Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin is an emotional novel where you can find sadness, happiness, and hope.

The novel begins with a pet dog named Lucy as she and her human family grieve at the death of a family member in a bicycle-meets-taxi accident. The story then changes to fifteen-year-old Elizabeth “Liz” Hall. She mysteriously awakes as a passenger on a ship called SS Nile traveling an unidentified ocean. She explores the ship and befriends another young girl, Thandi who was shot in the head from a stray bullet. They find out that SS Nile takes them to a place called Elsewhere after dying. It is not a dream after all, but really, truly dead.

On Elsewhere, she meets her favorite singer – Curtis and her maternal grandmother, Betty, for the very first time. A woman who died at fifty from breast cancer, Betty is now a woman in her thirties. It is one of the first surprises Liz is in for is the fact that, on Elsewhere, lives are lived backward from the age of a person's death. This truth depresses Liz. As she knows that she will never be sixteen, never have a Massachusetts driver's license, never go to the prom or graduate from high school or go to college or get married. The only thing she has to look forward to is growing younger, until she returns to being an infant and is sent back to Earth to be born again.

The book really holds your attention, and if it could, it would hold you down to read the whole book. Sometimes it makes you feel sorry for Liz when she spends all the time of her first month on Elsewhere watching her family, friends, and classmates back on Earth. She misses them badly. She ignores everyone on Elsewhere, even her grandmother. She always wants to be alone. However, she's upset that her best friend, Zooey, didn't attend her funeral. Her parents are inconsolable, her younger brother, Alvy, tells jokes to get through the day, and her dog, Lucy, refuses to accept that Liz isn't coming back. But the good thing is that she then realizes spending hours doing such things just doesn't change anything. And she tries to get closer to Betty, makes some new friends, gets a job and adapts to her new life.

The characters are so human like, you just have to see what they do next. It is very easy to read and understand. The book is totally suitable to anyone who is always wondering about afterlife. It is such an interesting novel, which is so creative and meaningful. I hope that you all enjoy it.

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot

Meg Cabot, the author of the best-seller “Princess Diaries”. Well to be completely honest, I think Princess Diaries was somewhat......well NO GOOD! I love the movie ironically but hated the book.

One day, out of purely curiosity, I decided to try reading; it was funny since I would NEVER voluntarily read anything. For some reasons there were only books from Meg Cabot in the whole store, so I guess why not...

And guess what? It became my favourite book ever since, after Twilight, but that’s another story. The story line was based on daily life of a typical girl, and the non-significant encounter of two people, Kate MacKenzie and Mitch Hertzog. Unlike other books, every detail was told through a diaries, emails, phone calls and random pieces of paper that the characters randomly write on, maybe that was why the book was so different.

Kate is a member of human resources of a New York newspaper and she was ordered to fire a member of the food service that she truly loves, Ida Lopez. Ida sued her, and she meets her lawyer, Mitch Hertzog, defending for Kate and the newspaper. The most exciting part is that, he is Stuart Hertzog’s brother, who was recently engaged to Amy Denise Jenkins. The pair of them was the master minds behind firing Ida Lopez. Luckily for her, the brothers didn’t share common interests and feelings. Together they discovered secrets hidden by Amy and Stuart, solving problems and defend each other.

The story wraps around the Kate’s life, her problems with Ida, her problems with her ex-boyfriend who she has dated for ten years since high school and is on his way to make his debut with the world as an entertainer, her feelings of betrayal from Ida who sent her a basket of cake and then sued her soon after that, getting kicked out of her company and was banned from setting her feet in it again and the complications of Mitch’s family.

AWESOME BOOK-it's funny, it's serious, it's informal...

The only downside is that it ended too suddenly and somewhat randomly, even if it was a happy ending. Or maybe it’s just me...:)

Hope Was Here by Joan Bauer.

     I LOVE this book. I love all Joan Bauer books. But this was my favourite. I finished this book last night at 12:28am. No joke. 

    

     Hope Yancey (her birth name was Tulip, but she didn't like and got it legally changed at the age of 12) lives with her Aunt Addie. Her mum, Deena, didn't want the responsibility of a daughter so she gave Hope to her older sister. Hope has never met her father. Feeling that a part of her is missing, she still has high hopes of him finding her. 

     At 14, she was given a waitressing job in the Rainbow Diner in Pensacola, Florida. From that day on, she believed waitressing was her destiny. Hope has had three waitressing jobs over the last two and a half years - from Pensacola to Brooklyn - living in three different time zones. In Brooklyn, Addie had been chief cook and part owner with Gleason Beal. Now they are forced to leave as Gleason  stole all the money from the restaurant and fled. 

      Every time they left a place, Hope would write "Hope Was Here" somewhere no one would see. 

     Now 16, she and her Aunt forges forward to a new town - Mulhoney, Wisconsin - where a professional manager and cook (Addie) and a waitress (Hope) was needed. 

     The owner, G.T. Stoop, was recently diagnosed with leukemia and needs help around his diner, Welcome Stairways. 

    The other waitresses, Flo and Lou Ellen, the Russian busboy, Yuri, the diner cook, Eddie Braverman and G.T. Stoop instantly makes Hope feel welcomed at her first day at work. 

     G.T. Stoop suddenly runs for mayor against the recent, very corrupt mayor, Eli Millstone. Everyone thought of Stoop as crazy since in his condition, he should be resting. Eli kept trying to demolish G.T.'s campaign, but every time G.T. would overcome it and continue not fighting back as he thought it "unnecessary". 

     Millstone's campaign decided to spread the false rumour suggesting that G.T.'s cancer spread to his brain. The group of students helping out tried to persuade people it was a lie and how trustworthy and kind G.T. is. However, they were too late to convince the townspeople in time and G.T. loses the election. 

     A few weeks later, Eddie and Hope discovered that Millstone altered the election. G.T. then becomes mayor, loses his leukemia, marries Addie and adopts Hope as his own. Everybody got what they wanted. Suddenly, two years later, G.T.'s leukemia returns and dies after Hope tells him that she thinks of him as her real father the one she was looking for all this time.

     I cried. I'm not weak. It's just this book is too strong. 

    

     

The Clique by Lisi Harrison

You know, I really don't read books like this, because they are annoying. However, one day during the recent break we had, it was sitting on the table so I decided to read a little before I watch TV. Then I finished the book and didn't have time to watch TV.

So there are these four seventh-grade girls going to this posh middle school in New York, named Massie, Dylan, Alicia, and Kristen. They each have different personalities and qualities that anyone can tell apart, with Massie being the "leader of the pack".

Then, this new girl from Florida moves next door to Massie, since her dad happens to be best friends with the new girl's father. The new girl, Claire, is obviously not going to fit in with Massie and her friends as she wears suspenders and Keds, rather than the designer outfits that everyone else wears.

Claire desperately tries to fit in,and even goes as far to connive her way into Massie's personal life and turn her friends against her. Then Claire takes over Massie's place.

Oh my gosh, the drama! (sarcasm). Read more to see what happens, if you like these sort of books.

This book is also now a movie with the same title, which I just researched, so if you like this book, go download the movie somewhere :).

**Oh and by the way, I did not read all these books tonight. I read them some time ago and forgot to record them and blog about them. Thanks for understanding.

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

This book refers to the special relationship between someone and their mother. Charley (Chick) Benetto was told by his father, "You can be a mama's boy or you can be a daddy's boy, but you can't be both." Chick follows his father for most of his childhood, almost worshipping him, and learns that he made the wrong choice afterwards, when his father leaves the family.

As time passes, Chick becomes a "broken" man, relying mostly on alchohol for the loss his family and his job. He even realizes that he isn't invited to his own daughter's wedding, which is when he hits rock bottom. He drives his car to his hometown, ready to take his own life, but fails to do so. After that, he struggles to stand and walks to his old home to smell turkey dinner and his mother smiling in the kitchen, letting Chick in to eat. The only problem is, Chick's mother died eight years ago.

This book takes Chick on a journey to give him one more chance to fix what he did wrong in his life. For one more day.

Read this book. It's good for your health.

Noughts and Crosses

I liked Blackman's "Pig-Heart Boy", but this book, Noughts and Crosses, just freaks me out. It's based on a world where white people are looked upon as lowly and black people dominate (Noughts are white, Crosses are black). It focuses in on one Nought boy (Callum) and a Cross girl (Sephy) who are apparently the best of friends and love each other (bleck). However, as time progresses tension between the races rises and it is harder to meet each other. Callum gets kicked out of his new school (basically for being a "Nought") and Sephy cannot take the stress of her life anymore so she decides to go to a boarding school, which means they are separated for years. After though, they meet again, but things have changed between them. Will they rekindle their relationship? Like a modern remix of "Romeo and Juliet" you can predict what will happen.

Honestly, I didn't like this book, but you can read it if you want, if you like these sort of twisted...stories.

The Time Traveler's Wife

By Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife is quite a weird book that will confuse you to no end at the beginning, the plot however, is extraordinarily unique with a new twist on love stories.

When she was six, Clare meets the 36 years old Henry for the very first time and for the next 12 years would be frequented by predestined visits from him. Henry, on the other hand, first meets Clare when he was 28 years old and Clare, 20 years old.

The novel changes between the past, present and future as Henry is unwittingly pulled away from his own time frame and forced to stay at random moments in time. Throughout the book, Henry has to cope with being away from his family at anytime, anyplace and Clare tries to deal with his , sometimes excruciatingly long, absences. This is the story of their struggles through life and death.

This book contains explicit content... (skip page 409 and 507)

Sophia Tran

Marked

Marked is the first book of the House of Nights series and was written by a mother and daugther called P.C and Kirsten Cast. It is unusual for two people to write one book but this book is especially amazing!

Marked is a vampire teenage romance book that is about a normel 16 year old gir being marked by a tracker and having to have to go to a vampire school. Zoey now has to leave her friends, family to join the House of Nights school, where there's only one subject Zoey needs to study: Vampyre 101.

Of course, there's always a catch, and this one's nice and simple:if you fail, you die...

By Rhianne Williams

B is for Burglar

B is for Burglar is the second book in the "Alphabet series" written by Sue Grafton. This book has the same main character as " A is for Alibi", Kinsey Millhone.

When Beverly Danziger walks into Kinsey's office, there was nothing unusual about her. She just wanted to find her sister, because there was a will to be signed. She paid up front and there was a lot of money involved for a small rountine job, but Kinsey wasn't going to argue.

Then when Kinsey begins to suspect foul play and starts asking questions, Beverly pulls her off the case and fires her...

By Rhianne Williams

Thank you Rhianne

So am I to think that Rhianne is the only one who reads independently?

Very interesting Year 10, especially as I am marking your coursework at the moment....

A is for Alibi

A is for Alibi is the first book of the Alphabet series. It is a series of murder mystery books written by Sue Grafton. The series doesnt follow on so you can read any book in any order. The is based upon a private investigator called Kinsey Millhone, aged 32, twice divorced, no kids.

When a man named Laurence Fife was murdered 8 years ago, few cared. He was rumored to be a slippery ladies man and a slick divorce attorney. Everyone including the jury thought his young, beautiful wife, Nikki was guilty and she served 8 years in jail. Then after she was released, Nikki Fife hires Kinsey to find out who reallly her husband. But the trail has gone cold and there is a chilling twist even Kinsey doesnt expect.

By Rhianne Williams

Brisingr

Brisingr is third book of the Inheritence cycle and so far his best piece of work! Each chapter captivates you to read more and makes you want to discover what lies on the next page. You have to read Eragon and Eldest first, but Brisingr is the best book! At the end of each book there is always an unexpected twist that makes you desperate for next. Eragon is about a young farmer boy called Eragon and finds a mysterious rock in the forest. After a couple of days the rock hatches and a baby dragon is born. With this dragon, Saphira they have to defend Alagaesia from the evil wraths of King Galbatorix !

By Rhianne Williams

Room 101- assignment one coursework

Link to take you to online Room 101s to give you ideas for your coursework subject matter that are a little more lighthearted than smoking and abortion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tO_jmUDaHSA