Different does not even cover it...

The two books I am going to write about could not be any more different. They only have one thing in common, being used...

City of Light by Lauren Belfer takes place in Buffalo right before and during the Pan American Exposition in 1901. Louisa Barrett is the headmistress of a prestigious school for girls. Many of her girls go on to fill traditional roles of wife, mother and hostess, but her greatest hope is for them to break out of these roles and pass the bug on to their children. Belfer's language is beautiful and the book is a nice balance of fact and fiction. I learned (or relearned) a lot about the Niagara Falls power station. Threaded throughout this book are a couple mysteries. One is fairly obvious and can be guessed at as soon as the question comes up. The other is more elusive and surprised me even as the answer was being revealed. I truly believe that reading is more about the journey than the destination, so I enjoyed the book, but the ending wasn't what I had been hoping for. After talking to friends, I decided that the protagonist ended pretty much where she began and that's where our disappointed laid. I would like to read Belfer's second book, A Fierce Radiance, so I'll see if she's gotten better at endings! (I didn't tell you how being used had to do with this book, because it's a major plot twist and I'm not giving it away!)

The second book is ALL about being used. It is called Tricks by Ellen Hopkins. As the title suggests, the books is about turning tricks. More specifically it's about teenagers who end up in situations where they have to turn tricks to survive. It is about five teenagers from five very different families and walks of life. I think I've read all of Ellen Hopkins books and I think this was the hardest to read. I could feel these teenagers getting dragged down and making bad choices without even knowing it, believing in the people who should have their best interest at heart, but don't. All in all, the book left me with hope... and a serious case of NEVER wanting to go to Las Vegas! It is a subject that I have always pondered writing about, because there are so many kids that this really happens to. Eventually, I wanted to explore (in writing) how a teen might end up on this path. After reading this book, I'm not 100% sure I'll be able to, but it's still an idea!

I have one more book to read of those three books that were yanked off the top 100 feminist books for Young Adults. I think after that, I'm going to take a break from reading these tough subjects! Maybe I'll reread Harry Potter in anticipation of the last movie!

Crazy Week Amid Disaster

I know it's been over a week, but it's also been crazy here! Last week was Girl Scout week, so we had events EVERY NIGHT (FYI I'm a Brownie leader). Ash Wednesday was last week. A huge earthquake and then tsunami hit Japan and thousands of people died. What an awful event! I'm still not quite able to fathom the damage done. I keep looking at the photos and thinking that maybe the world really is ending... Maybe that's why I keep reading books about Dystopias and and futuristic worlds. They make me think that what we have now is not so bad. Maybe more people need to read them so they can recognize when things are heading the wrong way!

The first book I'm going to write about is not a book about a dystopia. It's called The Shadow of the Wind and is by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. It is one of the more beautiful books I have read this year. There are so many "deep thoughts" within the pages, it's hard to remember most of them. The story takes us through the young life of Daniel, the ten year old son of a book seller. His father takes him to The Cemetery of Forgotten Books for the first time and he gets to pick out a book to protect. The book he picks is called The Shadow of the Wind by Julian Carax. Daniel reads the book and is so taken with it, he tries to learn more about the author and find more of his books. Throughout the book, we see Daniel go through his adolescence and are swept up with him in unravelling the mystery of Julian Carax's life. This book has everything: romance, mystery, horror, murder, crime, intrigue. This is a book that will stay with me for a long time, while others slip out of my memory.

Matched by Ally Condie is a novel about a dystopia. Not to far in the future, the US has been morphed into The (perfect) Society. Everyone has food that meets their nutritional needs, everyone has a job suited to their abilities, and everyone who chooses to gets matched to a person who they will happy with until they die on their eightieth birthday. Or you can choose to be single for the rest of your life. In this society, everything is done for you, and there is very little choice. Cassia chose to be matched and is amazed to get matched to one of her best friends, when everyone else has been matched to people from other burroughs who they have never met before. Everyone who gets matched gets a microcard with all the information of their match on it. When Cassia views her microcard, she see's her match's picture, but then another face comes on the screen, and the face belongs to another friend of hers. Seeing the other boy's face opens up a world of possibilities for her, one being that The Society is not perfect and makes mistakes. Will she choose to accept her match, or will she chase destiny and see where it takes her? I have to admit that the beginning of this book was not easy for me to read. The writing was kind of mechanical and I didn't really get a feel for Cassia. By the end, I realized that's because she wasn't really a person, yet. She just did what The Society told her to do. As the story progresses, Cassia finds her voice and the writing becomes more emotional and easier to read. I really got caught up in the story and look forward to book two! (Yes, it's another series!)

I'm not even going to try to guess what I might write about next time, but I'm sure they'll be good!

Week 2 - Two YA books and a Classic

So, I said last week that I was going to review Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane by Suzanne Collins and Nightlight by The Harvard Lampoon. I also managed to finish The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I guess that's where I'll start. I read The Great Gatsby because I'm going to be teaching it next month in the English class I coteach. It's a book I've been meaning to read for awhile but probably would have never gotten around to without the proper prompting. I did enjoy it. A lot took place in the narrator's (Nick Carraway's) head, and a lot was what he heard. It is interesting how a lot of modern lit focuses on the drama as it is happening. The main character is the person that is going through the drama. Not so in this book. The main character watches a lot of what happens, but most of the real action happens as he is looking back in hindsight. After learning the time frame it takes place in, I got into it a lot more. It is a "roaring 20's", prohibition/bootlegging, jazz era book. Taken as that, it is beautiful.

I talked about the first Underland Chronicles book in my last blog. If you aren't familiar with the series, check it out! In the second book, Gregor and the Prophecy of Bane, Gregor and his little sister Boots are once again dragged into the Underworld. This time, Gregor must defeat the Bane, a ten-foot-tall, white rat, to save his sister from the other rats who are hunting her and to save the Underworld. But nothing turns out exactly how people expect it in the Underland. Gregor takes another exciting journey through the Underland and the reader tags along, fighting his fight, feeling his pain and enduring all his hardships. One thing that Suzanne Collins excells at in her writing is pulling the reader in and making them feel like part of the story!

The last book I read, Nightlight by the Harvard Lampoon was just too fricken funny! If you liked Twilight, you should totally read the parody! If you hated Twilight, you will love this book! Belle Goose leaves her babyish mom and her travel-street-hockey playing step-dad to move to Switchblade, Oregon, where she meets Edwart Mullen. She detects early on that he is a vampire and she wants him to make her one, too. When she tells her dad she is in love he responds: " ...isn't it a little soon to cut yourself off from the rest of your peers, depending on a boyfriend to satisfy your social needs as opposed to making friends? Imagine what would happen if something forced that boy to leave! I'm imagining pages and pages would happen- with nothing but the names of the month on them!" I almost dropped the book laughing at that point. Later on, Belle almost gets eaten by a real vampire who decides to take her to the vampire prom instead, where the theme is human. Then the vampire starts rattling off the prom themes from former years: "Pimps and their Street Ho's; CEOs and their Office Ho's; GI Joes and their Combat Ho's; Gardeners and their Garden Hoes; Firemen and their Fire Hose..." It's a short book, filled with hilarity... Don't read it expecting to get some kind of greater knowledge out of it, it's just a parody! Enjoy!

Next week:
Matched by Allie Condie
Not sure what else yet, but there's this big controversy going on where three books were put on this top 100 list and then removed and replaced with three "less controversial" books. So, needless to say, I'm trying to get my hands on the books that were removed! We'll see! Happy reading!