Week of 21/4/14: Legend

Prompt: What are the two most important ideas from what you’ve been reading?
Pages read: Start -70

Legend is another one of those dystopian YA novels.  You know the type, the books that feature governments whacked out of proportion, citizens fighting for survival, districts/sectors/divisions. Those are the trademarks that averted me from popular novels such as Divergent and all those zombie apocalypse stories...  To be honest, I wouldn't have picked up Legend if I hadn't met the author, Marie Lu.  But, while listening to her talk about her book and her inspirations for it, I grew increasingly interested.  When she asked me if I'd read the book while I was getting it signed, I said I'd start reading immediately.  While that didn't prove to come true, I am very happy to be reading it now.

To get to the actual prompt, I feel this book already has some important ideas.  These ideas are shared with many other novels akin to Legend, but they all present their self differently in each.  In Legend, we learn the harsh reality of totalitarian government and plague.  We see one of the main characters, Day (this book is split between two points of view) and his sister looking after his family who are suffering from the plague.  This shows the idea, or theme, of staying together through hardships and the general idea of family.  To pinpoint one idea exactly, it would be when Day and Tess see the soldiers marking an "X" with another slash through it on the family home and they are frightened, as this is something they've ever seen through years of dealing with the plague and those infected.

Switching over to the other main character, June, we see a prodigy as determined from the government's grueling aptitude test.  She receives perfect marks in the academy, but often gets on the teachers and students nerves.  June has a penchant for getting into trouble, although she is not (at least for now) mean-spirited or bad; she is just smart enough to not abide by the imprisoning rules.  An interesting quirk/strength she has is her ability to make deductions about people and their recent activities using acute details.  On the back of the book, it states this is a detective versus criminal story, and I am positive intelligent  June will be the detective and athletic, cunning Day will be the criminal.  Detective versus criminal happens to be my favorite subgenre, you can probably tell that from my recent blogs... I haven't read far ahead enough yet to get a profound idea from June's side yet, but I can predict it will have something to do with rebellion.

Week of 14/4/14: Rebel Fire

Prompt: Why do you think the author wrote this? and Describe the main characters.
Pages read: Start-140

The plain and simple answer to this prompt is that the author, Andrew Lane, is a big geek over the Sherlock Holmes books.  Really, the Holmes saga, with all the different adaptations of the original books by Arthur Conan Doyle.  It's something we have in common, my infatuation started in fifth grade after reading "The Hound of the Baskervilles".  This adaptation (which I am thoroughly enjoying, I highly recommend it) is focused on Sherlock's life as a teen, where he is being guided through his brother's connections and crazy adventures.  Long story short, I highly respect this geeky author...

I'm sure we all know the basic idea of Sherlock Holmes' persona, so I will not dwell too much on him. Though this reworking of the classic paints him in a more innocent light, as he still has not made a name for himself in the detective scene. He is in the learning stage, which is very intense. He has an American tutor, which is rare because this is the late 1800's in Britain.  Crowe, his tutor, likes to make Sherlock think perceptively and differently, and he makes his very first deductions about the world around him.

Mycroft Holmes - what a character.. He is older than Sherlock and working for the British government, which has given him immense power, more than Sherlock knows.  He has put on weight while working, which gives Sherlock plenty to tease him about.  The don't have the same love/hate as they have in other retellings and the original, but there is the brotherly love element in there.  He is more intellectually advanced than Sherlock, and likes to boast about it.  Which is definitely justifiable, he is absolutely brilliant.

In the end, I am very excited about this book and I have loved the characters even before I started reading, so I hope this book will not let me down.

A Midsummer's Nightmare

Prompt: Pretend you get to create the music soundtrack for what you’ve been reading.  What five songs would you include? Write an explanation for each song: why would you include it, how does the song connect to events.
Pages read: Start to 160
Author: Kody Keplinger (who I met last week!  she was lovely!)

To give you a bit of background, our main character Whitley is a semi-rebellious, party animal who is in her senior year of high school.  Currently, she is on summer break and with her dad.  Though it is not the same.  This year, he has gone off and gotten engaged to a pretty but very uptight lawyer, without telling Whitley.  Obviously, she is angry and frustrated because her whole life in the summer has basically been changed, and not in a good way.  She spends a lot of her time now laying out in the sun listening to music.  So I thought she would like these songs.

1.  Joan Jett - "Bad Reputation".  I know Whitley would like this song because she has a reputation for being, well, easy.  She tries not to let it get to her, and as the song's first line goes, "I don't give a damn about my bad reputation."  She is both tough and crazy like Joan Jett, who is one of my personal favorites.

2.  Dead Kennedys - "Lets Lynch the Landlord".  This song is all about rebelling against the owner of the property you reside in, and that is something Whitley does a lot.  Either by bringing alcohol into her future step-mother's pristine home, or like the song says "I don't turn off the water, I don't turn off the heat."

3.  Alice Cooper - "School's Out".  As the title suggests, school's out for good.  Whitley is still trying to find a college suitable for her lifestyle and high school is over, making her very happy, but also nervous.  She just wants to have fun in a boring town on her summer break, but she's not happy.

4.  Morrissey - "Everyday is Like Sunday".  I have this song running through my head a lot during reading.  The lyrics suggest the narrator is in a boring, nearly desolate town, which perfectly describes Whitley's feelings towards the town she has to spend all summer in.

5. New Order - "Bizarre Love Triangle".  This is just a song I can totally see Whitley and Harrison dancing to.  Harrison is the only thing close to a friend she has there, and it's a dramatic but fun song, like their times together.

Week of 31/3/14: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

Prompt:  Explain how you have been surprised by what you are reading.
Pages read: 0-235 **finish**

This is not normally a book I would read; at least, not by choice.  So naturally, I was surprised when I saw myself getting emotionally invested in this book.  I'm not ashamed to say the title scared me off, and they were some eye-rolling moments.  Ultimately, this book was an enjoyable read and I would recommend it to anyone coming out of a challenging book, or if you just enjoy stories about young love...

I should've known, I just should've known! that there would be family drama.  It's obviously going to make the story more believable, and add that relatable bit that makes a good YA novel a best-seller.  I just didn't expect it to be as deeply rooted in The Statistical Prob-... (overly long title).  Hadley going to her father's wedding and meeting her new stepmother was the only part I expected, because it was to be.  I imagined she would eventually make up with her father and like Charlotte (the step-mother) which happens a lot in books like this one.  But *spoiler alert if anyone's reading this far* Hadley's sudden realization about Oliver's father dying hit that small section in my brain I allow emotions to get into in a horrible way.  And that surprised me.

If you're reading this paragraph, don't.  Well not unless you want spoilers, and I would appreciate your dedication.  Arguably (with myself...) Oliver coming back to see Hadley after they met just 24 hours on plane was sweetly surprising.  She had gone to the funeral after skipping out on the wedding for a few hours, but that was disastrous. The almost ending scene where her and Oliver dance at the wedding was just perfect for this type of book.  I would like to explain this in a more in-depth way, as well as go over the plot in next week's blog.  Unfortunately due to time constraints, I must end this blog short. Until next time.

Oh and some exciting news, just because this is a literature blog - This Saturday I am going to a teen book fest, LitWorks.  The author who wrote this book and several others will be there for Q and A, so I am very excited.  Jack Gantos, a hero of mine, will be there, so I cannot wait.

Poetry Unit Reflection

Poetry has been a vital, real part of my life for some time now.  This has become apparent to me through this poetry unit, which has allowed me to answer the following questions.  

 This is a tough question to answer, because I have grown up reading poetry and usually I either love it or hate it, there isn’t really an “in-between”.  So when I was asked “What place does poetry have in your life”, I was a bit confused.  Being someone who’s favorite pastimes have always been reading and writing, poetry has just come along naturally with that.  In short, poetry is, and always has been, something I’ve enjoyed immensely, but something I don’t want to get too deep into.  My mother used to work at the Oak Park Public Library and she organized all the teen programs.  One of those programs was the poetry slam/coffee house that she held one Saturday every month.  Sometimes she would take me, and I absolutely loved it.  It just had that feel you get when you read beat poetry, that sophisticated yet aloof aura that you want to experience, but also want to stay away from.  Those nights have taught me poetry belongs to everyone, and I know from the emotion and depth of the poems I’d often hear.  From moody and mad at the world teens, to the security guards at a library, to even the nerdiest IT guys.  

Although those poetry slam nights taught me that the life and experiences of poets affect their poems, I’d like to elaborate.  One person everyone should know, Oscar Wilde, really proved that statement to me.  You might know Wilde was prosecuted and sent to jail (then spelt/referred to as gaol) and that he wrote many reflections from his experience.  His best known from those works, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”  clearly expresses his feelings about jail and details his experiences.  “Dear Christ! the very prison walls/Suddenly seemed to reel/And the sky above my head became/Like a casque of scorching steel/And, though I was a soul in pain/My pain I could not feel.”  was written in response to the bleak conditions of the prison he was kept in.  

From my personal experiences, to those of Oscar Wilde’s, I have found that poetry has a place in my life, and can be part of everyones’.  I have also learned that a poet’s life can greatly influence their work.  

5 Flavors of Dumb

Prompt:  What ideas do you have about what is going to happen? What clues have you

read to give you those ideas?

Pages read:  Start to mid 40s

Because I've only just started this book this morning, I felt this was a good prompt to respond to.  To summarize what has been going so you are not lost, I'll give you the basics.  Our main character is a deaf teenage girl attending a school her parents can barely afford, which has already created problems she has to face.  If you're wondering what "Dumb" is, or thinking it is a stupid title, I'll tell you it is the rock band within the school. They have won the Seattle Battle of the Bands (which is really cool, Seattle is my favorite city, even if it is fictional) and are looking to getting a record deal.  As you can imagine, they aren't the easiest people to deal with.  After a bit of an awkward scuffle with the band's lead singer, Piper, our main character, was asked/demanded to get them a gig as soon as possible and become their manager.  So going from this information, and prior knowledge, I can make a few predictions.

I can already tell there's going to be disagreements between Piper and the band.  It's hard enough that she's deaf and they aren't patient, but musicians are stereotypically high maintenance.  Piper's a busy girl with school work and taking care of her siblings, so I can only imagine the struggle that is to come.  Along those same lines, though a bit different is the fact that they are in high school.  Although I don't feel this statement needs an explanation, I'll warn you of the drama that usually occurs.  And what's a good YA novel without its share of drama.  Relationships, crushes, friendships are all promised to come up, reading from the back cover.

I've mentioned this earlier -but it's a point that deserves to be brought up more in depth.  Piper's deafness (for lack of a much better word) gives her many limitations.  A harsh truth that she knows she has to face, but her socially inept nature restricts her from facing head on.  You can imagine the criticism, the disbelief, at a deaf band manager.  Sure there have been deaf musicians but with Piper's lack of funding and uncharisma (not a word, oh well) it will make it hard for her to stand up and get a gig.  Which would most likely seem like the end of the world.  So I predict either she'll have a miraculous recovery, and this book will not be as good as I thought, or she will find a way to get a gig doing as little talking and on as little money as possible.  Honestly, I wish her the best of luck.