Thirteen Reasons Why and Before I Die

            Thinking of books that I’ve liked that I’ve read in the past Thirteen Reasons Why and Before I Die comes to mind. Though these books have to be two of the most depressing books you’ll ever read, they are worth the time to read.

            The first book I mentioned, Thirteen Reasons Why is by Jay Asher and is about why Hannah Baker committed suicide. The book is from the viewpoint of Clay Jenson where he had just returned home from school to find cassette tapes on his front porch, it turns out that they were from Hannah Baker where she had recorded herself saying the thirteen reasons why she committed suicide and why the people the tapes were sent to are the reason she committed suicide.

            It’s a really sad book. Clay the whole time in it is all like if I would have just did this or if I just would have said this to her, see because Clay had a crush on Hannah, but was to chicken to act out on it. The reason why I like this book is because its reality teenagers commit suicide everyday from bullying and I just thought that this book was expressing how teenagers feel and how others feel after they’re gone. Though, this book is sad, it’s worth reading to even understand the signs of someone committing suicide or for a good read.

            Now the second book I mentioned is by Jenny Downham which is about a girl named Tessa that has cancer. The story is about what she wants to do before she dies or also known as her bucket list. The main things on her bucket list are of fame and to have sex (yeah, parts of this book aren’t that appropriate.) The book was extremely depressing, another thing on Tessa’s bucket list was to stay alive to see her best friend’s baby, as you can see as I said it was really depressing you can probably guess what happened.

            The reason I think that this is a book worth reading is it’s like Thirteen Reasons Why in the aspect of it’s a great read, but also just for the readers to live their life to the fullest, you never know when you’ll die, so it’s best to live by yolo.

            Now going through recent movie (this was about a year ago keep in mind) I came across the movie Now Is Good, I clicked on the movie because it had Dakota Fanning in it, but after reading the summer I realized I had either seen the movie or read something like it, after looking it up I came to realize that Now Is Good is based upon the book by Jenny Downham, though they have different names.

 The book was way better than the movie, but I admit the movie made me ball my eyes out by the end of the movie because Tessa (Dakota Fanning) seems completely emotionless about the fact that she is going to be dying soon, and then you come to the end of the movie, and it just hits you like a rock. Overall, I hated the movie (only because it made me cry), but it was a good movie to watch, definitely like a chick flick, but with an actually sad ending.

I think that these two books are probably the two most depressing books, but they are also the books with a great story to tell, and for the readers to learn something from them; that is why I think that both of these should be on the list of young adults to read. Maybe these books will make going through whatever your going through a bit easier to understand. 

If I Stay

            One of my all time favorite books is called If I Stay by Gayle Forman. I actually started reading the book because the cover of it looked somewhat interesting it was all blue and with a tree on it.

            The book is actually extremely depressing. It’s about how this girl named Mia was in an accident and can’t remember what happened during the accident only everything before it, with her family and Adam (her boyfriend.) I admit the very end of this book I was crying because the author does an outstanding job of making you feel the emotions of the characters. I just really liked this book and was kind of confused by the ending, I thought maybe she had died or something, then I realized there was a second book called Where She Went that was in Adam’s perspective.

            Apparently, there is going to be a movie that is based upon the book that is coming out in 2014; which I can’t wait to watch, but till then I’ll just have to stick with the books. Anyway, the second book like I said is in Adam’s perspective and it’s telling of his ‘rock star’ life and how he comes into contact with Mia 3 years later after the accident.

            I honestly don’t know what else to say about this book it was really good and I think that all teenager girls would love this two books, they are adorable and are things that can happen in real life situations (okay, not the out of body experience), but it tells of the love of family and friends; which in turn proves to be a great story.

            I preferred the first book to the second; most people I’ve spoken to that have read these two books liked the second one better, but I preferred the first because it seemed more realistic to me. The second book it was more of a complete fantasy, it didn’t seem that realistic to me compared to the first book. But I recommend reading both of the books because they both are really good and were two of the most meaningful books I’ve read that stand out to me.

I honestly don’t remember anything meaningful about the way it was written or the vocabulary of it; just that it’s a fantastic book series and that girls in high school and college should definitely read it. I think that the books change your way of seeing friends and family in my opinion and even the way you see your own life, anyway its great books and should be read.

Pride and Prejudice

            One of the classic books is called Pride and Prejudice and is by Jane Austen. It’s a pretty sophisticated book, they talk very formally in it. There are also a few movies and shows that are based upon the book, I watched the newest movie of Pride and Prejudice and enjoyed it.

            Pride and Prejudice at first was really annoying to me because the talking in a formal way, because while reading the book I had this weird voice for the characters…Anyway, at the beginning I didn’t like it, I only really read it to get my pages read for my class. After about 100 pages, I began to actually enjoy the book. It’s kind of a slow book at first, but once you get to the part about Mr. Collins asking Elizabeth to marry him, it speeds up from there. I thought it was really weird that he was asking his cousin to marry him, but then I realized this book was made to represent the past when things were different and it was socially acceptable to marry your cousin.

            I’ve heard people talk about the book as being one of the most romantic books ever, and really it doesn’t get all gooey and romantic till the end of the book in my opinion. Anyway, the book is actually worth reading, and you’ll find out when reading it that you kind of have to force yourself to read the first third of the book before it gets a little bit interesting.

            Pride and Prejudice is one of those books that besides being a romantic book, it’s really all about judging people. Elizabeth judges Mr. Darcy based on what people said about him, or how he acted before she got to know him. She also does the same with Mr. Wickham she judges him based upon his charm and didn’t see through the lies of his deception. But I think the main meaning to this book is not to judge people, not be prejudice against someone, as well as the first part of the book there’s a thin line between cocky and having pride.

            Now onto the movie I watched. I really liked the movie, though the clothes and how they talked so formally kind of irritated me, but once you get past that it was a really cute movie. I think that the characters of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth had a good actor and actress for their role in the movie. I didn’t watch the older version of Pride and Prejudice, so when I’m talking about this movie I am referring to the newest version of it (which I think is like 2001 or something.)

I definitely suggest reading the book and then watching the movie because it puts everything together once you have compared the two and realize how cute the story is. I think that only girls would enjoy this book, really of any age in my opinion, but most definitely only girls and not to guys. 

Cirque Du Freak Series

            Cirque Du Freak is one of the most interesting book series ever. Yes, it has to do with vampires, but it was popular before Twilight was popular…Just saying. So I wouldn’t judge all vampire books just because of Twilight or other love story vampire series.

            So Cirque Du Freak is a series that contains 12 books with each book only being about 200 pages each; which is what like 2,400 pages total? Not that big of a read, so is definitely a series to get into. I started reading these books in like 6^th grade, but people in high school can still enjoy them too. Like my brother read the books as well, and I started rereading the books in high school, but then just got too busy and gave up on that. But my guess is that from about age 10 to 20 is the ideal ages in which to read this series. I’m saying this because it’s pretty simple to understand what’s going on and isn’t too much of a hard read which might just drive some people insane, but I think it’s a well-written series with a great story behind it, and a lot of action.

            The series is made by Darren Shan, which I believe he has some longer name that I am unable to pronounce. Is series is just a really good read, and I recommend it definitely to middle schoolers and just for people who don’t like too much of a hard read. This series is filled with action, fighting, adventure, and even some humor in parts (not much because Mr. Crepsley is very serious.) I enjoyed these books very much in middle school.

            Basically, the story is all about how Darren Shan took a spider from Mr. Crepsley when him and his friend Steve went to the Cirque Du Freak (which is just a circus of ‘freaks’) and it bit his friend Steve, and Darren was forced to become the Vampire’s Assistant by getting turned into a half vampire. That’s just quick synapses of the first book, I won’t go into the other books, and you’ll just have to read the series to figure out what I mean by this being an awesome series.

            The characters in the book are fun to read about and the series as a whole works very well together. Another thing is the series wouldn’t even take that long to read, the words on the pages are not super small and the vocabulary is easy to understand, so my guess it if reading the series non-stop it’d take about two hours for each book totaling only a day’s worth of reading, or two at most. So I recommend this series highly, it is and will be one of my all time favorite series. 

Lord of the Rings

            My last blog post (if anyone actually reads my blog posts), made me realize I should do a blog post about Lord of the Rings! I have never read the books and many people are like your totally missing out, but I just haven’t gotten around to actually reading the books, like with all the other books I say I’m going to read and I just never do. But anyway to talk about the movies, these are probably the most epic movies, and though the first one came out in 2001 these had to be some of the best movies that came out around that time. I remember first watching these movies when they came out, when I was only four; I even then thought these movies were intriguing and awesome. Who doesn’t love a good adventure/fantasy trilogy?

            Now where do I start…These movies are amazing, why? Because they just are, I shouldn’t have to explain myself, but I will. First off the actors did a brilliant job of playing their characters, I say an applause for Elijah Woods who plays Frodo Baggins (the carrier of the ring), Sean Astin who plays Sam, Ian McKellen who plays the great Gandalf, and all the actors in these movies they just do a great movie. If not for the actors this movie wouldn’t have been as good, they just did a marvelous job.

            Now obviously we have to give credit to the great author of the whole trilogy which was J. R. R. Tolkien. The books are separated into three books, but have two books in each book. The first one is called The Fellowship of the Ring, the second called The Two Towers, and lastly The Return of the King.

            Personally, out of all the movies I liked The Return of the King the best, maybe because they had the huge battle at the end of the movie where the three characters of Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom),  and Gimli (John Rhys-Davies) were counting how many of the enemy they were killing. Best part of the movie is where Gimli says to Legolas after he takes down a whole elephant, “that only still only counts as one!” I could not stop laughing. Another part I’m not sure in which movie it’s either the first or the second, but Gimli says to Aragorn, “Aragorn, let’s go find some food.” Ahhh I love these movies.

            I think that everyone should see these movies, it has a bit of romance to it, a lot of fighting and war, and some humor (like some of the quotes from the movie that I said above.) These are definitely some movies to see, most people already have because they have been out for so long, but if you haven’t seen them yet, I definitely suggest that you do, these are on my top movies list. And even though they were made back in 2001, 2002, and 2003 they are still amazing.

Rise of the Fellowship

            So last night after hours of homework I decided it was time for a break and began to try to find a movie that interests me. After looking through about twenty-five movies I came across the movie Rise of the Fellowship. Now me being a huge Lord of the Rings fan I decided to check it out and clicked on it. After reading the summary I realized it did have to do with Lord of the Rings, but was about gaming. I was interested in it and began to watch it.

            Now I can’t stress this enough, this is the dorkiest movie I have ever seen in my life. They literally took all aspects of being a nerd and a geek and put it right into this movie. So I only recommend this movie to people who like nerdy movies and will not at all make fun of the fact of gaming as a huge thing going on for nerds, because that is what the movie is all about. I honestly after about an hour into the movie I asked myself why I was watching this, but I had to finish it to see if they had a happy ending for the four nerdy characters; which they in fact did.

            This movie was actually pretty entertaining because no offense to the actors or director, but it was just such a stupid movie. I honestly have no other way to put it, but in defense of the movie any movie about gamers I would probably not enjoy at all, because gaming is of no interest to me. I think that people going to a convention for gamers is a complete waste of time, but I suppose some people are really into gaming and want to meet other people who are just like them. I thought it was hilarious how they tried to put Lord of the Rings aspects into the movie by having the flash drive (usb drive) on a necklace around the main characters neck like they did with Frodo in Lord of the Rings with the ring.

            I thought the sound effects in this movie were kind of humiliating, I mean the whole movie they are basically doing a knock off version of Lord of the Rings and trying to make the quest to get to the gaming convention; putting all the different parts of Lord of the Rings into the movie was kind of strange. I don’t know if they did that to make it seem like a quest like Lord of the Rings, were making fun of it, or were just trying to get more people to watch it.

            This was one of the weirdest movies I have ever seen. Maybe it would be good to some people (including gamers and Lord of the Rings fanatics), but the movie just didn’t go with me, and I didn’t like it. You don’t have to take my word for it, go watch it, but if you haven’t seen the Lord of the Rings movies I’d make sure to do that first because then the whole movie won’t make sense of them trying to take different scenes from the three movies and put into this movie. 

Youngster Books

            So because I love children books and I’m looking at my book shelf right now to figure out a good book to right about I’m just going to talk about some of the books that are shorter chapter books and more of late elementary school/middle school books.

            The first book I’m looking at is called Shiloh, this book’s author is Phyllis Reynolds Naylor and is one of the cutest stories about a boy and his love for a dog that he calls Shiloh. I believe when I was in 4^th grade my teacher actually read this book allowed to us, it really is a cute story. It focuses on Marty who finds a young beagle in the hills which he then names Shiloh even though the dog belongs to Judd Travers who is a bad guy. Honestly, this is a little kid book completely, but I enjoyed it when I was little and recommend it to children who are just starting to read.

            Now some other good books that I read when I was a kid was a series called Dear Dumb Diary by Jamie Kelly. These books are highly entertaining and I thought was hilarious it kind of reminded me of the Junie B. Jones books that had her writing in a diary as well. Anyway basically the girl writing in the diary just goes over her days events. I don’t know why, but series like that just tend to capture the attention of young readers, like my little brother absolutely loves the Diary of A Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. I think just reading other people’s problems as a young kid just captures the attention of kids, because they like to relate to it. Anyway, for kids definitely the books that have to deal with writing in a diary or journal normally capture the attention of youngsters and I agree they were really cute as a kid.

            Another series that I loved as a kid and I think that younger kids will love as well are the Cam Jansen books. These are mystery books where Cam Jansen tries to figure out the mystery behind different things like who stole the diamond from the diamond store, these stories are just really cute and totally fiction, but are interesting and make you think (for a kid anyway.) Cam Jansen just has to say click to remember a certain image and can recall it, having photographic memory.

            These are just some of the little kid books that I just don’t want to get rid of because I loved them too much as ay youngster and think that any little kid will love these books as much as I do, so if parents are trying to figure out what to get their kid, I think books like these are a great gift, besides reading keeps the mind fresh and ruins your eyesight! 

Ender's Game

            So a movie that has been out in theaters for awhile now I recently saw, just as it was about to not be in theaters anymore. I went and saw Ender’s Game. The movie is a total science fiction movie and has to do with what if aliens tried to take over the world and what not. I thought it was a really cool movie, but then again I absolutely love science fiction movies because I feel like there’s an actual point to them in contrast to romantic movies where its point is to make you feel bad that you can’t have a gooey love story like that.

            Ender’s Game is indeed a science fiction movie and is intriguing. The story revolves around the character Ender Wiggins who is highly intelligent and compassionate. I think the actor did a great job at playing the character; he acted like how I would think the character would act like. The actor is Asa Butterfield and has also been in other movies like Hugo and the Boy in the Stripped Pajamas as well as the television show called Merlin (which had been annoying me the whole movie where I recognized the actor from.)

            My favorite part in Ender’s Game was the very end of the movie, (spoiling the end of the movie) where Ender had just played the last simulation and then figured out after he had beat the simulation that it wasn’t actually a simulation, but he had indeed destroyed all the aliens. I liked this part because I totally saw it coming, I don’t know about other people, but I guessed that because they wouldn’t dedicate that amount of time and have the simulation be so intense and then go into another battle. So I thought that because they were spending so much time just on the last simulation before the big battle that the simulation was the big battle. .

            Ender’s Game like most movies is based upon a series, which I just looked up and am highly confused as to which series it is based upon because there are apparently thirteen novels. But anyway if the movie about alien invasion interests you there is a series by Orson Scott Card; I liked the movie, but I really don’t have any interest in reading the books, but I’ve heard they are really good, so if the movie interests you or it sounds interesting there is also a series.

            Overall, I loved the movie, but hated the end of the movie, I thought they had such a great movie going on and then they ruin it by having to have a happy ending for the aliens. Other than that though the movie was amazing and was definitely a great science fiction, adventurous, and action movie to see. 

Catching Fire

            Catching Fire was an interesting movie. I liked the movie and actually thought that the second movie was even better than the book had been; which is rather odd because usually I enjoy the books more than the movies, but in this case it’s different.

            Catching Fire is the second book in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins and in my opinion is a rather slow book and doesn’t get interesting until the very end of the book. The series is definitely a must read to both young adults and adults as well as to males and females.

            The movie I went and saw over break about a week and a half after the movie came out in theaters. I think that my favorite part in the movie was when Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) takes her bow and arrow and shoots the arrow into the sky at the force field that was keeping all the contestants of the hunger games inside the arena. I liked this part because the electricity from the thunder getting transmitted through the cord to the arrow was cool and the part in the movie as itself was rather intriguing.

            Contrasting the movie to the book; I thought that the book went into a lot of details that were just rather boring (they are important though), but they were just rather boring in my opinion. That’s why I like the movie so much because it cut out a lot of the boring details at the beginning of the book and in the movie had more of the story line directed towards the actual game itself and not focused so much on the prior events in the book.

            The Hunger Games Catching Fire movie actually exceeded my expectations on how the movie was going to turn out. It’s really cool in movies now and days because of the quality of the movie itself and in Catching Fire all the details are very defined and just make the movie all that much better.

            If I were to suggest a movie that is from 2013 (so far) I would definitely suggest seeing Catching Fire because I think that it is the movie of the year. But like any series or trilogy you have to see the prior movie before seeing the second movie or it won’t make too much sense. But back to the point; Catching Fire has a lot of action and a cute/tragic love story which appeals to the males and females.

            I overall liked Catching Fire and can see it again and again and still think it is as great as the first time I saw it. The movie is definitely worth seeing, and the trilogy is worth reading because it is a very interesting, unique, and well-written trilogy.

 

The Way Way Back

            So this weekend out of pure boredom, I decided to watch a movie I haven’t seen before that I saw commercials about on television, but just never actually went to see it in theaters. The movie I watched this weekend was called the Way Way Back. Literally, this movie is depressing, well, that’s what I thought anyway.

            Basically without doing a lot of summary it’s about a boy who gets forced to go to summer house with his mum and his mum’s new boyfriend; that’s basically the whole story. The movie is focused upon actor Liam James, who plays Duncan. Basically, Duncan is an awkward kid that has no friends and is just really shy, but he learns to make new friends and find his place.

            One of the main reasons I decided to watch this movie was because it had actress Anna-Sophia Robb and all the movies she has been in so far I’ve absolutely loved, so I decided it was time I watched the Way Way Back because she was in it. I was a bit disappointed though because she didn’t seem to be in the movie all that much, she plays the role of Susanna and only talks to Duncan a couple of times; and considering the movie is focused upon the character of Duncan she really isn’t in the movie that much. Even though it’s obvious that Duncan likes Susanna and even tries kissing her, but ends up chickening out and running off, she isn’t in the movie that much.

            I thought that this movie was an okay movie, it wasn’t one of those movies that is an “oh my gosh you have to see it” type of movies. This movie is more of a “if you have time then it isn’t a bad movie to watch.” It definitely had humorous points, but I found the movie overall as depressing. I mean basically you have this boy who has no friends, shy and awkward, his dad doesn’t want him, and his mum and him live in a one room apartment with each other. It just seems overall depressing, and the fact that the mum, Pam, (played by actress Toni Collette) is with a jerk of a boyfriend makes everything even more depressing.

            I noticed in this movie that Duncan just tended to do stupid things that makes you shutter and think “Why are you doing this!?” But other than that I thought it was an okay movie and didn’t think it was a waste of time to watch, but I don’t really think it would interest that many people, so watch it or don’t…It’s a pretty straight forward movie I thought. 

Now You See Me

            So one of the coolest movies I've ever seen is called Now You See Me. This movie came out in about May of 2013. Many people saw it and just about everyone thought it was a really good movie. I thought it was an amazing movie, and would never have dreamed that I would like a movie having to do with magic.

            The movie Now You See Me centers around four magicians that do outstanding tricks on stage. The whole movie is literally just really cool and interesting. Magic is interesting and people always want to know how people do it because humans are just curious and love to know answers instead of being left in wonder. The thing that made me like this movie so much was just the plot, everything made sense and didn’t seem like the directors were leaving an important detail out. The whole story just went with everything, I wasn’t confused the slightest bit during the movie which is probably one reason I liked it so much.

            Another reason I liked Now You See Me is because I love movies about magicians; considering there really isn’t that many magician movies, this movie definitely appealed to me. The movie just centers on the detectives trying to find out what they are all going to do next and anticipate the magicians’ next moves. It’s sort of a funny movie in my opinion because the magicians’ just joke around with the detectives and play around with them, and also the tricks are awesome. Even if magic isn’t real this movie was a fun movie to see.

            My favorite part in the movie is the very end when Thaddeus Bradley, played by Morgan Freeman, is in the cell and he says to the detective Dylan Rhodes, played by Mark Ruffalo, that he knows exactly how they managed to do this trick and tells him why and then Dylan disappears and reappears out of the cell, I thought that was just so cool. Also I liked the actor Dave Franco because he was in the last season of one of my favorite shows, Scrubs. The other two guy magicians were pretty entertaining as well, played by Jesse Eisenberg and Woody Harrelson the tension between them kept the movie interesting and at ease.

            Overall, the movie was fun and interesting to see, I really enjoyed the cast. I also thought that the movie was so unique and interesting that if you haven’t yet seen this movie, it is definitely worth seeing it. 

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.

Children Books

            The first chapter book I ever read was the Boxcar Children by: Gertrude Chandler Warner. I think that for a child this is a pretty good learning book to go off of. I barely remember what the story is about now, but I remember how proud I was when I finished my first ever chapter book.

The author originally had 19 Boxcar Children books in the series, but others continued to write more of these books, so now the stories are up to 135 books in total. All of these books are mysteries and tell of some unknown that the children have to figure out. Not only were there these books that I read when I was little, but other books and stories I like too.

            Because of Winn-Dixie is another classic book that children should read and that I loved when I was in elementary school, I read it because who doesn’t love a story about a dog? I actually did a project all about this book by Kate DiCamillo and think that it’s an inspiring story that children would really enjoy. I think overall I read Because of Winn-Dixie six times because I loved books about animals and I think that a lot of other children like to read about animals too, so even though this book is from when I was in elementary school I think it’s a really cute book that kid’s love.

            Not only is this a book, it’s also a movie! I admit to watching this movie several times...Even though the movie came out in 2005, I still like to watch it to remind me of what movies and books I used to like. Part of the reason that I love the movie so much I like the actress Anna Sophia Robb who is in other movies I enjoy like Bridge to Terabithia, Jumper, Soul Surfer, Race to Witch Mountain, and the Way Way Back; so overall I like a lot of the movies she’s in besides Because of Winn-Dixie. Anna Sophia Robb is also in a show I started to watch the Carrie Diaries, so of course I love her all the more.

            Overall Anna Sophia Robb is a great actress, which is why children should watch the movie Because of Winn-Dixie and read the book because it’s a fun story. Also the Boxcar Children are interesting mystery books that get kids hooked into reading.

The Notebook

                The Notebook by: Nicholas Sparks is an all time favorite read and movie for many teenagers and young-adults because it’s an inspiring movie and book. When I read this book I loved how Noah and Allie had this close bond with each other even after all the years that had passed. I for one loved the novel, and I continued to read other Nicholas Sparks novels because I loved the Notebook so much.

             “The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you.”

            My opinion on this quote is that it is one of the most romantic letters ever, and that if any guy ever sent a letter or in today’s age, sent a text like that a girl would definitely think it’s cute and romantic. I love romantic movies and romance novels and I’m a totally sappy for romance because of the fantasy in them. I wish that stuff like that happens in everyday life, so I watch romance movies and read romantics books.

            Now normally I say there is some deeper meaning to quotes and what not, but this quote says it all basically, so it’s a bit hard for me to elaborate on it. I decided to put this quote on my blog because my blog is about books and movies and every blog needs at least one gooey romantic quote that makes girls swoon and gush out.

            The quote in the second paragraph isn’t the only cute quote from the Notebook there are several others that I like, but that is most definitely my favorite because in the novel Noah keeps sending Allie all these letters, not giving up on his romance with her; which is really adorable. The next quote in this book/movie that I like is:

“I love you. I am who I am because of you. You are every reason, every hope, and every dream I've ever had, and no matter what happens to us in the future, every day we are together is the greatest day of my life. I will always be yours.”

Again I just thought that was a really cute quote and think that if people love romantic movies or novels it is definitely worth it to watch or read the Notebook because of Nicholas Sparks talent in creating romance novels and of the director Nick Cassavetes for doing a fabulous job with the movie.