The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Susie Salmon (like the fish) was fourteen when she was raped and murdered. Now, she looks down on her family from her skunk-scented heaven. She sees he family grow up with out her. She sees her killer run free.

This book was not as good as I thought it would be. Infact, I'm not sure I'd recomend this to many people. All the hype around the book and the fact that it has been made into a movie gave me the idea that it would be fabulous and a quick rean, but it wasn't. I'm not saying that people shouldn't read it, just be aware.

Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Her name is Alice.

Alice has been physically, mentally, and sexuallyabused by a stranger in unspeakable ways since the earliest age. She can barley remember diffrent. Alice isn't even her real name. Alice has had enough. Alice is determined to break free. Alice is determined to no longer be Alice.

As a female, seeing Alice be abbused was emtional. I wanted to detach myslef from it. I immagined what it's be like to be in her shoes, to be Alice. To be raped on a daily basis. To be starved. To be so alone. It's really unimmaginable, as one might expect. It's really made me want to do something, because every book is based in truth. There are young girls out there being raped and starved. And that's not something I want to sit around and know I could be doing something to stop.

There are some very graphic portions of this book, and they are disturbing. For this reason, this is a book for mature audiences only. In addition, it, at some points goes into detail about female bodly functions, and for this reason, I would only really recomend this to women.

Before I Die by Jenny Downham

Tessa is sixteen. Her birthday is in May. It's September. Tessa has terminal leukemia. She also has a list of things she wants to do before she dies. Have sex, do drugs, say "yes" to everything for a day, go on life's adventure. Tessa gives up on herself, stops the chemo, etc. and just wants to lifve.

This book was a very emotional journey for me. I'm sixteen, my birthday's in May, and I read this book in September. It made me think about what I would do if I had six months to live. It was a self reflective adventure. I would recomend this to anyone. It made me cry, it made me laugh, and it made me think.

Spider Bones by Kathy Raichs

Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs, the 13th book in her Temperance Brennan series is really a page turner. In this adventure, Temperance is called to a sight in Canada where a decomposed floating corpse has been found. He is identified, but the records say that he was killed in Viet Nam. This makes for a confusion over who is who, resulting in the most interesting ending thinkable.

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver is perhaps the second best book I ever read (Thirteen Reasons Why takes the gold). It is a "Groundhog Day meets Mean Girls hybrid."
When Samantha Kingston calls shotgun in the car of her drunk best friend after a party, the car swirvs off the road, killing Sam, she must live out Friday, February 12th six more times, until everything has been righted. Sam is immensely popular-at the expense of everyone hating her. Not only is this Friday "Cupid Day"-the one day a year where underclassmen dress up as fairies, angels, etc and drop off roses to the school, but it is the day she has planed to have sex with her boyfriend, Rob, for the first time, and Rob's been waiting. The day starts off as any other in her life: woken up by he lisping kid sister, Izzy, then rushing to get dressed to make it in to Linsday's gigantic car (lovingly known as "The Tank") and eats her sesame seed bagel from Dunkin Donuts.Ally's already in the car, and the pack is complete after they pick up Elody. The ride is uneventful, but they steal the last good parking space from the swimmer girl, whose almost (but not really) their friend. And that costs her her spot in the swim team sectionals. Of course, every year, they deliver a rose to Juliet Sykes-the grade freak. It reads "maybe next year, but probably not." What they don't know is what the rose's message will drive her to do, what Sam must stop from happening before she can stop reliving Friday, Febuary 12th.

Th1rteen R3asons Why by Jay Asher

So I'm getting a Kindle (when they decide to be in stock), so in the meantime I have the software (it's free!) on my iPod Touch and on my laptop (yeah, techie diva) I finished Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. It was nothing short of fantabulous. I ABSOULTLEY loved it!
It is about a boy-Clay-who comes home from school one day to find a package on his doorstep, no return address. Inside, are seven audiocassets. He puts them in a tapeplayer (his parents must be dinosaurs [kidding]) It's the voice of Hannah Baker, who OD on a handfull of pills a couple of weeks back. She has recorded one story on each side if the tapes-with the exception of one side. Thirteen reasons why she commited suicide. The rules are simple-lisiten to all the stories and pass them along to the person whose story comes after yours. If you dont-well, some one has a copy of the tapes and they'll release them to the world, and everyone knows your part in her death.
The book is designed to show how the little things you do effect people's lives-sometimes good, and sometimes absoultly horrible.
Although the book is told from the prespective of a male, most of the story comes from Hannah. I'd recomend this to anyone although girls are proabaly more of a target audience. Suicide is, of course, a mature subject, so it takes that kind of person to really read in to the subtextual things Hannah talks about.
It is proabaly one of the best books I ever read.

Alice, Oh Alice...

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was simply a fantastic book. It had the simplicity of a  children's tale and then, if I wanted to, to read deeper into the hidden meanings.

I also found it great to examine the parallels between the Disney movie-what they added what they took away.
My favorite part was the end. I loved how Alice's sister looked back on what she had talked with Alice with. It was so cool that she though about Alice's future and that she would make a wonderful woman.

The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland!!!

This summer, I picked up a classic. Er, um, because it's free for Kindle...so far I am in the second chapter (Pool of Tears) and I like it alot.

I find it interesting to read the original story after seeing the Disney versions and the play version It is cool because I have the visiual identifications of what Alice looks like (she is, as of yet, lacking a physical description) and what other charaters like the White Rabbit look like.
More blogging to follow!!!

The Freedom Writer’s Diary

As you may have guessed, the next book I will be reading is The Freedom Writer’s Diary. It was the basis for the movie Freedom Writers, which I loved. So, yeah. I’m going to read it.

End of Déjà Dead

I am happy to report the end of a *fantastic* book. Déjà Dead by Kathy Reichs was a fantastic forensic thriller and furthermore, an extreme page turned. It was hard to read slow enough to get every word. However, I do have one criticism for Dr. Reichs' first novel: a lot of the word choice was unbelievably cliché, not that in the sense that the clouds were described as fluffy or anything, but it was like every word had a description, but the quick-paced plot definitely made up for the errs on that front. I so badly want to tell about the ending...but I wont...because you're lucky. I'll post below if you want to see it....

*****SPOILERS BELOW******

Hey, so I didn't want to ruin the book for anyone intending to read it with the next post, so I made a seperate one.....
OKAY, here we go!!!

1. I totatly knew that Gabby was going to die since she went MIA the first time!!! It was sooo predictable, Dr. Reichs, sooo predictable!!!
2. We all knew, of course, that neither Dr. Brennan wasn't going to die.
1. OH, and neither was Katy going to either.
1. This isn't because I had read the books out of order. Primairily, it is because it was told from first person, and writing about your own death would be awkward...because you couldn't...you'd be dead... AND, secondly, they tried to kill Tempe with like, what, 20 pages left. AND, oh yeah. Way to platantly say in the begening of the book that the next Temperance Brennan novel had a two chapter preview in the back of the book. Way to go, Scribner, ruin the book before its even started.
3. The note from Luc Claudel was so bizare. It was almost, like, creeper/stalker/sketch of him to do that. "We are the last line of defence aganst them:...the cold-blooded killers. I would be honored to work with you again." Please. Way to be a creep, Claudel.

That's it for my rant. Bye.

Oh! There you are! I was so far behind I couldn't quite see you there!!!

THUS BEGINS 3RD QUARTER!!!
Hey there! its been a while since I've blogged, but here I am!!! I'm reading Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs and I am proud to say that if I were reading Drood, and I was on the same page in tMoED as I am in this book, I would have read as much in tMoED in the two months I was reading it compared to the three weeks I've been reading DD.
Take that as you will.
SOOO, Tempe is wrapped up in quite the mystery! Over the last two years or so (the book taking place in 1994), she and the team have found several mutilated, meticiously dismembered and garbage-bagged of young women, ages ranging 16- about 25 years of age. When they explore a suspects house, they find a copy of Le Journal (Montreal newspaper) with her picture with a big X on her body, and now fears that she is the next victim.
A sub-plot seems to be with her college friend, Gabby. She is in cultural anthropology, rather than physical anthropology like Tempe. Her current study focuses on the prostitute subculture. Just thought I'd let you know.

The End of TMoED???

Well, my friends, its true: I will be putting TMoED to the side for now because I have been reading it for two months now.
However, with every ending comes a begening, and that begening belongs to:
DÉJÀ DEAD by KATHY REICHS
Because accents can be a pain to get to, yeah, I may say deja instead of déjà.
Any who, its her first book and I'm psyched to read it!!!

Drooooood. (More)

Well hello there! It seems like it has been a while since I posted. It is proably because it has! In fact it was in the last decade!!! Over winter break, I did read! But, I was up skiing and much to my upsetness, there was no WiFi!!! (that and my laptop is like a [insert several non-PG words here] and won't charge, so I have been doing literaly everything via the iTouch--icluding this)

Back to TMoED!!!

So the D man (Drood) dissapered (as I stated in my last entry) and seemingly without a trace, except for his shirt pin (what ever that is) and his gold watch (which I immagne to be of the pocket presuasion). Neville is still heald much at fault for the murder, but since there is no body found yet, he can't be charged. He made a whole big deal about how he cannot go out in daylight because the people of cloisterham think that he is a murderer and in my oppinion they are right. Thats basicaly it...

70ish pages to go!!!

Drood FIANALY Disappears!!! (I'd say its a spoiler, but the book is a dissaperaence mystery)

So, first let me say that tMoED is all of 272 pages. Drood disappears on page 162. IT TOOK SO LONG! (Yes,  I do try to avoid all caps, but it took so long).  Drood went on a walk down to the river on Cristmas Eve with Neville Landless, and Nevile Landless was the last person to see him--alive or dead. Neville walks eight miles out of town. I thisks that qualifies of excaping the scene of the crime! Then, a group of eight Cloisterhamians (???), including John Jasper and Mr. Crisparkel, I belive. NL thinks that they are theives and will not go with them, and the subsequently beat up NL. They bring him back to Cloisterham and then they blame the bood stains that they have created on him murdering Neville. Mayor Sapsesa orders the river to be dregged for any traces of Drood, which they find none. Then, Mr. Gregwerious, Rosa legal gaurdian comes to town , as his ward's fiancee is missing, and talks to Jasper. Jasper then faints when he tells him that Rosa and Edwin called off their engagement. I choose to interpret this as a sign of giult that he murdred Drood so Rosa would be upset and he will then try to get Rosa off the rebound. When Jasper comes to, he eats some food with Gregwerious (I'm not sure that's spelled right, but I don't have the book right in front of me). Greggy (as I will be calling Mr. Gregwerious) continualy descrtibes himself as an "Angular man" (the "a" is always capatalized). I haven't the slightest idea of what that means. The more than I think of it, Greggy does have motive for murder. He is the gaurdian of Rosa and it seems that he does not like her predestined husband (Drood).

The Mystery of Edwin Droo(ooooooooooooooo)d(ddd) by Charles Dickens- Up to Pg. 94

Currently, this is anything but a quick read. You can't really glaze over the text like people do sometimes, you need to grasp every word. But now, I have some motive: I got my hands on Deja Dead by Kathy Reichs, and I've promised myself that I shan't read a word of it until Drood is done.
Its fun to pay attention with the way Dickens plays with word choice, especaly in the chapter tittles. The seventh chapter, "More Confidences Than One", makes an exponental amount of sence, because Nevile Landless shares with Rev. Crisparke, then Helena Landless shares with Rosa.
I've started to formulate possible suspects for the murderer. So far, the people with the most motive are John Jasper and Nevile Landless. Jasper is in love with Rosa, whom Drood is engaged to. Crimes of Passion are Often Drawn From Passion. Nevile is, as he knows very well, "Secret and Revengefull" and despises the way Drood seems to take Rosa, a beautiful young woman for granted. What these two people don't know is that the young couple are on the verge of breaking up- their marrage was arranged, and they have no real love for each other.
I will get more reading done, I promise. Oh, and I'll keep up with the blog entries =). Been having some technichal difficulties latley, oh and, I know its early, but for all my fellow Jews out there:
happy haunakah

TITTLE ERROR and a Bit About the Book on the Block

I'm so very sorry, and I feel so very stupid: but the title of the book I am currently reading, is Death's Acre, not Death's Arch. I had one of those moments where you read something as a word that it looks like and then don't realize it for quite sometime that its actuality different word, in this case, for over a month.
A sincere thank you goes out to all the people who saw this and didn't realize/tell me that I was wrong. (I'm not being sarcastic. Really.)
Fact being that Death's Acre is a memoir, as compared to a fast-paced Kathy Reich's style realistic fiction, there isn't mush story arch. And I'm going to put it down for a whileSo, I figure that I'll tell you about the next book that I'm going to read (I've started it, but haven't finished it. I don't always read things all the way through. I have a wonderful attention span) And that book is:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, or tMoED, as I will be calling it, is a Victorian-era set murder (mystery). Now, just to warn you so you don't get your hopes up or bet money on who the murderer is, THERE IS NO ENDING. Mr. Dickens was writing tMoED in twelve instalments, shortly after finnishing the sixth instalment, the man fell into a coma and subsequently died. Sounds like a great storyline for a musical, no? Well, it is a musical, and although I may be a tad partial to it, if you ever have the chance you must go see it. Or I will hunt you down, and we will have a little chat. The musical version was written by Rupert Holmes, who i was fourtuante enough to meet April 2009 when I worked backstage at a preformance of the show. But more on that later. TMoED is set in a small town nicknamed Cloisterham by Mr. Dickens. The novel takes off when Edwin Drood (need I say, he is the protagonist), a 17 year-old orphan is visiting his uncle, John Jasper, the resident music teacher and choirmaster of Cloisterham. Other mentionable charaters are:
Rosa Bud: Of course, often called Rose Bud. She is the fiancee of Drood, as arranged by their fathers. She is also orphaned.
Nevile and Helena Landless- Twins form Ceylon (Present day Sri Lanka) They are orphaned as well and are temporally under the care of Reverend Crisparkle. Their true guardian is Mr. Honeythunder (Whom I will not be addressing in this section) In their youth, they were abused and deprived by their father.
Rev. Crisparkle- A philanthropist, and Reverend of the local church.
(The) Princess Puffer- Yes, it's a drug reference. Puffer runs an opium den. Jasper often frequents there.
Mr. Sapsea- An auctioneer. He also becomes the Mayor of Cloisterham

Death's Arch (Dr. Bill Bass and Jefferson)

So, one day I was in Barnes and Nobel's looking for a book to read, just browsing isle by isle, regardless of content. I found Death's Arch, by Dr. Bill Bass, in the weight loss section. Dying is a convinent way to loose weight, but its a tad extreme!
Death's Arch is the memoir of Bill Bass, PhD. He worked at the University of Knoxville in TN for sometime. While he was there, he helped start the Anthropology Research Center, a.k.a. The Body Farm. Here, the use bodies donated to science to study human decomposition patterns in select environments and how the mortises form (well, by the time they get the body, palor and livor are probably already taken care of!) It's an interesting read because if i had to decide today where to go to college and I could go anywhere, I'd chose UK without hesitation!
I've already learned a lot. Bass writes in an extremely vernacular form. When he does use sciency mumbo-jumbo, he explanes it quickly.
He's also very down to earth about what he's doing. He's dealing with murder victims. He gives them a name, a face, and shows people how their final hours were. He brings their killers to justice, after years, decades of them having escaped the law. It's quite beautiful.

SECOND QUARTER BEGINS HERE

In conclusion...206 Bones by Kathy Reichs

This was an overal great book. Although I haven't completly finished the book yet (I have like three pages left) it was totaly amazing. I like Reichs' langiuge alot. She intergrates English with a bit of French to get a very interesting effect. Its like taking purple and buting a little bit of green next to it. It just makes it pop! This is such a hard entry to write! I mostly read the end of the book this week, and I don't want to give anything away. the bigest thing I can tell you without giving the ending away is that Tempe's Quebec apartment window gets exploded. Its was scary, but extermly cool!
Adeus,
Me

206 Bones (Kathy Reichs): One of the MOST Fantastic Books I Have EVER Read

And I have read my fair share of books.
One of my favorite things is the tick, tick, tick, tick, tick that is a reocouuring theme (refering to clocks). As I have stated, the book stats with Dr. Brennan in what she thinks is a very small tomb (later she finds that is is slightly larger then she first found it to be, but there is something/one sharing the space with her) Reichs is the absolute queen of cliff hangers. the last sentence in the chapter is always the type of steryotypical last line, but unlike many other cliff hanger style chapters, the "OMG" moment is in the middle of the next chapter. However, one cliff hanger is very confusing. It says that she has found something that is sharing her enclosure. Then the next chapter starts with her talking about cadaver dogs. It was just plain odd, it made me think that she was sharing her tomb with a dead cadaver dog (ohhh the irony!).
One thing I love about Kathy Reichs' books isin't the writing. Its the cover art. It is so very grabbing. They always have something rather interesting. (See the pictures below)  The book's cover is of a floater (a bond found in a lake, it has a very interesting decomp pattern). In the begenning, they are talking about Rose Jurmain's murder. they are in Chichago, where Temperance spent her first few years of her childhood, before her day and baby brother died. The assistant patholigist inspecting the death of Rose is infact the childhood friend of Temperance's. (They say that he looks like some guy from like The Brady Bunch or some show I've never watched) Jurmain was not a floater, and therefore is not the person on the cover. (Also, the hand, if it was real, has the structure of a male's hand.) This book in the series, like Bones to Ashes, Temperance is paired with Lieutenant-Decetive Andrew Ryan of the Securite de Quebec, (excuse my lack of accents) as Jurmain's death was tenchachly on Canadian turf. 206 Bones takes place around the end of December and by then there is snow in the windy city. On Ryan's and Brennan's way to O'Hare, they get a handy-dandy call from the airline, reporting that their flight has been canceld until further notice. Temeerance's ex-husband, Pete, has family in Chichago and they ask them if they can stay at their house for the night. Amist the Latvian cooking, a family friend asks Temperance if they have found any remains that match the discription of her step-son, who they call "Lassie". The next day, Tempe has nothing else to do at works and requests to inspect some of the unidentified remains that could match Lassie. Because this is a book, of course, Temperance finds a set that is deemed his. The remains had shown up at a lake near a quary, and he was a floater, like the one on the front cover.


At the end of each of Reichs' last three books, she has an interview or such, and in this book, she has a rant on faulty anthropological identification. I find that it was extremly disturbing. If I was to die in a way that required anthroplogical identification, I definitly would not like to be misidentified. Its like: okay, I'm dead, now yayyy someone identified me as a male negroid (I am a female caucasoid). I hope that no one who that would make that type of error would be allowed in the profession.