Best and Worst Books of 2016

     The best book I've read in 2016 would have to be Tell No One by Harlan Coben. David Beck witnessed his wife's kidnapping and murder. They were celebrating their marriage at Beck's lake, when she was killed. Years go by, and Beck still hasn't moved on from his wife. He believes her to be dead still, until he receives a suspicious email from someone. The email says things only his wife knew. It then tells him to log on to a website at a certain time, no earlier or later. He does so, and it takes him to a street camera, where his wife is standing in front of the camera, staring at it. He now believes she is alive, but is told to tell no one. He ignores this, telling the people he trusts about his findings. Beck has become hunted down, searching for his wife and being searched for.
   

     The worst book I've read in 2016 is Tinkers by Paul Harding. George is an old man dying, and is going over past events in his life. He reminisces his past growing up and his troubles with his father. It's very boring in my opinion and I didn't even finish the book, because I couldn't get through the boring stories of George's childhood. It had no plot, and was just trying to make you feel bad for George, who had troubles growing up. But don't we all? I don't want to read about an old man dying and stating his regrets, and how sad his life was. That's just down right depressing.

Top 5 To Be Read

The top five books I really want to read are:

1)Female of the Species by: Mindy McGinnis. I've heard from multiple sources to read it, and it seems like a book I would enjoy. I like reading a lot of thrillers and books similar to that, and this book has murder and secrets in it, which seems up my alley.

2)From Ashes by: Molly McAdams is another book I was recommended to. It seems like a typical teen girl book, about a girl who doesn't trust guys since her dad died, until she meets this boy. It seems alright so I figured why not read it if someone tells me it's good. I guess I'll be the judge of that.

3)Pride and Prejudice by: Jane Austen is a book I've been wanting to read for a while. It's a classic novel set in the 19th century. I don't know how much I will enjoy the writing since it's written a little while ago, but the storyline seems good, and I feel like everyone should read this book since it's so well known.

4)All the Light We Cannot See by: Anthony Doer is another book I really want to read. It's non-fiction, which I typically only read fiction, but this book seems very interesting. It's during the holocaust, which I find very interesting in history, so I feel I would enjoy this book. It reminds me of The Book Thief, which I really enjoyed reading that.

5)Go Ask Alice by: Beatrice Sparks is sort of like a diary entry. It's written from the perspective of a drug addict, who's life spirals out of control. It seems like the book The Oxygen Thief, who is an alcoholic and also writes about his life becoming out of control, and basically says how shitty his life is all the time. I didn't like the book at first, but grew to love it, so maybe the same will happen with this book.
 


 

Blog #10 Literary Heroes and Villains

Jeanine Matthews is the main villain in the Divergent series, by Veronica Roth. She is the leader of the Erudite, only because she has the highest IQ in her faction. She hates the divergent, because her medicine doesn't work on them, so she can't control them. Her main goal is to take over all the factions, to become powerful. I like her because she is so smart, and can outsmart almost anyone.

In the Immortal series, the first book Evermore by Alyson Noel has a dark character, Drina. Her goal for the entire book is to kill Ever, because Damen, Drina's ex husband is in love with Ever. She's killed all of Ever's reincarnations, and will do anything to get Damen back. I like her because she is so ruthless and just kills people without having a care in the world.

A hero that I really like is also from the Divergent series, Tris. She is a very relatable character, and does what she thinks is right all the time. She risks her life to try and better the factions, and help the other divergents that are like her.



















In the book The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan, Percy has a best friend, who's also his protector named Grover. He's a half goat, and I just really enjoyed his character in the books. He was sort of a comic relief, and would do anything for Percy.

James Patterson has an entire series dedicated to a character, Alex Cross. Alex is not a typical hero, but in the crime fighting world he is. He's a detective that risks his life every day to catch psychopaths. In the very first book, this psychopath kidnaps these famous children, and Cross does anything to try and find them before they are killed.

Book Covers

      I'm sure you've heard the saying "don't judge a book by its cover." But I'm sure we've all done it. The only reason I pick up a book is because the way it looks, and a little bit because of the title. I saw this book cover and thought it was very interesting. It definitely caught my attention, which is what a cover should do. I then further looked into the book was about, and was a little disinterested, but at least the cover caught my attention.                                                                                                                                                                                  

     This cover is really cool to me. I like the coloring and the outlet and everything about it. It's so cool and makes me want to read it, but then I read the title and it didn't sound as interesting to me. Titles play a very big role in choosing a book as well, because people think the title is what the book is about. This isn't always the case. Some authors make titles of books a metaphor, or some kind of symbol in the book. For example; In the book Along Came a Spider, by James Patterson, it definitely isn't about a spider whatsoever. It's a crime novel about a detective. Most people probably wouldn't think it's actually about a spider, but you never know.                                                                                                                                                                                               

     This cover is an example of why you can't judge a book by its cover. It's the dumbest cover I have ever seen and makes me not want to read it at all. But I did read this book because the Uglies series is incredible. It was on of the first distopian society books I ever read and really enjoyed it. So this is just another example of why not to judge a book by its cover. This looks dumb but was actually a very well written, creative book. It sucks when a book has an awful book cover, because it makes people not want to read it. There's thousands of good books out there that people won't choose, just because the cover.               

                         

Reaction to "Against YA" Article

    I did not agree with this article while reading "Against YA: Read what you want. But you should feel embarrassed when what you're reading was written for children." A lot of young adult books definitely aren't for children. They have sex and drugs and alcohol or a lot of other things you wouldn't want a child to hear about. I found it very annoying that they said you should feel embarrassed. Heck no you shouldn't. Young Adult books are actually entertaining and have good story lines, unlike some fancy literature that she thinks you should be reading.
     Reading is meant for you to escape from the world for a little while, and just relax and enjoy yourself. It's meant for you to relate to, and adults definitely don't want to read about boring adult lives. Most adults don't want to be old, and enjoy reading YA because being an adult down right sucks. Being responsible sucks. So if they want to read a book for teenagers, let them.
     I'm not judging if you don't read YA, and do in fact read the fancy literature. Read whatever the heck you want and have no shame in it, as long as you enjoy it. I did find it shocking to find that half of the people that buy YA books are over the age of eighteen, but I don;t see anything wrong with that, it was just shocking.

Blog #6 Top 5

     My number one favorite suspense novel I have ever read would for sure be Gone Girl. On Amy and Nick's anniversary, Amy goes missing. Nick comes home to a destroyed house and no wife to celebrate with. The cops suspect it was the husband Nick, and find Amy's journal that leads them to more suspicion. It has one of the biggest twists in a book I have ever read and I love it. Gillian Flynn is an amazing author, and definitely will cause your jaw to drop, from all the suspense and plot twists.  Gone Girl definitely increases your thinking, and was never boring. A definite must read, before you see the movie!

My second favorite suspense novel is Tell No One, by Harlan Coben. Alex Beck's wife was murdered in front of him one night while they were celebrating being together at their lake. Or so he thought. He begins to receive emails from what appears to be his wife. Then, a video clip is sent to him from a live street camera. His wife appears in it, staring at the camera, not saying anything. He now knows she's alive and would do anything to find her again. The end of this book also has sort of a twist, but what mystery novel doesn't? I would recommend to anyone that enjoys anything with suspense, and a little violence.

     My third favorite suspense novel is Along Came a Spider, by James Patterson. In this novel, two famous children are kidnapped by their teacher. He was pretending to be someone else, when really he was a psychopathic killer with a split personality. Alex Cross, homicide detective, is trying to catch this psychopath, Gary Soneji. Jezzie Flanagan is the first female supervisor of the secret service, whom Alex falls in love with, but at the wrong time. Read and find out if Alex can find this crazy killer, before the children and others die too. This is a definite must read. James Patterson is an amazing author, whose words just flow through your mind, curious as to what happens next.

  The Girl on the Train is my fourth favorite suspense novel. It's very similar to Gone Girl. Rachel, divorced drunkee takes the same train at the same time every day. She's pretending she's going to work, when really she lost her job. Every day she looks out the train window at all the houses, even her old house that her ex husband still lives in. Two houses down from there is a couple that Rachel is infatuated with. She creates lives with them, acting as if she knows them. One day, Rachel sees something she wasn't supposed to out the train window. The next day, the wife of the couple she was infatuated with goes missing.Rachel thinks she has information on what happened with her missing, and becomes more involved in the case than she should. if you've read Gone Girl and enjoyed it, I would definitely recommend this. The ending isn't as good as it could be, but still a very good, suspenseful read.
                                   


Dexter is another great suspense/thriller novel. Dexter is a blood splatter analyst for the police department, and also a serial killer. His job makes it easy for him to find the bad people, and kill them. That's the only people he kills, the bad ones who deserve it. A bunch of murders start turning up that resemble Dexter's killing style, and he gets freaked out. I recommend this book to anyone because it's very entertaining and different. It's not as much as a suspense novel as the others, but definitely a thriller. 

Book vs. Film Review: Speak

 

     After reading the book Speak and watching the movie, I can say that I didn't like either. The way the book was written was very bothersome to me. The author didn't use complete sentences ever, and it bothered me to no end. The storyline of the book was alright, and had a good message to young teen girls about rape, and how you should always speak up about things like this. I feel awful for saying that so didn't like a book about rape, but I didn't. Maybe if I was in middle school it would've been alright.

     The movie was even worse than the book. Most of the book was the girl narrating her thoughts, since she never spoke in the book. Making a movie about a girl not speaking is probably the worst idea ever. But, at least they picked Kristen Stewart to play this character. I would rather watch her walk around awkwardly all the time not talking than listen to her try and act. They shouldn't have made this book into a movie, there was no point besides spreading the message to speak up even when you don't want to. You could've read the book to get the message.

     So you don't think I'm the most negative human in the world, I will say that this book did have a good meaning like I said, and I would recommend it to girls between 6th and 8th grade. It would be a good book for them to read, and it's very easy to read. I finished it in a day, mostly because of all the incomplete sentences. It wasn't very difficult. I wouldn't recommend the movie though. It was downright awful, awful acting, and changed a very big scene from the book. The scene where she gets raped didn't happen at all how it did in the book. 

     If I were to make this movie, I wouldn't. This book was not meant to become a movie. It wasn't interesting to watch a girl mope around and not speak. The only reason they did it was to make money. Also, the fact that many kids read this book in school, they probably felt they had to make it a movie since they sold so many copies. The only reason for that was because middle school teachers forced their students to buy it. All in all, I do not advise you to read this book or see this movie. Sorry for being so negative.