John Green

I've recently discovered the wonder that is the vlogbrothers which has led me to the wonder that is the author John Green.

I read Looking For Alaska in the past month, and then An Abundance of Katherines not long after that.
Both of them were great!



           

I must not be as insightful as I would like to think.
Let's just say there was an awful lot of foreshadowing in Looking For Alaska that I did not pick up on until I felt it punch me in the gut.
It was a beautiful story.
I loved it.

An Abundance of Katherine is everything I'd want from a fun, romantic, nerdy read.
I loved the tone of the narration, the characters were fresh and entertaining, and the clever footnotes kept me engaged the entire time.

               

              

Right now I'm currently reading Will Grayson Will Grayson, John Green's collaboration with David Levithan, and I have Paper Towns on the hold shelf right now.

I can't believe I hadn't found these golden literary gems before!

Candor

By Pam Bachorz


Summery:

The picture-perfect new town of Candor, Florida, is attracting more and more new families, drawn by its postcard-like small-town feel, with white picket fences, spanking-new but old-fashioned-looking homes, and neighborliness.
But the parents are drawn by something else as well.  They know that in Candor their obstreperous teenagers will somehow become rewired - they'll learn to respect their elders, to do their chores, and enjoy their homework.  They'll give up the tattoos, metal music, and partying that have been driving their parents crazy.  They'll become every parent's dream.

Oscar Banks has everything under control. In a town where his father brainwashes everyone, he's found a way to secretly fight the subliminal Messages. He's got them all fooled: Oscar's the top student and the best-behaved teen in town. Nobody knows he's made his own Messages to deprogram his brain. Oscar has even found a way to get rich. For a hefty price, he helps new kids escape Candor, Florida before they're transformed into cookie-cutter teens. But then Nia Silva moves to Candor, and Oscar's carefully-controlled world crumbles.

What I Thought:
 What a crazy mind twist.
Through out the whole book I thought I knew exactly how it was going to end, or kind of the ball field of how it was going to end.
But no.
I just wanted to reach right into the story and place the characters exactly where they needed to be, and to give them the incite they didn't have for themselves.


Quote:
"In a few minutes nobody will know what I did. Everything will be perfect again. Except for my life."

13 Little Blue Envelopes

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By Maureen Johnson


Summery:
When Ginny receives thirteen little blue envelopes and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London, she knows something exciting is going to happen. What Ginny doesn't know is that she will have the adventure of her life and it will change her in more ways than one. Life and love are waiting for her across the Atlantic, and the thirteen little blue envelopes are the key to finding them in this funny, romantic, heartbreaking novel.



My Review:

I loved this book! 
Ginny's aunt has died, but Ginny soon receives 13 little blue envelopes from her, each with a task to complete. The trick is Ginny is not aloud to open the next envelope until she has completed the task she has been given. This means she is being lead blindly through Europe by her wildly eccentric(and dead) aunt.
There is always something about adventure in the unknown that intrigues me. The way Ginny follows her aunt's instructions, even when her requests seem completely unreasonable and impossible, she treks through and ends up learning more about herself than she ever could have by staying inside her safe little boring box.
My favourite character would definitely have to be Aunt Peg. Even though she is completely dead when the novel begins, and remains so through out the entirety of the book, she is an essential living breathing part of the of the story.
Each letter reveals a bit more of who she was, and how she saw the world.
The people she introduces Ginny to along the way are hilarious and entertaining.
I'm not going to lie, I might have cried a bit at the end.
But it was a good cry.
This books could has the potential to be something of a downer, but the way Ginny triumphs through her own battles along the way, give it enough hope and heart to make it fabulous.
It was the perfect mixture of happy and sad.
This would be a great book to read in the Summer, or on some sort of vacation.
But it's also wonderful to read when you need to bring a bit of adventure back into everyday life.

This is a book I would love to own.
It's one of those stories I think is worth pulling off the shelf every once and awhile.

Plastic

        

By Sarah N. Harvey

Summery:

When Jack develops an interest in something, he puts his all into it, making lists, doing research and learning all he can. When his best friend Leah decides to have plastic surgery for her sixteenth birthday, Jack is horrified—and then determined to stop her. Researching the surgery and the results, he finds that there are unscrupulous surgeons operating on the very young, and no one does anything about it. Jack organizes a protest and becomes an instant celebrity. But when someone else takes up the cause and the protest turns violent, Jack is forced to make some tough decisions.

My Review:

         I enjoyed this little book.

         I picked it off the shelve one day when I was waiting for my mom to pick me up from the library.

         This is a very fast read.

         I literally read it in its entirety in one(35min) sitting.

         There is a powerful message contained within the books 136 tiny pages.

         The plot seemed a bit extreme, what with a 15-year-old boy going crazy and protesting. And there          isn't much to the characters.  But over all I liked it.

         I would suggest this book to anyone who wants a quick read that will entertain.

         

Goals

My goal for this year is to read at least 60 books.
Well... actually, I would like to read 80. But I don't know if that is achievable. So I'll start off with 60, and see how much further I get.

So far I'm at 19.
Currently reading number 20.

So I'm off to a good start.

Neglector

I've really been neglecting this blog... I do have others that I have been keeping up with, but I want to get back onto this one more often.


I have more books to review and make lists of and so on.
So I will be doing that in the near future.

I guess this is basically just a reminder to myself to get back on track.

STARSTUCK

On Tuesday I got to meet one of my all time favourite authors. And I was completely and totally starstruck!

Kenneth Oppel came to our local library, and he will be staying here and doing various workshops over the next couple months.

It was great just to here him speak, and read a bit from his newest book, Half Brother.
He spoke a bit about his another of his books that isn't yet published too.

I'm VERY excited to get my hands on that once it comes out!

It was pretty inspiring to just listen to an accomplished writing talk about himself and his books. Now, after seeing him, and having him sign my books, all I want to re-read my favourites by him, and get back to working on some of my own writing.