The World according to Garp drop/Catching Fire end

This week I dropped a book and finished a book. I dropped the book The World According to Garp by John Irving, and I finished Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins. I dropped The World According to Garp because I couldn't relate, or empathize, or sympathize, or anything with the characters, as they were overly weird, and there were no fantastical elements to hold my attention. with no interest in any of the things i usually like about a book, I dropped it. However, I really liked Catching Fire. it is the sequel to the book The Hunger Games and takes place in a country where the government is all-powerful and sends its subjects off to die every year for entertainment, although only the rich capital city is entertained. Katniss Everdeen, the main character lives in the poorest district, and she's especially hated by the government for something that happened in the last book. I liked this book because it had lots of emotion and action and surprises and thought process. I give it an 8.

The Glass Castle

Recently, I finished the book The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. This memoir chronicles Jeanette's life and is split into 4 parts--A Woman on the Street, The Desert, Welch, and New York City. Throughout the book, a recurring theme is the dysfunctionalness of her family, especially her parents. After all, they are people who think the police are out to get them, who think that the way to fix eyesight is not to get glasses, but to exercise the eyes, and think that they can somehow invent the best gold detector ever, so it's hard not to notice. however, the more important part is how their family fits together. One minute, they're all best friends, and then hardships hit, and they family breaks down, so that worse things happen to them. For example, one of the best parts in the book is when Jeannette's father, who can't afford real presents for Christmas, gives her and her siblings each a star, a present that will last forever. and even though both her parents do horrible things throughout the book, they do some good things too, and they all still love each other. This book is a testimony to love surpassing everything. I give it a 9

I recently finished The Andromeda Strain by Michael Chricton. I like his out there topics, and the way he makes his topics dangerous and suspenseful. He can also make things confusing. One of the most confusing and interesting things to happen was the book's constant mention of a problem with what they were doing. You think 'How can there be a problem? Everything has to work in the end, right?' but the book keeps mentioning that certain places were when they went wrong. Its also interesting when they consider the case of the two utterly different people who survived the virus. they are opposites, and yet they both survived, so how could that have been? This is a great question that you have to ponder, and it should ultimately be the answer to the puzzle. I would recommend this to a reader who likes puzzles and weird things.

Final Blog Entry of the Quarter

This quarter, it seems like I've been reading mostly really unrealistic fiction books. Also, most of my books I have been finishing in a week. This hasn't given my blog much variety. Most weeks, my blog just reads 'This week I read this. I gave it a this because I did or didn't like this. The story in the book was like this.' I also am only semi observative during my entries. 

I could work on lots of things. I need to observe more, vary my blogs more, use better grammar, and be more interesting. I don't really like my entries, and I have a feeling others wouldn't like them either. I could also write longer blogs, because some of mine are short. This would allow me to add more detail to my writing as well. 

This week i read The Andromeda Strain by Michael Chrichton. It is about a mysterious virus that kills everything in its path. The militray has accidentally unleashed it on the world population. They were investigating means of biological warfare when they released it. Luckily, the scientists of america have anticipated this, and an elite team of scientists has been assembled to deal with this. There is also the matter of a man who survived the virus and is on the loose. I can tell that there will be problems on the way to the cure, or else this book would be boring. i look forward to reading about the suspense, tension, and terror that ensues.

This week I read Ithaka by Adele Geras and The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.

I did not like Ithaka at all. It was too similar to Troy as i have said before, and unlike i had hoped the stories did not deviate in the similarity of their endings, both containing similar ideas of sadness and destruction. I would give this book a 4 because if i had read it without having ead the other, i might have liked it, but instead i didn't like it.

I really liked The Lost Symbol, however. Dan Brown is a very good, suspenseful writer, and he's also a very seducing conspiracy theoryist. In this book, his theories are about the origins of Washington D.C., and a society called the Masons. He also incorporates about the science of thought, and the idea that minds and thoughts can cause reactions. So far I've liked all of his books because they incorporate totally outlandish elements, symbols, and things, yet they all seem to fit together perfectly and seemlessly. He also always makes you wonder what will happen next, because he does not always tell his characters revelations when they have them, and the characters are almost always in danger. This one does not disappoint. I give it a 9.

This week i was reading Ithaka by Adele Geras. It is very similar to Troy, another book by Geras. They both take place in Ancient Greece. They both involve the members of the royal household. They both concern love, and death and the Trojan War. The characters in both see gods. At some points the books just seem so similar that it is sickening. I'm sure that if i had read them at the same time i would have hated both. I can only hope that as the book progresses, it deviates from its similarity to Troy, and in doing so become more enjoyable to me. 

This past week, I finished the books Brisingr by Christopher Paolini and Troy by Adele Geras. They were both good books.

I would give Brisingr a seven. Although I enjoyed the mythology of this other world, the book was too long and they spent too much time waiting for things to happen. I think that this whole four book series could be condensed into two books that would only have to be as long as a regular one would have.

I would give Troy a nine. It is a book that takes place during the Trojan War, but that is quasi-background. It is really about the trials on the inhabitants of the royal household, whether its the stable boy, the wife of the king's son, or that woman's handmaid. In this book, the gods play a large part, as it is Ancient Greece, and appear to everyone, making people fall in love, explaining the plans for the war, and protecting people, yet no one remembers that the gods were there. It is a mish-mosh of stories, yet somehow these stories all fit together to form a complete and interesting tale I loved to read.

Brisingr

This week I've been reading Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. It is the third book in the Inheritance Series, a book that takes place in a world where magic and mythical creatures run rampant. Their world is at war. The book bets boring towards the middle, because all the characters do is sit around and wait for something to happen. However, throughout the book there are various fight scenes which i find exciting, and i also find the scenes where Eragon uses magic interesting. My favorite character is Saphira, Eragon's dragon, because while all other races in the book are human-like, Saphira is a totally different thing. No one knows how a dragon would act or what a dragon is like, and so it is interesting to see Paolini's interpretation of one; her fears, look, and pride to name a few of the things I enjoy. That is part of why I like this book. 

Jurassic Park overview--end entry

Over the past few weeks, I read the book Jurassic Park, by Michael Chrichton. This book is about a group of scientists who are able to recreate dinosaurs using genetic engineering. They think they have the perfect recipe for a succesful tourist venture, and so the owner of the park invites his grandkids and a few people who helped him to the island where his park is almost fully set up. However, as they tour the park, they realize that the park would never work--the animals don't act like they should, the systems don't act like they should, and everything is dangerous. One big theme of this book is to not change things drastically, because these scientists thought "oh it would be good to change the balance of the world and make dinosaurs alive again" and it turned out horribly for them. If they hadn't decided that they wanted to totally change the world, they would have kept themselves in a better place and position. i thought that the ending to the book was great. it left you in suspense and left you wondering, which i always think makes a book interesting. Altogether, i really liked this book, because it had moments where it was full of action but it also made you think. i would recomend it to anyone who likes sci-fi. 

Three Bags Full and Death on the Nile

Over the summer, two of the books i read were Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie and Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann. Both are mysteries. 

Death on the Nile is a Hercule Poirot mystery where Poirot must solve the murder of a rich beautiful woman on a cruise on the Nile. She had stolen her best friend's fiancee and married him, and Poirot believes that this friend killed her for it yet he can't prove it. I give it a 10 because it is always suspenseful and you don't know what's happening. 

Three Bags Full is a mystery from the view of a flock of sheep. Their shepherd, George, was found with a spade stuck through him one day in the middle of their field. They decide to set out and find out who killed him. I give this book an 8, because it is sometimes boring, and a lot of times you seem to know the mystery better than the sheep do.