Saturday, March 31, 2012

In My Mailbox #16

I got some very exciting books this week!

I had no idea my school library had this! So when I saw I decided to get. My friend Hannah really wants to read this and she wants to see what I think of it.










This is one of the books I have to read for the White Pine book club. Some people in the club really liked this one, and some hated it, so I don't know what I will think of it.







I am very excited to finish this awesome trilogy! I can't wait to see what happens.










It was on Netgalley, and I didn't even need to have it approved. It looks like a very nice summer read, totally in my comfort zone.










I am looking forward to reading all of those!

Friday, March 30, 2012

Book Review - "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer

Publisher - Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Release Date - April 4, 2006
Number of Pages - 336

 Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.


My Thoughts:
1. The writing was absolutely beautiful in this book! It was beautifully structured and the prose flowed really well.
2. What made this book very interesting was that it was not only narrative,m but it also included things like pictures, letters, articles etc. It made the book more realistic in my opinion.
3. I think that the ending of this book was very effective and well written.
4. Oskar was portrayed as a very eccentric and "broken" character, which I think fit the book perfectly well.


Overall, it was very well written with very good characters.


Rating - A

Thursday, March 29, 2012

April TBR

Here are the books that I am planning to read in April:

1. "Ashes, Ashes" by Jo Treggiari

2. "Maze Runner" by James Dashner

3. "Ugly To Start With" by John Michael Cummings

4. "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor

5. "Once a Witch" by Jennifer McCullough

6. "Hidden Voices" by Pat Lowery Collins

7. "Knife of Never Letting Go" by Patrick Ness

8. "It's Kind of a Funny Story" by Ned Vizzini

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Book Review - "Swim the Fly'' by Don Calame

Publisher - Candlewick Press
Release Date - April 14, 2009
Number of Pages - 368
Series - Swim the Fly #1

Fifteen-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Coop and Sean, always set themselves a summertime goal. This year's? To see a real-live naked girl for the first time — quite a challenge, given that none of the guys has the nerve to even ask a girl out on a date. But catching a girl in the buff starts to look easy compared to Matt's other summertime aspiration: to swim the 100-yard butterfly (the hardest stroke known to God or man) as a way to impress Kelly West, the sizzling new star of the swim team. In the spirit of Hollywood’s blockbuster comedies, screenwriter-turned-YA-novelist Don Calame unleashes a true ode to the adolescent male: characters who are side-splittingly funny, sometimes crude, yet always full of heart.

My Thoughts:
 1.This was fun and hilarious! SO much different from regular YA. It felt like an adventure book, but without dragons, beasts and unicorns.
2. The main character and his sidekicks were awesome, very realistic and definitely not flat.
3. Unlike most YA books, it did not end on a cliffhanger. The ending was very clear.
4. I recommend this to everyone. Even to those who refuse to read anything that does not have vampires in it.


Rating - A+






 

Book Review - "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Nieffenegger

Publisher - MacAdamCage
Release Date - 2003
Number of Pages - 518

 When Henry meets Clare, he is twenty-eight and she is twenty. Henry has never met Clare before; Clare has known Henry since she was six. Impossible but true, because Henry finds himself periodically displaced in time, pulled to moments of emotional gravity from his life, past and future. Henry and Clare's attempts to live normal lives are threatened by a force they can neither prevent nor control, making their passionate love story intensely moving and entirely unforgettable. The Time Traveler's Wife is a story of fate, hope and belief, and more than that, it's about the power of love to endure beyond the bounds of time

My Thoughts:

1. The first 100 pages, were very good. I have really enjoyed the chemistry between young Clare and Henry from the future.
2. However, after the first 100 pages, I started getting bored. The story was not as interesting and it was less relatable.
3. I found there to be way too many references to pop culture, names, terms and other stuff like that.
4. I could not finish it, because it was starting to be very draggy and slow.


 
Overall, I thought it was just OK. It started off well, but then it just became more boring.

Rating - C+