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.

Trapped

By Michael Northrop

  The day the blizzard started, no one knew that it was going to keep snowing for a week. That for those in its path, it would become not just a matter of keeping warm, but of staying alive....
Scotty and his friends Pete and Jason are among the last seven kids at their high school waiting to get picked up that day, and they soon realize that no one is coming for them. Still, it doesn't seem so bad to spend the night at school, especially when distractingly hot Krista and Julie are sleeping just down the hall. But then the power goes out, then the heat. The pipes freeze, and the roof shudders. As the days add up, the snow piles higher, and the empty halls grow colder and darker, the mounting pressure forces a devastating decision....

    I was told by my teen librarian not to read this book, but after she told me what it was about, and how good it was, and that she couldn't put it down, how could I not?

    I loved it.
    The suspense was good, and the characters seemed so real. I was able to sympathize with their situation, and it really made me think what I would do if I was in a similar crisis.
    It's a hard book to put down, so it's good that it's a relative quick read.
   
I would highly recommend this book to almost everyone. It's sad, and you can feel the desperation that these kids are experiencing.
It's a compelling read that is definitely worth pulling off the shelf.

Winter Blues, and other various colours of sickness

I'm sick.
Again.

And that really sucks since I was supposed to be singing at a fundraiser tonight.
Apparently it's a pretty casual thing, but I was really looking forward to it.

Oh well.
I'd rather get better, then  push to hard and not get better for a longer time.

The worst part is I was just getting better from my last bought of ickyness.
I got sick at the beginning of December, and it's been holding on since then.


I just want to be over this and feel healthy as soon as possible.