Final Post

Hey guys. So I know that there are definitely tons of you out there eagerly awaiting our posts because you absolutely adore out witty and well thought out book reviews, but I'm afraid that it's going to have to end now. The end of the year is coming and I personally am looking forward to it. I've already got senioritis and I'm only a junior. Potentially problematic. I just have so little motivation to do anything anymore, you know? Still, this nagging feeling in the back of my head is telling me to start buckling down for finals. As luck would have it, the three classes that I do have a final in also happen to be my most difficult classes.

Still, I feel like this year has been pretty cool. Granted, it was Junior year, which meant the homework load was just plain awful. I've found myself doing homework/studying for tests until I heard the early, early morning birds singing and then getting up 2-3 hours later for morning practice. Calculus makes zero sense to me and I've been struggling through that class and try as I might, I just can't seem to stay awake in physics. My social life has more or less disappeared and my friends can attest to the fact that more often than not, my response to "can you help me with homework" is "sorry, doing Spanish." Oh jeez, Spanish has been so work filled this year--even more so than last year. I did learn a ton though, so I guess it did benefit me in the end.

On the brighter side, I've become closer with a lot of my friends while we all struggled through this year, I grew a quarter of an inch (woohoo...), and my 4x100 meter relay team broke a 25-year-old record. Definitely an up point of the year. Sadly enough, we haven't been able to do it again since due to various complications such as injured groins, pulled calves, silly hand-off mistakes, and NEALAY. LEARN TO STAY IN THE CORRECT LANE. Sorry. Oh well. It's certainly been an eventful year.

Also! I've discovered that I really do enjoy Ms. Majerus's English classes. I was told by many friends that I would love her class and although I'm pretty skeptical of these claims at first, I found that they were largely true. There really wasn't anything that I disliked about this class except for carrying around that huge book of essays.

Good year. Congratulations to all you seniors. I wish you good luck with the rest of your life. As for the juniors, see you all next year. We're going to be seniors. How weird is that.

The Syllable-less Post

Oh crap. I failed the challenge already. With the title... OK I PROMISE ONLY ONE SYLLABLE FROM NOW ON!!!

One of the best books I read as a child was Terry Brook's The Sword of Shannara. The Sword of Shannara is the first in a HUGE group of books, all tied in some way to the first book; The Sword of Shannara. There are more than 20 books tied to Sword of Shannara in print right now. Most of them are more than 500 page(s FU) long. I've read 11 or 12 of them, but let's just talk on Sword of Shannara for now.

Sword of Shannara is set in a small town called Shady Vale, where Flick Ohmsford lives. When Flick was young, his dad took in a half-elf boy named Shea. Though Shea is not Flick's blood kin, they are close friends.
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OK, wow. This little bit has taken me a VERY long time to write. ONE MORE PARAGRAPH. And then I shall finish this post with many long, beautiful, syllables.
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One day, a man named Allanon comes to Shady Vale. He warns Shea that the "Warlock Lord" is on his way south to find Shea. It turns out Shea is the last of a long line of elves. His great-great-great-great grand-dad (there's a dash, FU) was Jerle Shannara, an elf king.

OK crap. That's a paragraph. So basically, the Warlock Lord was defeated thousands of years ago by Jerle Shannara with the Sword of Shannara, but he's back. Only descendants of Jerle Shannara can wield the sword, and Shea is the only living descendant. So basically Shea has to find the sword, take out the Warlock Lord, and be home for dinner. OK well, maybe not the last part. Sorry. I couldn't resist.

The Sword of Shannara is an amazing book that I would recommend to any reader above the age of ~10. Terry Brooks wrote The Sword of Shannara in 1977 (that's a freaking long time ago), and he hasn't slowed down since. The other series related to The Sword of Shannara are usually series of three or four books with descendants/ancestors of Shea and Flick as the main characters. They are super fun and entertaining. In fact, if it manages to resurface from the depths of my cluttered bookcase, I plan on re-reading The Sword of Shannara tonight!

Adjectiveless Post

Ms. Majerus's latest challenge is to have us write out next blog post without adjectives or with only single syllable words. Since this blog is devoted to book reviews, I figured it would be an interesting challenge to try to write a book review without any adjectives. So, bear with me, I apologize in advance for inevitable terrible quality and length of this blog post.

The book I have chosen to write about for this blog post is called American Gods by Neil Gaiman. This book tells the story about a man named Shadow who has spent part of his life in jail on a charge that he received for trying to protect his wife. He finally got out but learned that his wife had died in a car crash before his release. No words could describe his grief; he had loved...

All right, never mind. I give up. This is impossible. I've literally given myself a headache trying to write more than 4 sentences without adjectives.

Anyway, he discovers that his wife has died a week before his release and is so totally shocked that he doesn't know what to do. He returns home to attend his wife's funeral only to discover that she had been having an affair with his best friend for over three years. It's definitely a very bitter, sad moment. Gaiman does a fantastic job of capturing feelings and emotion in his words with just enough details so not to bore the reader but provide a vivid picture.

Shadow then meets this man who calls himself Mr. Wednesday and he offers to employ him as a full time driver/bodyguard. By the way, Shadow happens to be very tall and powerfully built but also relatively young. Shadow, realizing that he had nowhere to go, accepts. From this point on, Shadow has a very interesting series of adventures with Mr. Wednesday all throughout America. As can be assumed from the title of the book, Gaiman's novel is about the various myths, legends, and supposed "American Gods". The whole story builds up to a very vague climax concerning a brewing storm while Shadow and Wednesday attempt to get recruits. It's very interesting to see how deep Gaiman has delved into American history and mythology and I often found myself thinking "Ohhh, I remember reading something about that...". Trust me, if you like mythology, this is a cool book.

However, there are a few downsides. American Gods is not a very fast paced book. There are various action scenes but the majority of the book feels like a surreal walk through time narrated by Gaiman's extraordinary description skills. It felt like a movie was being painted in my head as I read this. Also, you know that thing when you learn about something and then immediately read it or see it the next day? Well, that happened with this book and the Botany of Desire. We had just finished the section about apples and I see John Chapman appear in this book along with the famous applejack.

Anyway, I like this book, but I don't think it's for everybody. If this were a movie, I would definitely rate this an R because of the sexual content so I wouldn't recommend this as a light read. Still, if you're looking for something slower but very thought provoking, I suggest American Gods as an interesting choice.

My Father's Dragon

           Ruther Stiles Gannett's My Father's Dragon: best kids' book ever or THE best kids' book ever? I was browsing through my bookshelf when I came across the other two books in the trilogy--Elmer and the Dragon & The Dragons of Blueland. As soon as I saw the front cover pictures, a flood of memories came pouring into my head. Dax, who was on Skype with me at the time, can attest that my various, "ooohhhhsss" and "aaaahhhhsss" got pretty annoying as I relived the memory of my three favorite childhood books EVER. 

          What's not to love about these books? They're chock-full of adventure, friendship, and FREAKING DRAGONS. The first book, My Father's Dragon, follows the narrator's "father" as he rescues a dragon on a remote island. The book is written in third person and refers to the main character as, "my father". The second book, Elmer and the Dragon, changes in narrative voice. This time the narrator refers to the main character by his name (Elmer). In this book, Elmer and his dragon get stranded on an island with a bunch of talking birds. (Hey, it's a children's book...) They have to help the birds find a buried treasure that had been hidden on the island. The third book, The Dragons of Blueland, is set around the dragon's family, who are being threatened by humans. The humans want to take them away to a zoo or circus, and Elmer and the dragon must stop them. 

         If you ever have children, I would HIGHLY recommend getting them these three books. Heck, I would even recommend reading them as an adult/young adult. There's something about these books (as I'm sure you'll agree if you've read them) that makes them special, and gets you excited about reading. 

Flashback!

Recently, there hasn't been a lot of time to read. Schoolwork and ACT prep has taken over my daily routines for the past couple weeks. Every so often, I get a few more pages done with American Gods by Neil Gaiman on my Kindle but no major progress has been completed. Speaking of Kindles, what are your opinions on e-readers? I got my Kindle as a Christmas gift from Andrew Han's family and it was intended to be a family gift but I was the only person who knew how to use one, so it became my property. I think it's an interesting alternative and I do like how you can store a gazillion books on one tablet but I still prefer the original versions. Much longer battery life.

Anyway, that wasn't the point of this blog. I've decided to call upon childhood reading memories and write about one of my favorite series ever, The Alex Rider Series by Anthony Horowitz. This series focuses about a teenager by the name of Alex Rider who is also a spy for the British Intelligence Agency, MI6. Each book focuses on a different adventure he has, ranging anywhere from the Swiss Alps to sunny Miami, Florida. Up till now, the author has written nine books in this series, eight of which I've read. I just put the 9th book on hold at the library so maybe I'll review that at a later time.

Obviously, it would take much too long to review every single book in this series (although that would definitely be a lot of fun), so I'm going to go for an overall gist type of thing. Basically, there is a boy named Alex Rider who was unknowingly trained by his uncle to be a spy all his life. One day, his uncle was assassinated and Alex decided to find out why. Thus began the career of a teenage spy. In every book, Alex sets out to investigate a certain person or company based on MI6's suspicions and he usually ends up fighting for his life against incalculable odds and whatnot. They're not exactly mind-blowingly creative, but they definitely were a lot of fun because who hasn't dreamed of being a teenage spy?

Keep in mind, I started reading these books in... oh I don't know... 5th grade or so, and my tastes have probably matured somewhat. Still, if you're looking for something to serve more as a distraction than heavy reading, I would recommend this series. Even if you find yourself thinking, "I definitely saw that one coming..." I'm pretty sure there'll also be parts where you think to yourself, "Oh, that'd actually be pretty cool!" Have fun!

The Little Book

Stan "Wheeler" Burden is a the definition of his a "father's son". His father's life, which was lost WWII, is basically what dictates Wheeler's life. He went to the same prep school as him, played on the same Harvard baseball team as him, and was an all around brilliant person, just like his father. "The Little Book" is partly a book about how Wheeler rebels, and makes himself different. After needing one more strike to get a perfect game in a game against Yale, Wheeler takes off all of his clothes, sets them on the mound, and walks away. He drops out of Harvard and joins the music scene, ending up becoming an extremely popular rock star. Now, the real story starts. In 1988, when Wheeler is in his late 40s, he is suddenly transported back in time to late 1800s Vienna.

In Vienna, he meets his father, who has been transported back in time from the 1940s. His father, on the verge o death, was being tortured by the Germans when he woke up in Vienna. The two of them end up meeting Wheeler's grandparents (his father's parents), Sigmund Freud, Hitler as a child, their favorite teacher in prep school, and various other famous people.

I HIGHLY recommend reading Seldon Edward's The Little Book. It's a great mixture of fiction, romance, non-fiction, and realistic fiction that will fascinate even the least diligent of readers. If you decide to read it, try to take all the historical information for granted. If you think something is true historical fact, make sure you look it up before you argue about it with Mr. Sutton. There's a lot of made up stuff thats weaved in with the factual stuff. If you cannot STAND slow books, I don't recommend this book to you. At times there can be long, somewhat boring dialogues that seem to serve little purpose. Especially the scenes with Sigmund Freud. ESPECIALLY those ones. I'm not the sort of reader that likes slow-paced books, so it was surprising to me that I liked it. I highly suggest at least giving this book a try; it's extremely good if you get into it.

Bartimaeus!

Okay, first of all, isn't that just a really cool name? I remember when I was a kid, we used to have these quiet writing sessions in 3rd grade. I would spend a portion of my time writing fantasy stories (that usually made little sense) and the other half making up names for the characters in these stories. For some reason, I just really really liked a name that could roll off my tongue. But that's besides the point. Basically, I picked this book up, once again, based on the cover art.

Oh silly me, I've forgotten to say the title. It's called The Amulet of Samarkand and is part of the Bartimaeus trilogy. The plot revolves around this boy called named Nathaniel and the spirit he summoned, known as Bartimaeus. The books are all set in London, though in different time periods. Now, as I have mentioned before, historical fiction and fantasy are both favorite genres of mine, so you can imagine how much I loved this book when the author decided to combine them both. Basically, there is a world of magicians that call on spirits from their own world in order to do the magician's bidding. Nathaniel is young and inexperienced and he summons a old and powerful djinni, Bartimaeus, to take revenge on a person who wronged him in the past. The plot is very complicated and has several twists near the end, so it would take a while for me to explain. However, the main problem that arises in this book is that Bartimaeus figures out his master's birth name--a fatal mistake throughout the entire world of magicians. Nathaniel has to figure out a way to solve this problem of he's totally screwed.

The book starts out with a scene about halfway through the intended story and then works its way backwards to tell the full story. I'm sure you've read books like that before. Sometimes, it works out nicely and sometimes it leaves you utterly confused as to what's happening. In the case of The Amulet of Samarkand, it would be the former. It flows well and the breaks made to change to the past all make perfect sense.

Another interesting aspect about how the author, Johnathon Stroud writes is the way he switches from point of view nearly every chapter. Again, this style works for some books but not for others. However, I think it really added a nice effect for these books because climactic scenes from multiple perspectives added a lot of interesting angles that you would not have noticed otherwise. When the book is told from Nathaniel's perspective, the author switches to third-person narration but changes to first-person when it's from Bartimaeus. Also, when it's told from Bartimaeus's perspective, he always adds interesting little footnotes with either personal quips or remarks or bits of historical information added with a slight fantastical twist. Trust me, you'll understand what I mean if you read it.

Anyway, long story short: good book, definite recommendation if you have interest in fantasy novels and historical fiction. There are a few parts that are a bit of a drag to read, but there's no shortage of action scenes if that's what your looking for.