Vampire Academy series

            A series I read a while ago was called Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead. Yes, this is a series about vampires, I used to be into the supernatural series like many other teenagers my age. This series has six books in it (I don’t count the other books that aren’t really essential to the series of the Vampire Academy, including the guides and the spin off series called Bloodlines.) The first book is called Vampire Academy, the second Frostbite, third is Shadow Kiss, the fourth is called Blood Promise, the fifth Spirit Bound, and the last book is called Last Sacrifice.

            I really enjoyed this series when I read it, I don’t know if it’s because I loved supernatural books or it was just a really good story, but I remembered I loved the series. I read the first four books and thought they were extremely well-written and I liked the characters and the whole romance going on between the characters. I had to wait a bit to read the next books in the series because they weren’t out yet, but finally all the rest of the books in the series came out and I read them; I was a little disappointed. I don’t know if it was because I had finally got over the supernatural books or just the fact that as the series continued it became more and more farfetched and strange. Overall with the series as a whole I thought it was pretty good, but kind of seemed like it was repetitive of other supernatural books I had read before.

            My favorite book out of the series is probably Frostbite, I feel like in that book you get to know the characters more and it’s just an interesting story; I’m not saying the first book was bad, I liked the first book, but just enjoyed the second and third book over the first. The characters in the series as a whole focus mostly on Lissa Dragomir who is a moroi which just means vampire and Rose Hathaway who is a dhampir which just means half-vampire and half-human. The other main characters in the story are Adrian Ivashkov a guy that is in love with Rose, Christian Ozera who Lissa loves, and finally Dimitri Belikov who is Lissa’s guardian and who Rose loves. The series focuses mostly upon the story of Rose and Lissa and their love lives basically.

            I liked the series, it’s probably not one of my favorite series and not everyone would like it. I recommend the series to people if they tend to like supernatural and romantic books, but if they don’t like either of those themes then they would absolutely hate the series.

Harry Potter movies

            The Harry Potter movies are amazing. There is no other way to describe the movies; the movies are probably the best representation of the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Most movies people see are based upon books, but most times we read the book series and then are disappointed in the how the movie ends up turning out; that is not the case in the Harry Potter movies. Most people thought the movies were amazing, as I myself saw them as truly amazing.

            I can’t say how many times I’ve seen the movies…I think I have at least seen every movie at least ten times, but the first 4 movies I’ve seen over 30 times for all of them. No life? It might seem like I don’t, but when you put into consideration that the first movie came out in 2001 it doesn’t seem that bad because it’s now 2013. There are a total of eight movies because the Deathly Hallows had so much detail that could not be left out the producers decided to make two parts out of it.

            Why is it worth it to watch the Harry Potter movies? First thing is the main actor that plays Harry Potter, Daniel Radcliffe, is a great actor and Harry Potter’s friends Hermione Granger (played by Emma Watson) and Ronald Weasley (played by Rupert Grint) are interesting characters and are played very accurately. Oh, and Tom Felton is in the series playing the role of Draco Malfoy and so is Matthew Leis playing the role of Neville Longbottom; there are just really good actors and actresses in the movie that do a splendid job of making the movies interesting and entertaining.

 Another reason to watch Harry Potter is who doesn’t love English accents? They talk so cutely that it you just want to continuously hear them talk because it sounds so cool. And one of the main reasons it will take a lot of time to watch them because there is eight movies and each movie is about 2 and a half hours long…So it will take awhile to watch them all to begin with, but the producers do a good job of putting a bit of comedy into the movie to keep it humorous and it’s just an interesting and unique story.

            My favorite of the movies if I had to choose one would probably be either the Goblet of Fire or Deathly Hallows Part Two because they are both action packed and unique. The effects of the movies are really good too. I don’t really have anything else as to why those two are my favorite movies, but they just are. Overall, the Harry Potter movies are amazing. 

Harry Potter series

So a lot of people have heard of the series based upon a wizard named Harry Potter there are seven books in the series. This is a series that is made by author J.K. Rowling and consists of the books Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (fun fact: the first book is actually called Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, but the United States thought that since it said philosopher in the title that no kid would want to read it, so they changed the name), Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, and the last book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

These are known to be one of the best series ever and also the book that brought up the most controversy as to whether to allow it in schools or not. The reason behind this is because the Harry Potter series is based upon witchcraft and some schools and families thought that it portrayed bad witchcraft and was inspiring children to become involved in witchcraft. While this series obviously talks about wizards it’s more of just a fun story that is interesting to read.

I know of a lot of people that have read the Harry Potter series and absolutely loved them, I honestly don’t know one person that has read the books and not enjoyed the series. The books are written incredibly and it’s such an interesting story and easy to follow what’s happening in the story. The series I think has to be the best children book series of all time (though teenagers like me enjoy the series very much as well.) It’s hard to not fall in love with the characters and what’s happen with all the people like Harry, Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

I think that these books were amazing and give people more imagination as how life would be different if we were wizards instead of muggles. My favorite of the series was the Deathly Hallows because they were the best written and had the most detail in them; I actually re-read that book again and realized how much detail I had missed the first time because there is just so much in the book that it’s easy to miss something.

The Harry Potter series is definitely worth reading, not only do kids love the books, but so do adults and teenagers. I know that some people think that since it talks about witchcraft that it’s promoting it, but in my own personal opinion that’s complete rubbish. It’s like an adventure or fantasy book, why hate on this series when there are far worse books than something merely talking about the idea of witchcraft? Well, anyway back to my point the series is phenomenal and people should definitely read them. 

Beautiful Creatures

            So a book I read a couple of years ago that I didn’t enjoy whatsoever was called Beautiful Creatures. Beautiful Creatures is written by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl and consists of four books including Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos, and Beautiful Redemption. I read only the first book and I just didn’t care for it, I don’t know why this book didn’t appeal to me as much as other books I’ve read in the past because I can solemnly say that with all the books I’ve read I’ve only not liked a couple of them (when I say read a book, I mean reading a book of my free choosing and not getting forced to read it by my language arts teacher.)

            Now the one reason I was really annoyed with the book Beautiful Creatures is because it has absolutely no good use of vocabulary, in the book it’s literally all in words that the common person would understand. I feel like the book was written by someone my age because of the words used in the book. And because I was reading the book for reading workshop and had to get 3 vocabulary words I didn’t know it was very difficult for me to find words I didn’t know. But maybe I'm just being really skeptical about the series, I don't really know.

            These are also very lengthy books the first book I know contains about 600 or so pages. I read the whole first book and just couldn’t make myself read the other three books; for all I know the last three books could be fantastic, but I finished the first one and didn’t like it. I don’t know if it’s because I feel like it’s written by a person that uses popular words or the story itself, but I just didn’t care for it as much as some people do.

            The book is basically about how the main character Ethan Wate has been stuck in the same place his whole life and nothing new really happened until a new girl that was really weird named Lena Duchannes came along and strange shenanigans start to happen. That’s basically all I remember about the book, I just know I didn’t care for it that much.

            Beautiful Creatures was also turned into a movie which I did wait till the movie came out and saw it. I think the movie was better than the book. That sounds so rude because normally always the books are better than the movies, but I think in this case the movie was better than the book. I think the book just had a lot of useless details that I thought were pointless to the story while the movie just shortened it up; that’s probably why I enjoyed the movie more so than the book. I think the movie was pretty good, definitely not one of my favorite movies or a movie that I want to watch again, I think that it was an okay movie, but it’s not one of those movies that people just have to see.

The Summer I Turned Pretty

            A trilogy that I own that I have really enjoyed is called the Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han. This consists of three books where the first is called the Summer I Turned Pretty, the second is It’s Not Summer Without You, and the last book is called We’ll Always Have Summer. I actually read the first book in 8^th grade and thought it was super cute and adorable; all the books are romantic books.

            The main characters in the story are Belly (the chick) and the two guys Jeremiah Fisher and Conrad Fisher are brothers and they both have a thing for Belly when she comes down to the summerhouse, they instantly start to like her. I think it’s adorable the whole three books because Belly has always liked Conrad since she was really little and he starts to like her back, which is totally fiction because that rarely happens, but it’s an adorable story.

            I also like this series a lot because the books focus on Susannah who gets diagnosed with cancer and how when someone gets diagnosed with cancer how it changes everyone’s lives completely. Thought this trilogy is considered a romantic trilogy, I think it’s more than that. The trilogy shows the path people have to face when someone is diagnosed with cancer or a loved one ends up dying from cancer. The whole trilogy it focuses upon how Susannah changed everyone’s lives and how they will always remember her.

            I recommend this trilogy to people who have had someone they love be diagnosed with cancer or even had someone they love pass away. The trilogy tells about the life people have to face when they find out news like that and how they have to face it. I definitely think a lot of people can relate to this book because each year a million of people are diagnosed with cancer, so it’s more than likely that throughout the human life we’ll personally know at least one person who gets diagnosed with cancer. Reading this trilogy helps let you know that you’re not the only one that goes through the death of a close one, but others go through it as well.

            I think that this trilogy really helps if you know someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and has had to go through the hardship of chemo or had surgeries to get rid of the cancer. Though this is a romantic trilogy as its main focus, it really ends up all coming back to Susannah.

The Hunger Games

            So many people have read or seen the Hunger Games whether it be the movie or the book. I like many other people really enjoyed reading the Hunger Games trilogy. I read each book three types and each time I re-read the books were still as good as I remember when reading them the first time. My favorite of the books out of the Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay was the first book in the trilogy. The trilogy is by Suzanne Collins and is definitely an interesting trilogy.

            The first book is my favorite of the Hunger Games Trilogy because it seems like in the first book she was using a ton of detail and had a great story going on; whereas in the other two books the story of the whole trilogy started to become a little bit confusing and a little bit out there with the ideas. Though, I do love the whole trilogy I just think that the first book was the best.

            Many people (including a bunch of my friends that read the book then went to watch the movie) were disappointed that the movie left out details and other important concepts in the book. I thought that the movie compared to the book wasn’t all that bad because I’ve seen some movies where they just completely butcher up the whole story where it’s to the point where it doesn’t even make sense to anyone. So compared to the book the movie was alright, but if you look at the movie as a whole and not compare it to the book I think they did a really good job with the movie! The only thing I didn’t like at all about the movie was when they were by the cornucopia and the creatures came at out, I was very disappointed that they didn’t have the previous tributes from the districts and I thought they were too tiny to be all that terrifying.

            The actors in the movie I absolutely loved because the role of Katniss went to actress Jennifer Lawrence and I thought she played the role of Katniss just like I imaged Katniss to be when I read the book, though I imaged her being even more affectionate to her little sister. I also liked the other two actors that played Gale and Peeta which were Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson. I think they both played their roles in the movie very well. And of course who doesn’t want to watch a movie with Josh Hutcherson? So overall the actors and actresses did a really good job playing their role.

            I enjoyed both the book and the movie, but I recommend if you haven’t read the book or seen the movie to watch the movie first then go and read the book because then you’ll think they did really good with the movie. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins is worth reading and going to see the movie.

Bruiser and Full Tilt

            Neal Shusterman has wrote a few books that I have enjoyed. He is definitely an author to read books by whether you’re a guy or a girl because it’s fantasy and interests a lot of people. I really enjoy his books because it’s all like what could happen if society was like this. He is normally compared to Ray Bradbury because they both like to talk about the futuristic qualities in their writing on what would happen if people were like this or technology was this advanced, and how this would affect society.

            One of my favorite novel by Neal Shusterman is a book called Bruiser. The main character in the book Brewster can’t have any friends because if he starts to care about people he’ll take away their pain. I just thought that was such an interesting topic to write about it; the reader literally keeps reading to see what happens to Brewster and his newly affection for Tennyson and Bronte. The book centers around the trouble teen named Brewster which I feel like some people might be able to relate to. I think that it’s interesting that Neal Shusterman takes the opposite idea of it’s impossible to care too much because in this story caring too much could make Brewster die. This novel was really interesting, and just taking the one idea of what would happen if a person could take pain away and getting a whole story from it amazes me.

            Another novel by Neal Shusterman that I have read is called Full Tilt it’s one of his smaller novels that I read all in about an hour and a half. This book basically centers on the idea of a carnival where the people are to make it past seven rides before the end of the evening, and if they can’t make it through the carnival rides by the end of the evening then there soul’s stay in the carnival where they are to be slaves till the end of time. Again, this is another one of Neal Shusterman novels where he takes the idea of fantasy and creates a shorter novel about two boys Quinn and Blake where they have to survive the ride, but basically the carnival is made from their own head where their deepest fears they have to confront. I thought this book was really weird and it’s why I liked it so much it took the strangest fears and thoughts from the characters brains and created a ride from it. I think that Neal Shusterman is really creative for having wrote a novel all focused upon the invention of what our mind can do.

The Skinjacker Trilogy

            The Skinjacker Trilogy by Neal Shusterman has to be one of the best trilogies ever. Now if you’ve read my other blog posts then it kind of sounds like I always love the books I read, which is kind of true because I have a good eye for reading books that are actually well-written and have a good story behind them. Now one of my all-time favorite trilogies is the Skinjacker Triology by Neal Shusterman the first book is called Everlsot, the second Everwild, and the last book is called Everfound.

            Why people should definitely read this trilogy? Well, first this isn’t a girl book it’s not about romance really, I mean there is a bit of romance in it, but not enough to have it even count as a romantic book. I would consider this book like a fantasy and supernatural trilogy because it’s about how these kids end up dying and since there so young sometimes they lose the path to the light, so they get stuck in a place called Everlost where they are all lost.

            Now this trilogy might get a bit confusing for some people because I’ve noticed Neal Shusterman has a really vivid imagination and can create such good images that it’s actually like you’re watching a show instead of reading a book. It’s actually really hard to say why this is my favorite trilogy and try to explain it to people; I just love it because it’s something different and weird. The character’s in the book range from little kids to teenagers, but mostly kids of about fourteen. Neal Shusterman does a great job of being able to sound like a little kid thinking they know everything and being all know it all’s.

            I won’t ruin what happens in the books because if I say one thing it ruins the whole trilogy really, but I’ll keep it simple basically it’s called the Skinjacker Trilogy because there are certain people in Everlost that can skinjack, go into the body of a living being, and one of the main characters can skinjack. There are certain people in the book that think that people are meant to stay in Everlost and other people that think they have some other place to go; the whole trilogy is about fighting between the two groups.

            Neal Shusterman does a really good job in this trilogy; how he ever came up with such random things that happen in the book is still a mystery to me, but I say he did an amazing job with this trilogy and will be one of my favorite trilogies for quite some time. 

Sarah Dessen

            So another author that I really enjoy reading books by is Sarah Dessen. Now Sarah Dessen writes books about romantic stories, but other topics as well like the story of teenage life. I think that her books are very inspiring and in some of them kind of sad. All of her books I’ve read and I love all of them; one thing I love about Sarah Dessen is she changes up the endings she doesn’t always make the endings the same in each of her books that she writes.

                        What Happened to Goodbye, Along for the Ride, Lock and Key, Just Listen, the Truth About Forever, This Lullaby, Dreamland, Keeping the Moon, Someone Like You, and That Summer are all books that Sarah Dessen has wrote. I’ve read every single one so far and look forward to her next book that is called the Moon and More that is coming out in June.

            Now I read these books awhile ago, I literally read one book right after the other because I was lucky enough to be introduced to her books when she already had nine books out. I read all of the books except What Happened to Goodbye in about a week, reading at least one of her books every night. I had to wait awhile for What Happened to Goodbye and went out and bought it at Barnes and Noble and like her other books I thought it was good.

            My favorite book out of all Sarah Dessen’s books has to be the Truth About Forever. I don’t know why this is my favorite book, but it is. I love the characters; I think that Wes is just too adorable. It really is hard to choice a favorite Sarah Dessen books because they are seriously all good in their own way. I will say that the book Dreamland is extremely sad especially if you know a person that was in an abusive relationship; the book touches people’s more emotional side and makes them think. It’s a really good book, but is really sad and a warning from me to people who might read it they might end up crying by the end.

            Sarah Dessen has romantic books and teenage stories. She is one of my favorite authors when it comes to romantic/teenage problems. Most of her books have to do with how it’s still possible to love someone even when you’re having problems in your life and how love can happen when you least expect it. Sarah Dessen’s books are worth reading if you’re a teenage girl who feels like you have problems in life. 

Simone Elkeles

            One of my favorite authors is Simone Elkeles. I’ve read a total of five of her books and absolutely loved all of them. The first book I read by her is Perfect Chemistry; it’s about a Latino guy named Alex Fuentes who by a bet gets close to this Caucasian girl named Brittany Ellis. Basically, I just loved this book so much because it shows how people from different ‘worlds’ can still make it work and be together. Yes, this is a major romantic book.

            The second book I read by Simone Elkeles was the second book to the Perfect Chemistry series called Rules of Attraction. Though I thought that the first book in the series was definitely the best; this book was still pretty good. The only reason the first book is better is because I felt like Rules of Attraction was basically like the first book, but differed a bit. It’s still a cute story and worth reading if you read the first book in the series.

            The next book I read was from a different series and was called Leaving Paradise. When I first starting reading this I thought it was some super natural book because it says paradise right in the title. I don’t really read summaries before reading something I just kind of pick up a book and start reading it, and since I liked the author I guessed that I would like this book as well. So once I started reading I realized that Paradise was actually the name of the city that they lived in. Basically this book is about a girl named Maggie Armstrong who got hit by Caleb Becker, the character Maggie ended up with a disability with her leg and Caleb had to go to jail for hitting her.

            So I actually ended up reading Leaving Paradise and then Return to Paradise the same night because I wanted to know what happened. So obviously since I read both of the books on the same night they were extremely good. It’s not just that Simone Elkeles is a good writer, but she has fantastic romantic stories.

            Now the last book I read was Chain Reaction which was part of the Perfect Chemistry series because I had to know what happened to Luis too. This book did differed from the first and second books a bit, and I also thought this book was a little bit more humorous than the other two books.

            Overall, I really like Simone Elkeles books because I think these books are really well written. I also like them because in the case of the Perfect Chemistry the books are cute stories and in the case of Leaving Paradise, I just thought that it was a story about reconnecting with people you used to know.

Book vs. Movie

            Books vs. Movies, so some people enjoy movies more than books; other enjoy book’s more than movies it just depends on the person. So why does this differ for people? Well, this first differs from person to person because not everyone likes the same things because everyone is different. I for one love both books and movies! But we all know at least someone who doesn’t like to read; at least I know a lot of people that hate reading.

            Now I could talk on and on as to why I love books so much, but I’ll try to keep it to a minimum. Okay, so first books have a ton of detail in them, it’s literally impossible to have that much detail in a movie or those movies would be extremely long. For instance take the Harry Potter books for example out of the seven books each book increases in number of pages for the most part, then look at the length of the movies. The first book is the Sorcerer’s Stone which has 223 pages and the movie is about two to two and a half hours long, and then as the pages in the series starts to increase the lengths of the movies relatively stay the same.

            So that’s one of the reasons to love books because they have more details. Another reason is that people can create their own story. I love reading so much because I create my own story and what the characters and everything look like, and it does all make believe. So basically while reading you create your own movie. So that’s why reading is amazing and why other people should read.

            I also understand why people prefer movies over books. I sometimes am too tired and just want to not think for a bit and movies are the perfect solution to that. Reading requires thinking and connecting everything together while with movies you can just listen or watch the screen depending on your mood and still understand what’s going on. One of my favorite things before I go to sleep is to watch a movie or an episode of one of my favorite shows before I go to bed because I won’t be wondering what happens next. All the time when I read before I go to bed I stay up thinking what’s going to happen next, so that’s why I agree with people that under certain circumstances reading is better than movies and that movies are better than reading.

Insidious 2

            So everyone has been talking about the movie Insidious 2 and I finally went and saw the movie last night. I’ve heard a lot of different reviews differing from whether people liked it or completely hated it. This was the second movie, the first being Insidious; which you literally had to see the first movie to understand the second movie, it’s not like the Saw movies where you can skip around and still know what’s going on.

            I went and saw it with a few friends where we kind of laughed the whole movie. Maybe it’s just me, but when I saw this movie it made me laugh a lot, I don’t know whether it was because they purposely put humor into a scary movie or if it was because it just seemed, fake. Well, anyway I didn’t really think it was scary whatsoever I thought it was more of a comedy, but other people would probably disagree with me.

            The movie, Insidious 2 is definitely supposed to be a scary movie, but really I don’t find old men in a wedding dress all that frightening, more like a bit disturbing, but that’s just me. Now I didn’t really like this movie at all, but then again I’m very critical on scary movies, so no director of horror movies should be offended by my commenting on it badly. So what made me think so badly of the second movie of Insidious? Well, they tried putting like four different plots into the movie; I mean I can’t be the only one that was extremely confused by all the different stories going on in the movie because some of the people I went with were confused by it as well.

            Basically though, people need to make sure they see the first Insidious movie because the second movie really ties into the first movie a lot. I had actually seen the first movie and thought it wasn’t terrible…But didn’t enjoy that one all that well either. I will say though that the second was way better than the first Insidious movie because they added comedy into the movie which I really enjoyed.

            My favorite part in the movie was when the two guys that work with supernatural things were like the code word should be unicorn and the other guy said that it should be like tortilla or something. I just really enjoyed when those two characters made jokes. My least favorite part in the movie is when the little boy, Parker, was made to dress up as a girl to please his mum, I just thought that was just really sad.

Mortal Instruments City of Bones the movie

            I went and saw the movie, City of Bones Mortal Instruments in the movie theater about a week ago. Though this is a book I have not read it, but I might read it in the future depending on whether the book summary seems as interesting as the movie did to me. The person I had went with to the movie had actually read the books in the series by Cassandra Clare and said that the series was really good and he said that I should read the series.

            The first book in the series is called City of Bones, the second is City of Ashes, third is City of Glass, the fourth is City of Fallen Angles, and the fifth the City of Lost Souls, and a new book is to be released on May 27^th, 2014 called City of Heavenly Fire. So though I haven’t read this series I do have a friend that says they are extremely well-written and are definitely worth reading because of the drama and action that happen within this series.

            So I’ll get back to the movie which I actually saw last week. I think out of five stars I would probably rate the movie a 3.5 only because I think it was kind of hard to follow at some points and they kind of just through everything right at you in the beginning without really explaining what happened and what was happening. I don’t know if that’s the style of the book where slowly things about her past are revealed or not, but I was a bit confused; other than that I liked the movie though. It had good parts in the movie that were interesting and intrigued me into watching, but other parts were just dull and it seemed like they trying too hard to get people to pay attention.

            My favorite part in the movie is probably the very ending; it had a lot of action and I liked when the demons were being called, I thought that was pretty interesting. I also liked (spoil alert) when Jace and Clary were like falling in love with each other and then at the very end of the movie Valentine (Clary’s father) says that her and Jace are brother and sister. I just thought it was pretty funny when there like what were siblings? Though I know they aren’t actually siblings because the person I went to the movies with kind of ruined it for me…

            I think this movie was entertaining; also I didn’t have to pay for it which makes it all the better, so the movie was definitely worth seeing and I got a nice laugh from the movie because they were all acting very dramatic over every situation.