BOOM!What an end to a trilogy! I started this book and it started right off where The Ask and the Answer ended. I loved the smooth transition of books two and three, they were really great.I really enjoyed reading this novel. Every time I had to put the book down, I didn't really want to. I wanted to read on and on because there was constant action.Looking back, there was maybe one little part where there was no action, but this non-existent action was leading to more action. This was quite a thrilling read!Also, the characters. The protagonists and antagonists developed so much throughout the book and it didn't ever seem inconclusive to me. Everything and everyone was authentic. I was very fond of 1017, the Spackle. I loved how he was included as a third point of view and I liked reading about the Spackles and what their story was and how they felt.The writing was, just as in the first two books, really great and it fit the characters perfectly.The ending was great. The main story was tied up nicely and I wouldn't have it any other way.I just loved reading this novels. This is definitely one of my favorite trilogies.
I've heard only good things about this novel and I expected to like it. Which I did.But it was more than liking. It blew my mind. I've never read such a creepy and totally realistic book. It seemed to me that it could have been a possible future of our world. Everything was plausible and I was creeped out by what happened on the Moon and it kept me reading on and on because I wanted to know what would happen next.I liked that the POV's were changing every other chapter. I liked reading about all of the different characters and the different reasons for going to the moon.The ending was something I didn't expect. It was mind-blowing and creepy and mysterious until the very end.Loved it!
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (Book 1)
After watching the first five Harry Potter movies with my boyfriend I wanted to re-read the series again.I have re-read The Philosopher's Stone last year in June and somehow just didn't read on with the series.Now I really wanted to read about Harry's first year at Hogwarts and about his adventure and I really, really enjoyed it.I haven't thought that I would enjoy it that much because I've seen the first movie just two weeks ago, but reading the book was just a different experience and there were quite a few scenes that just didn't show up in the movie, scenes that I forgot about, but was reminded of, when I read them.I loved how Harry's, Ron's and Hermione's friendship built up and how they had to study for exams and try to do magic. Quidditch was most enjoyable. I am so not into sports, but magic sports is a different and far more interesting thing, for me at least.It is also astonishing how events from Harry's first year are linked to the later books in the series. Just amazing.I am excited to continue with the series and relive all of this wonderful magic!
I have read the first installment in the series about two years ago and I loved it. I finally wanted to continue this series, so I picked up The Sea of Monsters.I was in a kind of big reading slump this month. But whenever I read a few chapters I enjoyed Percy's adventure. As soon as I put the book down, there seemed to be no urge to pick it up again, although I really enjoyed it.I don't remember much from The Lightning Thief, so I don't think I can make a comparison between Percy then and now. But I think that I will continue with this series this year, so I hope that there will be character development.The adventure and the witty comments and the humor overall that was part of Percy and his friends' conversations was really refreshing and gave a nice touch of modern story-telling in between the myths of Greek Gods and their culture.It seemed to me that the sequel had kind of the same pattern. The story was different, alright. But Percy gets in trouble, something bad happens, he goes off on a quest,..this had quite a few similarities with the first novel, as far as I can recall.I think I'll see as soon as I will continue reading the series, which will be soon, I hope.
I read Dead Until Dark back in 2010 and I attempted to read the second installment in the Sookie Stackhouse series after finishing and enjoying the first book, but I just had enough of vampires and could not really get into the story.I wanted to read something light and I thought that continuing with the series might be a good idea. I haven't read stories about vampires now for a long time and I was sick of it after this big hype around Twilight. But now I really liked reading about vampires again.The story itself was alright. I liked the mystery.Other than that there was not much to like for me. Sookie behaved like your typical Mary Sue and I couldn't stand her at times, especially when she complied herself to Bill like she was his servant. In other situations she even seemed tough so I didn't know what to make of her odd behaviour.I am growing to love Eric more and more, I like how he acts around Sookie and their talks are fun to read.All in all I enjoyed this mystery and I'm going to continue reading this series soon, I hope.
Wonder
This is a beautifully written story about a ten-year-old boy, who has to deal with going to a real school for the first time and at the same time dealing with how people treat him.I could not put the novel down, I was fascinated. It has such a great message about kindness and friendship and I just adored it.The switching of the perspectives gave more depth to all the different characters and to their feelings.I also loved the Star Wars references and that Auggie is into science.There were things that I at first thought were mean and not that nice to say to Auggie, but when I read from that other person's perspective I would understand how that was meant and that even if it wasn't very nice in the beginning, it was just a human reaction.I am surprised how much I loved this story. I didn't expect it to have that much depth, it being a middle grade fiction novel, but I was proven wrong and I definitely will continue reading MG-fiction, as I really like this genre and I hope to come across some more that have a message like this novel did.
1
The word that describes this story for me is: surreal!I didn't really know what to expect from this novel, it was after all "just" about a circus. But the description of the circus and the different tents made me long to go to the circus as well. I thought that the prose was beautiful and I had to get used to the writing style at first, but as soon as I did, I felt like I was right in the middle of the story.Although the novel was set at the late 19th century, it was as if the story just happened yesterday. The writing style was in the present tense, that's possibly the reason why.I wasn't very fond of the main characters, they seemed to be bland and their story was predictable.The stories of the other characters was more interesting, though the characters didn't grow on me as much as I would have liked. Also, the challenge. I wasn't even sure what it was all about. It would have explained the whole situation a bit better, if it was explained somewhat sooner in the story.All in all, it was a magical read and I really enjoyed the ride on the carousel ;)
I first read this story when I was about fourteen or fifteen and I remember that I loved it. It was my favorite children's book at that time.Until I re-read it.I think I would have enjoyed it more if I would have been a bit younger because I just couldn't get over the characters being so annoying:Dorothy, being always forgiving for each and every thing although there is no reason for it;the Scarecrow, calling himself a fool even though he gets most of the ideas during their journey on how to get on;the Tin Woodman, lacking a real heart, but having more compassion for everything and everyone than anyone else;and finally the Cowardly Lion, who isn't a coward at all.I also noticed that for a children's story, there was a lot of violence. But other fairy tales have similar acts of violence in them, so it wasn't something atypical. After all it took me a long time to finish this rather short story and it put me in a reading slump of a sort, which wasn't very nice to begin with and I dreaded reading this story further knowing that I'll be coming back to this annoying quartet of friends. I'm still willing to read the rest of the stories from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and see for myself how the story continues and whether I like it or not.
I heard so many good things about this novel and a few not so good things.I read this novel for the YA Book Club and I just adored it.I loved that Eleanor was not your typical main character. She wasn't perfect. She was big and had wild red hair and her family life sucked.Park seemed to be the complete opposite. He was half Asian, yes, but other than that he had friends and a great family life.There were a lot of aspects of racism that I've seen other people criticize, but I've talked about this topic with my boyfriend and he said that in the eighties a lot of people were like that. Probably not intentionally (at least not all of them), but it still happened these days. As I thought about it, it didn't even seem pretentious, but a gave a real-life feel, like you really were in the eighties.I loved also all the pop-culture references, the music and the movies and also all of these graphic novels.The story was really cute and it was captivating. I really wanted to know what was going to happen next and next and then after that as well.I adored the writing style. The changing POV's between Eleanor and Park were well done, I liked the continuous changes and to see how each character felt and what they thought at the same moments.It was such a lovely read.
The Wide Wide Sea (Chaos Walking, #2.5)
This little story takes place just before the Spackle war.At first I didn't even know what it was about, but about two or three pages in, everything became clear. Or at least almost.I really enjoyed this novella and I think it's a nice addition to the whole trilogy.It shows a quite different perspective that didn't seem to even be a possibility in the trilogy itself and I did like this perspective as a whole.Nicely done, Patrick Ness!
So many feels.I have read The Knife of Never Letting Go about one and a half years ago and I have adored it. I wanted to savour the story, I knew that I was going to love it and I also really, really loved the sequel.In this novel, there are changing POV's between Todd and Viola. And I loved that. I loved how the story was told from both perspectives, how I, as the reader, could follow both story lines coming together.I loved both Todd and Viola; individually and together. The two of them are such strong characters. They are flawed, but hey, they are still adolescents. They are still growing up and they are developing into such great characters, I just love reading about them.The villains were superb. They were so mean and villain-y as you could possibly imagine. And they did their job very well.As well as the Spackle. I just couldn't believe what was done to them. How everything was taken away from them. Even before Mayor Prentiss showed up. It felt like an abstract re-telling of the genocide in World War II. I really liked them as a part of the story and am interested in what role they will play in the next book.I was kept in suspense over the course of the entire novel and I devoured it and tried to savour it as much as I could, but the story is just so fast-paced, I just couldn't stop reading.Also the writing. Guys, the writing. I know that a lot of people couldn't get into The Knife of Never Letting Go because of the writing style. It is written in a bit of a slang with words written as you would write them down as you're hearing them (e.g. "attenshun" = attention). This was still the case with Todd's POV, but he seemed to have matured, so that it didn't even stand out that much. But that's not the only thing. Viola's POV was written somehow completely different. It suited her character; both writing styles did emphasize Todd's and Viola's character and I couldn't get enough of either story line and/or writing style.I want to digest this novel very slowly and give it a bit of time until I read Monsters of Men as I don't want this trilogy to end. But I can't promise I won't start reading it at the beginning of the next month.
I wanted to read The New World before starting The Ask and the Answer to freshen up my mind about the story, as it is ages that I read The Knife of Never Letting Go.I liked Viola's POV; she seemed very mature for her age and I liked that and the contrast that's been created between her and Todd's POV.It was interesting to learn about how Viola got to the New World and what she had to go through.As always, I thought that it was way too short, a bit more story would have been nice. But that's always my problem with novellas.I'm now so excited to finally read the second book of the trilogy!
I love the 'Roaring Twenties'. I love the parties, the dresses, the jazz.We discussed The Great Gatsby in my English class as part of the American Dream. We read a few excerpts of the novel and watched the film with Robert Redford. I loved this movie and I wanted to read the novel. Now that the film with Leonardo Di Caprio came out and I wanted to see that one as well, I finally read the novel.All in all the novel consists of this:
I first read this about ten years ago, when I was twelve, just like Meggie. I enjoyed reading the story then and I wanted to finally read the first book in the trilogy as well as the sequels.I have to say that I didn't enjoy it as much as I did ten years ago.Although the writing was beautiful, there were parts that could have been shortened or left out. It dragged on for quite a bit in the middle part. But nonetheless I really liked that this was a book about books. I love reading about fellow bookworms and this was one I liked as a reader.Still, I didn't see much development in some of the characters as I would have liked.Also, the ending was quite abrupt for a book this massive.I will continue reading the series, but I don't know how soon that will be.
3.5 starsI had this book on my shelf for about three years now and I thought that it was finally time to read it.I knew nearly nothing about it except for it being about a child prodigy and fairies. I did not expect it to be about a thief kidnapping a fairy just to get ransom.I think I would have liked it more if I was a bit younger.The character of Artemis Fowl didn't develop as much as I would have liked. Since he was the main character I thought that it would be more about him.It was still a nice beginning to the world of the fairies and also showed Fowl's intelligence.Also the writing style was nice and refreshing. The way it was told was just great. I liked how it seemed that the author itself was narrating the story and that made it more lively.I will definitely continue the series as I would like to know how the characters will develop as well as the story.
WOW.This was my first Ellen Hopkins novel. My first time reading a novel in verse and my first time reading about drug abuse.What made the story more authentic was the fact that the story is based loosely on the author's daughter.I needed a few pages to get into the story, but as soon as I did, I couldn't put it down. The novel was so fast-paced, it matched the drug; being high and going trough everything high speed.The transformation and the change of Kristina's character was flawless in my opinion and I loved reading about her and wishing for her to finally stop to listen to the monster.The only thing that bugged was the instalove. It felt like the I love you. was said way too early. Twice.Other than that I was fascinated by the writing style and the poetic use of words while talking about not a very pleasant topic.I want to know how the story will continue and I want to read more of Ellen Hopkins beautiful writing!