Reached

     I have recently been reading the book Reached by Allie Condie. So far, I have found the book to be very drawn-out and I feel like there is not much that has happened. What HAS happened so far took (at least in  my opinion) far too LONG to start. It is just now beginning to be more interesting. It falls a bit short of my expectations, based on it predecessors.

Post #2: What is a book?

 

A book is an idea. And it isn't only one idea, but it's a collection of them. They are the ideas and thoughts of the book's author that slowly transcend to the reader’s mind, where they are then expanded upon. A book embodies not only the message trying to be conveyed by the author, but also the reader's interpretation of it, and how they chose to experience it.

 

I nearly find myself agreeing with Tom Piazza when he states, "You get no sense of the feel of things, of the nature of the artist's ambition..." and feel that he has captured something of great importance. However, I do not honestly view myself as an “anti-technology/device” person (I use a Kindle myself). I also think that to some degree Joe Meno is correct in his statement that “…the idea of the book is more important than the actual form it takes…”  I feel like you shouldn’t completely ignore the benefits of having an entire bookshelf at your fingertips. It is a stubborn and unwilling attitude that will likely be viewed upon by today’s society as “old-fashioned”. Yet I also feel like you should never forego the experience of holding that 734 page hardback of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.  

 
     I think that it will be a very sad day if/when the book (as in the sense of a literal BOOK) disappears. Can you honestly imagine reading to your children only from and iPad (or whatever is around by then)? I just don’t feel like it’s the same experience, especially for young children. I don’t feel like they should be robbed of the joy of turning their books’ pages by ACTUALLY turning them, and not pushing a button with an arrow.

We shouldn’t as book lovers banish the idea of e-readers and downloads; but we also as a people shouldn’t be so swept up in the whirlwind of excitement that surrounds our new technologic devices. We should try and all agree to be open to the idea that a book is just that; an idea. And one person’s idea of what a book is could be completely different than that of someone else’s. Does it really matter? Does it really have to be all or nothing?

 

 

Post #1: Why I Read

     Why do you read? Do you read for enjoyment or for information? Do you read for the educational value, or just so that you have something new to talk about with your friends and fmaily? I think that I honestly read for all of these reasons, and many more.

     In the video Why I Read (below) one aspect of reading is mentioned on more than one occasion, adn that is the idea that when we read we are often pulled into another world and on an adventure. We are able to experience things that we just don't get in our everyday lives when we read. We can go to places we have heard tell of, and be there in our mind by-way of the author's description. We can imagine what life would be like if a significant event hadn't happened, like Stephen King's new book 11/22/63.  Or maybe we are whisked away by a book where we can depict our posterity's future conflicts in books like The Giver or the Matched Trilogy that portray seemingly utopian societies that as time goes by prove to be anything but utopian. Bottom line is that when we read, we are taken to new places without ever having to leave.

 

 

     One of my personal favorites about reading, is that although you take into account what you think the author wants you to depict from his or her writing, you are still free to create your own interpretation. I know from experience that often times, readres are dissapointed when their well loved books become movies. That alternate world, almots like a miniature TV playing inside our minds is often replaced by the director's interpretation of the story. Nevertheless, we all still seem to pay to go and see the movies, hoping that we are not walking into a dissapointment;)

 

BOOK TRAILERS:

 

The Giver by Lois Lowry

 

11/22/63 by Stephen King

Summer of My German Soldier

I recently began reading The Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene. It was one of those "happen-upon" reads where I was just bored one night and couldn't sleep, so I went digging around through all my family's old books. I am SO glad I "happened- upon" it, and can't wait to see all that happens.

It takes place during WWII and Patty Bergan is a young Jewish girl living in Arkansas with her mother, her father and her little sister Sharon. She also spends a lot of her time with Ruth, the Bergan family's colored housekeeper. Just outside of her sleepy little town of Jenkinsville, Arkansas, a truckload of Nazi POWs are sent to a work camp. Among them is her Anton. Anton is different from the other soldiers; he is kind, polite, and speaks impeccable English. He's also the only one smart enough to escape the prisoner work camp, and leave the guards with absolutely no means of tracking him.

Little did he ever suspect that the only person who would ever see him would be none other than little Patty Bergan. Thank goodness for that, or he would never have made it to freedom. She hides Anton in her family's abandoned garage building on their property that over the years has become her own secret hide-away.

As time goes by, Anton begins to fall in love with Patty, and experiences what she felt from very first time she saw him.

It almost seems like sick irony; a Jewess protecting a Nazi soldier from the American forces trying to free her people in Germany... But you'll come to see that Anton is no ordinary "Nazi"; And Patty Bergan is DEFINATLY no ordinary girl, Jew or not.

I can't wait to see how this story ends!

 

Plus, check out this book trailer!

 

Blog Reflections

                The quality of my writing has improved greatly over the course of this trimester.  When I first started blogging this trimester, I wasn’t producing very cohesive posts; that is to say, I felt like sometimes I would trail off on one point, and then have to suddenly “snap” back to my original point. Also, I felt like sometimes my sentences trailed on and on, and shouldn’t have. For example, in one of my earlier posts, the sentence “It takes place in the modern day Vatican City, where Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is swept up in a whirlwind experience that involves the examination of a murdered physicist, a mysterious Vatican spy known as Janus, and an ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati that appears to remain active to this day,”. YIKES! That ONE sentence is almost as long as my entire paragraph up until that point! Now, I feel like my writing is more concise and gets the point across more effectively per sentence. This is a sentence from a more recent post: Throughout Leo's visit to Ogygia, Calypso, as always inevitably fell for him; only this time her love was finally matched by her island's guest. By incorporating a semi-colon, it gives the reader a chance to BREATHE between all the words.

                As for the things I struggled with throughout my blogging experience, I have to be honest; consistently blogging. I had to really work at reminding myself to always blog twice a week, and often times I still found (find) myself blogging on Sunday nights, to make sure I didn’t fall behind. In order to work through this struggle, I attempted to plan certain days when I would get the second blog post completed; this occurred usually on either Wednesday, or often times late on a Friday night after I had already been home, and just wanted to get it finished so I didn’t have to worry about it over the weekend.

                Also, one strength that I felt that I had had during this trimester of blogging was my textual support in my posts. I tried to always have at least one quote taken from whatever book I was blogging about, and usually had more.

                 And in regards to my reading goal, I did make it, and even exceeded it. I obviously intend to read FAR more than just 5 books this school-year; the 5 book marker was mainly just for this 2013 year, which in any case seems that I have underestimated myself in any case.  I found that Goodreads.com was a very helpful resource during this process, and I will definitely continue to utilize its advantages.

                Over the course of this trimester, I feel that I have improved as a reader, because this blog forced me to look deeper into the meanings behind my books and their characters. Also by using Goodreads I was able to track my reading and really see the progress that I was making, which was a great motivator. All in all, I see myself a better reader because of everything I have done his trimester.

(POST #1) Book Recommendation! (Angels and Demons)

     The prerequisite to The Da Vinci Code and The Lost Symbol (the book that I am currently reading), Dan Brown's Angels and Demons is in my opinion one of his finest works. It takes place in the modern day Vatican City, where Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is swept up in a whirlwind experience that involves the examination of a murdered physicist, a mysterious Vatican spy known as Janus, and an ancient brotherhood known as the Illuminati that appears to remain active to this day. The Professor is in a race against time to discover the whereabouts of a time bomb planted inside the Vatican. He, along with Italian scientist Vittoria Vetra embark on a chaotic journey that takes them all across Rome and through its many historical monuments and buildings (both those that are world renowned and famously known, to those that have been long forgotten by most).
    

     In my opinion, the book is a great read for nearly everyone. It has so many elements of so many different genres that I feel it is bound to mix well with practically any reader's taste. There is action that has to do with the conspiracy element, along with undertones of science fiction, countless historical references, and even a hint of romance. I highly recommend the book Angels and Demons to all who feel like their taste in books falls into any or all of these categories; and I especially recommend and challenge those who don't think so, to give the book a try. After all,  you will never know what you have been missing until you give a try. Maybe you will even have to continue on and read more of Dan Brown's works.

 

(POST #2) Reading Skills for The House of Hades

"Seven half-bloods shall answer the call.

To storm or fire, the world must fall.

An oath to keep with a final breath,

And foes bear arms to the Doors of Death"

 

     Known as the Next Great Prophecy to the Greeks, and the Prophecy if Seven to the Romans, this prophecy plays a key role in the entire Heroes of Olympus series, by Rick Riordan. I want to, for my purposes, focus on the third line;

    

"An oath to keep with a final breath,"

 

 

     In the book, one the Seven half-bloods, Leo Valdez is blasted from their flying ship, Argo II, and winds up on the island of Ogygia, the home of Calypso. Calypso is the daughter of the Titan Atlas, and her punishment for assisting hi in the last war is that she must remain on this island. Part of the island's curse is that she always falls in love with the men who wash up onto her island, and once they leave the island, they can never find it, or her again.

 

     "'You can't come back,' Calypso insisted.

     Leo's heart went clunk. "'Because I'm not welcome?'

     'Because you can't. It's impossible. No man finds Ogygia twice. That is the rule.'

     Leo rolled his eyes. 'Yeah, well you might've noticed I'm not good at following rules. I'm coming back here with my dragon, and we'll spring you. Take you wherever you want to go. It's only fair.'

     'Fair...' Calypso's voice was barely audible."

 

     Throughout Leo's visit to Ogygia, Calypso, as always inevitably fell for him; only this time her love was finally matched by her island's guest.

 

     "As his raft skimmed over the water, taking him back to the mortal world, he understood a line from the Prophecy better- an oath to keep with a final breath.

He understood how dangerous oaths could be. But Leo didn't care.

'I'm coming back for you, Calypso,' he said to the night wind. 'I swear it on the River Styx.'"

 

     In their world, swearing on the River Styx is a binding oath, that I can't hardly think of any demigods breaking throughout the entire series. It's much like The Unbreakable Vow, for all my fellow Harry Potter fans!

     This conversation between Ron and Harry takes place in J.K. Rowling's book Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It shows the extremity of the Vow, as does the third line of the Prophecy imply about the vow it is referring to. I honestly think that Leo's vow to come back for Calypso is indeed the "oath to keep with final breath" that the Prophecy is referring to. I feel like this could be compared to the ULTIMATE of all promises, pinky-swears, and the likes, yet it doesn't even come CLOSE. The fact that there is some form of power surrounding these vows and oaths (and not just our own human consciences)  makes them all the more intimidating.

     It is not unheard of for people in our society today to give "promise rings" as a symbol of exactly what the name implies; a promise. Well, in my opinion, a promise ring would have been much more simple in this case; but then, where's the adventure in that?

     Hopefully, this oath is indeed completed and is not broken, thus resulting in whatever terrible consequences that would befall Leo.

Romeo & Juliet

     Ok, I know that a lot of you will probably think I'm completely insane, but I actually think that Romeo and Juliet could make a great pleasure reading book. Even if you aren't required to read it for high school, or a college course, or whatever, I think that a person should make the effort to read it at some point in their life.

“Classic' - a book which people praise and don't read.”
― Mark Twain

I came across this quote on Goodreads and thought that this pretty well summed up my point. EVERYBODY learns and knows the basic plot of Romeo and Juliet; They meet, they marry, they die... pretty straightforward. But you don't KNOW the characters until you have actually read the play. You don't realize all the wit and irony Shakespeare wove throughout the pages, as if knowing that one day this would be a renowned and studied work.

All I'm saying is that you shouldn't always just write off a book like you already know it, until you've taken the time to actually read it!

The Skinjacker Trilogy

As I was scrolling through my "read" list on Goodreads, I came across one of my FAVORITE book series that I read not that long ago; Everlost by Neal Shusterman. I started reading this book because of a teacher recommendation about it's sequel, and instantly became engrossed with the entire series.

EVERLOST:
This book tells all about the mysterious world of Everlost; a place the "exists between life and death". It is to this place where teenagers Allie and Nick are forced into when they are in a head on collision and they don't make it to the "light at the end of the tunnel".

 

 

 EVERWILD:
In the second installment of this series, Nick is desperately in search of Mary Hightower, "self-proclaimed Queen of Everlost", convinced that she can be changed back into the wonderful person she once was. Meanwhile, Mary is launching her own "smear-campaign" against Nick, trying to rally Everlost's children against him.

EVERFOUND:
In the third and final installemrnt of the Skinjacker Trilogy, Allie is determined to find a way back to her family; no matter the costs. Meanwhile, Nick is reduced to his "forgotten-self" (as was Mary's intention) to where all he can focus on about his previous life, is the chocolate smear on his face. In this book, we are also inttrduced to the scar-wraith; perhaps the only person who can be the key to Mary's undoing.

Check out this interview with author Neal Shusterman about how he originally got his inspiration for the series, and the writing process for the series!

 

I know that I only gave you guys a VERY brief introsuction to each of the books, but I don't want to ruin them, so you will just have to go out and READ! Definitely add these to your "to read" shelves! Here is my "to-read" list, if you want to take a closer look. If you have read any of the books there, please feel free to comment on them, and let me know what you though!

 

Also, if you want to read a more in-depth summary of the character descriptions from the series, click here.