The Boy Book: Week of 9/15/14

** What did you think of what you read?**
Pages read: 117-END

This is usually a book I would probably never pick up because of the title. The Boy Book. Pretty self explanatory on what it was about, right? Well, not in the moment I saw it. In that moment, I had a mere minute to find a book, read the summary, check it out, and leave the library in a mad dash. So, in the moment, a book with a penguin on the cover and a sort of unique title seemed like a good idea. Especially since the summary made no sense. And here is how the boy book actually turned out.

Well turns out it was a second book in a series. So I was a bit lost for a while. Thankfully, the speaker gave a brief summary of the events in the past book. This isn't a direct quote, but this is what happend.

1. Circle of tightly knit lady friends.
2. Speaker has dream boyfriend.
3. Friend likes dream boyfriend.
4. Speaker and Dreamy McDreamy break up and friend steals him.
5. Speaker makes out with ex boyfriend.
6. Speaker is caught making out with ex boyfriend.
7. Speaker loses all friends (but two who weren't in the circle).
8. List of Speaker's past boyfriends in posted around high school.
9. Speaker is officially isolated in school.
10. SECOND BOOK! YAY1

A pretty common plot, except for the list thing. I had no idea what this book or the first book was about, so you can imagine I was pretty caught off guard. I wasn't expecting an extremely girl-drama book. 

But surprisingly, it wasn't that bad. The girl drama in the first book is just the whole book, I assume. Since I haven't read it. But in this second book, it's a mere surface, I suppose you could say. Basically, it branches out into other parts of the story. The second book focuses on the speaker, Roo, trying to cope with everything. She goes through therapy lessons, trying to become neutral with old-circle-friends, and just trying to not mess things up anymore. As I write this I realize it doesn't exactly sound thrilling, but you have to believe that it was actually pretty good. 

The writing itself was something I really enjoyed. It was really casual sounding, in a way. I guess because the story was from a high school girl's perspective, the author wanted it to sound like it was actually by a high school girl. And she did a pretty good job of it! It didn't sound as formal as a lot of other books, but then again, it wasn't completely terrible writing. It was still good writing. It didn't have much imagery or figurative language or much things like that, but it was good. Another thing with the writing was the fact that it had the kind of writing that had a lot of comedy and sarcasm. So that was great.

Character wise, it was really good. The characters are all there for a reason and none of them seem hastily added in or anything when you read about them. They all have a purpose in the writing. They all had their unique dialogue that sounded real and had emotions that made the characters themselves seem realistic. They sounded and acted like real people you would meet any day, so the author did a really good job with that.

Though I may have complimented the plot earlier, here is where I might take a little of that back. IT had a pretty OK plot idea, and that's what I was complimenting. Though, the actual moving on of the plot was a bit...bad, I suppose. The plot was definitely moving along, but at the same time, it seemed pointless. Like you weren't exactly sure of what the whole point of this book was. I guess with that you could say, "Oh so you mean you couldn't tell what would happen? That's a good author. One who's writing is so good that you can't tell the future of their character's." You could definitely say that. Definitely. I just don't know if you would say that for this book. I couldn't tell what would happen at the end because it seemed pointless. And it can be hard to tell the POINT of something that's pointLESS.

I'd give this book a 6.5 maybe 7/10 good book wise. For entertainment purposes, a solid ten outta ten. 

The Boy Book: Week 9/8/14

** Figurative language & imagery
Pages read: 0-117

The Boy Book doesn't include much figurative language. In fact, if I try to think back, I really can't think of any (but I'm sure they're in there somewhere). So, I'm going to focus on the book's imagery. It's even kind of hard for me to write about the imagery in the book because there doesn't seem to be much of it. The parts that are imagery aren't very descriptive, but they do count. Rather, the book tells the story by mainly explaining what's happening in that moment without too much description. Frankly, I don't really mind. It gives the writing a sort of casual feeling, if you get me.

One of the first examples of imagery is, "I wanted him to see me as a damsel in distress and come to my aid and touch my hand and feel a rush of desire and remorse. I had wanted him to notice my legs in my fishnet stockings as I knelt on the floor to pick up the quarters." This piece of imagery was cool because even though it wasn't incredibly descriptive, you really get an image in your head of what the main character described. Because she mentioned the style of her stockings and the sadness she felt, the scene kind of plays in your head like a short movie clip.

Another imagery example is, "The feeding schedule was posted all around the zoo, so a few minutes before we were supposed to start, visitors began crowding in around the penguins, watching them swimming their fat bodies through the blue water. The room was dark, and penguins on the land part of the enclosure seemed to sense that feeding time was near: a good number of them had waddled over to the door, waiting for the keepers to come out with buckets of fish." Again, this text isn't very descriptive. Still so, it manages to give the reader a clear enough visual to go along with the text.

The style of this book just doesn't seem to have much imagery or figurative language, as you might have noticed. The descriptions of people or objects that the book includes really just put an adjective here or there, but not much. It's kind of weird, but strangely nice. The book describes what's happening rather than what things/people look like, and it's not that bad. I wouldn't say it makes for an interesting read, but it's a bit more casual or informal. I like it!

Book List Challenge

This list is in no particular order...

1. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets by Evan Roskos

This is a very recent read for me (This summer, in fact) but it's definitely my favorite book right now. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets is about a boy who's very sad but honestly wants to be very happy. It's about finding your own beauty, wether it be in other people, yourself, or even in pictures of trees. I loved this book because it had made me cry, but then it had made me laugh because of all the deep emotions put into the writing. Really, just a great book. **The fact that there's a talking pigeon is just another reason to love this book!**

2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Yup, this is a kids book. And, I read it once when I was a kid. It was one of a few books that I actually genuinely enjoyed reading at that age, so I really loved it. I thought the story was good, the characters were strange and funny. Great for a kid. I read it yet again last year to relish the book once again, but with my far older age, I read it in a new light. When you read this book when you are older, you notice how many messages and life advice the author puts into the narration or character dialogue. You notice all the puns and jokes you maybe didn't notice the first time. In my second time reading, I was amazed at just how true and relevant the messages were. They were things that a person should definitely do throughout their life. Great things to keep in mind.

3. Debbie Harry Sings in French by Meagan Brothers

This is another very recent read for me that has become one of my favorites. Debbie Harry Sings in French is about a teenage boy who feels out of place in  a lot of things. In school, in family, with friends, even music. He's not sure who is yet, so he just tries to blend in with whatever his friends are into. But, sometimes he's not even sure they're real friends. After a very scary incident (*involving his friends*), he moves to North Carolina to live with different family. It's there that he starts to discover who he is and who he wants to become. He wants to be like Debbie Harry. Though she's a girl and he's a boy, he wants to be as beautiful, strong, and tough as her. This was a really interesting and good coming-of-age story that I really recommend. It teaches you that it really is okay to be you, and there are guaranteed people that won't like it. But, they don't really matter if who you are is what makes you happy.

4. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This one, pretty much everyone read in class and I'm pretty sure most people actually enjoyed it. I decided to put Of Mice and Men on this list because of all the symbolism that it had. For example, there was Candy's dog and Lennie. This book really made you think about things like our current society versus our past society and if it's any better. If you count out all the symbolism, I would have still put this book on my list. It's an old book, but I thought it was a really good read. The dialogue, setting description, and plot really match the time period the book was set in. I had thought that I would utterly hate this book, but I surprised myself on how much I actually enjoyed it.

5. I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream by Harlan Ellison

This book is a compilation of many short stories by Harlan Ellison. I read it in an omnibus that included two other short story books by Ellison, but this one was my favorite. The short stories were all mainly  mixture of sci-fi and horror stories and there was a short story called I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. So, the book was named after this first story. The short story of the same name of the title of the book (confusing, right?) was actually my favorite short story in the whole book. It was about a computer called AM that killed every human being except for five. The computer keeps the people alive for thousands of years, never letting them die. In this time, the computer is torturing them, both mentally and physically. The story is told from the perspective of one of the captives, so it's pretty interesting.
Though the short stories were mainly tragic and sad, they were all very interesting and well written. It was a good book!

6. Anything but Typical by Nora Raleigh Baskin

Anything but Typical is a story about a boy with autism. I think stories that have a narration from someone with autism are really interesting, because you get to hear a totally new perspective on things. Anything but Typical did a really good job of doing just that. Jason, the boy who's point of view the story is told from, points out some really interesting/cool things because he views things differently. The book also had a pretty good plot, so I really liked that. Another cool thing in the book was that Jason was an online writer. This meant that he would sometimes include part of the short stories he wrote into the book. Overall, it was just a really cool and interesting book.

7. Daemon Hall and Return to Daemon Hall by Andrew Nance

The Daemon Hall duology is one of my favorite things to read. I really like the horror genre with movies, but I can never find a good horror book that's actually kind of creepy. I've read a number of horror books but they were always pretty lame and boring, so I stopped trying to find a good horror book. But then I saw Daemon Hall. It was really amazing. It's about five kids that enter a horror short story writing contest. The five kids that won get to spend the day in a haunted house with a famous macabre writer. So, of course, a lot of creepy things happen in there. And it's awesome. The story itself was really cool and the descriptions told in first person were really cool too. Not only that, but it was filled with plot twists. The other really nice thing I liked about was the fact that it included pictures. There were only a few, but the art style was unique and had a very dark look for the book. The goes for the second book, which had a completely different idea but was really awesome as well.

8. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein


I have to include this book. How could someone not? I read this book a lot when I was rather young, so I didn't quite get its meaning. I read it again when I was older. I cried, actually. It's amazing how much the tree loved the boy but so sad how the boy seemed to not care about her. Almost like a fair-weathered friend. It was really heartbreaking as the boy took more and more of the tree but always leaving her behind, and it has taught me that I should never do this. If someone says they're happy as long as you're happy, you shouldn't take advantage of them by saying it'll make you happy. You can make the person very sad. Anyway, for a children's book, it's really good and sweet.

9. You Don't Know Me by David Klass

At first, I didn't like this book. The narration was strange...It seemed bland...I didn't like it. Somehow, chapter after chapter, I felt the writing got better. The story got more interesting. More details, more meaning, more depth. More everything. It suddenly became a very good book and also one of my favorites. You Don't Know Me is about a boy who no one knows. Sure, they may know his face or they may know his name, but they don't know him. They may be his friend or they may be his mother, but they don't know him. His story is about the girl he likes and also his home problems. He's being physically abused by his mother's boyfriend but doesn't say a word because he believes it would only make matters worse. The best part about this book was the amount of emotion and depth put into the parts of the book about his home problems. They made it seem so genuine and real that I wouldn't be surprised if the author himself suffered the same experience. It was just really good. To anyone that ever reads this book, don't put it down because the beginning is boring. I'll admit it is. You just have to wait a bit. After a while, things get funny, emotional, and just great.

10. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I read this book all the way in the beginning of sixth grade, but I still remember it now because of how much I enjoyed it. It tells the story of a boy with a mild form of autism. Like I said before, I find stories that are told from a person with autism are pretty interesting. They let you view a totally new way of seeing things and understanding things. This book was a mystery book, so the main character's autism made it pretty cool. His autism enabled him to take clues he found and put them together because of the way he thought of them. The plot itself is actually really good to. The main character's neighbor has a nice poodle named Wellington. And Wellington is murdered. So this mystery must be solved. It sounds like the plot for a children's book, but it actually branches out into other things. The main character discovers things about his father, his neighbor, and the mother who was never in his life. It's actually a really good book and I really recommend it.
**Also please note how cool that cover is. I mean it's really terrible to say but the dead dog on the cover was pretty creative right there. Or maybe not. Who knows.**

5. 

Summer Blog #4 - You Don't Know Me

Pages Read: Finished
Prompt: Did you enjoy what you read?

I have confused emotions about this book, I think. Part of this book wasn't so good, but part of it was absolutely amazing. It has a realistic plot, focusing on things that, sadly, happen to real people. I actually really enjoyed it, though. You can tell that a lot of emotion and effort was put into it!

Well first off, the point of view is weird. It might be second person, but it might be first person. Second person is when the person telling the story addresses the reader as "you". And of course, first person is the story being told by the main character's point of view. In this book, I'm kind of confused on what the point of view is. The book uses pronouns you would see in a first person book, but it also uses "you" like a second person. The main character doesn't refer to the reader as "You", though. He refers to the other characters with "you". For example, he might say, "Mr. Steenwilly, you,". He isn't saying it aloud, but he's thinking about them. He even sometimes refers to himself as "you"...What ever the POV is, it made for a pretty interesting read!

The plot of this book was a pretty good one, actually! The first chapter or two are rather boring and the writing feels awkward, but the book gets better and better with each passing chapter. We start off with the usual 'plain/invisible/not-popular boy likes the best girl in school' theme. Following the rules of these books, he gets the girl!!! And it turns out she has a terrible personality. Just seriously mean. That's not a spoiler. I hope. Oops. Anyway, that whole thing doesn't last for very much of the book. The main problem of the book is the main character's home life. His father walked out when he was young, so he and his mother have been surviving on their own. His mother has a boyfriend who stays at their house all day, as he is a stay at home boyfriend. His mother works pretty much all day, leaving him with the boyfriend all day on weekends and for a few hours after school.

Doesn't sound too dramatic or interesting, does it? No. Not to much. John, the main character, is being physically abused by his mother's boyfriend. The boyfriend is a smart man, so he beats John with an open hand or a belt so they won't leave marks like a punch or a kick would. This means no one knows about this. John can't tell his mother because chances are, his mother wouldn't believe him and he would be beaten even more by the boyfriend for trying to rat him out. Whenever there's a sort of event or development with John's social life or friends, he gets beaten by the boyfriend because these new events or developments will mean he gets home later. That's not going to slide.

I'd rate this book 4 out of 5 stars. John's school/friend events in the book may not be that interesting, his home events have so much emotional details and you can just feel how much he hurts and how much he wants to make it all stop but he can't. Near the end of the book, I actually started crying because you spend the whole book really liking John, but near the end, you really think he's going to die. The boyfriend is drunk and beating John more than ever, so the emotion and details the author put into that part sound so realistic you can't help but get a little watery eyed. Especially since John's dog tries to protect John. The boyfriend had been beating the dog as well, so the dog was now terrified of him. Despite that, when he sees that John is being attacked by the thing he fears most, he tries desperately to save him. It's pretty heartbreaking what happens to the dog. :(

Anyway, I  definitely recommend this book to someone who has the patience to read through some kind of boring stuff to get to the best parts of the book. It's really worth it!

Summer Blog #3 - Anything but Typical

Pages Read: Finished
Prompt: Did you enjoy what you read?

Anything but Typical  is a book about Jason Blake, a boy with high-functioning autism. Jason doesn't like talking to people because of his autism. It makes it difficult for him to talk to people.

"Neurotypicals like it when you look them in the eye. Just because you are not looking at someone does not mean you are not listening. I can listen better when I am not distracted by a person's face: What are their eyes saying? Is that a frown or a smile? Why are they wrinkling their forehead or lifting their cheeks like that? What does that mean? How can you listen to all those words when you have to think about all that stuff?"

 So, he writes stories online. There, he doesn't have to worry about looking at people or people looking at him. He likes making up these stories and eventually wants to become an author. The book is mainly about Jason and a particular person that commented on a story he wrote online. It's a girl, and it turns out he really really likes talking to her. Later, Jason finds out his parents have arranged for him to go to a writing convention in Texas. Rebecca, the girl Jason has been talking to, is also going. Jason doesn't want to go anymore. He's scared that Rebecca won't like him anymore because of his autism and it's all she'll notice about him. And I'm not going to spoil if he meets Rebecca or not!

I've read two other books where the main character has high functioning autism like Jason does and all these books I find very interesting. Of course, the plots of all these books have been very interesting, but in all the books, it's been in first-person view. This is what makes them very interesting, I think. I think it's just really interesting to hear a story told from the POV of someone who has autism. People with autism understand things different that how those without do, so reading a book with a POV of someone with autism is just a whole different view on things. It's just really interesting, so I really liked this book for that.

The plot of this book was also pretty good. The big important question of whether or not Rebecca will still accept him is kind of a risky thing. It made for an interesting finale. Since Jason writes stories, we even get to see a bit of the plot of two of his stories. Both of his stories are about a character who has something about them that make people dislike the character, like how many people would dislike Jason because of his autism. As the story itself goes on, Jason keeps adding on to one of his stories in particular. It's about a dwarf who's given the opportunity to get a surgery to become the same height as everyone else. I really liked this story because it had an interesting message and just the plot itself was really neat.

Overall, I really liked this book. A lot. I really recommend it.

Summer Blog #2 - Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

Pages Read: Finished
Prompt: Did you enjoy what you read? 

This book was amazing. That's all I can say. I hate how when I genuinely enjoy a book (like how I enjoyed this book) I can't really write about it. You'd think that the more you like a book, it'd be easier to write about. Not the case for me. It makes it really difficult and I don't know why! I loved this book and I can only say one good thing about it! Anyway, here we go. My explanation on why I loved this book.

The book had a great mood. Throughout the book, the mood fluctuated quite a bit. Parts of the book were sad, happy, angry, just the whole package. Whatever mood the book was in, it was always great. The way the story developed during the change of the moods was great. The way the characters experienced different emotions. The mood was developed in really good and interesting ways. Sometimes in books, you might not really notice the change in mood. In this book, you really do. Each mood made the book even better.

Great plot. Just wow, great plot. This book centers on a boy named James. He lives in a really bad and kind of actually abusive household with his mother and father. His sister is kicked out of the house one day when she gets fed-up with their parents and their parents get fed-up with her. James spends a lot of the book trying to find out just why his sister became fed-up that day. This means investigating her room and talking to her old friends/enemies. As he pieces things together and learns new information, it just becomes really interesting. After a while, I think you even begin to become pretty curious yourself. James also suffers from severe anxiety and depression. James struggling to deal with his problems is also a really interesting part of the book. James battling his problems is also kind of like a little side-story happening while James tries to get his sister to come back and live with him and his parents. There were a lot of twists in the story, both good and bad. The plot was just amazing. My description of it probably makes it seem pretty boring, but trust me. It was amazing.

The characters! Also amazing! James and all the sort of character-layers put into him is just really amazing. It made him seem like a really really realistic person. His sister is also really realistic. The mystery that centers around her was also a great addition to her character. James parents, although rather mean people, were also pretty good characters. Their problems with their children added a lot of depth to both themselves and James and his sister. You learn more about James and his sister when you learn more about how the parents talk and act. It's like they came hand in hand. Also, I felt that all the character fit together very well. In some books, there might be that one character that just doesn't belong. You know? Like it's great for all the characters to be different from each other but then there's that one character that just...doesn't seem to belong in the story. Like they've just been copy and pasted into the book to take up some space. In this book, all the characters just clicked together. They were all well developed and some were pretty connected. Even characters that were only around for a page or so fit in well with the story or particular moment they were in the book.

The pigeon. I loved the pigeon. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets... Dr. Bird. Dr. Bird is an imaginary pigeon inside of James's head that he often talks to. Dr. Bird, a girl pigeon, acts as James therapist to help him cope with his problems. Since she's inside of his head, James says he can't lie to her because she already knows everything going on in his head. Although she was a pigeon, she was also realistic somehow. The way she was described was great. You could really see a pigeon doing those things. There were also a few bird puns when she spoke, so that was just awesome.

So, this book was just really cool. I completely recommend it to anyone. It's also pretty funny. Just saying.

If they ever make this book into a movie,

I want Dr. Bird to just be a person with a 

pigeon mask on. Please.

Summer Blog #1 - Debbie Harry Sings In French

Pages read: Finished

Prompt - Did you enjoy what you read?

I actually read Debbie Harry Sings In French  on a sort of whim, really. Every time I went to the library, I would read the summary of this book. It always sort of caught my eye, but I never really remembered it. Basically, Debbie Harry Sings In French is about a teenage boy who has the look of someone goth, but he doesn't really find his joy in listening to emo music. His friends find their happiness in drugs, drinking, and partying. He doesn't. Problems with his mother and father lead him to drink. It doesn't make him happy, but it helps him calm and cope. Like an entertainment, kind of. Anyway, after a particular amount of drinking at a party with friends, he asks for an aspirin from a friend to ease his killer headache. The thing is, the friend gave him two pills telling him it was a pair of aspirins and it wasn't. They were drugs, and he overdosed thinking he was just taking some normal aspirin. This is where the story kinda really starts. Johnny, our main teenage guy, is sent to rehab once he wakes up in the hospital from his surprise overdose. Once his drinking problem is found out, his mother ships him off to the rehab to clear him up. In rehab, he hears Debbie Harry sing in French. When he returns home from rehab, he's changed because of the influence Debbie had on him. He changes his overall look and changes his habits. Soon after, though, Johnny's mother ships him off to North Carolina to live with his uncle. Johnny is pretty upset, as he feels he's just being tossed away by his mother. Most of the story takes place here in North Carolina with uncle Sam (hah. Great.) and little cousin Bug. And. Maria. Johnny makes a connection with Maria at the high school in NC he now goes to. In the new setting of NC, Johnny's story goes through bullying, fitting in, love, problems in general, and Johnny really trying to decide what and who he is. Even though it sounds cheesy, it was really interesting to read about. 

Now that you've got a brief idea about the book, I can go with the prompt. There was nothing I didn't enjoy about this book. For me, I thought the story itself was just really interesting and not really plain or really fake sounding. It sounded like it could have been a real story. In most books, there's usually just one problem the main character has to solve or just one slightly more important event that happens in the book. In this book, Johnny didn't have just one problem or important happening in the time the book took place in. As the book goes on, he encounters new problems and throughout the book, he solves them. I thought this made the book more interesting, especially because of what the problems he encountered were about. They weren't problems based around saving the world, they were more realistic problems people actually go through. I can't speak for anyone else, but I think that made the story better as well (which may be just because I'm not too big on fantasy).

Another thing I enjoyed about this book was the characters. The characters were all really interesting and they all played a fairly important role in the book-- even the meanest ones. The characters didn't sound like hollow people copy and pasted into this book with no meaning. They were all...something. It's hard to put into words. I think the best way to put it is that they were pretty realistic, in my opinion. They were all fairly different from each other, so it made it interesting to see the impact (good or bad) that they each had on Johnny. Also, because of the variety of characters, I was actually able to connect with one of them. I found that he had a similar problem to me, so it was something to see how he solved it.

Even though it sounds really cheesy, I also liked how the book had a message. Not some weird cheesy message, but an actual good message. The message wasn't something clearly stated, but rather something you have to pick up on (and it becomes pretty obvious near the end of the book). The message was something like 'it's OK to do what you want and be who you want, even if people don't like it'. Along with that, there was the message to find what makes you happy. For Johnny, Debbie Harry made him really happy, and so did his girlfriend. The book showed that doing and being what you want is OK because of who Johnny decided he wanted to be in the end. He decided that he was going to work something out with his mom and be with his girlfriend and accept that he was a transvestite, even if no one else liked it. It made him happy.

Overall, I really really enjoyed this book and I recommend it to anyone!

Debbie Harry is the singer

for the band Blondie.