Nook Book Review Part 3

8/3/15

Storm
(Brigid Kemmerer's Elemental Series #1)
by Brigid Kemmerer
275 pages
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/storm-brigid-kemmerer/1107884087?ean=9780758272812
 3.75/5
Kinda typical. I really hated the triangle thing. The ending was a complete surprise except for maybe the romance part. The book seemed to drag on for forever.

The Haunted Mansion #1by K. Weikel
2/5
The book, sorry short story, barely made sense. It went by too fast for me to understand anything that was going. Don't read it.

The Haunted Mansion #2by K. Weikel
1/5
Nope don't buy
If I didn't understand the first book, I really didn't have a reason for buying the second one. It didn't help clear anything up. Sad.

It's What's On The Inside

3/21/15

It's What's On The Inside
Anthony J. Harris
34 pages

Summary: Direct from the back of the book

Ashley comes home from school feeling very sad and is ready to change who she is after on of her friends from school tells her that he doesn't like the color of her skin. With a lot of love and words of support, Daddy helps her embrace the skin she's in.

Review:
This book was beautiful. A little girl of about four is feeling sad about her skin color. Everyone has felt that self-hate every once in a while. This author, who my mother personally knows, beautifully brought up why you should love the skin you are in. The book as a whole is very cute with the pictures. My favorite scene is at the end, when Ashley picks up her black dolls and talks to them. She says, "You are very pretty, and your skin is pretty just like mine. And I also love you because you are pretty on the inside, just like me." That is very powerful.  I think many people should read this book, though I am not sure exactly where you can buy it from.



P.S. Leave a comment below please.

The Mayor of Casterbridge

The Mayor of Casterbridge
Thomas Hardy
231 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00A739SD0/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

A cruel joke at a country fair goes too far when a drunken laborer auctions off his wife and child to the highest bidder. So begins The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy's gripping tale of a man's rise and fall amid the natural beauty and human brutality of a rural English community. First published serially in 1886, the novel was an immediate success with critics, who praised its realism and poetic style. Rich in descriptive powers and steeped in irony, this timeless tale offers a spellbinding portrayal of ambition, rivalry, revenge, and repentance.

My Opinion:
This was an interesting novel. All the troubles started due to Micheal Henchard's obsession with himself. He is a self-absorbed  person. That personality caused him to make impulsive decisions and sell his wife, lie to a town, hate an innocent and friendly man, and other things. If he had cared about how his actions affected others, then there would not have been a story.

Besides Henchard's infuriating personality, the book was a page-turner. I was very curious about how Elizabeth-Jane would turn out due to the circumstances. I am glad that she finally caught Farfrae. She deserved someone who respects her and knows her past.

In describing this book, the plot is very widespread. I would sum it up to be about how one impulsive drunk's decision shook up a town to its core. For example, Henchard's display towards the royal personage was ridiculous. A lot of his inherent displays of vengeance were stupid in theory and impulsive. All they did was make himself look bad.

The Things They Carried

The Things They Carried
Tim O'Brien
233 pages

One sentence summary: A Vietnam War veteran recounts stories of the war, his friends/ platoon members, and the after-effects of the war in a mashup of  fiction and fact.

Official Description: Direct from: Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002TWIVNA/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.  

The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three. 

Taught everywhere—from high school classrooms to graduate seminars in creative writing—it has become required reading for any American and continues to challenge readers in their perceptions of fact and fiction, war and peace, courage and fear and longing. 

The Things They Carried won France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger and the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize; it was also a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.

My Opinion:

This book played with my emotions. Since it was a required reading book, I was already aware of the controversy surrounding the book: whether it is fact or fiction. O'Brien counts the book as fiction, but my teacher believed that it was fact because if the government knew about everything that went on then these men would be in a lot of trouble. I do not know what to believe just that this book played with my emotions too many times.

My favorite character was maybe Rat Kiley due to his individual story located in chapter 7. "The Sweetheart of Song Tra Bo". 

The Merchant of Venice

The Merchant of Venice
Shakespeare
5 Acts

Summary: Direct from Wikipedia.com (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice)

The Merchant of Venice is a play by William Shakespeare in which a merchant in 16th-century Venice must default on a large loan provided by an abused Jewish moneylender. It is believed to have been written between 1596 and 1599. 

My Opinion:
This was a very good play by Shakespeare. I can see a few things from many of his other plays reflected in this one (Romeo & Juliet, Othello, etc.). Also, I can see where many common tropes and story-line ideas came from. Parts of the story was predictable to me, but others were unexpected. I did not think Portia would have made that well of a lawyer. I wonder how she learned that much Venetian Law. I am glad Shakespeare  put in that much women power in there. At first, I thought Portia was just a silly little girl. Instead she was an intelligent mastermind. I am very glad Antonio was okay. He was too nice for him to have almost died by Shylock's hands.

Although I enjoyed the play as a whole, I am not fond of role Jews took on in the play. I understand why as in this time period Christians were seen as the holy everything and all others were impure evil. However, it is truly saf to read something like that. History always had someone(s) being called evil and the devil. Sure one person might be like that (Shylock really was the devil), but a whole ethnicity is not evil. That is just a sad misconception.

A Streetcar named Desire

A Streetcar named Desire
Tennessee Williams
154 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B10GAU2/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

The Pulitzer Prize and Drama Critics Circle Award winning play—reissued with an introduction by Arthur Miller (Death of a Salesman and The Crucible), and Williams' essay "The World I Live In."

It is a very short list of 20th-century American plays that continue to have the same power and impact as when they first appeared—57 years after its Broadway premiere, Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is one of those plays. The story famously recounts how the faded and promiscuous Blanche DuBois is pushed over the edge by her sexy and brutal brother-in-law, Stanley Kowalski. Streetcar launched the careers of Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy, Kim Hunter and Karl Malden, and solidified the position of Tennessee Williams as one of the most important young playwrights of his generation, as well as that of Elia Kazan as the greatest American stage director of the '40s and '50s.

My Opinion:
This was a sad novel/play. I did not expect most of the plot. Everything went downhill since Blanche came to stay with her sister. Of course, nothing was perfect in Stella's world as she was married to an abusive husband. However because Blanche arrived, her mental stability deteriorated faster. None of the three characters needed to be by themselves. They were all a little insane. All three let their desires rule them, but as it conflicted with another's  all resulted was chaos.

Although the play was sad, it also gave a look into what happens when humans desires rule them. A desire all three shared was sex, but behind that affection. Blanche used sex to fill up a hole caused by Allan's death. Sex was what kept Stanley and Stella's  marriage together. It also ruled over Stanley's mind causing him to be animalistic.

A lesson from this play is to not let desires rule over you or else it will take you to Elysian Fields (death).

Books during Leaf Part 2

Stupid and Contagious 
Caprice Crane 
320 pages

One-sentence summary:
Two  mismatched weird people are brought together due to music.

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J2UVD4/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

In this hilarious, romantic comedy, two twenty-something neighbors embark on a zany mission to meet the founder of Starbucks, and in doing so, find each other.

My Opinion:
They are perfect for one another. It hooks you in on the first page. I fell in love with both characters. Heaven was so extra, cute, endearing, and had the worst luck. Brady was a fun-loving cynic.
During my month-long internship, all the girls, plus our mentor,  read this book. Our mentor said it cited her life, while us teenage girls found it funny. I did not understand some of the references: TV shows, movies, the band songs and names. I think I might look up the songs in the book and make a playlist and watch some of the movies. That sounds fun. I truly wonder about the title. Is it supposed to reference the characters or a song? Either way hummm. The ending got me. Ironically, I had not expected to read the book, so I had read the first two chapters and the last two chapters. Now, everything makes sense . I recommend this book: 5 stars.

Playlist/ Movie References  (A * refers to a song)

1. Zoolander
2. Seinfeld 
3. The Crying Game
4. The Big picture
5. Annie Hall
6. Rain Man
7. Heathers
8. Valley Girls 
9. Sounds from the Nerve
10. The Outfield 
11. The Clash*
12. Sixteen Candles
13. Ferris Bureller’s Day Off
14. Summer Nights*
15. Romper Room
16. St. Elmo’s Fire
17. Pretty Woman
18. Baker Street*
19. Seasons in the Sun*
20. Bad, bad Leroy Brown*
21. Crosstown Traffic*
22. Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory 
23. True Romance
24. Water Love ( by Dire Straits)*
25. Bigg Balls ( by AC/DC)*
26. Smells like Teen Spirit (by Nirvana)*
27. Tush (by ZZ Top)*
28. My Way (by Sinatra)*
29. Core on Honesty (by Franz Ferdinand) *
30. Heart of Glass (by Blondie)*
31. Little Guitars (by Van Halen) *
32. Somebody to Shovel (by Soul Asylum)*
33. Beat my Guest (by Adam Ant)*
34. Stand and Deliver
35. Fight Club
36. Clerks
37. Do-wah-diddy (by Manfred Mann)*
38. Zenyatta Mondatta
39. Fast times at Ridgemont High
40. Say Anything 
41. Singles 
42. Almost Famous 
43. Vanilla Sky
44. Land of the lost
45. A fish called Wanda
46. About a boy
47. Against the Wind*
48. Caddyshack
49. The Princess Bride
50. Pretty in Pink
51. September Morn (by Neil Diamond)*
52. Gilligan’s Island 
53. A Raisin in the Sun 

Books during Leaf Part 3

Deep Down Popular
Phoebe Stone
280 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com

6th-grader Jessie Lou is deeply, madly, passionately in love with Conrad Parker Smith. Too bad she's a tomboy with only one on-again, off-again friend, and hair so short you can't spit on it. Too bad he's the most popular boy in their small-town school.
But then Conrad hurts his leg and suddenly can't keep up with his old pursuits anymore. Jessie Lou and Conrad start spending a lot more time together, but she can't help wonder -- is she just a substitute friend? And will Conrad forget her when his leg brace comes off and he's king of the school once again?

My Opinion:
This is for ages 14 and under. It is a cute book.


Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone 
J.K Rowling  (Illustrated by Jim Kay)
247 pages

My Opinion:
I have never read any of the Harry Potter books, but I have seen all of the movies. The movies did a great job of following the book, as many movie adaptations do not. This book was wonderful. I am so glad I finally read it. The drawings brought a smile to my face.


Invisible Monsters
Chuck Palahniuk
297 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Monsters-Novel-Chuck-Palahniuk-ebook/dp/B004SO5SD8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1473527030&sr=1-1&keywords=invisible+monsters)

Love, betrayal, petty larceny, and high fashion fuel this deliciously comic novel from the author of Fight Club.

She's a fashion model who has everything: a boyfriend, a career, a loyal best friend. But when a sudden freeway "accident" leaves her disfigured and incapable of speech, she goes from being the beautiful center of attention to being an invisible monster, so hideous that no one will acknowledge that she exists. Enter Brandy Alexander, Queen Supreme, one operation away from becoming a real woman, who will teach her that reinventing yourself means erasing your past and making up something better. And that salvation hides in the last places you'll ever want to look.

My Opinion:
Plot twist after plot twist. Never expected any of it. Everyone should read this book.


Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn 
418 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Gone-Girl-Novel-Gillian-Flynn-ebook/dp/B006LSZECO/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1473526320&sr=1-1&keywords=gone+girl)

On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy's diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?

My Opinion:
Everyone in this world was crazy and went hard. Amy has deep psychological issues. Ironically, her parents were psychologists. They are both pathological liars. Somehow Nick and Amy are perfect for each other since they are both heavily messed up. It was such a wild book. I wish someone would write a closed ending for it, possibly Amy and Nick with their child. A little snapshot in fanfiction would be nice.


The perks of being a wallflower
Stephen Chbosky
212 pages

Summary: Direct from Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/Perks-Being-Wallflower-Stephen-Chbosky-ebook/dp/B003TSEEDY/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1473526439&sr=1-1&keywords=the+perks+of+being+a+wallflower)

Read the cult-favorite coming of age story that takes a sometimes heartbreaking, often hysterical, and always honest look at high school in all its glory. Now a major motion picture starring Logan Lerman and Emma Watson, The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a funny, touching, and haunting modern classic. 

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant “wallflower” Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up. 

A #1 New York Times best seller for more than a year, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults (2000) and Best Book for Reluctant Readers (2000), and with millions of copies in print, this novel for teen readers (or “wallflowers” of more-advanced age) will make you laugh, cry, and perhaps feel nostalgic for those moments when you, too, tiptoed onto the dance floor of life.

My Opinion:
I really liked how the reader could see Charlie's growth throughout the story through his writing. It was an interesting book. I can see why people like it.

Books read during LEAF part 1

Inkheart
Cornelia Finley
563 pages
Inkheart Trilogy

My one-sentence summary:
This is what happens when you let storybook characters out of their pages and the worst villain you have ever known comes out to conquer you, your family, your world, and your powers.

Summary: (Direct from Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B005OBBV44/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

From internationally acclaimed storyteller Cornelia Funke, this bestselling, magical epic is now out in paperback!

One cruel night, Meggie's father reads aloud from a book called INKHEART-- and an evil ruler escapes the boundaries of fiction and lands in their living room. Suddenly, Meggie is smack in the middle of the kind of adventure she has only read about in books. Meggie must learn to harness the magic that has conjured this nightmare. For only she can change the course of the story that has changed her life forever.  

This is INKHEART--a timeless tale about books, about imagination, about life. Dare to read it aloud.

My opinion:
I liked this book. I am glad I finally read it. However, I am still unsure if I will read the rest of the series.


The Princess, The Crone, and the Dung-Cart Knight
Gerald Morris
310 pages
The Squires Tales

My one-sentence summary:
New take on Arthurian legends from the point-of-view of a girl.

Official summary: (Direct from Amazon.com: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003K16PCI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

Ever since the murder of her mother and guardian, Sarah has been searching for the knight she holds responsible for their death. But vengeance may not be as satisfying as she thought it would be.

My Opinion:
A real page-turner with nice plot twists, imagery, and things that made me happy. I really enjoyed this book. All the characters were really cool and enjoyable. The ending was pleasant. I love that you can enjoy the book as stand-alone novels, because that’s how I found this one. Also, the historical accuracy about the treatment towards Jews was A1. A book can be a fantasy and still have historical accuracy. If fiction books are sometimes the only way people remember/lean history, then start least put the right facts in there.I recommend this book to ages 14 and under.

Anna Karenina
Leo Tolstoy
853 pages

My one-sentence summary: 
This a book sorta on the butterfly effect as the actions of one character's appearance in life changes the whole dynamic of everyone's relationships.

Summary: (Direct from Barnes & Noble.com :http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/anna-karenina-barnes-noble-classics-series-leo-tolstoy/1105958283)

Vladimir Nabokov called Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina “one of the greatest love stories in world literature.” Matthew Arnold claimed it was not so much a work of art as “a piece of life.” Set in imperial Russia, Anna Karenina is a rich and complex meditation on passionate love and disastrous infidelity.
Married to a powerful government minister, Anna Karenina is a beautiful woman who falls deeply in love with a wealthy army officer, the elegant Count Vronsky. Desperate to find truth and meaning in her life, she rashly defies the conventions of Russian society and leaves her husband and son to live with her lover. Condemned and ostracized by her peers and prone to fits of jealousy that alienate Vronsky, Anna finds herself unable to escape an increasingly hopeless situation.
Set against this tragic affair is the story of Konstantin Levin, a melancholy landowner whom Tolstoy based largely on himself. While Anna looks for happiness through love, Levin embarks on his own search for spiritual fulfillment through marriage, family, and hard work. Surrounding these two central plot threads are dozens of characters whom Tolstoy seamlessly weaves together, creating a breathtaking tapestry of nineteenth-century Russian society.
From its famous opening sentence—“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way”—to its stunningly tragic conclusion, this enduring tale of marriage and adultery plumbs the very depths of the human soul.

My Opinion:
Weird book. Two main characters’ actions dictate/influence the actions of all other characters. I did not like Anna as her incapability to make a decision on anything made everything harder for everyone else. Plus she was two-faced and vindictive. I was not torn up by her fate. She sorta deserved it. Levin was just confusing and too intellectual for myself. Most of the time, I could not understand most of what he had said. However, I am glad he found happiness.

I can understand why this book is a classic. However, it is not one of my favorites. Nor will I recommend this to you. Read this at your own risk.

100th post

The review just put up was my 100th post!

 

Hope you guys enjoy it and enjoyed my presence these past 3 years. Its been fun for me as well. Leave comments on what books you think I should read next please!

Thank-you so much for your continued presence in reading these reviews. Hope you guys enjoy them as much as I enjoy writing them.

Until next week,

C.

Relentless series

Nook books

Relentless series 
Karen Lynch

1. Relentless
    316 pages


2. Refuge
    350 pages



3. Rogue
    349 pages


Summary for Relentless: Direct from Karen Lynch.com (http://www.karenlynchnl.com/#!books/cee5)

Sometimes the demons you fight inside are real.

Sara Grey’s world shattered ten years ago when her father was brutally murdered. Now at seventeen, she is still haunted by memories of that day and driven by the need to understand why it happened. She lives a life full of secrets and her family and friends have no idea of the supernatural world she is immersed in or of Sara’s own very powerful gift.

In her quest for answers about her father’s death, Sara takes risks that expose her and her friends to danger and puts herself into the sights of a sadistic vampire. On the same fateful night she meets Nikolas, a warrior who turns Sara’s world upside down and is determined to protect her even if it’s the last thing she wants.

Sara’s life starts to spin out of control as she is hunted by an obsessed vampire, learns that her friends have secrets of their own and reels from the truth about her own ancestry. Sara has always been fiercely independent but in order to survive now she must open herself to others, to reveal her deepest secrets. And she must learn to trust the one person capable of breaking down the walls around her.

My Opinion:

One-sentence summary:  A seventeen-year-old with a heavily magic influenced lifestyle learns that her family background is more than meets the eye and this knowledge will change around her small-town life for the better. At least ,I hope :)

Stars: ****.5 on average

Wow! This book series had me hooked. I am a big fan of the paranormal genre and I can definitely say that after reading hundreds if books I do not think I had ever read anything quite like these. One of a kind in my opinion. The books had me hooked from page one. I read the entire series in loosely 2 days, including hours of break and homework. After finishing one book, I had to go pay $3.99 and read the next one. Luckily there were only 3 books in the series and the first book was free or else I would truly be screaming book bankruptcy.

The world in this book was simple, but the amount of creatures and backstory the author placed into the story was what wound me. So many types of demons and trolls and etc. They really did their research.  Most authors might stick to the big 3: vampires, fairies, and werewolves. Those three might mix in the story or not, but this series involved trolls, imps, various demons, griffins, wyverns, kelpies, etc. The creatures themselves might have been what single mindlessly held my attention.

As a hopeless romantic, i really liked the predictability of Sara's relationship with Nikolas. If none of us picked up the obvious romance between those two, then we were all blind. Sara's relationships with everyone was such a nice change. Characters who don't thrust away their whole lives when a new world is opened to them reflect real life in my opinion. Would someone really drop everything they have known for something they learned about 3 hours ago? Nah give them time to adjust at least. Another media that reflects this is Sailor Moon, Usagi never wanted to be a super heroine, which is why she constantly cried and complained about her duties. That would be me. Situations like those reflect real-life in unrealistic situations. It helps me connect with the characters more.

Honestly, if I kept typing then i would start repeating myself. As it is pretty obvious, I heavily enjoyed this book series. I recommend this for teens or at least someone on a 7th and 8th-grade reading level and maturity. If the book has you as hooked as it did me, Iwould love to compare notes. Enjoy reading my friends!

 P.S. Please leave a comment below. I love comments.

P.P.S. There are Russian words/ phrases in the books!!! They most likely are terms of endearment. Either way, I should learn Russian!!

P.P.S. I took a mock AP English language  exam last week and i think i failed. But you know C'est la vie!