about a rebellious girl, Ronnie, from New York. Her parents are divorced and her dad lives in North Carolina. She hasn't really kept in contact with him, and slightly hates him. This changes when she must go stay with him for the summer with her little brother. They soon have a better relationship as Ronnie forms a relationship with Will. Ronnie and Will fall in love with each other, and with Will around Ronnie likes to be with her family much more. As the summer continues, Ronnie's dad is making a stain glass window for a church that was burned down. Steve, Ronnie's dad, thinks it was his fault, when it was really the fault of one of Will's friends. This book makes you want to cry when Ronnie learns that Steve has cancer and is dying. Will is supportive and helps Ronnie and her brother through his death. This is a very good book, but very predictable.

Wind Tamer

I recently finished this book and actually sort of liked it, except for the fact that it was sort of slow and hard to understand in the beginning. I don't think I recomend this book though. The basic plot was about a boy who has to remove a family curse, and it is very predictable! If didn't have to read for school I wouldn't have read this book which is a good inductor to wether or not I really did or did not like the book.

The Knife of Never Letting Go (Post #2)

I have continued to read The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness. It's a good book, but it includes very strange futuristic fiction details. The author purposefully misspelled certain words to show that the main character, Todd, can't read or write very well. This was a creative technique, however it was a little annoying how he only did it for "tion" (direkshun) and he used "yer" instead of your. It was confusing because there were other extravagant words that he would use.
The story plot picks up its pace as I have continued to read. It was a little slow-moving at first but while reading, you could tell it would pick up the pace later, as it has. Patrick Ness writes good relationships between characters. The main character, Todd, has lost his traveling partner who he has grown to love, Viola. He is growing sick and he and his dog Manchee have set off to find her. I hope to finish the book soon and find out what happens.

The Scorch Trials

Moodle Entry:

April 29, 2012

Pages 169-362- The Scorch Trials

The Scorch Trials continues to provide suspense to the reader.  The horror continues for the Gladers in this sequel.  Molten steel balls kill characters in the book.  Deaths also continue from the Flare.  The author enters characters that try to befriend the main character Thomas.  As the reader, I remained perplexed on whom to trust.  I can’t imagine how Thomas felt.  Survival in this crazy plot kept me intrigued with the novel.  The main characters Thomas and Teresa were tested on their trust and friendship.  Throughout the novel it seems like characters survival depended on their intelligence and instinct.  The author leaves the ending open to the reader’s imagination.  This writing style keeps you fascinated and eager to read the next novel in the series.

Although this is a fiction, some of the events can be correlated to decisions we make in real life.  Thomas went with his instincts on Teresa.  I believe that I demonstrate this same behavior in real life.  I also relate survival in sports to what Thomas faced.  You can’t think about things to long or you will over think a situation and make mistakes.  Although I would never relate the life or death situations faced by the characters in this book, there are some concepts and reactions that parallel what I go through as a young adult.  

i'm currently reading the book Mockingjay by Suzzane Collins, and so far its way better then the second one. Mockingjay is the third book in the series and so far isnt as good as the first but still better then the second. what i really like about Suzzane Collins writing in this story is that the emotions are really realistic for the situation that are brought up for the main character. In this story there is a lot of intensity; a lot to take in for a teenage girl. Now in the movies if a girl were to encounter a situation like one in the book, she would cry about it and move on, like nothing had happened. But in this book Suzzane Collins really makes realistic motions for the main character, like her wanting to hide all the time, and her not fallowing anything everyone tells her to. 

The Pentagon Papers

I read the first hundred pages of the Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were a collection of documents assembled by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara containing secret information about the the Vietnam War and the United State's involvement in it. This included secret political, economic, and military decisions made by several administrations. The first hundred pages scrutinized the US's political and military decisions and compared them with the agreements made in the Geneva Accords of 1954 simply to show how the US flouted the Geneva Accords. First, it discussed paramilitary operations; the military had sent a navy Seals group to South Vietnam to first train South Vietnamese people to conduct secret operations and then secondly to wage pyschological war on North Vietnam to devastate the North Vietnamese trust in their communist government. This flouted an agreement prohibiting direct involvement in the Indochina region from Western countries made in the Geneva Accords. Then, it also discussed President Eisenhower's opinion on the Geneva Accords; Eisenhower identified it as a huge defeat and a massive forward stride of communism, which accounts for his authorization of paramilitary operations.

So far, I think the book is great. It's very intriguing because it divulges secret information that is not included in the textbooks. I also liked the book because it zoomed forward even though it was nonfiction. The authors' writing styles were direct and clear, so it was easy to understand; I could extract the information and then race off through the pages. Also, the authors didn't dwell on events or smother them in thorough detail, which accelerated the book and made it much easier and more enjoyable to read.

The book prompted me to contemplate where the line should be drawn on how much information the government can keep from the people of the USA. I know that some information is so important that the government has to keep it from the public. However, the people of the United States pay their taxes and elect politicians into office; as a result, they deserve to know some of that secret information. Also, my reading has hauled my mind to a shocking revelation: the government's ability to keep information can corrupt them and cause them to not serve the interests of the people. For example, American citizens may not want a war in the Middle-East, but the government can conduct secret operations in the Middle-East with Navy-Seals but with their power to keep things secret can conceal these operations from public knowledge. Therefore, they are not fulfilling the interests of the American people and are therefore sliding the power from the people to the few government individuals in the Executive Branch, but the power belongs to the people. 

However, I still have faith in our government and I refuse to believe that our government would ever deviate from their task to serve the American people's interests.

Overall, this was a great book and I recommend it to people who are interested in history and who possess a strong interest that can endure throughout the entire 500 page book.

My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Life, Love and Laughing Out Loud.

My Life as a Furry Red Monster: What Being Elmo Has Taught Me About Live, Love and Laughing Out Loud by Kevin Clash is a very good and education book about being Elmo.
This book is written by Kevin Clash who is the puppeteer of Elmo, this book is about how being Elmo has changed his life and how he looks at life. This is a somewhat serious book but it also can be funny at some points. If you have ever seen or watched Elmo you HAVE to read this book!

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

The book, When You Reach Me, is about a Girl named Miranda who lives in New York with her mom. I am not very far into the book yet, but her mom recently received a letter giving her a chance to be on a game show called  $20,000 Dollar Pyramid. She has been preparing constantly, and once in a while her boyfriend, Richard helps. Miranda has also been talking about "you" and how she is ordered to do certain things through post cards. The book is very confusing, but that may be because I have not gotten very far in the book. If you are looking for a book to really concentrate with, and with lots of mystery, it is a perfect book. The mysteries are very interesting and it is fun to figure things out. All in all the book is really good and I am very excited to finish. 

Scientific American Magazine

I know I have been reading a lot of magazines lately but it better than reading a book. So Scientific American... Epic! Serious, it was given to me by my grandfather and It has been my way to express my inner science nerd. For example, in this months issue of Scientific American, they explored what might be an agreement in quantum physics between the theory of relativity, and the quantum realm. It is thin and much other stuff that makes it so interesting to read. In fact, it also brings up debates in the scientific community and leaves you to leave your opinion on the subject. Really, a brilliant magazine and I would recommend it to anyone really.

The School of Essential Ingredients

I just recently finished reading, The School of Essential Ingredients I by Erica Bauermeister. The reason I started reading this book was because Annelise Ellingboe talked about this book right before we went on Spring Break. I decided this would be a great time to read it! This book is about a cooking class in Lillian’s Restaurant. Multiple people come to her class once a week on a monday night to learn how to cook basics. Each chapter or so is based on a different persons point of view and experiences in the class. One scenario that I really enjoyed was about the couple that looked as though to be extremely happy. Once you start to learn about them and how they are actually feeling you realize how unhappy they are in the relationship. I personally loved this book because I love to cook and the sensory details are wonderful. The only problem I found with the book is that it makes me super hungry! I really enjoyed learning what the people in the class are like and what their life is like. The textures and smells of all the foods she describes are absolutely wonderful. I commend Ms. Bauermieister on writing a cookbook like novel that was a wonderful read. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes to cook or just simply likes to eat! 

CHERUB: The Dealer

I recently finished the second CHERUB book and it was really good. It started out a little slow unlike the first book, but it sped up rather quickly. Everyone gets along well with everyone who they were assigned to get information from, except for Kerry who is having a difficult time. She wishes to change her target because she believes that a boy she knows called Dinesh may know something. At a party the kids from CHERUB get caught and the leader of the mission believes that they might have been doing illegal drugs. Kyle had a drug, but since it was a class C drug he was only kicked out of the mission. Nicole however was caught taking a class a drug so she was kicked out of CHERUB. Eventually James is invited to go with Junior and his family who is really high up in the hierarchy of KMG. An opposing criminal group attacks them while they are on their vacation in the US. Eventually the leader of KMG is captured, but his sentence is lessened because he sold some people out. This book was just as good as the first one. I would highly recommend that everyone reads it.

The Art of Racing in the Rain

I am now reading The Art of Racing in the Rain,  by Garth Stein. The story still goes back and forth between years. So far Denny has gotten married to Eve and they have had a daughter named Zoe. At first Enzo didn't like Eve very much because he saw how Denny looked at her, and he knew that Denny would never love a dog as much as a human. As the story goes on Enzo and Eve have bonding moments and it is Enzo's job to always protect Zoe. I really like how Garth Stein wrote the book because as you read you hear Enzo's thoughts. He talks about how in his next life he will be a human, have thumbs and be able to everything he has always wanted to do but couldn't. When you are reading Enzo's thoughts he talks about how he knows, understand, but can not communicate. As you read it make you feel frustrated for him. Overall this is a very good story and I would highly recommend this book for a good read.

Lockdown Escape from Furnace

Just this afternoon I  finished reading Lockdown by Alexander Smith. I'm not even sure what to talk about first. This book was by far one of my all time favorites! I have always craved an action packed, unpredictable, engaging read and that is the definition of this book. I'm not quite sure how the author does it, but Smith uses such great suspension techniques to keep the reader engaged throughout the whole 273 pages of his book. In english class recently, we have been discussing how to incorporate sensory details and imagery into short poems and I noticed that in this book Smith uses an abundance of sensory details and imagery throughout the whole novel, keeping me interested in both the plot and his writing. Another reason that I think I enjoyed this book is due to the great character development of the main character in the story, Alex. Smith adds so many different layers and dimensions to Alex's personalty that make reading the book from his (1st person) point of view different from any other book. At the beginning of the book I disliked Alex, but by the end of the story I was fond of him and found myself siding with him as well. All in all, I would ABSOLUTELY recommend this book to any action, thrill seeking reader. (Note: the book is a bit gory at some points and can also be slightly disturbing)

The Lucky One

I read the The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks. It's about a marine named Logan who finds a picture of a women while in Iraq. The picture brings him good luck and somewhat saves his life, so he decides to find the women when he gets home. Surely, after he's done serving in Iraq, he finds her at a dog training house, where she lives. He decides not to tell her about the picture, and just applies for a job as a dog trainer. Throughout the story, Logan and Elizabeth, the lady in the picture, fall in love. Of course, it wouldn't be a Nicholas Sparks book if there wasn't some drama and conflict. So, Keith, Elizabeth's ex-husband finds out about Logan and his picture and decides to tell Elizabeth. Elizabeth gets emotional because she gave the picture to her brother, who was also a marine, and wanted the picture to bring him good luck, not Logan. Elizabeth and Logan separate for a while, but at the end get back together for a happy ending. I love Nicholas Sparks books, but they all have a similar plot and are generally about the same things. So, The Lucky One was very predictable in what was going to happen. Other than that, I recommend this book a lot. Once you start reading it, it's hard to put it down.

I recently read Five Little Pigs, by Agatha Christie. I won't provide any background information on the author because I've mentioned it in my first two posts on books written by her. This book stars the petit Belgian detective Hercule Poirot - he is hired by a young woman to investigate her mother's imprisonment - from 16 years ago. Basically, the mother supposedly murdered her husband after he was having an affair with a young woman, but she wrote a letter to her daughter shortly before dying, (to be opened upon her daughter's 21st birthday) claiming she was innocent. The reason the title is part of a famous nursery rhyme is because there are five suspects that Hercule investigates (besides the deceased Mrs. Caroline, the supposed muderer), and with each of them he tries to find the phrase that fits - e.g. the well-off, slightly plump, jovial man, Mr. Phillip, is this little pig went to the market. However, I'm not even halfway through the book. In this time, Poirot has only questioned 2.5 people, which still leaves a lot of unknowns. As for recommendations, I would just repeat what I've written for all my other posts on this author, so simply find an older one. However, this book is losing its appeal to me. Why, you may ask? Well, to put it simply, I've read 5 books by this author in about a month and a half, and I've basically become fed up, because each book is more of the same - somebody dies, Poirot questions a bunch of people, then with his unprecedented detective skills, reveals the person who you least suspect to be the criminal as the criminal. Some authors, I can read their books for an unfathomable eternity (ahem, J.K. Rowling). But alas, some, like this one, I cannot. So, if you find yourself to be a person who often times finds himself reading series, I suggest you take breaks when reading Agatha Christie.

Soul Surfer

I recently read the autobiography Soul Surfer written by Bethany Hamilton. It's about Bethany who lives in Hawaii with her family. She explores her passion of surfing each and every day. She places in  many competitions, and surfs all the time. One day she is with her best friend Alana, Alana's dad, and Alana's brother. One Halloween morning in Kauai, Hawaii Bethany is attacked by a shark and is rushed to the hospital. Her arm was severed off by the shark, and she know has to learn how to live with the challenge of having one arm. As she gets familiar with having one arm she wonders if she'll ever be able to surf again. She tries every single day and cant dive under the waves with her bord. Her dad manages to put a handle on her bord so that she can. She then becomes the surfer she was again, and isn't pulled back by anything. This book shows how something very tragic can happen yet one can still do everything if they put the effor into it. Although she had to make some adjustments to her life she still tried as hard as she could to pursue what she wanted to. Bethany has great determination, courage, and faith throughout the story.

Lord of the Flies

I am currently reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding.  Were I last left off Simon, Jack and Ralph had just decided to walk up to the highest point of the Island to find out if it actually is an Island and to see if anyone lives on it.  I liked the authors technique of calling the Island an Island even before we even knew it was an Island.  This foreshadowing made us know that the trip would be for nothing.  The boys return from the walk to tell the others that they could see know people on the island and that it is in fact an island.  The idea of rescue is brought up.  The boys decided that to make sure that all ships see them they will light a fire at the top of the hill.  All of the kids run to the top and make a huge pile of wood.  But, when the pile is made the boys realize that they have nothing to light a fire with, until one of them suggests using Piggy's glasses.  This works, but the fire quickly spreads into the trees and then dies down.  Then Piggy tries to find one young kid but cannot find him.  Then, the boys realize that some boys were still in the woods collecting wood.  This shows the unorganized community that the boys have started.  I predict that what will come next in the book is a small census to keep track of all the kids, and some more rules.  This book is very good so far, and I am excited to continue it.

The Chamber

For this reading check I started reading the book, The Chamber by John Grisham. This book is about a Jewish man who's office gets bombed by klansman in Mississippi. This book is set during the 60s and 70s. One of the things that the klansman describe is the feeling of being invincible and I think that this notion of being invincible was very prominent during this time period. They sort of ruled the country, they controlled who votes, who lives where, and who eats or shops at different places. I am not very far into the book, but like the perspective that Grisham is taking. So far the main character has been the different klansman and not the victim like many other "race" novels have done. It enables the reader to et a different perspective and know both sides of the story. I think that this book definitely confronts racism in a pretty clear way. It is established on the first page. I feel like some books that I have read have jumped around the topic of racism with Grisham I do not feel this. I recommend this book for someone who likes novels from the civil rights era or likes law novels.

Counting on Grace

I recently finished the novel, Counting on Grace, by Elizabeth Winthrop. This book takes place in a Vermont mill town, in the early 1900's. During this time, child labor was very common, so in this book the 12 year old main character, Grace, and her friend, Arthur, are forced to leave school to work in the mill as doffers. Counting on Grace is a realistic book about the hardships during 1910 and how these young children have to work long hours for their families, instead of learning and attending school. Grace struggles, since her job is a left-handed job while she is right-handed, and every mistake costs her family. After she writes a letter to the Child Labor Board, a under-cover famous reformer takes pictures of the children at work for evidence for the Child Labor Board. Elizabeth Winthrop includes vivid descriptions of the mill and how Grace deals with the pressure that is planted upon her at a young age. keeps the reader interested. I recommend this book because it was very good and it keeps the reader interested.

The Hunger Pains

I recently read "The Hunger Pains" by The Harvard Lampoon, a parody of the the widely popular book, "The Hunger Games." It has virtually the same plot as the hunger games, except the Peeta character dies at the end, and the Kato character survives in his place.  Besides this plot change, the only big changes are the names of the characters, for instance Archie instead of Kato, and many other small humorous changes throughout the book. One of my favorites is instead of picking a boy and girl at random to be tributes, there is a massive game of the nose game in each district, and the last boy and girl without their fingers on their noses are the tributes. Humorous but small changes like this are made to keep the book going, and I think it was a fun read. A few other changes I liked were instead of the gamekeepers starting the forest-fire, Katniss, or Kantkiss in the parody, accidentally sets it on fire with a flamethrower she gets. Instead of shooting the apples to blow up the tower of food, Katniss takes a small bite out of every piece of food, and they are so discussed that they blow it all up. Lastly, the biggest change in my opinion was the tone of the arena. In the hunger games, it is very serious and intense, but in the hunger pains, Katniss routinely has conversations with other contenders and even the cameramen at times. I recommend this book to all who have read the hunger games as a fun read.