Blog #77 – What did you read this summer?
I love to read, LUV it. The summer is when I really get a chance to find things that I like and just consume them. I think I read 20 books this summer, an average of almost 3 a week. Here is just a sample of what I read:
1. Everything’s Eventual by Stephen King – Most of you might have heard of Stephen King as the master of the horror genre. He’s got lots of talent besides just making you jump in the middle of the night. He’s also a pretty good short story writer, and this collection here includes an award winner, “The Man in the Black Suit,” (about a boy who is visited by the devil himself), and a really creepy one called “Autopsy Room Four”. I started reading Stephen King back when I was in middle school in the late 70s / early 80s and since last summer, I decided to reread some of his really old stuff to see if it still creeped me out. So far, Salem’s Lot is my favorite – a vampire story.
2. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd – Kidd is the author of a book you may have read or will read later this year called The Secret Life of Bees. In Wings, she tells two stories set in early 19th Century South Carolina: one is of a slave named Hetty “Handful” Grimke who is given as a playmate to the other narrator of the story, Sarah Grimke. Hetty undergoes trial, loss, and other problems as a slave working on a South Carolina plantation, and Sarah, from a very young age, feels that slavery is wrong despite growing up with it all of her life. Sarah tries to free Hetty several times as she gets older, and discovers that Southern women are meant to be seen and not heard. Sarah becomes a real abolitionist near the end of the story as she leaves SC and moves to Philadelphia. Hetty is freed by Sarah to run away when the chance arises.
3.The Martian by Andy Weir – once I heard that this was coming out as a movie this fall starring Matt Damon, I picked it up and I loved it. The main character, Mark Watney, is stranded on Mars after his space mission is doomed by a massive dust storm, and he is separated from the rest of his crew as they leave the planet. Everyone thinks he’s dead, but he is definitely alive and trying to find ways to survive on a planet that has no air, food, and freezing temperatures. The story is part journal written by Watney as he struggles to survive, and the other part of the story is what is happening on Earth and in space to try and get Watney home once they discover he’s alive. I really enjoyed this novel and I think you would too.
Your job: give me a description of a book / graphic novel / manga that you read this summer and really enjoyed. If you’re having trouble picking one, describe a novel, etc. that you really liked that you’ve read within the past year. Your answer should be a minimum of 250 words and is due BY CLASS on Friday, Sept. 18.
I read quite a few books this summer but one of my favorites was “Still Alice” by Lisa Genova. It is a story about a cognitive psychology professor at Harvard University named Alice Howland. At just 50 years old she is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The parallel drawn between her profession and her disease is powerful and moving. One of the first scenes of the book includes Alice performing a linguistics lecture during which time she has a difficult time recalling a key term in the presentation. Throughout the book, readers are able to see the progression of her symptoms. The book is so well written it felt like I was on the journey with her. Being able to relate to the book gave it an entirely different meaning. My great-grandpa was diagnosed with the same disease when I was young. The similarities between the Howards and my family were shocking and heartbreaking. The author clearly depicts each stage in the advancement of her disease. Although it is a deep book about one specific illness, I believe there is something everyone can relate to. The most powerful part of the plot is Alice’s awareness of her disease. Throughout the novel she is conscious of the fact that she is forgetting words and memories but there is nothing she can do to prevent it. Alice feels lost for the majority of the book and there is always another problem she must try to get past. Whether it was her family struggles, work problems or her illness, Dr. Howland showed perseverance and passion for the things that she loved. I believe the message of the story was one that many can learn from. I highly recommend reading this novel.
Something I read this summer that I absolutely loved was America by E.R. Frank. It’s not your typical teen novel about your average girl having small issues deciding which boy to date. It’s an adventure that takes you through the journey of a boy struggling with depression and growing into a better adult. This book is a heart-touching and traumatic story about a biracial 15 year old boy named America struggling with his tragic past. Over the course of three current years and flashbacks, you learn about America’s unfortunate past and learn to love him and feel how he feels.
America’s mother was not the ideal one as she would have one night stands, spend her money on drugs, and was not home much for her six kids. For this reason, America was adopted by a rich family, but was given to the nanny Miss Harper because of his brown skin. Miss Harper, her boyfriend Clark Poignant, and her brother Browning, help raise America in a loving way. One day he is sent to his mother’s apartment in New York to visit but in the wrong twist of events, he end up having to stay. He hates it there is corrupted by his two brothers. As a tool to calm him down and help him remember, he writes Miss Harper’s number. This gets him sent back to her because they found America’s numbers everywhere. Things are different around America’s old home so he must take on new responsibilities. Browning raises him uses crude things to teach him, making America think certain things are okay. This causes more problems in America’s life. Fed up with the disgust of Browning, he kills him and gets sent to a mental hospital, adding on to the too many spiritual wounding events a too young America experienced. That begins America journey through mental hospitals and his downfall into a deep depression. But through the course of the book you get to see him develop into a hopeful and happy adult.
I love this book because it’s different from the normal young adult book. Mental illness is represented well but still shows that there is hope without making it too cheesy or skirting around details. America will make you smile and cry and grow attached to America’s story.
I love to read but I do not read very often. It is very hard for me to find a book that I find very interesting. Although, when I do find the perfect book, I cannot put it down until I have finished it.
This summer, I read a novel you might have heard of before. It is called Forrest Gump written by Winston Groom. Published in 1986, this novel illustrates the life of a southern boy pre and post-Vietnam War era.
Throughout the story we follow the life of Forrest Gump, a boy with a below average IQ, living an above average life.
Forrest is named after General Nathan Bedford Forrest, a soldier during the Civil War. This shows how people felt about the south years after the Civil War had taken place. The book begins with Forrest around the age to start school. The public school board tested and later informed Ms. Gump that Forrest was too dumb to go to regular school. She does what she can to get Forrest enrolled into the public school system. On the first day of school, nobody offered Forrest a seat on the bus, except for Jenny that was. Jenny and Forrest went together like peas and carrots; they were always together. In High School, Forrest used his speed to stand out on the football field. He was later offered a scholarship to play football at the University of Alabama under head Coach Bear Bryant. After college, Forrest decided to enroll in the Army, which later had him deployed to Vietnam. Basically, Forrest was living a not so average life. He went on to win the Medal of Honor, travel to China to play Ping-Pong for team USA, went into space with NASA, was stranded on an island with cannibals, and started a multi-million dollar company known to the public as Bubba Gump Shrimping Co. (not in chronological order).
I’m not really sure why I love this book and the movie so much. It probably has something to do with Forrest being ignored/underestimated by his community and then striving to succeed in literally everything he did in his life.
Personally I didn’t do a lot of reading this summer because I was in France and between losing our visas and visiting family and friends it took me a while to get into a reading mood which didn’t happen everyday and when its summer u usually want to go to the pool but I did read one book. I read paper towns which is about Quentin a guy who fell in love with Margot is next door neighbor as soon as she jumped out of the truck she was traveling in. They became fast friends and spent a lot of time together. But all of that stopped when they found a dead person with blood covering his body. They quickly reported it and Margot who loves mysteries wanted to know what happened but Quentin bent more rational didn’t want to help her so they soon stopped being friends. Margot staying spontaneous and Quentin started to study and get ready to go to college. 10 years later when they were both seniors, they never talked to each other except one night when Margot came to get help from Quentin to get revenge on people who did her wrong. He helped her and the next day after taking with Quentin for a very long time she left. No one knew where she was but they didn’t care because she would always leave then come back. This time was different she hadn’t come back after a week. Quentin started looking for clues because he knew she left clues like a mystery because Margot love mysteries. He looked for her with his friends when they were finally sure of where she was they left to go find her but in the end she wasn’t there. His friends wanted to leave but quentin decided to stay there because he knew Margot was coming. He thought this was going to be his happy ending; him and Margot getting married when he brought her back home like a prince. As soon as they left he realized she wasn’t coming so he decided to find a train but instead he found Margot and found out that this wasn’t a fairy tail he wasn’t gonna get a happy ending with a love story. Margot didn’t want to be saved she wanted to find herself and to know that her parents cared for her. He went home and realized that his fairy tail ending was having fun with his friends than going to college like everyone is supposed to go.
I read this book because I really like John Green novels and I think this is a really good book because it has real sense in it like everyone wants a fairy tail ending but most of them are going to be about going to college and not getting married.
Something I read this summer that I enjoyed was pretty girl-13. This book keeps you guessing and always interested. This book was about a girl that went to camp annually with her friends, but at the age of 13 she was kidnapped. Three years later she was returned back at the end of her street and her life was never the same. During the period she was kidnapped, she developed a multiple personality to survive her kidnapping. Throughout the book she learns how to deal with her personality and uncover the truth of her kidnapping.
I liked this book because it deals with alot of situations people deal with today. For an example a lot of people deal with multiple personality disorders, kidnappings, peer pressure, and feelings of being lost and it was just really nice to see how someone goes through all of these real world scenarios.
This summer I read “Paper Towns,” by John Green! I really enjoyed it, though at times it was a little boring. It is about a girl named Margo who goes missing. At the beginning of the book, Quentin and Margo are on a midnight adventure in which they wrong everyone who has wronged them. This was my favorite part of the book because what they did on the adventure was very funny and clever. One thing they did was leave a fish under a car seat of one of their enemies so it would stink of fish for weeks! The day after the adventure, Margo disappears. Quentin automatically starts looking for her. After this, the book was a little hard to follow for a couple chapters. After the “filler chapters” were over, the book did get better and more interesting. The book becomes quite a page turner because the reader is always wondering what is going to happen and where Margo is. Basically, Quentin goes on a search for her, using clues that he believes she left for him to find. For example, he sees graffiti in a cave somewhere and thinks that it is Margo leading him to her. Quentin and Margo have been friends since elementary school and he believes that he is in love with her. So once she disappears he spends all of his time looking for hints and clues that will lead him to finding her. The book ends as a huge plot twist happens. I was so surprised! Overall, this book was very interesting and I would highly recommend it!
Reading has always been an enjoyable pass time for me, but recently, I have not had much time to do so. One of the most outstanding book I read this summer was C.asino Royale by Ian Fleming. One of the first books in the James Bond series, it is certainly one of the best ones I’ve read. It begins when the head of the British Secret Service, M, calls up James Bond, 007, to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the head of a Soviet spy trade union, in a game of p.oker at a c.asino in Northern France. Bond must go under cover as a Jamaican plantation owner and has to avoid multiple assassination attempts before even facing Le Chiffre in the game. Along the way, 007 receive help from a CIA agent, named Felix Leiter, and an assistant that works at MI6 in London, Vesper Lynd. Bond is able to win the game at take 80 million francs from Le Chiffre. Urgently needing this money back so that he doesn’t get into trouble with the Soviet spies, Le Chiffre kidnaps James Bond and puts him through agonizing torture. Bond is able to escape when a Soviet spy murders Le Chiffre for losing the money in the first place. James then begins to fall in love with Vesper. He believes that he is finally ready to quit the Secret Service and settle down with Vesper when disaster suddenly strikes and ruins everything quickly. Everything Bond believed for the last few months is suddenly flipped upside down.
I enjoyed this novel because I have always been a fan of Ian Flemming’s work and James Bond books and movies. This was my first time reading the book and I liked it mostly because there was frequent action and thrill, and times where there wasn’t were filled with suspense, as you wondered what was coming next. The twists and surprises left me gobsmacked, as James’ cold attitude to everything around him began to really come through at the end of the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books that you can’t put down.I enjoyed this novel because I have always been a fan of Ian Flemming’s work and James Bond books and movies. This was my first time reading the book and I liked it mostly because there was frequent action and thrill, and times where there wasn’t were filled with suspense, as you wondered what was coming next. The twists and surprises left me gobsmacked, as James’ cold attitude to everything around him began to really come through at the end of the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys books that you can’t put down.
Over the summer I read many books, most of them by Sarah Dessen, and I loved all of them. My favorite was probably “The Truth About Forever”. In this novel the main character, Macy, is coming off a hard school year in which she lost her father in a running/car accident. It is now summer and her boyfriend, Jason, has left for camp and she is ready to work at the library during the day and study for her SATs at night. Her mother starts off the summer with a party to preview the houses she is selling. At this party the caterer, Wish Company, ends up needing her help. Macy meets Wes, Kristy, Bert, and Monica, who all work for Wish. She also meets Delia who is the manager. Macy secretly takes on some catering jobs at Wish and her summer starts to change as does she. Her relationship with Jason starts to fail over the course of the summer as her relationship with Wes improves. Macy finds herself in sticky situations with her mother and sister Caroline. All summer Caroline is trying to fix up the old beach house that has been unattended since their father died. Their mom is having trouble dealing with the changes in the beach house and in Macy. As summer progresses and slowly comes to a close many more changes arise in Macy’s life regarding relationships. Although one thing is for certain, she loves her job at Wish, but not her job at the library. This book seems to be the generic teen romance, but it is not. It is compelling and I honestly loved it.
(Real Response)!!!!!!!!
Over the summer I read a novel called Paper Towns, by John Green. The book was about a boy named Q who was a senior in high school. Up until this point in his life he hadn’t had anything extraordinary happen. Until a girl named Margo came to his window in the middle of the night and requested his assistance. She needed him to chauffeur her around the town so that she could get payback on a bunch of her friends who had messed with her. They broke into people’s houses, people’s cars, and went all around town running from cops and causing mayhem just so Margo could get back at them. Then Margo disappears seemingly off the face of the earth. No trace. After a few days of Margo missing, Q begins to suspect something. This isn’t the first time she has run away and when she did in the past she would give clues. After adding some pieces up Q discovered the first and only clue that was left for him to find. But it wasn’t the only clue he did find. Instead this one clue that Q found led him to another clue that led him elsewhere and so on. Then, he realized the clues he found around town would lead him to neighboring towns and then across the country on a thirteen hour road trip to the middle of nowhere to “save” Margo. Q suspected Margo was depressed and had given up and was going go to the middle of nowhere to commit suicide and have a trail of clues for Q to follow and find her. When Q got to the place he found Margo. Except he got two things wrong. The clues he followed weren’t left for anybody to find, he just dug deep enough and followed her. He also was wrong about Margo and how she didn’t want to hurt herself, she just planned to run away to New York.
An amazing book that I read over the summer was a book about Louis Zamperini: Unbroken. This book is a biography and tells Lou’s life story. The book starts out with Lou’s early life in Torrance, California. Lou is a little trouble maker as a child: stealing things, causing mischief. As a result of this behavior, he was often chased by the older boys he liked to mess with. Thus, Lou learned to run. Fast. Lou had two sisters and one older brother: Virginia, Sylvia, and Pete. Pete saw some way to potentially pull Lou out of the downward spiral that he was heading into: track. Pete was a respected boy in Torrance, played many varsity sports and was overall loved by the town. So Pete took it upon himself to help his little brother. Pete made Lou run for miles and miles every day. Eventually, Lou made the track team. Fast forward a few years and you’ll see Louis Zamperini in the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. Fast forward another few years and you’ll see Louie fighting in World War ll alongside his comrades in the Air Force. Flying back to base after an air raid, Japanese fighters shoot down Louie’s plane. Only Louie and two others survive the initial crash. Unfortunately, one of the three men to initially survive the crash, Mac, dies during the 47 days that Louie, Mac and Phil endured. Eventually, Phil and Lou are “rescued” by the Japanese and are sent to a POW camp. I don’t want to give too much away, so I’ll end with this: the story Unbroken is an amazing illustration of the life of louis Zamperini as it shows his determination to survive and thrive after the war and everyone should read this amazing book.
In the past year, I read the book the Maze Runner by James Dashner. The Maze Runner is about a boy who found himself in a community where there were only boys. Thomas couldn’t remember anything about himself or his past. All he knows is his name.
Thomas later finds out by the leader of the community, Alby, that all the boys in this community are trapped. None of them know how they got there or how to get out. Like Thomas, none of them had memories from their past. Alby also told Thomas that there was a maze that stopped their access from the outside world. None of them knew how to find the way out of the maze.
Thomas was also informed that each person in the community had their own job. Some of the boys farmed, others were medical workers, and there was a cook, and a butcher. But, there were some special people who were named “runners”. The runners went out of the protecting walls and out to the maze. The runners had to write down the way that the maze moved, as its walls shifted every night. The runner’ main job was to find a way out of this community.
Thomas was quickly intrigued by the runner’s job. Being a runner was his only thought. At first, the community wouldn’t let him be a runner. It was a difficult job and he would have to be trained for it. He eventually got to be a runner because he had saved the leader, Alby, from the maze and the leader of the runners, Minho, had recommended him.
One day, about two days after Thomas showed up, another person showed up. Which was weird for two reasons. One, a boy came once a month. Two, it was a girl. Apparently, the girl and Thomas had known each other before.
I read this book because I heard so many compliments on it. I really enjoyed the book because of the detail and the story itself. While reading, I went through different emotions from confused, to happy, to sad, to happy again, and much more.
This summer I read a book called, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. This book wasn’t your average novel. It was dark and filled with a lot of sadness. The book is about a young girl named Jeanette (the author) who has a pretty tough unordinary life. Her parents are running from something that she just quite can’t ever figure out. She also has two siblings a brother and a sister, Brian and Lori. They travel around in different cars that they buy from different auto shops here and there and when those cars get old they pawn them off and use the money to buy a new one. They usually sleep in the middle of nowhere on the ground or in the car. They are completely broke so they earn money by their dad working in mines or little on the side jobs until he gets fired, which usually happens, then they are broke all over again. If they do live anywhere it’s in really crappy for closure where there are no beds or nothing. Along with all the financial trouble she has even bigger family issues. Her parents treat her very poorly. If she gets hurt they stand by and do nothing. If they end up doing something after they get hurt they usually just put a bandage on it and send them back out to play even if it is gushing blood and they do need stitches. Her parents just weren’t the ideal parents. So the book pretty much talks about how she got to the point of her being a writer and what makes her so good is that she told her story even if it was pretty gruesome.
I’ve always loved to read, but lately I haven’t read quite as much as I would like to. One of my favorites that I’ve read recently is called The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I’ve read it a few times since I first read it, but every time I enjoy it just as much as the last. It begins with a freshman boy named Charlie. He isn’t a popular student; he doesn’t have any friends going into his first year of school. A senior named Patrick, and his stepsister Sam befriend him. They assist Charlie in getting to know and accept who he is as a person, something he hadn’t been able to do in his life very well. They bring him into a group of accepting friends, who care dearly for him. He is what they call a “wallflower”. This means he is the type of person who sees a lot, who listens and understands many things, but says nothing about them. He is very wise for his age, and the concept of being a wallflower is one I connect with very closely. I relate to Charlie an immense amount in how he feels misunderstood, how he stands by and watches things, but hardly ever ends up in the middle of any of it. I feel that this happens to me, but when I do find myself in the middle of an intense situation, I tend to crack under the pressure. Charlie does the same at a point in the book, and his emotions throughout the novel are very relatable for me, making it an enjoyable read. I would recommend this book to anyone, even if they might have seen the movie and not enjoyed it, because the movie simply doesn’t do this book justice.
While I normally do spend a large amount of time reading over the summer I was a lot busier than normal and wasn’t able to get around to reading as much as I would have liked. One rather short novel I did get around to reading was actually by Steven King, and it was The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon. I don’t have much to compare this to in regard of Kings other works as the only other book I have read by him is Carrie. I do however own a copy of Everything’s Eventual and will definitely try and get around to reading it. As for The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, it was a bit more about psychological terror than I would have liked, but I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it. It was about a nine-year old girl by the name of Trisha McFarland who makes the bad decision to wander off the path while on a hike with her family to pee. After hopelessly wandering around in the woods she finally comes to terms with the fact that she is lost and decides to settle down until someone finds her the next day with the few items she has with her, including a bottle of water, two twinkies, a sandwich, a Gameboy, and a walkman. Of course no one comes to her rescue the next day. Or for the next nine days after. While Trisha tries to survive on what little knowledge she has her only connection to civilization is listening to baseball games on her Walkman for as long as the battery lasted. She loses track of time and comes down with pneumonia which is when the hallucinations begin and all of Trisha’s fears are revealed. Steven King really does a great job with making you think about this novel and its ending and many people have interpreted it in multiple ways.
This summer I read a trilogy of books that I loved. I adore books and I feel that I am just too busy during the school year to really read one and enjoy it, which is why I love summer. I wanted to read more than I did but I still got to read quite a few. The one I would love to talk about is The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. I was in love with the book because I feel that the writer really knows teenagers and because of this allowed me to really connect and identify with different parts of the book. This book is told from the point of view of Belly Conklin, aka Isabel Conklin. Her parents are divorced but she lives with her mom, Laurel, and she has one brother, Steven. Every summer her mother, brother, and she go to Beck’s summerhouse in Cousins. Beck is Laurels forever friend and they have known each other since they were girls. Beck goes brings her two sons, Jeremiah and Conrad Fisher. Beck’s husband works in the city and only comes up on select weekends. This summer Belly finally feels like a girl, and not just one of the guys, which they seem to notice as well ;). Ever since she was a little girl she has been in love with Conrad, but he has never given her the time of day. Belly has decided if Conrad doesn’t feel the same after this summer, she’s moving on, and not coming back. While all this is happening, Jeremiah is starting to fall for Belly. The two boys are finally put to the test and battle it out for Belly’s love, literally; whom will she choose? To summarize this book, I would say that this book focuses on Belly finding herself as a young woman and navigating a complicated love triangle between two boys who both have her heart.
I’ve been very busy this summer. From hiking in Philmont, New Mexico, to piano at Blue Lake, I’ve been really strapped for time. Despite all the running around and travels, I still found time to re-read one of my favorite novels (and movie) of all time. Fight Club. I know I’m not supposed to talk about Chuck Palahniuk’s best-seller, but I can’t help myself. Fight Club is a book that appeals to such a wide variety of readers, and has one of the best endings in the industry, so much so that even after a decade, it’s still taboo to spoil it. Fight Club follows a narrator through his transformation from a dependent, space monkey, if you will, to an independent rogue on the outskirts of society. The narrator suffers from insomnia, something I could relate to somewhat, and lives a quiet, compliant life. Day in, day out, like a black-and-white movie, supposedly meaning something, but could be done in a much better way. That is, until he meets Tyler Durden. Tyler is everything the narrator wants, and ultimately moves in with Tyler, making Paper Street just as well known as Wall Street. I can’t say too much, except that this novel will change your life. Fight Club changes the way you walk down the street, changes the way you work in school, changes the way you view your life. Fight Club is simply great, and definitely something everyone should read, in addition to watching. While the movie usually has the same ending as the book, there are some key differences, and many pluses to both forms of media (Brad Pitt).
Over the summer, I read a book on the summer reading list called “The Glass Castle”, by Jeanette Walls. What really intrigued me from the start was how this book is a memoir, considering I’ve never picked one up before, and that the entirety of it is a flashback. It starts off with Jeanette riding in a taxi on the streets of New York, and she looks out the window and sees her mother digging through a dumpster on the side of the road. The memoir is centered around Jeanette, as she is growing up in a pretty hectic family. With that being said, this sends Jeanette along with the rest of her family on a spiraling adventure for the majority of her life, with her alcoholic dad as they never even settle in a real home. After constantly having to journey to different places, and live under the strong, opinionated teachings of her interesting parents she is finally old enough to make it to New York and manage some kind of life on her own. The Walls family also views certain things very differently from any typical family, which left me questioning at times if some of the things her parents provide for her are better than what “normal” parents will ever give to their children. In my opinion, this is essentially the mystery of the memoir, where it is up to you to decide on how their lifestyle is viewed. On the other hand, there were a few times where the plot seemed to be not as exciting as it would usually be. I highly enjoy reading in my free time, and this is a book I recommend for any purpose.
John Green, best selling author of books like The Fault in Our Stars and Looking For Alaska fortunately wrote Paper Towns, a novel that I had the pleasure of reading over this past summer. The main character is high school senior Quentin, whose worries should be nothing more than how to get out of going to prom and passing his finals. The teenager soon finds himself on a journey looking for clues to find his childhood friend, Margo Roth Spiegelman, whom had mysteriously gone missing. When Q was called over to Margo’s parents house and was told the news, he made it his mission to find her. He also figured out that Margo had left him clues in order to help him get to her. I found this book both easy and fun to read. The mystery novel kept me guessing throughout the story, never fully knowing where Margo could have gone.
Many characters kept the story still on the topic of high school worries, prom dates, and video games, despite the question of where Margo had gone. Best friend Ben, for example took a liking to Margo’s friend Lucy during their search. Before her disappearance, Margo tells Quentin about how she sees the towns and people of Florida as only skin-deep, or “made of paper” as she puts it. I always enjoy reading books that not only keep one interested, but also subtly teaches me a lesson. The best quality of a book in my opinion is the pull that stops the reader from putting the book down. I definitely think that Paper Towns possesses this quality.
Over the summer, I read the novel Little Brother by Cory Doctorow. This book is told by the main character of the story, Marcus Yallow, also known as M1K3Y. Marcus is a 17 year-old teenager living in San Francisco. He’s known throughout his school as the smartest computer hacker around. Along with three of his close friends, he was wandering the city when the Bay Bridge was suddenly blown to bits by terrorists. The whole nation went into panic and the Department of Homeland Security captured anyone at the scene, including Marcus and his friends, for questioning. The DHS would stop at nothing to find these terrorists.
After a week of being imprisoned and interrogated, the group was finally released back into the city. The DHS told Marcus that if he ever told anyone about his experience being interrogated, their security would hunt him down and take him away forever. Darryl, Marcus’s closest friend in the group was nowhere to be seen, most likely kept imprisoned by the DHS. To make matters even worse, the city has gone into a paranoia lockdown, where the DHS monitor citizen’s every move.
Infuriated, Marcus joins forces with other technological geniuses to create a complex, private web known as the Xnet. They use this secret internet access to stay hidden from the DHS while creating protest campaigns. His plan is to win this war against the nation’s homeland security by humiliation to the rest of the world. The DHS are hot on his trails, and Marcus begins to worry that the Land of the Free might not ever be free again.
Over the summer I was able to read a bunch of books that I truly enjoyed but the one I will be talking about today is Speak By: Laurie Halse Anderson. This book focuses on a girl named Melinda who was once a lively fun person with tons of friends but now has become an introvert that seems to have lost all hope. All of Melinda’s friends and nearly all of the her high school despised her for calling the cops at a crazy barn party over the summer. Melinda and her friends were only going into their freshmen year but still decided to go and participate in illegal activities such as underage drinking. Clearly these girls were still children and did not know how much alcohol their bodies could withstand before becoming completely intoxicated and losing all control of themselves. Little do all these teenagers know about Melinda and the true story behind what happened that summer night. Melinda has never been the same since and most likely never will be. This novel takes you into Melinda’s mind and shows you how she is feeling and how she wishes she could speak up but, every time she tries she chokes on her words and closes her mouth. I thoroughly enjoyed this book because the reader is the sole person that understands Melinda struggles which created a strong relationship between the reader and the characters. I felt as though Melinda and I shared a mind and I could see the things she saw, hear the things she heard, and feel the things she felt. Throughout this book Melinda tries to rebuild broken bridges with some of her old best friends but, will things ever be the same? With nobody to confide to, nobody to feel safe with, what will Melinda do? I do not want to give any bit of this story away because I believe everyone should read a book as powerful as this. I do not usually read for fun but this summer when reading this particular novel it reminded me how much I love and miss it. Speak was an absolutely incredible novel that I could not put down and that appeals to all readers. So, do yourself a favor and read this book. I can guarantee you won’t regret it.
Over the summer I read a novel called The Road by Cormac McCarthy. This book is about a man and a boys journey to find something or someone after an apocalypse. We are not told what kind of apocalypse it was which makes the book kind of interesting from the start. I think that it was most likely a nuclear war considering the fact that the cities that the man and the boy are walking through are burned and vacant.
I thought that it was really interesting how the boy and the man were nameless. I think that the reason Cormac did this was because he wanted us to really know that they were the only two people, that they knew of, left in America. When you are the last two men on earth there really is no reason to have names. At that point they are not of importance.
I picked this novel thinking that the man and boy would come across historical things that got destroyed and we could see what had happened to them. This was not the case. When I started reading the book I thought that it was really cool to be able to see how they were surviving on their own. However, as the book went on I got less and less interested in what was happening with them and was just waiting for them to find someone else that was still alive. This did not happen. Sadly, for this reason I have to say that I did not enjoy this book. There was no climax to it. The closest that there was to one was when the man and the boy found someone who was in the military and killed him because they thought he was going to hurt them. Other than that the whole book was just this: they wake up, they walk down the road they are following, they look for food and then they go to sleep and do it all over again. I do not recommend that you chose The Road as your next book to read.
Blog #77: What Did You Read This Summer?
This Summer I read three books. Two were by Jodi Picoult, and one was for school. The two that I read in my free time were My Sister’s Keeper and Nineteen Minutes. My Sister’s Keeper is one of my favorite books. It is about a young girl named Anna Fitzgerald who was designed in a lab by her parents. She needed to be a match for everything in her sister’s body because her sister Kate was dying of leukemia. Anna ends up doing something to separate herself from being the donor sister. She hated being forced by her parents to save her sister and always wondered if she was made by love and not just grief and sadness. Anna filed a lawsuit against her parents for medical emancipation. Right when Anna was born she started donating bone marrow, blood, you name and she had given it to her sister. I feel that Anna was not being selfish, but felt taken advantage of by her parents and wanted the best for her family. To help her pursue the lawsuit she hires a big time lawyer who does the whole case, for free. Anna also has an older brother, who would be considered a misfit who never got the time of day because his parents were so focused on Kate, his name was Jesse. This book is not only about the lawsuit itself, but the good memories Anna had spent with her family when she wasn’t taking care of her sister. Nineteen Minutes interested me because of how amazing the first novel I read by Jodi Picoult was. This book is about a school shooting. As children Josie and Peter were close friends, Jodi always looked out for Peter who was frequently bullied. As they grew their parents, who were also close friends, grew apart and Josie started to make friends with different people. Every body’s world came crashing down on the day of the shooting. All they knew were two things, The shooter: Peter and the judge: Josie’s mom. My Final novel was for school, and was surprisingly good. It was called The Glass Castle. The Glass Castle is about a young girl’s struggling family from her point of view. Their are surprising hardships in the book that are good memories to the young girl. She tries to make a good life for herself, and is very successful in that goal. I would recommend all of my books to anyone who is willing to read them. I enjoyed all of the books that I read.
My favorite book I read this summer was Paper Towns by John Green. This book was about an average teenage kid named Q, who lived an average high school life with a few close friends. One of these friends, Margo, happened to be the most popular girl in school, but they hadn’t really been friends since they were young. During one of those average nights that average Q was going through, his above average friend Margo decided to pop into his room through the window. She all of a sudden required his help during the night that would soon be one he would never forget. Together, they had to sabotage several of Margo’s “friends” that had wronged her several times in the past. In this novel, these two musketeers tramp along through towns on countless adventures, and regain their previously lost friendship. As the book takes a turn for the worst, it shows what Q will go through to fix something that others wouldn’t, and teaches him a lesson in life that would stay with him forever. All in all, I consider this book to be one of my favorites, and I highly recommend it.
This summer, I read Outliers, by Malcom Gladwell. It was an interesting book due to how it was written. Each chapter was a separate story that proved a point, and all the stories still went toward the same message – that luck plays a much larger role in success than we think. One of the stories examines Bill Gates’ early years, and deconstructs his opportunities. For starters, he went to a private school, and this private school happened to be an early adopter of computers. Also, he was born at the right time for programming, as punchcard coding was being replaced by coding on a computer terminal. Gates got the opportunity to learn this much more effective method, without wasting time on punchcards. If he had been born 10 years earlier, programming would have been much harder, and he may not have considered it. On the other hand, if he was born 10 years later, someone else who had started sooner would have far more programming experience, and that’s what the book is really about. Outliers references the statistic that someone must practice something for 10,000 hours to master it, and if you are among the first to master a new thing, you will have very good chances of being successful. Bill Gates was in the right place, at the right time, with the work ethic to take advantage of it.
“Superstar lawyers and math whizzes and software entrepreneurs appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience. But they don’t. They are products of history and community, of opportunity and legacy. Their success is not exceptional or mysterious. It is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky – but all critical to making them who they are. The outlier, in the end, is not an outlier at all.”
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success
What did I read this summer? I have to think about all the oversize chairs where I followed the trial of evil pro-coal companies with an innocent small town attorney in John Grisham’s Grey Mountain. Or about the uncomfortable crick in my neck from reading hours on end in the car to Yellowstone listening to the alibis of the twelve house guests in Agatha Christie’s The Chimneys. Then I also have to remember the tears that were shed during Alice’s difficult ordeals in The Color Purple by Alice Walker herself. I thoroughly enjoyed the spare minutes I had at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp when I stole away to my bunk to indulge in a few pages of the relentless journey across America the Joads had to endure in Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck. Because of how much I enjoyed this book, my whole family listened to the autobiography Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck on our trip out west. This was at the top of my list of favorite reads this summer because Steinbeck looked so deeply into the heart of human nature and made so many meaningful insights that I could connect to that I will always keep this book round when someone asks for a good book suggestion. AS Steinbeck says, “I have come to believe that a great teacher is a great artist and that there are as few as there are any other great artists. Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit.” This idea meant a lot to me because it brings up two of my most important personality traits; teaching and art. I love creating things with my hands and dreaming up brilliant designs, and my goal since childhood has been to be a teacher when I grow up. So to hear this great author combine the two: perfect. Travels with Charley is about Steinbeck’s journey from state to state from the east coast to the wild wild west. He shares his thoughts and impressions of all the truck stop waitresses, newscasters nationwide, and the discrimination in the south that he passed through. I loved listening to timeless conclusions about sets of people who reappear in every generation. It’s amazing that Steinbeck could have studied a certain person in the early 1900’s and I can pick out people in my life who fit the same description. I would suggest Travels with Charley to all lovers of the study of humans around us.
Over the summer, I read the book “The Outliers”, written by Malcolm Gladwell. I chose to read this book due to the fact that a few of my friends and family recommended it to me. The Outliers is an opinion based book on how most successful people did not get to where they are today by pure hard work. Gladwell’s argument is that luck, along with hard work, allows you to become one of the world’s truly successful people. In the beginning of the book, Gladwell presents to the readers a list of professional hockey player’s birthday. Upon reviewing the list, it is visible that almost all of the athletes had their birthday in the first four months of the year. He argues that this is due to the fact that youth hockey divides into age groups by birth year. As a result of this, players born in January will be more developed than kids born in December, and this would lead to them receiving special attention from their coaches.
In my opinion, I only partially agree with Gladwell’s point of view. After he published his book, he came under fire from many researchers who fought many of his points made throughout the book. The major point of Gladwell’s that was argued was tha 10,000 hours of practice at a specific sport or job could turn anyone into being successful. This may be the case for some people, but researchers have proven that it is most definitely not always true. Despite the controversy that evolved around this book, I found it to be very well written and would recommend it to anyone looking for an interesting read.
This summer, the book I really liked that I read was Paper Towns by: John Green. This novel was about a nerdy boy named Quentin who is a senior in high school. He had two very close friends named Marcus (Radar) and Ben who he spends all of his time with. They are his only friends at his school. He has had a crush on his neighbor for the longest time. Her name is Margo and she is one of the prettiest girls at their school. It’s the last few weeks of school and Margo wants to correct some things that are wrong and wrong some rights between her friend group, who she has been having trouble with. She wants to get Quentin involved in her little mischievous adventures. So one night she sneaks up to Quentin’s window at 12 or 1 in the morning to see if he would go with her. He obviously says he will because he is in love with her. They take his moms minivan from the garage and start on their soon to be last adventure together. They head off to the supermarket to get what is needed according to Margo. Margo has a list of the people and events she wants to ruin, apologize, or break into. After their fun filled night, Margo does not return to school for two weeks. Quentin is beyond worried so he starts to map out where she could have gone by clues she may or may not have left for him. Finally, Quentin thinks he knows where she is… New York! He has narrowed it down to a very very small town only found if you really look for it. He end up finding her but she didn’t actually want anyone to find her. She is happy to see him though and offers a trip all across the US for a month. Quentin sadly declines but knows that Margo is safe and makes her promise she will visit him often. He is in love and she likes him back, which causes the whole leaving part even harder. He returns to his hometown with his friends and continues his life knowing that Margo is safe.
Over the summer I read the book Eragon by Christopher Paolini. The book is about a young teen ager named Eragon. Eragon lives in a world that is controlled by an evil king and the king’s dragon. The evil king is hunting all of the rest of the dragon eggs in the world (in the end you find out there are three egg that everyone knows of). Anyway the elves are transporting on of the dragon egg through the woods. They are suddenly attacked by the king’s minions. The elf transporting the egg can also cast spells. She quickly send the egg to its rightful owner. Now over 200 hundred miles away an explosion knocks Eragon of his feet and he wakes up to a large bluish purple egg at his feet. Several days later the egg hatches into a small beautiful dragon. Eragon and the dragon bond and Eragon names the dragon Saphria.
This book is the first of three books in the series. In the first book Eragon and Saphria learn how to fight together. They also learn about a rebel camp that is fighting against the evil king. They head that way after the kings minions kill Eragon’s Uncle Garrow. When they are escaping Brom an ex- dragon rider takes Eragon under his wing and begins to train him to cast spells. In the book they also go to rescue the elf that the evil king capture and they fight a dragon or two. This book is a great read and I would recommend it to anyone that likes the lord of the rings movies.
This summer I read Paper Towns by John Green. Paper Towns is book about living life to the fullest and coming of age. Quentin “Q” Jacobsen is an 18 year old senior in high school who cannot wait for the year to end. He wants to move on in life because he’s not the most social or extravagant kid in high school. Q always hangs out with his friends Ben and Radar who are just like him but want to be more outgoing because it’s there last year. However, his neighbor, old friend, and longtime crush Margo Roth Spiegelman is seen by everyone as the most interesting person ever always telling fascinating exotic stories of her experiences. One night Margo comes into his bedroom window and they go off to pull off Margo’s plan of revenge to people who have betrayed her. After a long night of fun Q is sad that they have to part ways again. But, the next morning, Margo is nowhere to be found. Q and his friends think she’s toying with him so he has to go and found her. They find clues and begin searching for her along with Margo’s best friend Lacey. But the more clues and evidence they find the more they find out about the “real” Margo.
I really enjoyed this book because it was so real. Sometimes you feel like there is more that you can be doing and you just want to have fun. In Paper Towns, Q and his friend lives become a lot more like an adventure and that’s something that I’ve always really wanted. I took a train out west this summer from Chicago and it was a 20 hour ride. In the 20 hours I read a third of the book. I could not put it down and you won’t be able to either!
One of the books that read over the summer was The Outsiders by Malcom Gladwell. The book is based on how small advantages early on grow slowly into larger and more predominant ones. One of the things that Gladwell talked about is hokey players in Canada, he illustrated that the ones that most professional players were born in the early months of the year, January, February, and March. He explains that the small advantage of being born near the beginning of the year means that they are the eldest players when they start out, being older by a few months when you are starting out means you are bigger than the kids that are born in the last half of the year. Those larger children are placed on the better teams at a young age, those better teams have more practices than the others, that extra practice in a few years ends up making the kids that were just a little bit older than others now have a substantial amount of extra practice on the younger kids. The kids that were older have more practice at the point when the professional and college scouts are looking for players for their teams, and as you might have guessed the ones that had more practice and are now much better than the younger ones get the spots much more often. That gigantic change from being a few months older than someone else, to being placed on a professional team is an amazing phenomenon. The book talks about other things of this nature and many different, and fascinating studies that describe how other people that are exceptional became that way.
This summer, I read the book paper towns. It was about a senior in high school named Quentin, who was an unpopular guy until one of the last nights of high school. His life-long neighbor, who he has always been in love with, Margo, has been having conflict with her parents her entire life. She has always possessed a tendency to run away from home, but always left a trail of clues behind so someone would eventually find her. The setting of the book takes place in sunny Orlando, Florida. Throughout Quentin’s childhood, he has always been in love with Margo. On the other hand, Margo favored other dudes over him. On one of the final nights of summer, Quentin wakes up to find Margo roaming around in his room. She insisted that he should be her personal getaway driver for tonight, and that if he accepted the request, he would have one of the best nights of his life. That night consisted of a series of revengeful rebellions towards Margo’s fake friends. Quentin hoped to see Margo at school the next day and become extremely close to her. Unfortunately, the next day, she had run away. The rest of the book was about the actions Quentin would take to go and find his lost loved one. I despised the end of the book, which concluded in Quentin eventually going on a journey with Margo’s true friends, as well as his own, to search for Margo in New York. They eventually found her, but she explained to Quentin that he’s not the one for her, and that he should go home.
Over the summer I read a lot of books, most being random books I find laying around, or that I pick up at the library. But one book that I really enjoyed was “Speak” by Laurie Hales Anderson. This book is about a young girl named Melinda who is starting her freshman year at a typical high school with typical people. She has an issue… she is friendless, an outcast, all because she called the cops about an end of summer party, now no one wants anything to do with her. But they don’t even know what went down at that party. She doesn’t even want to believe it happened, but it did… She was raped by an upperclassmen. That’s when she stops talking. She can’t speak of what happened, but when she has another encounter with him she decides she’s done being silent and starts talking. About everything. Another book I loved was “Thirteen Reasons Why” by Jay Asher. This story is about a boy, named Clay, who upon returning home finds a package full of cassettes. When he listens he finds out that these cassettes are actually the reason why Hannah Baker killed herself. Clay spends the rest of his night walking around town following what Hannah is saying. He becomes a firsthand witness of her pain and the struggles she went through. Following and listening to her voice, but what he finds will end up changing his life forever. Those were some of the many books that I read this summer. Maybe you can read them and enjoy them just as much as me. Warning: they are kind of on the depressing side. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
A book that I read over the summer that I enjoyed actually came from the summer reading list. It was The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This was a memoir of the author’s unusual and poverty-stricken childhood, where she and her two sisters and one brother were subject to two very incompetent parents. Her father was a very brilliant man, who would teach his kids about architecture and how to live life to the fullest. However, this was the father the Walls kids knew when he was sober. When Jeannette Walls’ father drank, he was corrupted and became destructive. Walls’ mother was a self-proclaimed “excitement addict” who didn’t know how to (or in fact want to) handle the obligation of raising a family. She would rather be painting than cooking a meal to feed her children. Without being able to hold steady jobs and save up money, Walls and the rest of her family meandered throughout the American southwest. Once the little cash they had was gone, they were forced to move to a mining town in West Virginia where the father’s parents lived. Living conditions went from bad to worse here, and it was just too much for the Walls kids. One by one, starting with Jeannette’s older sister, the Walls children moved to New York in hopes of starting a new and prosperous life there. After they were settled in, their parents decide to follow them, but instead of starting anew they become homeless.
What I enjoyed most about this book was the progression you saw in the author as she grew up. Like most kids, she was oblivious to harsh realities of life when at a young age. She didn’t quite get it that her family was very poor and that it was because of her parent’s inabilities. But as she grows into a teenager and then into a young adult, the author describes how she starts to understand her situation more clearly. Then, once she realizes that there is nowhere to go if she stays with her parents, she has to make the tough decision to move away to live on her own.
This summer I was constantly busy, but when I did have some free time I chose to read Silent Harmony by Michele Scott. This is the first in the series called A Vivienne Taylor Horse Lover’s Mystery. It is based upon a junior in high school named Vivienne Taylor who has a special talent with the horse kind. She is able to understand and talk to the horses she rides. Thanks to her miraculous riding career, Vivienne was offered a scholarship to Fairmont Riding Academy. The school’s main goal is to produce professional and Olympic riders. Her main goal is to reach the Olympics and she has been promised that her goal will eventually be achieved. Vivienne is considered special and an outsider because of where she came from and that she was the yearly scholarship winner. She goes through difficult times with friends, boys, and teachers similarly to a regular high school student. The horse that Vivienne receives, Harmony, has recently lost her owner in what is thought to be a freak accident. Vivienne notices that she is having an extremely hard time connecting with Harmony and starts to soon believe that Harmony’s old owner’s death was more than just a freak accident. Vivienne starts to investigate into the problem and eventually discovers that it was a murder instead of just a freak accident. It is discovered that later on that Vivienne’s beloved riding instructor killed Harmony’s owner due to the competition she presented to him. The instructor receives his consequences and Harmony and Vivienne eventually begin to connect with one another while Vivienne becomes one step closer to achieving her riding dreams.
I read a lot of books this summer, but as the season is over so are my reading habits. One book I especially enjoyed was Me Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews. This book was about a boy he had befriended an old classmate who had recently contracted leukemia. Yes, the girl was dying but that’s not what the book was about. The book was about a boy named Greg and his way of life. Greg thought he had the perfect system, the way he fit into every single friend group at his school, but this system left him with one friend who understood him, Earl. Greg and Earl made films since they were little, usually knock offs of unpopular movies, poorly filmed in their backyard. When the dying girl, Rachel, finds their old films she loved them. Though, Greg was reluctant to showing her his stupid films Earl wanted to please the suffering girl. Before Rachel died Greg and Earl attempted to make a film for Rachel, but with Greg’s bad people skills he could not come up with a simple film for a girl in her last days. After many attempts he still doesn’t know what to do so when Rachel gives up treatment he knows he has to do something. Finally Greg throws all his creations together, and when Rachel sees it she’s knows it’s amazing. Rachel had spent her days with Greg trying to get Greg into collage so when she sees his last film she know he has to go to film school. My favorite part of the book is the end where he reads part of his college app. Attached to his last film is a note saying something along the lines of, beware the last person who watched this went into a coma and died so I hope you take that as a good thing. Over all I liked the book Me Earl and the Dying Girl.
Over the summer I read Alice in Zombieland by Gena Showalter and I absolutely loved it. The novel starts out with a girl named Ali and her parents and sister die in a car crash. She is then sent to live her grandmother and father and also is forced to switch schools. She has always though that her father had been a little weird because he claims that he would see zombies, and she never believed him. Until the night of the crash. Her father had always told them to not go out at night because the monsters are out but this night was the one night that her father had finally agreed to go out. It was pitch black as they were driving home and that’s when he saw them, the zombies. He freaked and the car flipped and the whole family but Ali died. Ali could have sworn that she had finally seen the monsters her father was talking about and that he had always been right. A few days later at school she immediately made some great friends and she started to fit in. But on the first day of school when she see Cole Holland she starts having these weird visions with him and she can’t figure out how he is making that happen. She also starts to notice that him and the guys that he hangs out with come into school every day with a new set of bruises and that the group of guys were really tight with each other and didn’t have many other friends than their group. They, Cole especially, became a mystery to her that she wanted to solve.
There are three books in this series and they are all fantastic. I know that it sounds kind of cliché being a book about zombies but trust me it is probably one of my favorite books. I haven’t had a chance to read any of her other books because I have been reading there non-stop but I’m sure that they are just as good. One I finished the series I read them all another three times. And I will probably read them again as soon as I get a chance to.
Finking of the Rock by Melina Marchetta:
When Finnikin was young, the royal family was attacked and murdered by the rival kingdoms assassins. When he and thousands of others escaped the country because of the chaos, a magical barrier arose blocking the people who had escaped outside of the kingdom and people who failed to flee in. As Finnikin grew older, he studied and traveled kingdom through kingdom visiting the ‘exiles’ of Lumatere. One day he is summoned to a village of the novices of one of the two goddesses in this book, Lagrami. Once there, the High Priestess gives one of her novices to Finnikin and his teacher, the Kings First Man, for protection. Little did Finnikin know that the novice was the key of how to break the barrier separating their home, Lumatere, to the exiles.
If you are a fan of fantasy novels Graceling or Fire, by Kristin Cashore, I highly recommend reading Finnikin of the Rock, by Melina Marchetta. This lengthy book of about 400 pages, was a nice read to take a break from the realistic fiction novels that seemed like all your favorite characters were dying, for “a realistic plot”, or the scientific fantasy novels that even though they are amazing, make your head spin from scientific vocabulary and phrases. Melina Marchetta was able to write this novel to have multiple plots that were logical and often times realistic. Finnikin of the Rock, is a great read for fantasy, adventure, mystery, and even romance lovers. As you read, you will start to appreciate the time and effort the author had put into this story for how every little intricate detail seems to have been planned before hand making this book flow smoothly, with exciting cliff hangers and mind grasping plots.
I love reading, but this summer I only read one book. I read Paper Towns by John Green. It was about a boy named Quentin Jacobsen who fell in love with this girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman who lived across the street. When they were younger, they had found a dead body. Margo, who loved mysteries, was interested and wanted to know what happened, but Quentin didn’t. They grow apart as they grow up and get different friends. Margo is popular and Quentin has two friends, Radar and Ben. Now, their senior year of high school, Margo asks Quentin to help her with a plan she has that involves getting revenge on her ex-boyfriend. Quentin helped her with her plan that night and had fun, but the next day Margo wasn’t at school. Margo had left, but it wasn’t the first time she had done this and came back. Each time she would leave, she would always leave clues. Quentin decides to use the clues to find her, thinking she left them for him. Quentin with his two best friends and one of Margo’s friends, Lacey, goes off to find her during graduation. This is a long road trip from Florida to New York. They find Margo in a barn where she is writing. Ben, Lacey, and Radar get angry and leave the barn after arguing with Margo about she was selfish for leaving the way she did. Margo explains to Quentin why she left and he realizes that she isn’t coming back and has to let go of the girl he thought she was.
Over the summer I read a couple of books, my favorite one was called Looking for Alaska, written by John Green. It is about a 14-year-old boy named Miles aka Pudge, who is infatuated by famous last words. He is tired of his lonely and boring life in Florida, so he decides to go to boarding school in Alabama. While he is in Alabama, he meets new friends and has many new experiences. One person in particular that changes him his Alaska Young, she has a very mysterious life that interests Pudge and he wants to learn more about her. Pudge and Alaska learn a lot about each other and, along the way, they learn more about themselves. The whole book talks about all the adventures they had together within them and their group of friends, and their various prank wars with their arch-enemies, the Weekday Warriors. This book was a good example of how you think you might know someone really well, but you might not know who they actually are, and you might not, until the day they die. It also showed how friends can do anything they want together, and how great of a bond they can have. This book showed how Pudge evolved from this scared little boy, to a wise young adult. This was a great read for someone who wants to have a good laugh, and read a really good story. John Green did a great job of making the characters seem like they were real, and it was a very relatable book because of that. I found myself laughing aloud, and not wanting to go to bed at 2 in the morning so I could finish that last chapter. I highly recommend reading this book.
Over the summer, my favorite book that I read was Paper Towns, by John Green. He is also the author of The Fault in Our Stars. Paper Towns is the story of a pair of high school seniors in Orlando, Florida, who go on this crazy mission one night to get revenge on other kids at their school, and the next day, one of them leaves without telling anyone where she is going. After a few days, the other kid, Q, discovers that Margo is missing and becomes worried about her. He knows that she has done things like this before, but always left clues, and was never gone for more than a few days.
After a week of Margo missing, Q decides to try to follow the clues to see if he can find her. The clues eventually dead end in an old abandoned strip mall. The first time he visits, he finds nothing out of the ordinary. Then Q decides to go back and look harder, and he finds evidence that Margo had been there. Eventually he finds a clue that leads to Margo’s exact location.
Through this excessive clue hunt, Q discovers a lot about him self and the mystery that was Margo. In many ways, he knew nothing about her, but along the way he learns many of her secrets and falls crazy in love with her.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good adventure. There are many twists and turns along the way, many of which I was never expecting to happen. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.
I know I’m one the only people that think this here, but I have to say that “Paper Towns” by John Green was kind of boring and irritating for me. Maybe it’s because my hopes were too high after reading reviews for “The Fault in Our Stars.” Or maybe the characters were just a little too ingenious for me. In this book, it was just too far-fetched to believe that teens could be so intelligent past their years. Yes, some of their actions tickled my funny bone and made me laugh, like when Ben had to pee so bad in the car that he was about to cry tears of pee. But I got really tired being inside the head of a moody teenage boy who was totally infatuated and obsessed with a smug, manipulative girl. His constant ruminations about the oh-so-very mysterious girl next door, was about as interesting as listening to someone talk on and on about the person He’s/she’s dating. Margo is an extremely spoiled person. Her friends had to march to the beat of her drum and apparently, they considered that a regular occurrence. Her emotions towards Q were awful and the reasons why she left were extremely selfish. She was so inconsiderate of Q’s feelings it was kind of disturbing. The characters tried to be funny and succeeded, which saved the book a little bit. John Green is a good author and his work is amazing but this book was a huge disappointment. Sorry, but this was a dud for me.
Gone- Michael Grant
This book was an extremely excellent and interesting sci-fi read. The author of this book was inspired by the many stories of Stephen King. Stephen King actually said that the book was a good book. In the story everyone fifteen and over just completely vanished into thin air no matter what they were doing at the time. This left kids having to take care of younger kids because there were no adults or teenagers to help out with that. The kids of the city had to try create their own government and rules to abide by. On the other hand there were kids who started to develop powers where they could manipulate things with their minds or create light from their hands or teleport. The main character Sam Temple discovered that he had these powers before all the adults to disappear but he really didn’t know what the were, which was a problem. The powers scared him. These powers caused kids turn on each other because they were kids from a local boarding school who had also develop powers and they had trained their powers where they could use them in a more productively unlike the kids who were living in the city who had just discovered the powers and he kids from the boarding school were somewhat evil to a point. So to be honest if you are not in the sci-fi fan then this book would not be a good choice for you but if you do love it will be a great choice.
I read a few books over the summer but my favorite and the one I couldnt put down was Looking for Alaska by John Green. This book is about a high school boy, Miles Halter, who going to start Clover Creek Boarding High School in the fall. He feels as if there is something more for him and he just hasn’t found it yet. Miles meets his roommate Chip (nicknamed the Colonial) gives him the nickname Pudge. Chip introduces Pudge to his group of friends who include Takumi, Sara, Lara, and last but not least Alaska Young. After getting to know Chips friends, Pudge finally feels like he belongs. Throughout their many pranking adventures, Pudge slowly falls in love with Alaska. As much as he was trying to hide it, Pudge was falling for Alaska and everyone could tell, except she had a boyfriend. Alaska was mysterious and her friends found out a lot about her one night in their secret meeting spot where they would smoke and drink. The friends grew close over time during their last two final years of high school. Throughout Alaska’s and Pudges one-way relationship, Pudge is devastated when something terrible happens to Alaska. Both Pudge and the Colonial try to crack to mystery as to what happened to her. They searched all over town for clues to least give them something. A few months after Alaska’s disappearance, everyone at Clover Creek High School forgot about her. Expect for Pudge and the Colonial. Over time they realized that she was never coming back and they needed to stop looking for Alaska.
This summer I read Born Wicked, by Jessica Spotswood. The book is about an alternate history of New England in 1900, where a patriarchal society called the Brotherhood controls society and is constantly on the look-out for instances of magic and witches. This book’s time period reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials, which I find interesting, so this book was very interesting for me. The book is in the 1st person point of view of a girl named Cate Cahill, the oldest of three sisters. Cate and her sisters also happen to be witches, and are constantly hiding their sometimes uncontrollable magic from the eyes of the Brotherhood. However, this is becoming increasingly difficult because her witch mother died when her sisters were young, and Cate struggled to reign in her temperamental sisters, Maura and Tess. As the story wears on, Cate finds herself fast approaching an age where she must be married off, but this proves troublesome because her sisters can’t be trusted to keep themselves in line and not out themselves as witches. As Cate tries to keep herself and her sisters in check, and find a solution to leaving her sisters, the sister organization to the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood, approaches Cate and gives her an ultimatum: either she declares to join the Sisterhood, which is secretly a haven for witches, or her sisters will suffer the consequences. Despite having already become engaged, Cate has no choice but to accept. Towards the end of the book, as Cate begins to acclimate herself to her new home filled with other witches, she learns of a prophecy that declares that 3 sisters, with the rare gift of mind control, will bring an end to the Brotherhood’s reign. The book finishes with Cate trying to find out the Sisterhood’s secrets, while trying to maintain her own secret, of her and her sisters being the prophesied witches that everyone is searching for.
Over the summer I had read a number of books, and my favorite was Isla and the Happily Ever After, by Stephanie Perkins. Every year Isla attends a small boarding school in Paris, and this year is her senior year. She has had a longing crush on a mysterious, artistic guy named Josh and this is her lucky break. All of Joshes friends have previously graduated leaving him all alone. Isla uses this opportunity for her and her best friend Kurt, to get closer to Josh. Suddenly Josh and Isla are head over heels for each other. Things are going great and she has never been happier, however that is all going to change. Josh doesn’t put forth effort in school and spends all of his study hours drawing. His grades dropped tremendously and due to troubles in his past, he’s on his last strike. When Josh and Isla sneak away from school for a getaway weekend in Spain, they were destined to be caught. Consequences follow short and Josh is expelled from school. He is sent half way around the world to Manhattan, with his strict parent under punishment. Their relationship becomes shaky with all the miles between them, different time zones and lack of communication. The couple gets into fights and Isla’s love for Josh gets in the way of her and Kurt’s friendship. Isla now spends all of her spare time studding to keep her grades up for an Ivy League, and starts losing connection with Josh. With long distance, school and friendships in the way, Josh and Isla somehow find a way to overcome their challenges. Maybe it’s true, love always does conquer all.
At any given point, I am usually in the middle of one or more books and over the summer, I spent a lot of my time in the car, traveling. Taking into account the books I read before my trip and during it, I probably read somewhere in the range of fifteen this summer. Inevitably, some I enjoyed more than others so below are a few of my favorites and reflections about them.
American Sniper – Chris Kyle
“American Sniper” is a memoir from former Navy SEAL Chris Kyle that showcases what he and his fellow soldiers were put through during his four tours of service in Iraq. With the story starting before he is deployed, including he and his wife’s love story, along with the BUD/S training and SEAL Sniper School, it is easy to see how he was molded into the warrior he became. During his four tours, he was involved in countless firefights, lost a good friend, and for some reason could not stop coming back for more. He spoke about how there was nothing that could compare to the atmosphere of a war zone, how he believed that when he died he would meet Saint Peter at the gates of Heaven and say, “just another soldier reporting, sir. I’ve served my time in hell.” He claims that the best and worst moments of his life came as a Navy SEAL, but he does not regret any of it and only wishes that he could have saved more people. At the end of his career, the United States Navy had credited him with 160 confirmed kills. Kyle was murdered along with another SEAL friend of his by another veteran whom the two were only trying to help cope with PTSD in 2013, four years after retiring from the military. He left behind his wife and two children. Kyle’s death was mourned throughout his home state of Texas, and he continues to serve as an inspiration to our soldiers today.
Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk
“Fight Club” is a novel about an unnamed narrator who has grown incredibly bored with his life. He is a young recall coordinator from “a major car company” and spends most of his time sitting in a cubicle or traveling on business trips. He often states that he wishes the plane he is on would crash just to add some excitement to his life. He has become obsessed with his possessions and his high-end condominium. This is where his subconscious kicks in. Spoiler Alert. He unknowingly creates an alter ego that he sees as just another person he met while traveling by the name of Tyler Durden. Tyler is the epitome of everything the narrator aspires to be. After Tyler blows up the narrator’s studio apartment with homemade dynamite, the two go out for drinks and Tyler offers to let the narrator stay at his house. The narrator graciously accepts and as they begin to walk, Tyler tells the narrator he wants him to hit him in the face. The narrator hesitates, and asks Tyler to repeat himself. Tyler does, and eventually the two begin fighting in a parking lot purely for the thrill of it. People see this, and want in. Everyone has become accustomed to their boring, pathetic lives. They need an outlet. Eventually the narrator and Tyler establish a fight club, which quickly leads to other projects, such as “Project Mayhem”, which is essentially a series of coordinated attacks on major businesses and those who live more luxurious lifestyles. Once the narrator realizes he and Tyler are the same being, he tries to stop Project Mayhem from happening, only to fail because all of his disciples were told by Tyler that “he would definitely say that and not to listen”. The novel ends with the narrator shooting part of his head off to get Tyler out of his mind, successfully. Tyler collapses from in front of him and the narrator stands up just in time to see the Financial District of New York collapse from homemade nitroglycerine that the Project Mayhem Committee had planted there earlier. Obviously, Tyler and his merry band of anarchists were not doing anything to contribute to society – from our point of view, at least – but the overall message of the book is effectively delivered and is also important to remember while going through life, because it is your life, and it is ending one moment at a time.
Bias: A CBS Insider Exposes How the Media Distort the News – Bernard Goldberg
I considered not sharing this book due to the amount of backlash I could potentially get but I enjoyed it nonetheless. This memoir is by former CBS news reporter Bernard Goldberg as he highlights how throughout his almost thirty-year career with CBS, the ways and examples in which the network would consistently show bias in the way in which the news was delivered. The point of the book, for me, at least, was not to point fingers at liberals for “controlling the media”, but rather to educate the public on whether or not they are getting accurate and complete information and also to do research for themselves on topics they are going to form an opinion on. It highlights many issues we face today as a society, despite being written more than ten years ago, and also showcases that typically the media is based upon opinion rather than fact. It is easy to misinterpret the author’s message as being vindictive towards the network, but regardless of that, he makes several very solid points and I would recommend this book to anyone.
Over the summer, the single book I read was John Green’s Paper Towns. I recalled having somewhat of an interest of it but no outright motivation to read it in years prior, however since it was one of many titles on my Honors American Lit summer reading list, I decided to give it a shot and see if the attention it’s gotten, or my own interest in it, was warranted. The book centers around a high school senior, Quentin, or Q. The book begins with Q being roped into assisting Margo, his eccentric childhood friend, in a multi-step midnight revenge scheme. After said night, Margo inexplicably goes missing, and from there Q ends up discovering discreet leads on Margo’s location, namely poems, addresses, et cetera. The remainder of the book is Q and a number of his friends spending weeks to track down Margo, collecting further hints she’s left at dilapidated, far-fetched locations. I’m honestly not sure if I can recommend this to anyone or not. I’ve provided only facts up to this point, but my personal stance on the book is a sort of vague uneasiness. Q’s tireless, obsessive efforts to find Margo are especially unnerving to me (seeing this actually pointed out by another character was incredibly relieving), as he ends up leaving a lot behind to find her despite the two having minimal interactions with each other before and during the events of the book. In particular I noticed that it was extremely dragged out as a whole, which wouldn’t be nearly as much of a problem if the ending was satisfying. Paper Towns carries the same melancholic, dull tone as The Fault In Our Stars, another of Green’s works. Reading it was more a trial than anything, the distant nagging thought of “Who knows, this might all pay off.” being the only thing that was able to keep me reading, and even that seemed to fall flat. All things considered, I can’t tell if my complete lack of interest in the story is a result of my own thoughts exclusively or something about Green’s writing style. As I said, I can’t issue a proper verdict of good or otherwise for Paper Towns, but if you like what you see here, give it a shot.
This summer, I read Two Girls Staring at the Ceiling by Lucy Frank. This was a book I found by chance while looking randomly through the library, and it ended up being one of the most memorable books I’ve ever read. It follows the lives of Shannon, who has lived her life in and out of hospitals, and Francesca, who has the whole world in front of her, and how their lives come together all at once in a small hospital room with only a curtain between them. Both girls share problems with Crohn’s Disease, but otherwise, they are the polar opposites of one another. These girls are eager to leave this stuffed room, and neither enjoy the company of the other at first, but they end up always being there for each other when their visitors and parents are too caught up in the outside world to pay attention. In their week-long stay together, they teach each other lessons they otherwise would not have learned, through confusion and worry, and become the best of friends. Francesca teaches Shannon to appreciate the positive things around her instead of all the negatives, and in turn Shannon teaches her to take risks and be spontaneous, a skill that will help her a great deal after her stay in the hospital. This book perfectly depicts the sometimes rapid transition from the image of health to that of illness, drawing that fine line between them, and shows that anyone can get through something when you find faith in someone.
I spend my summers at a remote and rustic camp in a Canadian provincial park. There are no computers, cell phones, iPods, or anything with a screen at camp. This makes my reading choices critically important. This summer my options were further limited because I chose to participate in a fifteen day long canoe trip. This trip required me to carry all food, equipment, and everything else needed for over two weeks in the wilderness. No unnecessary or bulky items are allowed. I only had the option of taking one book on this adventure, but it was not hard for me to decide which one it would be. I chose my favorite book, The Catcher In The Rye by J.D. Salinger. The Catcher in the Rye is a beautiful book, beloved by people across generations and across the globe. It takes place in 1948, mainly in New York City. The story is about teenager Holden Caulfield, and his three day stay in New York around Christmas time. The book opens with Holden standing on a hill overlooking Pencey Prep (his boarding school), watching a football game. He has just been expelled from school, again, and told not to return after Christmas break. After Holden gets in a fight with his roommate, he decides to leave Prencey Prep before Christmas break and stay in New York for 5 days. He travels by train and arrives in New York. The story documents his worsening depression marked by drinking, smoking, and spending. Throughout the book he tries to have romantic encounters with many girls, but fails to do so. Holden also starts to become sick as he fails to sleep or wear his coat against the cold. As Holden’s past is revealed, the reason for his sadness, anxiety, confusion and self-destructive behavior is explained. Holden is depressed and mourning the death of his younger brother, Allie. There are lots of interpretations and explanations about Holden and this book. I agree with the most commonly held explanation that Holden is telling his story from a mental institution after a breakdown. The Catcher In The Rye is a sad book, but it is also a beautiful and important story. This book speaks to so many people because it is a true and honest expression of the confusion and pain that every person experiences at one time or another.
There was a really good book I read this summer and that I’ve read about three more times since then. All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is a story of a boy named Finch and a girl named Violet. It’s somewhat like the typical teenage love story but the but struggle with separate issues. Finch has an abusive father, newly divorced parents, and has mental issues, constantly thinking about his own death and possibly even having multiple personality disorder. Violet has recently just survived a fatal car crash that killed her sister Caroline but somehow she survived. The two first met on the top of their schools bell tower. Both lingering over the railing begging for the wind to just take them away. But when Violet is having trouble actually realizing the position she in, Finch coaxes her down the tower and he follows. The relationship between the two of the grew after they were paired for a school project that the must travel together to different locations and writing down locations. While they’re slowly stretching their relation there are some obstacles. Finch is also being bullied at school and if it wasn’t already happening enough when he’s getting pick on more by Violet’s ex-boyfriends friends. Her ex-boyfriends name is Roamer. As the two come more and more into each other lives, each one becoming more and more invested in one another, Finch’s mental condition continues to worsen but Violet stays by his side. But eventually Finch ends his life while the two are at the last destination for their school project a large pond. While they are playing ‘ marco polo ‘ and Finch disappears under the water and never comes up. His body is later found and identified in the pond. Finch’s death shows Violet that you never really know how much someone is hurting and the inside and to Finch Violet was all the bright places to him.