Dustlands #3 by Moira Young

This week I finished the Dustlands series. It is about a girl, her twin brother, younger sister and other friends that team up to defeat the evil leader. It is a dystopian series featuring a teenage girl (which I am tired of), but this series is really different and cool.
I liked the entire series and this book. As with most series, the first one was the best, but the other two were pretty solid. My main complaint was that some of the plot lines from the second book didn't flow very well into the third one, so although I read the previous book pretty recently I got confused at the beginning. The characters' personalities continue to develop and the writing style is consistently good. I recommend this series.

Dustlands #2 by Moira Young

This week I read the second book in the Dustlands series. I can't remember the actual title because it is really generic, but I really like this series. It is about a girl who had to rescue her brother and now they are trying to defeat this evil guy. That is not very descriptive, but it is a generic teen dystopian novel so that about sums it up.
I actually like this series because the main character is cool and it is written a little differently than most books of this genre. The story seems consistently good and it seems like it was planned well, so all three books connect. To learn more about the first one, see my previous post.

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

This book is about a girl whose twin brother is kidnapped. She and her little sister have to figure out who took him and get him back. She makes friends along the way. It is a dystopian novel (kind of). She is cool. It is written how she speaks, and at first that's annoying, but it's actually cool and adds a lot to the story.
This book is pretty good. The story is very interesting and it was a fast read. The characters are good. My main complaint is that there are some story elements that seem really cheesy and incredibly stupid. Their futuristic world didn't seem well-developed enough to support the story. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes that genre. I'm a little tired of futuristic novels with teenage heroines, but this one was different and good.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This book is about a kid named Charlie who is a freshman and he is a loner until he makes friends with a bunch of seniors. He learns life lessons. He also likes to read old books that his teacher gives to him and write essays about them.
I really liked it. The story was told in a diary format, which I don't usually like very much, but in this case it worked really well because the main character had a distinctive voice, which really added to his character. His personality seemed really developed, but some of the other's didn't. There were a lot of characters that had almost no dialogue and were just mentioned in passing, so it was a little hard to keep track of them. The story, rather than being a plot that the entire book was based around, was more of just an account of the events of a school year, and while there was a problem and it was resolved by the end, the book's structure was unusual. I really liked this book.  It has some mature content, but it would be fine for anyone in our class. I would recommend it.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell

This book is about a girl who has red hair and dresses really weirdly and an Asian guy who likes comic books. They are both weird. It is set in the '80s. I will not say anymore. I am afraid of spoilers.
I loved this book. All of the characters were very well developed, and it felt like the author wasn't writing about teenagers in that unflattering or inaccurate way that some authors do. Even though it was set in 1985, the timeframe didn't detract from the story or distract the reader. The writing style was great and the plot and sub-plots were very cool and seemed complete by the end of the book. There was a surprise ending. I recommend this book to anyone in our class. It has a little mature content.

Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper

This week I read a book (see title of post). It is about a girl with cerebral palsy who is actually really smart and wants to speak and go to classes that are at her academic level. She deals with people who are stupid. Things happen.
I usually try to stay away from books involving diseases or disabilities because I find them incredibly cliche, and when people find out that you're reading something thought-provoking they want to have these deep, miserably uncomfortable conversations with you. I have no idea why I chose this. The writing style was okay, but that wasn't my main problem with it. The plot was very confusing. The author was trying to tell the reader that this girl is intelligent, but she tried way to hard and the book ended up redundant. I thought the main plot was going to be how she got this computer to help her speak, but that was only part of it. There was an entirely different plot. This was perhaps the most annoying thing about this book: I googled the author, and she was 57 when this was published, and it's told from the perspective of an 11 year old. She used incredibly dated slang and phrases and altogether tried way too hard to sound "young and hip" as my mother would say. At least she did a pretty good job of giving the reader a picture of the challenges of living with CP and parts of it definitely were thought-provoking. I think that this is more of my opinion, so I would recommend it if you want to form your own.

Slice of Life 31/31

I drag music onto the playlist, scrolling down and clicking on albums.
"That one," says my sister.
"NO," I reply. "That makes me want to pull my hair out."
"Ok." A sigh. My brother appears in the doorway.
"Do you have another copy of the packing list?" he asks.
"I'll print one." We are going on a road trip tomorrow, and I'm helping them prepare. It takes a ton of effort to get my family out of the house, especially because we have three dogs, a leopard gecko, an outdoor pond, an aquarium and an endlessly confusing system of trash cans and light switches which I haven't even mastered yet. It took three hours to instruct our house sitter. Tomorrow is the last day of our Slice of Life challenge, and I don't want to count on remembering to do it on the road. It's been fun, and I liked all of the writing practice. Sometimes it was definitely a challenge to come up with something about my life that was worth writing about. I am proud to have posted all 31 days, so I'll post this last one and pack with my brother, who has been incessantly asking if I'm ready yet.

Slice of Life 30/31

It's nine in the morning and my alarm clock just went off. The radio was welcome today rather than weekdays, when anything that plays is grating but I'm too tired to do anything but sluggishly hit the button. I pick up the book that I need to finish before my Hebrew lesson. It's now 9:10. I have 110 minutes to read 40 pages. That's more than enough. I finish and wander downstairs for breakfast, hearing my brother and sister practicing the four questions for Passover. I'm glad that I don't have to do it this year. Reading the four questions is torture. Basically, a bunch of relatives stare at you with this expectant expression that says that they think you're adorable and that you're basically the lowest form of human, to be used only for their entertainment. I'm surprised they don't make us wear demeaning hats. I guess their demeaning stares are enough embarrassment. I am always relieved to see the one member of the meager audience who just looks bored and hungry. This year, my siblings will be the four questions monkeys and I will stare with the murder gaze.

Slice of Life 29/31

"Am I allowed to bring food in?" asks Jonah.
"It's a giant warehouse. I think the only rule is to pay for stuff," I reply. We are pulling into the parking lot at Costco. It's Friday afternoon, spring break, and I just want to go home and watch T.V., but we are leaving on Monday, so my mom has to buy things. She gives me cash at the door and I herd my siblings toward the food court. I think the fact that Costco has a food court is a testament to how huge it really is. People can lose a lot of blood sugar if they ignore the samples (which no one ever does). I get a churro and immediately regret it as I taste my sister's smoothie. The smoothies have a ton of sugar and probably a lot of other crap, but they taste amazing. That's all we ever get at the food court, sugary things and occasionally the dollar pizza. Some of the items on the menu are just baffling, including the 'Chicken Bake,' an entree consisting of chicken, cheese, bacon and Cesar dressing. I think it sounds disgusting. My phone rings, and it's my mom, updating me on her location. We head to the meat department.

Slice of Life 28/31

Expo markers smell good, a mystery mix of chemicals that have become synonymous with school. Ever since I was little, there was something very compelling about using a whiteboard to create very temporary artwork and a few minutes with the board is still pretty great. Yesterday afternoon I found myself finished with my work and just a half hour from spring break. The black marker was free. I began to draw, and I remembered how hard it is to create something great on a shiny vertical surface. I had to make sure that my hand didn't touch my previous work and if I were to erase carelessly with my hand I would have irritating smudges. I drew something that I was proud of, but everything on the whiteboard is terminated, so I didn't get too attached.

Slice of Life 27/31

I strapped myself into the gray seat, threw my backpack onto the window seat and said,
     "I hope nobody takes the seat next to me." I like having a seat for my stuff. Nobody did. I pulled out My Pearls book and began to tune out the mindless banter, but occasionally I would hear something funny and laugh inwardly. That's why I always try to be on the fun bus, because if I were to forget entertainment, I would have entertainment in my friends. On our fall trip, the hour and a half that I spent on the boring bus felt like the longest of my life. I shift the shoulder pads so that they are out of my way and I lean forward to converse, weird 80's music the way-too-loud soundtrack of my life right now.

Slice of Life 26/31

Mealworms have segmented bodies with exoskeletons. I study them almost every day because they are food for Waffles. The container lid gives a little resistance when you try to open it, and they are kept in the fridge in the garage because my mom has a completely irrational fear of them. The ones that are alive have a round shape, and the dead ones are kind of flattened so if you were to roll it between your fingers it would not work very well. Some are active minutes after I remove them from the cold. When I carry them upstairs they try to force their way through my fingers and their legs and mouth parts almost hurt. The feeling was disconcerting at first, but now I'm used to it. The rest of my family is not.

Slice of Life 3/25: See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

This week I read See You at Harry's. It is about a girl who hates her family and but especially her little brother, who is very irritating. They own an ice cream place. It is somewhat sad.
I did not like it. Everyone kept recommending this book so I was surprised because it was so young and easy. I guess it was sad, but the main character didn't have much of a personality, so there wasn't enough of an emotional reaction to the tragedy for it to be really sad. That was the problem with most of the characters, they had one prominent feature and other than that, they were flat, boring cardboard people. If you like being bored, really cliche, unoriginal plots or are 10, this is the book for you.

Slice of Life 3/24

I knelt on the tile floor. The smell of wet, dirty fur and soap was overpowering. My brother and I were in our swimsuits in my parent's huge shower, washing Zippi after her most recent hunting endeavor. My head was between her front paws, scrubbing and watching the dirty water swirl down the drain. I was as gentle as I could be around the shaved section, trying not to disturb the stitches, which miraculously hadn't broken. I got to the right leg, mindlessly pumping more dog shampoo into my palm, and she flinched, refusing to put her paw back down. I scanned the front and back of her leg, her underarm, the back of her elbow and between the pads of her paw with my eyes, wary of touching any surface. Then I found it. It could have easily been a hair except for its stiffness and angle, straight out and away from her leg.
     "Jonah," I said, calmly, "I need tweezers." He handed me a pair of old tweezer scissors, made of clunky metal with angled, fine tips. I grasped the splinter and pulled, met with a sickening amount of resistance, but it was out, between the tweezers and huge, easily a quarter of an inch long. I dropped the forceps into my dad's hand, through the shower door and he examined it.
     "This is a cactus quill," he said. "We were in an area with prickly pears." As I rinsed blood from the white fur of her right leg, I realized that this calls for more searching, because there is no way that a cactus would have that much self control.

Slice of Life 3/23

Public Service Announcements were once just something I had to deal with and sit through, but now I find them kind of interesting. As I was surfing YouTube, I found a link to the Top 20 Scariest PSAs. Obviously, I watched it. Some of them are just scary for the sake of grabbing your attention, but the really effective ones grab your attention and make the message clear. One of my favorites was for the Concerned Children's Advertisers and it was telling the viewer to be careful about believing everything you see on TV. This one isn't really scary, but it's funny and I definitely wish I had a house hippo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLG2JP0P5JE

I love this one. This one is very memorable and effective, but its really gory:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BCA8dQfGi0

Slice of Life 3/22

Once my siblings go to bed, I can watch TV in peace. I sit on the end of the couch and watch something that is inappropriate for them as I hear their footsteps upstairs. They run and yell a lot before bed, which is probably frustrating for my parents, but I think its funny. Sometimes I'll hear my brother throw a tantrum because its too late for his to watch this old cop show that he likes. Once they are in bed, my parents come downstairs, usually my dad first, trailed by Zippi, which causes the old dogs to bark incessantly, forcing me to pause my show for at least five minutes. Then my mom comes down, finishes cleaning the kitchen and sits down on the other end of the couch. My dad finishes feeding the dogs at about this time and he stands in the back of the family room, quietly judging whatever I'm watching as my mom tries to tell me when to go to bed. At this point I'm pretty much doomed.

Slice of Life 3/21

Here are the pros and cons to getting a class dog, something that we have been seriously considering.

Pros:

Dogs are the best
We could adopt an older dog that is already house trained and would be euthanized anyway
It's not that expensive to adopt through the Dumb Friends League
The person that we like the least could clean the Potty Patch every week
It would eat the food that we drop on the floor and provide companionship

Cons:

Usually nobody is here on the weekends
Dog food can be expensive
If people leave food out it would probably eat it
Allergies and dog hair (hypoallergenic dogs are usually terrible)

Slice of Life 3/20

Yesterday I got the new Pearls Before Swine treasury. It has a year's worth of Pearls strips and it's been a really long time since a new one was released. Pearls is my favorite comic strip because the humor is very cynical and they make fun of stupid people. Even though the art isn't very good, I like how Stephan Pastis makes fun of himself and breaks the fourth wall. I like the treasuries because he adds comments below some of the strips that aren't in the collections or newspapers. The crocs are my favorite characters because they are stupid and weird and their accents make their dialogue funny to read. I also like Rat because he reminds me of an alcoholic, depressed version of myself. If you haven't read Pearls Before Swine, I highly recommend it.

Slice of Life 3/19

Waffles sheds about once a month. I can always tell before she sheds because her entire body is much paler than usual, and around her legs and face the skin looks baggy. I have to put wet crumpled up pieces of paper towel in her caves so that she has more humidity and the skin comes off more smoothly. It can take a couple of days, but Waffles always finishes within a couple of hours. When she's done shedding, she eats it. Once I found the skin from her entire foot and you could see each toenail. It dried in the exact shape of her foot and all of her spots were darker. It doesn't seem that unusual, but imagine if humans shed an entire layer of skin all at once and ate it. Imagine if you didn't take a shower for that long and you skin was totally opaque because it was so dirty. If you had a tattoo would you see faint blue outlines in each layer you shed or no trace of it at all? These are the things I think about as I use a damp q-tip to gently ease the last of the skin off of her toes, because if I don't, they will fall off.

Slice of Life 3/18: Looking for Alaska by John Green

This week I read Looking for Alaska because last week I read a book by the same author that I loved. This book is about a kid who really likes last words. He goes to a boarding school and meets a lot of weird people, including this girl named Alaska. The entire book is in terms of before and after an event, and it starts off several hundred days before and ends a while after.
I kind of liked this book. The writing style was good and the story moved along quickly and in an interesting way. The character could have been developed a little better, but they weren't completely generic. My main problem with this book, however, was that I missed the point. I can't elaborate much more without spoilers, but it all built up to this event, and the aftermath didn't make sense. I would recommend this book because I think that it is a matter of opinion. There is quite a bit of mature content, but I think that it is appropriate for everyone in our class as long as you keep that in mind.