Bad days make for good rantings and readings

Well seeing as I have tried to start writing again I figured I would post my most currant readings:
Whiteout, by Ken Follet

Whiteout is the story of an ex-cop turned security director for a laboratory investigating new anti-viral vaccines. The basic gist of the plot is that Toni Gallo, the security director must face dealing with both her job responsibilities when crisis breaks out at the lab, and the emotional consequences of falling in love with her boss.
The story switches narratives and points of view from the protagonist to the antagonist to the innocent bystanders all of which interact in a high stacks and deadly game of cat and mouse as the story goes on.
I am in love with this book. It is a bit thrilling to read with simple language and a smart tone. You feel the cold of a Scotland winter and tremble with terror knowing what the enemy holds.
It is a very easy book to read and follow, which is nice.

It is also the first book I have actually *read* this year i.e. not spark noted for a test or quiz.
Oh, the joys of modern technology: literally the class before I had to take a huge quiz on 1984 I pull up sparknotes on my phone, tune out of geometry and briefly read a summary of thought crime and the trials faced by Winston as he tries fight the Party! It was marvelously evil. I knew the answer to every question on that filthy quiz.
Unfortuantly, I have lost my phone, but actually have interest in the book we are reading now:
Brave New World...
I have waited all year to read this book and finally at long last I am flipping through the pages and the words interest me instead of putting me to sleep.

Happy New Year!! belated is better than nothing

What happened to all those avid readers out there?
So, I'm a little guilty of not having been the best little bookworm out there these past months (got pneumonia, could not move) but my English teacher has decided with the new year how better to break in than astonishing poverty!? We have started "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt. Granted I have only skimmed the first few chapters. Neglected children and horrible living conditions really are not my cup of tea, say if someone where to be murdered and an intricate story plot arose from such a miserable and sorry town as the one in this Irish memoir, I might take a bit more fancy to it. Above is the movie poster for the cinema rendering of the tale.

To be fair I am not far enough into the book to hate it wholeheartedly.


I also have begun to delve into the John Grogan books, after my younger sister read "Marley and Me" then dragged my family to the movies to see it. She is one of those really really passionate dog lovers. "Bad dogs have more fun" is a collection of Grogan's columns for the Philadelphia Inquirer. So far the ones I've read where very well written and a pleasure to read.
Also Marley and Me was a really cute movie

The Book Thief

Oh, god. This book will CHANGE YOUR LIFE, if you are like me. It made me cry so hard that I was wreck, and it wasn't really about the sadness of some of those parts. Just the emotion and feeling. And the frankness of the author, Markus Zusak.


I am pretty sure I got the recommendation from BAP...too lazy to go check. :D

Anyway, it is based at the time of World War II, the Holocaust, but for once it's not through the eyes of a Jew.
Liesel Meminger is a true blonde German. But when her mother drops her off to be adopted by the loving Hubermanns, the seven year old girl is haunted by her past. The poverty-stricken street that Liesel lives on is filled with vivid characters, who are hauntingly real. There are friends and midnight reading lessons.
When the Hubermanns accept a Jew into their basement, Liesels world changes and your attention will be demanded.
When the bombing starts it changes uncontrollably.
Through all the tragedy there is always love ready there for Liesel.
Follow Liesel's story, narrated by Death himself, from when she is a young girl through to her adolescent years. This is truly the most unique story ever.

Read it! Post your own! Be happy!

We have got to get better at this

Our blog needs more attention, I don't know how to fix that problem though.

anyway the books I am reading currently have all been for school and they would be:
Cry the Beloved Country--a book I was supposed to finish weeks ago as well as write an essay for about the most important quote in the whole book, didn't happen.
Speak--actually finished on time, but got pneumonia so I missed the seminar.

Speak was a fast read, heavy subject matter though. Basically it takes you through the exposure of a highschool outsider and how she copes with a traumatizing event that happened at the end of the summer.

Cry of Beloved, still working on that one maybe I'll finish maybe I won't, hard to tell at this point.

Gilda Joyce

Gilda Joyce is a series by Jennifer Allison.
The series is about a girl named Gilda Joyce who thinks she has Psychic powers.
The first book is called 'Gilda Joyce' and the second is "Gilda Joyce and the Ladies of the Lake" and the third one is "Gilda Joyce and the Ghost Sonata"

Of coursem her detective skills are nothing compared to those of the Irregulars, but it's still a nice series.

I know this post sounds terribly depressingly boring, but that's because that's how i feel at the moment. bored. so i should have posted a review at a differant time. uggh.

1-800-Where-R-You series by Meg Cabot

This is series by Meg Cabot has about the least romance of all her books. Usually they're all about the girl always thinking about the boy, but her 1-800-Where-R-You series is different.

In the first book, When Lightning Strikes, Jess is walking home from school, when it starts thunder-storming and hailing. She doesn't feel like getting pelted by hailstones, so she escapes under the bleachers, even though she knows "never go under something metal during a thunderstorm." As the title suggests, she gets struck by lightning, but she didn't really feel any pain, though her friend Ruth saw it happen. Ruth keeps bugging her about because she thinks she'll have a heart attack or something so Jess consults her brother who says there would be a scar where the lightning entered her body. She checks her hands and feet, but doesn't see anything. Later when she undresses to go to bed she sees a star shaped scar on her chest. When she wakes up, she knows where these kids are. She has never heard of them ever. I can't say anymore without giving anything away. Read it!



The books in the series are:

When Lightning strikes
Code name cassandra (my personal favrorite)
Safe house
Sanctuary
Missing You

Hey everybody!

So I just got back from the beach with my youth group and while I was there I started reading Catcher in the Rye, the famous coming age story where the kid falls for the older woman...I like it so far but it's not exactly my cup of tea. But of course my cup of tea has evolved over time from a book who's flavoring is more chai or black, to now a more mellowed out chamomile or green :)
also on the reading agenda: The Narrows, by Micheal Connelly
Adam, By Ted Deckker ( I have to read this one but parents don't think I will be able to handle the demon possession, but I've read all his other work so I really would like to read this one)
and The Jungle, Upton Sinclair--most boring repetative book I''ve ever read. I didn't even finish it. No one else in my english group read it either, they spark-notes-ed it and I skimmed the last chapter. Basically all you need to know is that Sinclair wrote tis fantastically depressing story about a small immigrant family who's hopes and dreams of the great American way of life are crushed by the bleak and hard life they strugle through in Packingtown, Chicago. Jurgis the main character is the father of the family who marries Ona (spoiler warning) who gives him children, both who die, then she dies and a bunch of other really unfortyunate events occur which leads to Jurgis's turn to Socialism, end of story, and somewhere in there, chapter 19/20 or something it talks about the gross conditions in which meats where packed.
yeah, that one definatly was not my cup of tea.