Finding Amazingness

Looking for Alaska

This was the only book that I hadn't yet read by John Green (see reviews of his other books here and here), and it was definitely my favorite. The book is about a boy named Miles (nicknamed Pudge) who goes off to boarding school and makes mischief and new friends, specifically the girl who becomes his new obsession, Alaska. The book is divided into "before" and "after." Now, you may ask, "Before and after what?" Well, you'll just have to read the book and find out.

And you should. Read the book, I mean. It's funny, it's touching, and the characters are great. You'll learn lots of famous last words. John Green never underestimates the intelligence of his readers, which I greatly appreciate. He writes books that are enjoyable and easy to read, but still carry a lot of meaning. I loved this novel! An enthusiastic 9 pretzel bites.

KAY

Already excited for Oberlin!

Await Your Reply

Summer time is finally here and I'm so excited to be reading again! I picked up this book, by Dan Chaon, because I'm going to Oberlin College in the fall where I want to study creative writing, and Dan Chaon is one of the creative writing professors there. Plus, oddly enough, he is good friends with one of my favorite high school teachers. I hope he doesn't leave before I get to have him as a professor because I was very impressed by this novel.

There are three separate story lines in this novel that eventually connect: Ryan, a college kid who just found out a big secret that's been kept from him his whole life, Lucy, a high school graduate who runs off with her former history teacher, and Miles, who has been looking for his missing and slightly insane twin brother Hayden for 10 years. Over the course of the book, the stories start to connect. At first, it is just in subtle ways, such as theme (the exploration of identity is a big one), but by the end, they are completely intertwined, and it's fun to find the clues along the way.

I suppose this is a suspense novel, but normally when I think of suspense novels, I think of a really exciting plot with lots of twists, but then characters and writing that are a bit shallow and underdeveloped. However, even through the plot twists, I feel like at it's core, "Await Your Reply" is still an excellent piece of literature. The characters feel real, and the prose is beautiful. I was very excited by this book, and I give it a solid 8 pretzel bites.

KAY

Let the summer reading begin

Atlas of Unknows

I finally finished my first book of the summer! It's a novel by Tania James about two sisters from India. The eldest, Linno, is an excellent artist, but her life hasn't exactly followed the traditional path, and she is haunted by her mother's death. The younger sister, Anju, is incredibly intelligent and wins a scholarship to study in New York, where things don't go exactly as planned.

I liked this book alright. It was written in a very slow and descriptive style, and I kept expecting to get more into it as the plot picked up and I began to connect more with the characters, but it never really happened. Plus, the ending wasn't as satisfying as I would have liked. I'm completely fine with loose ends, I just wish the whole story was given a little more meaning. I give it 7 pretzel bites.

KAY

Light reading with substance

The Man of My Dreams

I first picked up this book because I read Curtis Sittenfeld's book "Prep" and really enjoyed it. Overall, I think I liked "Prep" better than this one, but this was still a good read. I know that from the title, it sounds all, "OMG I had a turbulent romantic history but true love will prevail!" but it's not really like that. I thought the characters came across as very real, complex, and relatable. What I really like about Sittenfeld's books is that they're really addicting and easy to read, but at the end I still feel like she has something of substance to say, which I really appreciate.

This is a book about a girl named Hannah and her ideas about love. It follows her from her junior high days up through her late twenties. I don't know how to easily sum up the plot, but I guess I'll just say it's about broken families, feeling abnormal, waiting, loneliness, and things not going according to plan. In the beginning, I thought I wasn't going to like it, because the junior high part feels a little... well, distant, I suppose, but after that it really picks up. Also, I thought the ending could have been stretched out a bit more. Everything was just wrapped up in letter form, which I didn't really like. But! These are just minor complaints. 7.5 pretzel bites.

KAY

Y.S.K.O.V.

You Shall Know Our Velocity!

This is a novel by the wonderful Dave Eggers. The basic premise is this: the main character, Will, came into quite a bit of money by doing virtually nothing and he doesn't want it. One of his best friends since childhood, Jack, just died and, in addition, Will was just badly beaten up, leaving his face all gruesome looking. Will and his other best friend, Hand, decide to go around the world and give all the money away, but they only have a week to do it. I will let you know that this is not one of those books where they get to the first place and decide, "Actually, let's just stay here." They really do go several places.

The plot is not gripping, but that doesn't really bother me. The characters are amazing and the writing is beautiful. I love the character of Will. Basically, the whole book is just an extended look into his head and it's fascinating. The middle was the best part. I think it fizzled out a little bit at the end. Not that the end was bad, the middle was just better. Overall, if you're looking for gorgeous, quality writing with interesting characters, I fully recommend this book. 8.5 pretzel bites!

KAY

Michael Crichton

Airframe AND Timeline by: Michael Crichton


So i got both these books at a used bookstore about 4 months ago and didn't read them either until about two weeks ago. Then I blazed through both of them.



So: I have learned that Crichton tends toward starting his books with a few people that you never meet again. In this case its a couple who are hunting rugs in New mexico and they find a crazy old man in the desert who only talks in rymes. Next, they logically take the crazy guy to a hospital. He promptly dies as all of his organs fail on him. Cut to some Harvard researchers in the French Dordogne river region, where they are doing some archaeological dig for some medieval buildings. The private company they are being funded by suddenly calls in the leading proffesor. Buisness continues as usual


until the team uncovers an underground room and find a centuries old scroll with the proffesors handwritting on it. The rest of the researchers demand answers from the company. The company then reveals that it has acces to quantum time traveling equipment and the proffesor has been trapped in the past. So the rest of the researchers of course have to go back and save him. I liked the book well. It was about a good and contoversial subject. But I swear Crichton must have taken whole college courses on each book he wrote because he has such a wealth of knowledge on each subject that he writes about. It is a bit rediculous.
Finnal rating: 7 pretzel bites
Fun fact i wrote a book review of this for my teacher for extra credit and he though I didnt actually read the book. Really Mr. Weber?





Airframe Review: So as mentioned before this book starts off with a couple of people we never meet or hear from again. They are are on an airplane that experiences some "difficulties". The rest of the book is just the company trying to figure out what the heck happened. I cant tell you much more because it pretty much all important. Now i know everything about 1980s flight procedures and the FCC. Its pretty interesting and i had a hard time putting it down toward the end.
I give it a 8 pretzel bites

TEE

She's so dead to us

She's So Dead to Us

This book, by Kieran Scott, is in the vein of such books as the A-list series and the Clique series, and I would imagine that if you liked those books, you'd like this one as well. The basic plot is this: formerly rich Ally Ryan suddenly had to leave town when her father caused her friends' families to lose millions. Now Ally's father is M.I.A., and she's moving back to her old town to live in a crappy condo and face the girls who used to be her friends. She returns to discover that a boy named Jake is now living in her old house and hanging out with her old friends. Ally likes Jake. Jake likes Ally. Ally's former friends do not like Ally and don't want Jake to be with her. Drama ensues.

I feel a little bit bad because we got this book specially from our friends and I didn't even really like it that much. The exposition seemed a little blocky. The characters were not as complex as I would have liked them to be. The plot was interesting, and I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I did get really caught up in it in the middle. Overall, though, I prefer my light reading to have just a bit more substance than this novel did. I will also warn you that it's meant to be part of a series, which means that at the end, nothing is resolved. There's just a huge cliffhanger. I give this book 6.5 pretzel bites.

KAY