Something Borrowed & Something Blue -Emily Giffin

Book(s): Something Borrowed, Something Blue by Emily Giffin
ISBN13(s): 9780312321185 and 9780312323868
Average Rating(s): 3.80 and 3.91 
My Rating (for both): 3 out of 5 sweatpants books. I'll explain in a moment. 

       Hello! I decided to combine these two books into a single post because 1. By the time I got around to writing a post for 'Something Borrowed' I had already finished 'Something Blue' 2. My emotions toward each book were very similar. I bought these two books at a used book sale for a dollar, and the covers caught my eye so I figured... why not? A little bit of chick-lit every once in a while never hurt anybody. In my opinion, many genres of books can be compared to a pair of pants. I say this because I had a bit of a hard week (long boring story) I say this because I realized that the feeling I get from chick lit books is roughly the same emotion I get putting on a pair of sweat pants. YA is skinny jeans, adult fiction is more like standard jeans, classics are formal, school uniform pants (I would know), etc. Anyway! Tangent over.

    These books are about two best friends -or former best friends- Darcy and Rachel. In Something Borrowed, Rachel ends up hooking up with Darcy's fiance. Of course, in girl world this is the biggest mortal sin one could ever commit. So it is assumed Rachel is our antagonist. Right? Wrong. Our main character in Something Borrowed is Rachel, the 'good girl' who has always followed the rules. She's the underdog who has always been in Darcy's shadow. But for some reason, the gorgeous Dex happens to realize one day that he's in love with Rachel (after 7 years! of being with Darcy) This situation suffers a minor to moderate case of what I call, 'The Twilight Effect'.

      The Twilight Effect comes from everyone's favorite vampire novel -I say favorite with my voice oozing sarcasm-. It basically means that a stunning, insanely gorgeous man falls for a plain girl who is described as having no interesting or mentionable attributes. I'm not saying that you need a reason for falling in love with someone but it just kind of bugs me that two characters are somewhat forced together "just because". I mean this in Rachel's case, but Dary was completley assenine and vapid. Ethan, her love interest even admitted that he didn't like her. However all of a sudden in Something Blue, Darcy makes a few minor changes and all of a sudden she's the patron saint of pregnant women. But she absolutley had to find love becuase all chick lit books have to end with a happy ending.

       These books weren't exactly contenders in the nobel prize for literature. But of course that wasn't the intention, Emily Giffin's books are more playful and fun. So I can't really be too hard on these books. They were a good set of books to spend a quiet weekend with, like sleeping in and watching romantic comedies on netflix. Those movies are great. But not oscar winners. I consider this to be the same thing. Thanks for Reading!
                                                             -R
                                 

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

Book: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
ISBN 13: 9780671727796
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.14 stars
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stuffed tigers 

     Well hello there! I was planning on spending my whole summer reading, writing, and laying in a grassy field drinking fancy lemonade-like beverages. But as fate would have it, that was not the case. Instead I ended up taking classes at a community college, which I know in the long run is a good thing and that's less classes I have to take during the school year and whatever. But in the short term it wasn't the most fun thing ever. Plus volunteer work and I had a whole bunch of summer homework for the AP and honors classes i'm taking next year. Long story short, I finished all of those things aand school starts in 2 weeks. I've read almost nothing. 

      But I did have a little time here and there and I managed to read something that's been on my list for a while. The Color Purple by Alice Walker. Now, when you hear teachers talking about a book it's usually pretty appropriate for school, politically correct, and has little potential for complaints from uptight parents. But this book blew those things out of the water. I hadn't seen the movie or anything so I was unprepared for all of the things that came at me. This book featured graphic language, sexuality, and abuse among other things. With that said, I think Walker did a good job with combining moments of ugliness with beauty. This was a book of sharp contrasts, there was a lot of hate and anger especially in the first chapters but as the story went on there was also love . 

    Celie was the ultimate model for oppression. She's a poor, black, gay (I'll come back to that one), woman living in a time where just one of those meant almost no freedom. Celie was all of the above, and ended up being raped and beaten for most of her life because she didn't have the power or confidence to stand up for herself. I was of course, deeply disturbed by the scenes of abuse in the first chapters. Celie at 15, was pregnant with her second baby after being raped by a man she thinks is her father. She also believes that he killed her first child and sells the second one. Walker takes her readers on a journey through many years and we get to see Celie develop into someone who is no longer submissive. She works up the courage to leave her husband which, in rural Georgia early 1900's isn't the most accepted thing in society. 

      One of the things that made this book stand out to me was the complex relationship between Shug and Celie. Shug is Celie's husband's lover. At first Shug seems to be jealous of Celie for being married to Mr_, the first thing she tells Celie is that she's ugly. But as time goes on Celie ends up loving her just as much as her husband does. Once Shug discovers that Celie is being abused by Mr_ she falls out of love with him and stays around because she wants to be with Celie, not him. Eventually Shug is married to a man named Grady and even later than that she falls in love with a 19 year old boy. However she claims to still be in love with Celie.

      We also saw a distinct shift in the book when were given Nettie's side of the story. Celie's little sister ended up becoming a missionary in Africa. It reminded be of The Poisonwood Bible a little, it was nice to get back into that setting. Nettie's story was an interesting contrast because in Africa the biggest divide seems to be with men and women instead of black and white like it was in America, even today we are starting to have this conversation about gay and straight. It really did show that some people in a society will end up separating others into smaller sects. This is one of  many ugly truths -that we don't always want to talk about- explored in this novel. 
     
        All in all, this was an incredible novel about overcoming adversity and that family is not always about blood. Celie forms unlikely friendships with her ex husband, his former lover, and even reconnecting with her sister. I liked this book a lot. Anyway! As always, thanks for reading! 
      
                                                                                                                                 -R

The Great Gatsby- F Scott Fitzgerald

Book: The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Fitzgerald 

ISBN13: 9780743273565

Average Rating: 3.85

My Rating: 4 out of 5 Summer Vacations (Yes I realize that doesn't make sense. Ha.) 

       Hello peeps!  I am pleased to inform you that my freshman year of high school is complete!  Aaand!  Book Club vice president in the house!  I finished the year with good grades, managing to stay with my group of friends, and a book club promotion so uhm.. yay! But anyway!  I am still on week one of Summer Break and trying to avoid working on Summer projects. I finished reading this book last week.  This book is one of the classics, and is considered the 'great American novel' so I was excited to read this for myself.  Even though I'll have to read it over again in the 11th grade.

        I can see why this book is considered that though, since Gatsby moves from the Midwest to New York to pursue the 'American Dream' and get rich in the stock market (Since this is the 1920s) Of course, the main characters are all white too so that to helps.  I can go on about how almost all of the candidates for 'Great American' novel status are extremely racist but hey! It is also an endearing and honest rags to riches story that sets a great example to the children... wait.  

     The book also didn't have as much symbolism, or imagery as other 'school books' this year.(I group this as a school book because again, it's covered in Junior year English)  There were things to mention though, like shiny cars, bright lights, colors "the green light...". Also, another thing going against it, the characters were all horrible people. Nick is a narcissist, saying things along the lines of 'I'm the only honest man left alive' and is a little disgusted (and probably jealous) of  Gatsby. Nick may be committing the  'lesser evils' compared to the rest of the characters but by no means is he a saint. As for Daisy, she is in a word, irresponsible. She leads on two different men at once, one is a cheater himself and broke his mistress' nose, and the other is an active member in organized crime. She pays no mind to 1) what is best for her daughter (whom by the way doesn't get enough emphasis except for Daisy's "little girl you should be a fool'' speech) and 2) the consequences of her actions which eventually cause the deaths of several people. And then there's Gatsby. He is an excellent example of a spoiled, rich, unappreciative American. He has more money than he knows what to do with, not in prison (which I say because he probably should be) but he is also a lonely, broken romantic. So pretty much Christian Grey. "Daisy. Red room of pain. Now." Sorry. Bad joke. But still... character similarities! Then again he also reminds me of Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre but that wouldn't quite as humorous.

      No. I liked this book pretty much for one thing. The depth. Lots of Classic books are like onions, you think you understand them on the surface but then all of a sudden you pull back another layer and there's so many things you never even noticed before. And occasionally... while in the kitchen with your mother making dinner... they will make you cry. (Okay maybe not often) Anyway! When I poked around online about this book there were so many detailed discussions about plot, characters, theme, etc. They talked about things I hadn't even had the faintest thought about. For example, 'Is Nick secretly gay and in love with Gatsby?' I was like... what?! But apparently everyone notices that one. I mentioned it to my English teacher out of curiosity and she pretty much said "Well. Duh." It made me feel like a total dunce. It made me go back through the pages and really look. I was tempted to read the book over again with a fine toothed comb just to see I would find any other Easter eggs like that. I truly think that right there is the sign of a good author. I applaud you, F Scott Fitzgerald. Nice job.
                   Thanks for Reading!
                                                                     -R

Covenant Series #3-5 by Jennifer Armentrout

Book(s): Pure, Apollyon, Sentinel
ISBN13(s): 9780983157229,  9781937053161, 9781937053574  
Average Ratings: 4.36, 4.43, 4.51
My Ratings: 2 Stars, 1 Star, 4 Stars 

      Hey peoples! It's been a while since my last post because I've been finishing up the Covenant series and my thoughts for each book were pretty much the same. Soo I thought I would avoid being repetitive by combing  all of the books into a single post. I have finals in two weeks and I should probably be studying so I'm going to make this as brief as possible. But well... 3 books. So this will be interesting. 
         
         I was really hating life in book 3 and 4. Especially 4 (excuse me. Apollyon) Alex has to deal with the fact that she's battling good and evil inside of her in a pretty literal sense. That whole concept is a pretty common trope that is honestly starting to push the fine line between trope and cliche. The whole 'Am I good? Am I bad? What if I'm actually a monster? But... I have to be a hero. Right?' thing is actually really cool if <--- That's a huge if) it's done well. The idea adds a lot of depth to a character because black and white 'good' and 'evil' characters are actually worse since they are dangerously close to being cardboard characters. Sorry Superman. 

          But these books were sickeningly cliche. Alex's humor seemed to get lazier throughout the series. Maybe I was just getting tired of it but by the end of Apollyon all of the jokes just seemed trite. *cracks old man back* I don't understand why these youngin's find this so funny. I'm pretty sure I said this in my last two post about the series, but I must be missing something! There are so many good reviews for this series and I have a good friend who recommended these to me who absolutely adores Alex and Aiden. But I just... meh. I'm usually the one who loves everything but for some reason I didn't with this one. Then again, two of my other book club friends got through book one and wanted to throw it at a wall. So... Maybe i'm not crazy.

        However I gave the last book a much higher rating because I think the series ended really well. I wont go into specifics because of spoilers. But Alex actually did have a noticeable shift around book four and definitely in book 5. She was much less impulsive and more mature. She settles whatever childish feud she had with Lea. She also makes the realization that her actions can affect people other than herself which is a big thing! Alex always seemed borderline selfish to me but she started to lose that a little bit at the end of Apollyon. All of the loose ends are tied up in the end of the series and of course, I was glad that Seth managed to redeem himself. I always thought he was a really interesting character, more so than Aiden and maybe even Alex. He was almost certainly my favorite character in the series. Aaand he's getting his own spinoff series. Should I read it? I don't know. I'm kinda debating that. It will be three books and part one came out about 4 months ago.
   
         Overall, this series annoyed me a lot. I almost stopped reading halfway through book 4 but I have this annoying thing where if I start something I absolutley must finish it. Call it persistance, call it OCD. Both are accurate. But there were times I found it amusing, especially early in the series. So... for all 5 books I would give it an average of 2.5 maybe 3 stars.

Terminal by Kathy and Brendan Reichs

Book: Terminal (Virals book 5) by Kathy and Brendan Reichs
ISBN 13: 978-1595145284
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.41 Stars
My Rating: 5 out of 5 popsicle sticks 

          I've been reading this series for years now... (waiting a year in between each when it came out) So that's why I don't have posts for the rest of the series. When I heard this was the last one in the series my heart broke a little. These characters will be missed more than certain dead relatives of mine. Just sayin. 

         One of the coolest things about this series was that Tory, our protagonist is the niece of Temperance Brennan! For those who don't know, Temperance Brennan is the main character on the TV show Bones. That's loosely based off a book series. Which is one the only 5 shows that I really watch. I've thought of reading it, but I hear it's extremely different from the show and I would be constantly comparing the two. Anyway! End of tangent, back to Tory. She's a smart, sarcastic fifteen year old that's ten times more mature that most 17 or 18 year old main characters in YA. So I like her very much for that. I think thats mostly because Kathy Reichs is used to writing adult books so her teenage characters are a lot more adult-like than usual. 

      Aaaand the love triangle I've been dealing with for the past three to four years has finally been resolved! I wasn't surprised with who it was... (not saying his name in case yall don't want spoilers) But I mean... They've been dropping hints since day one! Moments where his eyes linger a little too long or they're hands touch and it feels all electric...and stuff. I know, I know, I am very romantic. But you get the point! Little things where it's still considered tasteful and at the same time you know what's going on. There's some sort of romantic tension between her and the other guy but it never really felt right. 

         All of the books had really solid and thought out plots. When an author does their research the reader can tell. So the science behind the transmission of the virus, and lab testing and the evidence procedures was all really accurate. (Then again, Kathy Reichs is a real forensic anthropologist who would know all of these things. So maybe it wasn't 'research') My point is that there was a really good balance in the story. There was science, action, humor, and romance and it all came together really well. Something for everyone. 

       Spoiler alert   But! I must acknowledge this! All of the loose ends of the story are tied and it's perfect and cool and no more mutant teenagers and everything is normal. But then there's the epilogue! 
"I caught my eyes in the mirror. They were green. Always would be now." ... Next Page. 
"The sadness morphed into anger. I didn't WANT to change"..."My fingers began to tingle. An electric jolt traveled up my spine. Outside, Cooper howled. I looked up at the mirror. A confident girl stared back. Her eyes glowed with pale blue flame..." THE END 
WHAT? What just happened? This is YA! We don't do open ended ambiguity! Is she really human again and that was just some kind of metaphor or... did something else happen? I don't know. And there are no more books to clear it up! Erghhh. I guess i'll have to just soothe my sense of incompletion with a whole bunch of fanfiction. lol
           Thanks For Reading!                       
                                                   -R
          
       

Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) - Marissa Meyer

Book: Cress (The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer
ISBN13: 9780312642976
Average Goodreads Rating: 4.49 stars
My Rating: 5 out of 5 Japanese rock songs! (long story. One thing led to another on YouTube again) 

      Oh. My. God. If books were alcohol I would have the world's biggest hangover right now. I need Winter! Now! "expected publication date: November 10th 2015"  NOOOO! 
*Runs down steps of the palace sobbing and drops an android foot* 
         
       This book made me cry. Then again, I cry for almost everything but still! I can't explain why exactly because of spoilers but the end of chapter 53 hit me like the mutant love child of an atomic bomb and a hurricane. So I think in total my emotional outbursts were two sets of crying, a few giggles, and a countless number of awws. 

       Okay. So cue Cress. A Lunar shell who has been banished to live on a satellite out in space to serve as personal hacker to the Queen of Darkness, aka Queen Levana. She's a sweet, innocent girl that I always imagined as being childlike even though I don't think she was described as being so. But Cress is the kind of girl with a wild imagination and still believes in things like fate and fairytales. Basically she's the anti Cinder. But I think that was a good idea, since between Scarlet and Cinder there is too much 'Grrr! I'm a stone cold badass with lady testosterone up the wazoo' Then again we have Iko too but she's more comic relief and there's not enough of her! Seriously, I wouldn't mind a spin off with just Iko. I want an android bestie!

          But anyway, back to Cress. I think her and Thorne may be my favorite couple in the book. Well... Kai and Cinder are pretty sweet. But oh the part about Scarlet being the brightest star in Wolf's sky! I can't choose! I love them all. But at the same time it seems a little too perfect that all the characters happily pair off together. I have a friend who has a strong displeasure to white, heterosexual romance (in books)  and in some cases I can see where she comes from but at this point if one of my beloved power couples got 'unpaired' I would be a pathetic combination of livid and distraught. 
          
       In book two, I said that I was starting to think the plot was getting too complex and in this one I actually didn't feel that way.  I don't know if the issue was resolved or I just got used to it. But I think it's because Meyer works all the old fashioned storybook characters into the book in a way that feels natural. Like all of the characters would be in the story anyway but she decided to make their personalities based off Cinderella, Little Red, Rapunzel, and in the future Snow White. 

       So checking in on Cinder! She's going through a pretty standard trope in YA. Which is "Omg. I'm so powerful now. I can do horrible things and it feels kinda good! But i'm still a good girl I swear! Gah. Life is complicated" She's worried about turning into her aunt Levana. By the way, do we get to learn about her mom Queen Channary? She's almost never mentioned her, or her father actually. There are lots of unanswered questions still going on in this series. So i'm dying to know what happens in part 4/ Winter! Erghh. Is there a support group for people waiting for a books to come out? There should be. 
                                    Thanks For Reading!                          
                                                                                                         -R

LA Times Bookfest

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books 2015!

        My second year coming to LA Times. This festival is supposedly the biggest in the country and I definitely believed it when comparing to YALL West. However; I think that YALL was more fun because all the YA authors just went to that one and not this one! All the authors that lived out of state, and could only come for one weekend decided to go to the last one, so all I saw was Leigh Bardugo, Gayle Forman, Tahereh Mafi and Ransom Riggs, (They are the cutest thing by the way!) I hear Marie Lu was there too but I didn't see her.

        

             I had hoped to get more details about the movie for Miss Peregrine's House for Peculiar Children, since one panel was about turning books to movies and Ransom was there along with Janet Fitch, Don Winslow, and Richard Rayner. But he had said that he hadn't played a very big part in the movie making process. "I didn't adapt the screenplay [For Miss Peregrine] It would be like a surgeon operation on someone they loved. I don't think it's a very good idea." - RR 

          

             A main part of the conversation was about how people will always say the book is so much better than the movie. As authors, they thought that movies had to be different than the book because they are different types of media. They also said it's an accepted fact that things need to get cut from books in the movie making process. "Turning a book into a movie is like turning a cow into a beef bouillon cube. You want to capture the essence without taking the whole thing" -J Fitch.  I guess all of this is true, but whenever I see a movie from a book I love, I always get the slightest bit upset if a sweet little detail is cut out. Example, Dauntless Cake. 

       Another panel, with Tahereh Mafi, Leigh Bardugo, EK Johnston, and Peter Hautman had the topic of Fantasy. The authors discussed the concept of world building and their method of how they add detail to the world within the book. Tahereh admitted that the Shatter Me world revolved mostly around the character of Juliette and how she came into her head first. In the case of Leigh Bardugo she thought of the dark Shadow Fold full of monsters when she was at home one day. The lights were off, she heard a sound in the dark and decided to make a whole story around that. 

         My favorite part of this panel was when the writers started giving advice to aspiring writes in the crowd. Peter Hautman didn't start writing until he was 20, and Leigh Bardugo waited a long time before she actually finished a story, and didn't think she could do it! That baffles me! She has oodles of talent and she wrote this amazing trilogy that almost never was. It makes me sad to think that there are so many awesome writers out there that don't know how good they are. Just think of all the books that never got published! 

            

       Honestly, I would love to be one of those famous writers one day but that kind of involves... allowing others to read your writing. Which is just a little horrifying! (Not very many people know this but i've written 2 books of my own but they have never been seen by eyes other than mine) 

       

          

        Finally, my last panel that I went to! It was called 'Love, Death, and the Lives in Between' It had Aaron Hartzler, Andrew Smith, Gayle Forman, Martha Brockenbrough, and Lance Rubin. It was actually Lance Rubin's first panel ever. He said that his first book came out last month or somthing and I kinda want to check him out he seemed like a cool guy with an interesting book idea. 

         

           I'm not entirely sure how the title of the panel related to the topic. Because all of the books had death and love in them but they couldn't actually talk about it because of spoilers. But I think the most interesting part was where the authors were talking about how real teenagers influenced their work. Martha was talking to a teenage girl who read her book about pregnancy (I think it was fiction, but I haven't read it) Originally they talked about writing but then it turned out the girl really was pregnant and she talked about her boyfriend... and I guess their love story led to another love story in one of her next books. I think that's such a crazy thing to have such a close relationship to an author that you like. I've met authors more than once (Tahereh Mafi, Veronica Roth, Lauren Oliver) but unfortunately while fangirling I'm not capable of forming complete sentences. 

        I actually really liked the idea of Martha Brockenbrough's book. It's about two teenagers of different races who fall in love. Which in today's time a biracial couple isn't that big of a deal but the story is set in 1937 Seattle. I always tell people that I don't like historical fiction but just the other day I kinda discovered that almost every book I've read labeled 'historical fiction' I've really loved! Plus my class learned about the Harlem Renaissance a while back in history class and just the image of smokey clubs and jazz music in the background seemed really cool. So I figured, hey why not? I bought her book and got it signed (It's not coming out officially until the 28th) But I felt so bad because Gayle Forman had this massive line of fans and I was literally the only person who came to get the other author's signature. 

      

         But hey! She may have made a new fan today and that's what the even was all about. Appreciating books, finding new things to read, doing cool stuff. So I think today was a great success!

(In order) Lance Rubin, Gayle Forman, Aaron Hartzler, Andrew Smith, Martha Brockenbrough

Thanks for Reading! -R