I remembered reading on goodreads that a few of my friends read this book and enjoyed it. I tucked it in the back of my mind and immediately reached for it when I perused by my neighborhood's library.
Fangirl definitely brought me back to that time where even though I didn't write fanfic per say, I definitely dabbled in the same sort of "using the universe in which the author wrote the books" in the form of online forum role playing.
Though I didn't have the same trouble as Cath did adjusting to her new surroundings, role play "fanfic" was definitely a security blanket for me. It was a place where I went with my friends that I also met by role playing (and now are all, and will forever be my deeply close friends) and we were able to write stories with characters that we created within the confines of the universe of Harry Potter.
It opens up to a character named Cath, who is starting college with her twin sister, Wren. It's revealed that Wren wants to room with other people, which doesn't settle with Cath, who relies on her sister for most things. Cath has anxiety and depression issues, and does not do well with change (and really, who doesn't?). She has a roommate who is older and intimidates Cath and in the beginning, it seems like she is utterly alone. She hates it.
During her year at school, she juggles her writing, classes, her relationship with her sister and her father, along with the new territory of boys. Cath has a boyfriend at the start of the school year, but Wren dutifully tells her that he's more like a piece of furniture than an actual boyfriend and soon he fades into the background.
Throughout the year, Cath is peeled like an onion and her worldview is challenged, ultimately with good results. When I was reading the book, and immediately after, I thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, after getting some space from the book, I realized that though there are many, many good parts of the book, I love the character of Cath, I was rooting for Cath and Reagan's friendship, Cath and her sister's relationship and even Cath and Levi's relationship, the actual story doesn't really have a satisfactory conclusion, at least for me. It sort of drops off after Cath tells Nick to go kick rocks (after he basically steals her part of their story), and Cath goes to sit down and write her final story for her creative writing class. You're meant to draw conclusions and ponder how she finishes her fanfiction, and how she finishes her final paper, but I was disappointed that she got this great grade after hammering it out in 10 hours.
I don't know about you, but my schooling never worked out that way. I was never able to turn out a paper in a day and submit it without even proof reading it. My teachers knew and called me out on it every time.
I was also incredibly disinterested in the Simon Snow fan fiction. I found myself just skipping over all the interludes. I will not be reading the Simon Snow book she wrote as a complementary book to Fangirl.
So overall, it was a good read, if you don't read too closely, and enjoy the ride. Otherwise, the plot just falls through and you are left with more questions than answers... but then again, isn't that what growing up is all about?
Showing posts with label Young Adult Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Young Adult Fiction. Show all posts
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Thursday, July 21, 2016
The Scorch Trials by James Dasner
I listened to the first book, The Maze Runner on audiobook. Actually, it was my first book ever that I bought on audiobook and listened to it when I worked at Rite Aid. In a way, I will always look at that book series with fondness, even though I've heard better books since then.
Josh got me this book from the library, and in order to meet the deadline to return the book, I put aside another book to get started on this one.
It's a quick read for an adult, considering it's a YA novel. It's about a group of boys who are unwilling participants in some kind of government experiment in order to save the world. The first book ended with Thomas, Newt, Minho, along with a girl named Theresa, who activated the ending of the Maze, being "rescued." They are transported in a bus to a new location, fed, showered and shown their rooms.
However, not all is well for the group, and Theresa is whisked away during the night and replaced with a boy named Aris. Oh, Theresa, Aris and Thomas are telepathic, and can speak to each other. Aris reveals that there was a Group B, just of girls, and Aris was the activator to ending the Maze. Thomas assumes that Theresa and Aris were switched, though they aren't sure why.
A man arrives and informs them their task: to go to the surface and go North past the mountains. They are all infected with The Flare, a disease that has overtaken Earth. They all have it, but if they make it to the "Safe Haven," they will be given the cure.
This book is definitely a step up from the Maze Runner. There are more characters, and this time, there are girls, instead of just Theresa. It is centered around Thomas, who's best friends with Minho and Newt, but there women to identify with this time around.
To be honest, this book is also a bit scarier than the first book. So, Thomas and the other male gladers arrive to a run down city where the current government disposes people who are infected by the Flare, which makes people act insane. Thomas is separated from the rest of the gladers after an explosion but he's with a new girl by the name of Brenda. She knows the city and she takes Thomas under the tunnels to try and get out of the city to meet up with everyone else.
Well, since they are in the dark tunnels, of course people with the Flare, or "Cranks," track them down and want to kill them. It was terrifying, especially the part where Thomas and Brenda were hiding from them in a small cubbie.
It helped this time that I read the book instead of listening to it. I was able to read as fast as I wanted, and I was able to get through the book in a few days, instead of a few weeks.
Josh and I are going to watch The Maze Runner and Scorch Trials this weekend, so "Which is Better?" posts are coming up!
Josh got me this book from the library, and in order to meet the deadline to return the book, I put aside another book to get started on this one.
It's a quick read for an adult, considering it's a YA novel. It's about a group of boys who are unwilling participants in some kind of government experiment in order to save the world. The first book ended with Thomas, Newt, Minho, along with a girl named Theresa, who activated the ending of the Maze, being "rescued." They are transported in a bus to a new location, fed, showered and shown their rooms.
However, not all is well for the group, and Theresa is whisked away during the night and replaced with a boy named Aris. Oh, Theresa, Aris and Thomas are telepathic, and can speak to each other. Aris reveals that there was a Group B, just of girls, and Aris was the activator to ending the Maze. Thomas assumes that Theresa and Aris were switched, though they aren't sure why.
A man arrives and informs them their task: to go to the surface and go North past the mountains. They are all infected with The Flare, a disease that has overtaken Earth. They all have it, but if they make it to the "Safe Haven," they will be given the cure.
This book is definitely a step up from the Maze Runner. There are more characters, and this time, there are girls, instead of just Theresa. It is centered around Thomas, who's best friends with Minho and Newt, but there women to identify with this time around.
To be honest, this book is also a bit scarier than the first book. So, Thomas and the other male gladers arrive to a run down city where the current government disposes people who are infected by the Flare, which makes people act insane. Thomas is separated from the rest of the gladers after an explosion but he's with a new girl by the name of Brenda. She knows the city and she takes Thomas under the tunnels to try and get out of the city to meet up with everyone else.
Well, since they are in the dark tunnels, of course people with the Flare, or "Cranks," track them down and want to kill them. It was terrifying, especially the part where Thomas and Brenda were hiding from them in a small cubbie.
It helped this time that I read the book instead of listening to it. I was able to read as fast as I wanted, and I was able to get through the book in a few days, instead of a few weeks.
Josh and I are going to watch The Maze Runner and Scorch Trials this weekend, so "Which is Better?" posts are coming up!
Friday, July 24, 2015
Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie
I discovered Sherman Alexie this year while my juniors were reading Native American literature in their English class. The kids enjoyed his memoir called Absolutely True Story of a Part Time Indian and a few of them read The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven for their final projects. Reservation Blues was another one of the books that was up for grabs at the end of the year when a social studies teacher was retiring. I'll admit, the title didn't look appealing, but I took it anyway. I'm not normally a plain fiction reader, but I knew the author and figure I would give it a shot.
Sherman Alexie... this book, the history of Native Americans, for a lack of a better word, is just sad. Heartbreaking. But the kind of sadness that doesn't make a person cry, but seeps into the bones and lingers. The kind of sadness that couples with hopelessness and stays with you forever. From the atrocities that occurred with the Native Americans, no one should ever forget what happened, and Reservation Blues makes damn sure of that.
The story opens with a folk legend that is taken for truth. Robert Johnson is standing at the crossroads in the Spokane Indian Reservation with a guitar and deep cuts on his hands. He doesn't want to play the guitar, he tells Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a member of the tribe who is the only one brave enough to speak to him, that he can never play again because The Gentleman will find him. Thomas offers to give him a lift but leaves him at the foot of the mountain when Robert Johnson requests to see Big Mom. The guitar is left in Thomas' car, and the guitar persuades Thomas to start a band with his three former/current bullies, Victor and Junior.
They soon become popular on the reservation and they play their first gig at a nearby reservation, the Flathead reservation. They meet Chess and Checkers Warm Waters, who eventually join the band. The guitar's magic helps them become semi-famous, playing off the reservation, and getting a call from a recording studio in NYC. However, like all Native American history, even though it starts to turn up, it eventually falls apart.
The story itself, a band trying to make it big, isn't unique. The characters, their personalities and their struggles are the embodiment of the same sort of stories found on reservations. Victor is a deadbeat, who mooches off his friend for most of the book, a drunk, and has deep seated anger and rage that has been boiling up in past lifetimes. He's mistrustful and mean, and uses sleeping with women as trophies. After the guitar talks Thomas into starting a band, the guitar finds itself to Victor, who becomes a powerful guitar player because of it.
Junior and Victor are best friends, though the reasons why are not clear until towards the end of the book. Junior drives a water truck and puts up with Victor's drinking (and partakes too) and crap. Junior embodies the Indian man that couldn't quite make it off the reservation but is almost functional on the reservation with his job and his friend. He flunks out of college, with reasons that are not revealed until 3/4 through the book.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire is the main character of the book, and the lead singer. He loves to tell stories. All the members of the reservation knows his stories and they are sick of them. He falls in love with Chess Warm Waters, who is a flathead Indian from the nearby reservation. He is not an alcoholic and is dependable, which are all traits that Chess desires in a boyfriend. Thomas dreams of making something for himself and since there are no opportunities on the reservation, they go off the reservation to see if their band could make it.
Chess and Checkers Warm Waters are sisters, who are plagued, like the other members of the band, by alcoholism and poverty. They fight fires in the summer, and hope that their money last them through the winter. Checkers Warm Waters falls in love with older men and later on, falls in love with Father Arnold, for better or for worse. Chess resents the white women who come onto the reservation, Veronica and Betty and whereas Victor uses them as trophies, Chess views them as women who take Indian men away from them.
Alexie uses prose wonderfully in this book, and the metaphor of Indian horses (and their mass murdering) is constantly referred back too throughout the novel. If I have to go back in the book to remind myself what "something" is (a person, an event, etc.), then the author didn't do their job of effectively making sure that I, the reader, didn't forget about it. The metaphor of the horses and Big Mom stuck with me and when Alexis throws a reminder of the screaming horses, I didn't forget. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The destruction of beautiful horses parallel the destruction of a people.
The sadness of the story is multifaceted but it's not overdone. He presents the reality of Native Americans through dreams, songs and stories, which seems to be the core of their cultures. It demonstrates the conflicts between characters and within themselves but the transition between all three within the larger context of the novel is seamless and it flows. What also flows within the novel is the reference of historical atrocities of Wounded Knee and other Indian wars. Alexie doesn't go into how these events drastically and systematically desimates Native American tribes, but the casual reference of them shows that they will always be apart of Native American history, but more importantly, Native American reality.
BAE has The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and after I work through some of my book stack, I will revisit Sherman Alexie. He is a very talented writer with a viewpoint that should be shared with the world.
Sherman Alexie... this book, the history of Native Americans, for a lack of a better word, is just sad. Heartbreaking. But the kind of sadness that doesn't make a person cry, but seeps into the bones and lingers. The kind of sadness that couples with hopelessness and stays with you forever. From the atrocities that occurred with the Native Americans, no one should ever forget what happened, and Reservation Blues makes damn sure of that.
The story opens with a folk legend that is taken for truth. Robert Johnson is standing at the crossroads in the Spokane Indian Reservation with a guitar and deep cuts on his hands. He doesn't want to play the guitar, he tells Thomas Builds-the-Fire, a member of the tribe who is the only one brave enough to speak to him, that he can never play again because The Gentleman will find him. Thomas offers to give him a lift but leaves him at the foot of the mountain when Robert Johnson requests to see Big Mom. The guitar is left in Thomas' car, and the guitar persuades Thomas to start a band with his three former/current bullies, Victor and Junior.
They soon become popular on the reservation and they play their first gig at a nearby reservation, the Flathead reservation. They meet Chess and Checkers Warm Waters, who eventually join the band. The guitar's magic helps them become semi-famous, playing off the reservation, and getting a call from a recording studio in NYC. However, like all Native American history, even though it starts to turn up, it eventually falls apart.
The story itself, a band trying to make it big, isn't unique. The characters, their personalities and their struggles are the embodiment of the same sort of stories found on reservations. Victor is a deadbeat, who mooches off his friend for most of the book, a drunk, and has deep seated anger and rage that has been boiling up in past lifetimes. He's mistrustful and mean, and uses sleeping with women as trophies. After the guitar talks Thomas into starting a band, the guitar finds itself to Victor, who becomes a powerful guitar player because of it.
Junior and Victor are best friends, though the reasons why are not clear until towards the end of the book. Junior drives a water truck and puts up with Victor's drinking (and partakes too) and crap. Junior embodies the Indian man that couldn't quite make it off the reservation but is almost functional on the reservation with his job and his friend. He flunks out of college, with reasons that are not revealed until 3/4 through the book.
Thomas Builds-the-Fire is the main character of the book, and the lead singer. He loves to tell stories. All the members of the reservation knows his stories and they are sick of them. He falls in love with Chess Warm Waters, who is a flathead Indian from the nearby reservation. He is not an alcoholic and is dependable, which are all traits that Chess desires in a boyfriend. Thomas dreams of making something for himself and since there are no opportunities on the reservation, they go off the reservation to see if their band could make it.
Chess and Checkers Warm Waters are sisters, who are plagued, like the other members of the band, by alcoholism and poverty. They fight fires in the summer, and hope that their money last them through the winter. Checkers Warm Waters falls in love with older men and later on, falls in love with Father Arnold, for better or for worse. Chess resents the white women who come onto the reservation, Veronica and Betty and whereas Victor uses them as trophies, Chess views them as women who take Indian men away from them.
Alexie uses prose wonderfully in this book, and the metaphor of Indian horses (and their mass murdering) is constantly referred back too throughout the novel. If I have to go back in the book to remind myself what "something" is (a person, an event, etc.), then the author didn't do their job of effectively making sure that I, the reader, didn't forget about it. The metaphor of the horses and Big Mom stuck with me and when Alexis throws a reminder of the screaming horses, I didn't forget. I knew exactly what he was talking about. The destruction of beautiful horses parallel the destruction of a people.
The sadness of the story is multifaceted but it's not overdone. He presents the reality of Native Americans through dreams, songs and stories, which seems to be the core of their cultures. It demonstrates the conflicts between characters and within themselves but the transition between all three within the larger context of the novel is seamless and it flows. What also flows within the novel is the reference of historical atrocities of Wounded Knee and other Indian wars. Alexie doesn't go into how these events drastically and systematically desimates Native American tribes, but the casual reference of them shows that they will always be apart of Native American history, but more importantly, Native American reality.
BAE has The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven and after I work through some of my book stack, I will revisit Sherman Alexie. He is a very talented writer with a viewpoint that should be shared with the world.
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