Day 12 – A Book You Used To Love But Don’t Anymore:

Lucy The Used Up Goose: Extremely Difficult.

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

I find that a lot of books I love I normally tend to say in love with for some reason. I did however, like Escape From Memory by M. Haddix when I first read it and then looking back I realize it was sort of mediocre in a way, too confusing with just enough slight bad grammar to make it annoying. I do critque harshly on writing styles, I like fluid and smooth writing in romance novels, blunt and terse with memoirs, and sharply defined detailing in paranormals. The whole plot of Escape from memory was centered around a teenage girl whose life is thrust into a tail spin of chaos when the secrets of her families past come back to haunt her. It was original, I do admit, but I felt with a story like that, with such potential the writer could have took it three steps further than she had.

Just a snippet of the review to come. Stay tuned.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 08 – Most overrated book

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Day 10 – Favorite classic book

Day 11 – A book you hated

Day 11 – A Book You Hated

Hate is overrated, Dislike is preferred: Difficult.

Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro:
My Rating: 2 1/2 of of 5 stars
When I first picked up this book I had heard lots of good things about it. People posting commentary's saying that the writing was 'defined and eloqaunt' and to its due credit it was. However, though the plot was original and so far the most imagined and well-defined one I've read, it was dreadfully morbid. There was not a single moment in the book when I decided that I liked it, in contrast I respected it.
It took a lot of time to create a novel such as this and as such I give credit to the author, for he developed his thought process precisely and accurately. It was a strong and at times overbearingly so dreadful read that made me want to contact all my close childhood friends and hug them.

To go the the full review click on the books title: Never Let Me Go.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 08 – Most overrated book

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Day 10 – Favorite classic book
Day 12 – A book you used to love but don’t anymore

Day 10 – Favorite Classic Book:

Thee Classic: Easy Peasy Lemon Squeeze-y

Fun Fact:
All the Bronte sisters used pseudonyms male names
in place of their own, all ending with the same surname: Bell
Emily used Ellis Bell
Anne used Acton Bell
& Charlotte was Currer Bell

First and foremost: My sincere apologies, my postings have been terse of late and than seemed, to my readers, to have stopped abruptly. A glitch of the most disastrous sorts: writers block & the dreaded occurrence of a sin: sloth. Onward towards the post!
Now I am heavily inclined to say Sherlock Holmes because really in my personal opinion it a wonder of a read. So detailed, entitled and richly direct with a fluid grace to the words. However though, the same can be said of Moby Dick, which I have a such a profound fond relationship with, due to the stimulating fact that my Grandmother and I would read it in her chair everyday after school when I was a little girl.
Taken these books into consideration as I have, I am left again with yet another choice. This choice leads to a damning question: Why only a single Classic book? They are named the Classic's for a reason, one should not be subjected to limit a preference to one singular novel. But, alas I have chosen, and it is Wuthering Heights. The wording so raw and potent, the emotions that cling to every letter, the story of such brutality, the fear in it and the most of all the love. Love has always been a subject that has been dilated, studied, pinpricked, theorized, and written about since the very beginning of human nature, but, rarely is it ever captured so honestly, so frankly and without mercy. Emily Bronte does not hold my favor over Anne but I cannot deny her triumphant in combing literacy and the very essence of what it means to be in love.

This is just a snippet of the review to come.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 08 – Most overrated book

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving
Day 11 – A book you hated

Day 09 – A Book You Thought You Wouldn’t Like But Ended Up Loving:

Let's not & say we did experience: Extremely Difficult.

I don't normally read books unless I want to, even-pathetically-school textbooks were quite enjoyable for me. And I am probably to only person in the world who gets excited about reading 1924 circa encyclopedia's.

Anyhow, one book does come to mind. Plays It As It Lays, was an emotional whirlwind of a read that I had been putting off for some time, so while on vacation in Oak Beach, Long Island I packed the book and was determined to read it. I did and it left me utterly breathless, the words were brutally honest, thought invoking and intoxicating. A beautifully frigid portrayal of an era of women oppression, break through modernist movements, and a woman's bitter wit. I had never fully enjoyed a book so much that I was oblivious to the weather around me. 

One day while reading this lovely book out on the weatherworn deck of our friend's house I was so immersed into the story that I hadn't realized it had started to rain, twenty minutes later, my coffee is cold, my Grandma and Uncle are ready to go sightseeing and reminiscing and I am soaking wet the pages of Play It As It Lays warped through to the spin. Later when I was back home, in my small desert town I took my flat-iron to the book. Because that is the only reason I ever use the thing now! For flattening warped book pages. Do not ask for my reasoning on this subject, I fear my mind has left me little of it. 

During this vacation this book sparked inspiration that thrived off of my Grandma's life story and I had a new book to start writing, of course me being the me that I am, decided that not bringing my laptop was far better than risking it getting stolen on the plane. Don't ask for my knowledge behind this...So what do I do, I go long-handed cursive on the story boiling inside me and buy a yellow 50 cent spiral bound notebook. 

Play It As It Lays invoked so much inspiration! I would recommend this book for anyone who has writer's block or just anyone who likes historical novels, the way it is written makes you think that the chapters are really just craftily rephrased dairy pages.

This is just a snippet of the review to come. Stay tuned.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 08 – Most overrated book
Day 10 – Favorite classic book

Day 08 – Most Overrated Book:

Overrated! = The Twilight Saga

Now I am the first to admit that I immensely enjoyed the book, the writing style was immature but I countered that with what Meyer was writing, her point, her plot of the beginning of her Saga was simply and to the jest of it a cheesy YA love affair. I never understood why people just ripped into her, did they not ever think "Oh well maybe she wrote her novels simplistic because that was the way she wanted to write it?" Who are we to tell other people how they should write, I feel that as the volunteer job I have taken on it is my duty to make it clear that each of my blog posts, whether it be for my poetry blog or this blog that the words I write are solely my opinion. 

Where I am concerned the hate something you have to devote an immense amount of effort into keeping up with the hating. Hate is vastly overrated really. Too much energy, too much fuss. Is what I say, keep it simple, dislike things to a degree where they don't effect your daily life.

Anyhow now that my ramblings have thoroughly been put to doc. format. 

Onward with the show!

I admit I was one of those people who was swept up in the entire whirlwind of Twilight, I never stalked Rob Pattinson or waited in the rain to see the movie's opening night premiere but I did what it every night straight for like four weeks, just before I went to bed. But I feel the need to point out that I now find myself doing the same thing with Leverage - I have a secret love affair with that long haired guy who sings country music and always goes around beating people up, give me a bad boy any day of a polo shirt - and before that Seinfeld, then before that the movie Leap Year, and so on so forth. I think you get my point. 

I rather liked Twilight, of course I was stubborn and hadn't read the first book until I finished the entire series, proclaiming that I already saw the movie and therefore I had read the book. I was wrong, never see a movie and think it is the same at the novel itself, it never is. 

There are good things that came out of the Twilight Fever Epidemic, examples being: The Vampire Dairies, - love me some Damien - The Secret Circle, new Vampire/Supernatural YA novels finally burst through, and I give credit to Robert Pattinson, he was stunning in Remember Me, I mean the ending - who saw that coming?! Any-who, the books however, blew up so big that it made my admiration towards them shrivel, you know what I mean? Like when you hear a song over and over and over again on the radio and soon enough you turn it up screaming 'Let someone else have a turn!' 

That is what happened with me with Twilight, I barely touch the novels, never watch the two first movies, and haven't bothered to buy the remaining three. I don't really seem the point, the hype went up and then it deflated. Does that mean Meyer is not a good author, Hells' no! Her novel's  made me cry, laugh, squeal, swoon, and jump for joy at one point, not to mention the thrill of the ride. 

It really is a shame the hype got carried away. 

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 09 – A book you thought you wouldn’t like but ended up loving

Day 07 – Most Underrated Book An Unexpected Good Read:

The unexpected good book: Simple.

At War's End by Perry, Anne. I was just at the Veteran's hospital, in a waiting room one day, when I found this book. My Grandma and uncle were trying to get a meeting with a man who would later direct us to another man who would talk about my Grandpa's disability coverage. I just wanted something to read, to take my mind off of the situation I had been thrust roughly into, I had expected to be there for a while. We weren't. I had expected to like the book. I did. 

Now I can't find the book anywhere. I got twenty pages in and was hooked, unfortunately I had to leave because my Grandma was leaving. Little had I known that At War's End was two books in one, it included both "At Some Disputed Barricade", "We Shall Not Sleep" now I have placed them both one hold and am determined to finally finish the wondrously frank rendering of war.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad
Day 08 – Most overrated book

Day 06 – A Book That Makes You Sad:

A sad book: Easy Peeze-y Lemon Squeeze-y.

Hold Still by Nina LaCour. 

I read this during a time in my life when I was so low I could hardly breathe sometimes. This books was so deeply sorrowful that I felt as if I were drowning in it. Written from a teenage perspective only made me relate further to the book which in turn made it even that much more painful to read. I believe after I finished the novel I was left numb for nearly a weak, subdued in part by my own turmoil and awakened by the stories. I fully believe that, what makes a great story is that after you finish reading it, you carry the words, the essence of it, with you days after. Never have I read a story of loss that was so eloquently illustrated by words than with Hold Still. Caitlin finds a journal, the journal of her best friend, the journal of a suicide victim. In this journal Ingrid reveals to Caitlin why she did what she did, what she suffered from and how she felt so trapped, death was her only escape. With this journal Caitlin begins to discover Ingrid all over again, and she ultimately realizes that Ingrid may have died but she never truly left. 

To see this book's full review click on the pink link: Hold Still

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 07 – Most underrated book An unexpected good read

Day 05 – A Book That Makes You Happy

A Happy Book: Hard.

Beach combing at Miramar: The Quest For An Authentic Life by Richard Bode, has to be one of those books that you just have to read. I read this book after my mother gave it to me. With her scribbles in the sidelines and the spine dent from use I found that this book was utterly awe-worthy. It took me three days, where my Californian weather came out to play: on the first day it rained outside so hard that there isn't a page in the first thirty pages of that book now that doesn't have a raindrop on it, on the second day the fog was so thick that I felt like I was in the mountains instead of my nearly always dry dessert, on the third day the sun shined so hot that I tanned while finishing this book. The weather changes seemed to go along with the sections in the book. 

A man nearing his elder age retires from an all consuming stressful job that brought him no pleasure, receives a divorce from his wife, and relocates away from his modernist wealthy lifestyle to a hunt on a beach. Every day the man wakes, he searches for treasures the seas bring him, he contemplates his past, the mistakes he feels he'd made, and how they all were necessary to bring him right where he is today. There is a perpetual sorrow in his voice when he looks back on his children and all the moments in there lives that he missed, but at the same time there is a ever enlightening blissful happiness when he talks of the ocean that there was not a moment in the book when I wasn't truly happy with his rhythmic lyrical writings.

This is just a snippet of the review to come. Stay tuned.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 06 – A book that makes you sad

Day 04 – Favorite Book Of Your Favorite Series:

Fav. book of fav. series: Simple.

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

Rage by Kessler, Jackie Morse

It is a very rare occasion indeed when I find the need to rate a book the highest score possible. Few novels have actually captured my full attention so complexly, has never created a world so vivid with the harsh realities of our modern day world, that it left me no option than to give it five stars. The author spent some large amounts of time editing, proof-reading while also making sure the integrity of the books underlying purpose was not mistaken. Kessler made she her words were curt, terse, and frank. And you know me, give me a novel such as this that holds such powerful emotion in every verse, and I crumble into mush.

Without out doubt the one of the most powerful novels I've read. With her stark realism, her in-depth reasoning behind such a tragedy and the composure that Kessler manages to portray in her main character Missy.

Missy is just a normal, high school kid, with parents that are too busy with there careers to notice her existence, and with a sister whose desperate need to climb that social hierarchy ladder sickens Missy to no end. Then finally it seems this girl with a shell as hard as a diamond has caught herself a break. Her football star of an ex-boyfriend, whom after seeing the horrific inter-lacing scars of her cutting dumps her, invites her personally to a party in the front of his nasty 'possy' she has nothing else to do but go. Right? Especially since the said ex-boyfriend has been strangely nice to her lately, stopping his friends even from calling her 'cutter-slut'. Despite her internal clock ticking rhythmically along with the phrase of 'the party is a bad idea', Missy goes anyway, her desire to have some fun outweighing the dread she feels.
As it turns out, Missy should have defiantly stayed home. When a cruel joke leads Missy to slit her wrists a little too deep this time than normal, Missy thinks she's done for. Until she remembers him. The man with the sword! His words coaxing her to her knees, the drum of her heat-beat slowing as her life slowly ebbs away and onto her white carpeted bedroom-floor. 

The day before a man came to her doorstep and gave her a beautiful sword that seemed to radiate power, control, strength, and most important a rage so potent it has the capability to destroy entire civilization and that is just what it wants to do, unless Missy can finally find the control she's always lacked, always sought after but never fully grasped in her palms.

"Thou art the Red Rider." Yeah, okay I'm not going to believe some man who shows up on my doorstep proclaiming to be death, a man who gives me an ancient sword, and says I am to go out in the world as a rider of the apocalypse. Was he insane? 

But, lying on her bedroom floor Missy realizes that the sword, her sword is calling to her, urging her forward through the drowning waters of her fading life. Finally just as her vision fades black the swords hilt falls into the palm of her hand. The next day Missy wakes up, she alive. It is not until the next day of school that she realizes why she so desperately needed to cut so deep. And the harsh realism is enough to send her over the edge, possibly taking her student body with her as fits of rage leek out of her and into them. Missy must gain control before she truly dies, because it is only the sword that saved her from her fate, and in a world parallel to hers the rules are very simple: except your position as a rider of the apocalypse, or submit to death.

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 03 – Your favorite series

Day 05 – A book that makes you happy

Day 03 – Your Favorite Series:

Favorite Series: Difficult.

I would have to say without doubt: Riders of the Apocalypse, I devoured both novels Hunger, and Rage, and am adamantly waiting on the third. Each book is written in such a stark realism that I was in awe by the writings of Jackie Morse Kessler  her words struck out at me, it demanded my attention and I listened. When the books were finally over I felt saddened because I desperately wanted more.
A compelling series that takes the reader of a whirlwind of our modern day society's conflicts, that young teens face. Kessler does a stunning job portraying the average adolescent who suffers from an eating disorder or a person who suffers from Manic Depression Self-Harm, often referred to as 'cutting, burning, or scratching oneself'. Kessler also throughs in a mix of paranormal activity, such as the myth of the riders of the apocalypse which in itself would have made a wondrous read but thrown together with the background story of each teens suffering, Kessler exposes, rather brutally and without shame the world some teens today live with everyday. 

Hunger is the story of a girl named Lisabeth Lewis who starves herself because the way she looks horrifies her. Her basement is an exercise room and her routine is shocking. Every calorie she puts in her mouth is categorized, she then burns off every one, over-exercising, over-exerting herself until she is physically exhausted. Her mother doesn't notice a thing, always perfectly made-up, always thin with her pencil skirt, only makes Lisabeth shrivel further into her world of hunger. And if that were not enough to make a compellingly haunting book, in comes death. After a terrible night Lisabeth opens her front door after a knock and find a handsome man shrouded in black, he hands her a set of bronze ancient looking scales and pronounces Lisabeth the Black Rider, one of four of the Rider's of the Apocalypse. She receives a handsome stead and is told to go out into the world where famine calls to her. But previous famine's have old enemies, and the red rider is not one for pleasantries. Lisabeth must fight the very essence of War, curb her desire to succumb to her hunger, deal with the emotional weight of the world's famine and make a decision that could haunt her for the rest of her life.

Rage was mesmerizing, incredibly intoxicating and stripped down to the barest of human's skins. A stark and blunt look into the life of a teenage girl named Missy who cuts herself, never too deep to kill herself, but enough to allow the badness to seep out of her through her blood. After Missy attends a party and a horrifying picture revealing her scars to the entire world is leaked out onto the internet Missy is overcome with rage and pain. When she goes home that night she doesn't notice the white stead, or the the handsome man playing guitar but soon enough she will. Because this time when Missy cuts, she cuts too deep, and barely has enough time to reach the sword given before the party when the same handsome man playing guitar pronounced her the Red Rider. Missy has to find the control she only could find while cutting and apply it to her new job, she must come to terms with her deadly addiction and curb her anger, least she kill the entire high school student body.
To see Hunger's full book review click on the pink link: Hunger (Riders of the Apocalypse #1)
To see Rage's full book review click on the pink link: Rage (Riders of the Apocalypse #2)

These are just small snippets of the full reviews to come. Stay tuned. 

Day 01 – The best book you read last year

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Day 04 – Favorite book of your favorite series

Day 02 – A Book That You’ve Read More Than 3 Times:

Three time read: extremely difficult.

Surprisingly I have not read a book more than three times, my mother has: Charlotte's Web and Jonathan Seagull, wondrous read the pair. However, as she told me when I asked her about it on our morning walk with my freight-train of a Golden Retriever, that there was one book I loved.

"Oh, brother.
She was alway's trying to make friends with animals.
But this was going too far." - Mary Pops Osborne,
Jack says of Annie,
when she holds her hand out to the Pteranodon.

PteranodonAnd that my darlings was Dinosaurs after Dark. 
Because at the time when I read these - first grade - I lived in my childhood home still, this homes was glorious for two sole reasons 1. I lived exactly fifty large steps away from my Grandparent and 2. we'll get to late. The house was not large, or even an overly medium home, with one story, one bath and three tiny bedrooms; I never realized how small everything was until I went back yours later and investigated.
Regardless of this the backyard was child huge. 
The sort of huge that makes you believe you live on a farm in the middle of no where when actually you live the residential suburbs five minutes away from four separate parks, ten minutes by car to the beach and fall asleep to the sound of cars. 
To make things all the thing that much more glamours, we had a treehouse!! A treehouse that seemed to me was barely just by a hair smaller than our entire house. This  tree held a two story- hand built by my father and brother - treehouse with a hidden underneath flip up door, just like in this book. My father, and my uncle's are carpenters, their uncle's were carpenters. We come from a long line of carpenters, and I have to give credit where credit is due, unbiasedly and truthfully my father has a gift from God in his hands. His architectural drawers are a work that could reveal master craftsmen, he built, hand sanded, stained, shellacked, and put together a dark wood swing for me within a matter of three days.
"Help a monster!"- Mary Pope Osborne, Character Annie to Jack.
Jack has no other option but to chase after his seven-year-old sister, into the woods and away from reality and into the imaginary world Annie loves to create. Then Jack stumbles across a treehouse and suddenly the trip is not so bad. So naturally Jack starts to climb the rope ladder that leads to the door and Annie protests with the argument that the rope is not safe. Soon enough, though Jake reaches the top and as he peeks his head through the hole he sees it. Books. Tons of tons of various books; ranging on various subjects, and displaying their age proudly across their spines.
And of course the sister has to remind her brother of her presence, soon Annie has come along, up the ladder and into the treehouse carrying a scruffy dog named Henry in her arms. When Annie, ever the helpful optimist, picks up a book on dinosaurs a real one appears. The wind ruffles hairs as loud as thunder, and then even more deliciously horrifyingly obtuse the treehouse itself starts to move, than spin like a rapid twirling spintop. Still, the world is still when the tree house finally decides to stop spinning the only thing Jack thinks to say when he finds himself in prehistoric times is "None of this can be real." Annie, always the helpful optimist says "He's very real." pointing her child small fingers towards the Pteranodon. 
Armed with the book that could have brought them there a notebook and pencil to track the information they gather Jack and Annie set out to discover prehistoric times. However, not all of the creates who inhabit the Cretaceous period are friendly. While searching prehistoric wilderness Jack finds something startling: a golden medallion which means only one thing. Someone has come here before them.
Of course when you go to the Prehistoric period - willing participant or not - you run the risk of well, you know getting eaten by a dinosaur. And that is just what almost happens when Jack spots a Trannysaurus rex heading straight for them. There was nothing left they could do in prehistoric times, not with a Trannysaurus rex on their tail so they did the only thing they could: they ran. Back to the tree house that had brought them here, back to the future, to their green porch, to Henry the scruffy neighbors dog, if only they can make it. 
Hiding behind a tree, desperate to get home, to pretend again is just when the Trannysaurus rex find the siblings and just as, with their hearts to their throats, the pair of them thought they were done for, Annie's friend swoops in to save the day. The Pteranodon delivers Jack and Annie safely back to the magic tree house where it spins, stills and brings them back to rural Pennsylvania. Walking back to their white wooden house and green front porch they made a pact, a pact that included two things: 1. they would tell no one of what happened, 2. they would go back into the woods tomorrow, up the ladder and into the magical tree house littered with old magical books.
Day 01 – The best book you read last year
Day 03 – Your favorite series