Book Blog #32 - Last One!

The Diviners: finally finished!

Serial killings have made the front page in New York City. Evie O'Neill and her uncle, who runs a museum of the occult, do their best to track down the killer before a prophesied comet raises an evil thing called the Beast. That's as much as I can give away for now. Read my previous book blog on this book for the basics of the story.

This is an amazing book and would be great summer reading if your parents force you to read something. :) It's 700 pages long and the first of a series, but super interesting and well-written.

Book Blog #31

The Hunger Games - week 2

Katniss is now in the arena. She and Peeta are fighting for their lives, and at the same time trying to gain sponsors by pretending to be in love. Katniss' survival instincts from District 12 kick in and Katniss hides in trees all day and hunts with snares and her bow and arrow. She has made an alliance with a little girl named Rue from District 11. Will they win the hunger games?? Find out in the next episode of "Rereading a book that's not very well written!"

Book Blog #30

For the book group, I read The Hunger Games. Most everyone in this class has already read it, but I'll go over the plot anyway.

Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12, a poor, coal-mining district under the rule of the evil Capitol of Panem. Originally there were 13 districts, but they rebelled and District 13 was destroyed as a lesson to the other 12. Ever since her father died in a coal mine accident, her mother has been unable to provide for Katniss and her younger sister Prim so Katniss hunts animals in the nearby forest and sells them on the black market. Every year in Panem, there is this event called the Hunger Games where children between the ages of 11 and 18 compete in an arena to the death. Two girls and two boys are chosen from each district. When Prim's name is chosen to compete in the Hunger Games, Katniss volunteers to go in Prim's place. Her companion from District 12 is Peeta Mellark. 

Book Blog #29

I read the first couple hundred pages of The Diviners. Fair warning, this book is like 600-700 pages long.
Evie O'Neill is kind of the reckless party girl of the 1920s. She also has a special talent. She can tell all about a person by holding one of their personal items. In her hometown of  Ohio, she goes to a party, gets drunk, and accidentally reveals her talent to everyone. Fearing for her safety and her family's reputation, Evie is shipped off to New York City to live with her uncle who runs "the museum of creepy crawlies." Her uncle has an unhealthy obsession with people with special powers like Evie, called Diviners. Evie's new life in New York is perfect, and then, of course, a serial killer strikes. Evie jumps headlong into the case, tracking down the killer with her abilities. In the background of this story, an evil spirit called Naughty John is causing trouble because of a Ouija board spell left unbroken.

Book Blog #28

I read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black.
The world has been overrun with vampires. Vampires were there since the beginning, but one stupid vampire went around biting people without killing them and unknowingly creating more vampires.
But there are two stages to becoming a vampire. If a vampire bites you, you go Cold. When a person is Cold, they have to bite a human to turn into a full-fledged vampire.
Coldtowns have been set up all over the United States. It describes them in the book as prisons ruled by their inmates. A Coldtown is kind of a high security prison-town where vampires can run loose and kill whomever they choose. People can also live there for food supply. Once anyone, human or vampire, enters the Coldtown, they can't get out.
Tana is a regular person. She went to a party one night. When she wakes up in a bathtub the next afternoon, every single person in the party has been killed. Her previous boyfriend Aiden has gone Cold. She finds Aiden and a chained-up vampire in a bedroom. Going against her best judgement, she frees them (but is also bitten, going Cold) and they flee to Coldtown.

This book was really good. It has lots of drama and some romance. It's kind of your stereotypical "girl meets attractive male vampire" thing.

Book Blog #27

I read I Woke Up Dead at the Mall by Judy Sheehan over the trip. It is a horribly written book with a funny plot. It's about Sarah who, as the title implies, wakes up dead at the Mall of America. There's this whole other floor of the mall just for dead people. Sarah learns that people are sent to the mall if they are murdered. Sarah is just ordinary. She has no enemies and she has no idea who murdered her. With the help of some ghost friends, she must track down and haunt her killer.

This book is very sarcastic. It basically makes fun of the whole ghost thing. It's really badly written, as in "I closed my eyes. I couldn't believe this was happening. Was I really dead?" 

I would recommend this to people who maybe aren't into super advanced books but would like a quick read.

And yes! I would definitely want to be part of a Hunger Games book group.

Book Blog #26

 Wolf by Wolf, by Ryan Graudin, is about a Jewish girl named Yael. She escaped as a young girl from a death camp where she was subject to experiments. The goal of the experiments was to change her brown hair to blond and her eyes to blue, but along the way Yael gained a kind of shape-shifting power. She can now change her features, height, skin tone, hair, and pretty much every other aspect to fit a chosen person. She uses her powers to turn into the previous champion of a world-wide motorcycle race and enters the race as Adele Wolfe with the goal to kill Hitler.

This is a very good book. It's slightly confusing at times because it uses German I don't know how to pronounce. It's very dramatic and has a big plot twist at the very end. I would recommend this to everyone.