Book Review: The Maze Runner Trilogy by James Dashner

Oh, man, this is when I wish I had come up with a more clever name for my blog, like my friend Courtney's, Abducted by Books (isn't that a great blog name?), because I really felt like I was abducted by The Maze Runner Trilogy by James Dashner.

Photo courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

The first book in the series, The Maze Runner, had been on my to-read list for quite some time, and then at some point I bought the book (I can't remember if I bought it this year or last year, but either way, it's been sitting on my shelf for some time, waiting to be read).  This year, I've read 76 books so far (more than twice my goal of 35 books!), and I've ended up loving quite a few of them.  I realized that many of these books that I've loved this year, that I've given 5 star ratings to on Goodreads and have added to my favorites list, have been Young Adult Science Fiction stories.  And The Maze Runner trilogy is no exception.


The Maze Runner starts off with the protagonist, Thomas, waking up in complete darkness, with most of his memories erased.  He knows his name, can remember things, but can't remember people or specific events.  Then the small square room he is in starts to move upward, revealing itself to be an elevator in an extremely tall shaft.  Once it stops, doors open at the top of the shaft and Thomas finds himself in the middle of a huge maze with other teenage boys who have each had their memories erased, as well.  Their mission - to find a way out of the maze.  Only there are a few problems.  There are openings on each side of the middle of the maze (or The Glade, as they call it), but these openings are actually doors, which close each night.  And you don't want to get caught outside the doors at night, or you'll be killed by these grotesque creatures called Grievers.  And then, in the morning, once the doors have opened again, all the walls in the outer parts of the maze have changed, making you start all over again.  


And I won't say any more than that, because I hate spoilers - so much so that I read the descriptions of the books once, put them on my to-read list if I'm interested, and then once I get the book I don't read those descriptions again, nor do I read any of the blurbs on the book, because I've been spoiled by those before, too.  Anyway, I digress.

Photo courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

I LOVED The Maze Runner.  It is so my kind of book that I just want to read it over and over again.  I finished it on the 13th of December, but I knew before I finished it that I wanted to read the other two books in the series, so I put them on my Christmas list.  And I got them!  I was in the middle of reading another book, but I couldn't wait!  So on December 23rd (the day my family had our Christmas) I started reading The Scorch Trials.  I finished it on Christmas Day and started The Death Cure right after.  I finished The Death Cure last night, on the 26th.  I've only been able to read a few books in a day in my life, so that was quite an accomplishment.  And it also speaks volumes about the books themselves.

Photo courtesy of barnesandnoble.com

The Maze Runner is probably always going to be my favorite out of the three.  I really loved The Scorch Trials, too, and although I also loved The Death Cure, I had a few problems with it.  The Scorch Trials kind of revealed a different twist to this story (it was hinted at in The Maze Runner, but I didn't really get it until The Scorch Trials).  No, I'm not going to tell you what it was.  But I'll say that it didn't seem out of place in this world to me, but it kind of made me stop short for a second when I realized what was going on, and made me say, "Hey...."  But then The Death Cure happened, and I kind of felt similar to how I felt with Mockingjay, the final book in The Hunger Games series.  With that series, I loved each of the books, too, and gave each of them 5 stars, but I was a bit disappointed with the ending of Mockingjay.  I didn't hate it like some readers, but it wasn't what I had expected or wanted.  And I felt the same with The Death Cure.  The Death Cure was a really fast-paced read with a lot of action, but I was kind of pissed at Thomas for this one thing (if you've read it you probably know what I'm talking about - the big thing HE DIDN'T DO!), and the ending left me kind of disappointed.  I kept waiting for something else to happen, and when it didn't, I was upset. I know this is all so vague and I'm sorry - you'll all just have to read the series and we can talk about it in detail, because I really don't want to spoil anyone.


But regardless, I still loved this series and it has moved up to my #3 favorite series of all time.  Right under The Hunger Games (which is right under the Holy Grail of series, Harry Potter).  I'm so glad I read these books, and I'll definitely read Dashner's prequel to the series, The Kill Order, when it comes out in August.  I'm also excited about the movie adaptation of The Maze Runner that is set to be released in 2013, although it is being directed by Catherine Hardwicke, and I'm not a huge fan of her films.  Hopefully the fact that James Dashner is co-writing the screenplay will keep the film very true to the book.  


I highly recommend these books to anyone who enjoys Young Adult Science Fiction, especially if you enjoy books like The Hunger Games series, Divergent, and the Uglies series.

Book 14/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

Yea!  I'm almost done with my Off the Shelf Challenge!  Just one more to go!

Photo courtesy of en.wikipedia.org

So for my second-to-last book for this challenge, I decided to go ahead and wrap up the Hitchhiker's Guide series by reading Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams.


I didn't like this book as much as some of the others in the series, but I still enjoyed it.  I really liked the bit that dealt with Elvis, and I liked the end, although I would assume that many fans might not like it so much.  I don't want to go into too much detail for those who haven't yet read the book, but I will say that this installment lacked the pep and humor that is abundant throughout the rest of the series.  Yes, there was humor, along with the seemingly random tangents that Mr. Adams loves to take, but I just didn't feel like there was as much humor in this one as the others.


I really enjoyed this series as a whole, although the first two books, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, were my favorites of the five.


On a side note, I finished reading Mostly Harmless mere minutes before a 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook my whole house.  Now, mind you, I live in Oklahoma.  We don't get earthquakes very often here.  Well, at least not the kind you feel.  We got one about a year ago, but it was much smaller.  And apparently I missed one while I was asleep this morning, but it was also smaller.  No damage as far as I can tell, but it was still very unnerving!  And, if you've read Mostly Harmless, you'll understand that reading the last few pages and then being in an earthquake can really creep you out!

Book 11/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

There are a couple of books that have been on my Goodreads "currently reading" shelf all year long.  I haven't actually been reading them all year; I simply set them aside while I read tons of other books.  I got both books late last year, and even though they haven't been on my physical book shelf for that long, they still count for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge, since they were on my shelf before I started said challenge.


The two books in question were the Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set (which actually has two books, but I counted them as one), and Harry Potter:  Film Wizardry.  I'm still reading Film Wizardry, so I'll leave that one for a later post.

Photo courtesy of judyoz.com

Last year, my book club had a Christmas party where, instead of reading a specific book that month, we had a potluck dinner and played board games and had a gift exchange.  We all bought a book under a certain amount, and the idea was to play Dirty Santa, where you can steal one another's gifts.  Apparently we're bad at that game, because not much stealing went on (I don't know if anyone stole anything, actually), and I loved the gift I brought so much, that when it was my turn to choose a gift to open, I opened my own!  And that gift was the Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set.  



The Harry Potter Schoolbooks Box Set includes two books that are featured in the Harry Potter novels:  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Quidditch Through the Ages.  J.K. Rowling wrote both and proceeds from the sale of the box set went to a fund for needy children through the charity Comic Relief.  


Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them was a book written by Newt Scamander that Harry and all the other first years were required to purchase in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  It reads like a textbook, which is maybe why I didn't like it as much as Quidditch Through the Ages.  Several magical beasts are listed and described, complete with a Ministry of Magic rating as to how dangerous each specific beast is.  The cool thing about the copy of Fantastic Beasts in this box set is that it is supposed to be the one owned by Harry Potter himself, and has been written in by Harry, Ron, and Hermione.  There are also a few doodles of some of the beasts, but I wish there had been more, because it was hard for me to picture some of these strange animals.


Quidditch Through the Ages, by Kennilworthy Whisp, is a library book that Hermione has checked out in Sorcerer's Stone, which Harry then borrows from her.  So the book in the box set is made to look like a library book, complete with a list of students who have checked the book out and the date that it was due back.  The book tells the history of the sport of Quidditch, from its early rough stages in Queerditch Marsh in the eleventh century, right up to the late twentieth century.  It lists the rules, national teams, and famous moves.  This book was a lot easier for me to read than Fantastic Beasts, and I'm not even particularly a big fan of Quidditch.  I mean, if I was at Hogwarts, I'd go to the matches, but I'm with Hermione - it's just a game.  But I liked the book and it was really neat to see J.K. Rowling's extensive imagination at work in the way that the game was formed.


Overall, I gave this box set 4/5 stars on Goodreads.  I am a huge Harry Potter nerd and I think that others like me would love to have this in their collection.  And I'm glad I finally got around to finishing these books!

Banned Books Week: The Giver

Yesterday I wrote a post about one of the books I read for Banned Books Week:  And Tango Makes Three.  You can see the post here.

Photo courtesy of goodreads.com

The other book I read for BBW was The Giver, by Lois Lowry.  I can't believe I had never read it before!  Well, it was published in 1993, which was a part of my "reading isn't cool" phase.  So that makes sense.  


The Giver is a story about a boy, Jonas, who lives in a utopian society.  Let me add a little note - I think this story is more about a negative utopia than a dystopia, because with dystopias, the community is bad.  I mean really bad.  With this story, the community is overwhelmingly good, but it has bad elements, therefore a negative utopia.  Anyway, Jonas's community is very structured.  People apply for spouses, and once given one, can apply for a child after a few years.  Only two children per couple - one male and one female.  The children are lumped into groups by their age, or rather by their year of birth.  Each year they have a ceremony, where the children become a year older, and are given new responsibilities, like volunteer hours.  Jonas is an Eleven, and is about to be Assigned to a job during the ceremony when he becomes a Twelve.  But Jonas's Assignment is totally different than any of the others.  


I don't want to get into too much detail here, because I'm not a fan of spoilers.  But there are some interesting things going on in this story, and in Jonas's community.  Some really great things and some really awful things.  So I can kind of see why someone would want to ban this book.  Don't get me wrong - I think banning books is wrong, and I think you should decide for yourself and for your own kids what you should or shouldn't read.  But this book speaks about some things that I don't even know how I feel about.  I mean, I know how I feel about some of it, but other things I'm a bit undecided.  So I can see how someone might think this is unsuited to the age group.  Unlike with And Tango Makes Three, the American Library Association didn't have a list of reasons why The Giver was challenged.  But I'm assuming that "unsuited to age group" was one of them.  (I know what a couple of the other reasons probably were, but I won't discuss them because they'll be spoilery.)


However, let me just say that I think that books like this help to get children thinking about certain issues.  I think that as long as they think critically about them - and that the teachers who might include these kinds of books in their curriculum try to touch on all sides of the issues, rather than just touting their own beliefs, or the beliefs that are included in the book - that kids will get a lot out of them.

Overall, I really enjoyed The Giver.  I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads.  I love dystopias/negative utopias/speculative fiction.  So the story had me right at the beginning.  I'm unsure of the ending, and I know there were lots of symbols in the story, but I'd have to go back and read it again to really understand all of them.  The only (kind of) bad thing about reading this book - I had "My Name is Jonas" by Weezer in my head for a couple of days.  Not a bad song to have in your head, but still.  (And now you guys have it in your heads, too.  Ha!) But I loved the story and I think that I'll definitely want my son to read it when he gets to be a teenager (or earlier, depending on his maturity level).

Banned Books Week: And Tango Makes Three

I finished my two books for Banned Books Week earlier than I thought, so now I'll have more than one post in a day.  It's an Autumn miracle!


I read And Tango Makes Three and The Giver for Banned Books Week.  I'll start with And Tango Makes Three, and then I'll do a separate post on The Giver.

Photo courtesy of Goodreads.com

And Tango Makes Three is a children's picture book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, and is illustrated by Henry Cole.  It's a true story about two male penguins who loved each other and together they raised a baby penguin from egg to birth and beyond.  It was published in 2005 and has been on the American Library Association's Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books List for each year beginning with 2006, and every year it has been in the number one slot, except for 2009, when it fell to number two.  The reasons that this book has been challenged have been listed on ALA's website as "unsuited to age group," "sexism," "anti-ethnic," "religious viewpoint," "anti-family," and "homosexuality."  Let's take these one-by-one, shall we?  Oy, this is going to turn into one of my infamous soapbox rants.  


So we'll start off with "unsuited to age group."  I'm not sure what the exact target age is for this book, but it's a children's picture book, so we'll say, um, birth to 8 and be generous?  I mean, kids don't actually read until they're 4 or 5 (unless parents do that Baby Can Read thing, which is a topic for another post, I think), but parents read to them.  And although I don't really read anything other than board books to my two-year-old son (he tears up the pages otherwise), many parents read these books to kids at all early ages, even while they're in the womb.  And by the time kids are 7 or 8 they're on to chapter books, I think.  I'm not sure exactly how this goes.  Give me a few years and I'll see what happens with my own son.  But anyway, it's a book for kids.  And yes, I can see how sexuality is not a subject that you really want to teach your kids until they're older.  But you can teach them about love, right?  Kids are taught about boys and girls liking each other, and thinking the other is cute; all that stuff is taught without a thought at a young age.  All that simply has to be said to teach homosexuality at a young age is that some boys like boys and some girls like girls.  Lots of people talk about the horrors of children learning about homosexuality in schools at a young age, and they always seem to think that this kind of talk has to include information about sex itself.  Sex doesn't come into the teaching of heterosexuality at a young age, so why should it come into the conversation when talking about homosexuality?  Besides, this book says nothing about the reproductive cycle except that the male and female penguin couples had babies of their own and Roy and Silo (the two male penguins) didn't, so their keeper gave them an egg to care for when it couldn't be cared for by its own parents.  I don't think this book is unsuited for the age group at all.


Next, "sexism."  How in the world is this sexist?  No, really, someone read this book and tell me how it's sexist.  I really don't know how it could be considered sexist.


As for "anti-ethnic," I really don't know what they're going with here.  There were people of all colors illustrated in this book as going to the zoo to see the animals.  I mean, there was only one type of penguin in the book, chinstrap penguins, but surely these people aren't claiming that it was anti-ethnic because there was only one kind of penguin represented?  I really don't know what anti-ethnic means, either.  But I found a funny blog post while looking this up:  And Tango Makes Three: anti-ethnic penguins?  They don't seem to know what it means, either.


"Religious viewpoint" is the next reason that this book has been challenged.  Now, does that mean that the book has an offensive religious viewpoint, or that the person who is challenging the book is saying that it is offensive to their own religious viewpoint?  It has to be the latter, because this book has no mention of religion in it whatsoever.  So I guess this person is basically saying that it has homosexuality in it, which is against their religious viewpoint.  Newsflash, people.  It's a free country.  And freedom of religion is one of the major freedoms in America.  Freedom to be whichever religion you wish, or to have no religion at all.  Your religion does not make the rules of this country.  No religion does.  So therefore, a book that does not go along with your religious viewpoint isn't going to be banned for that reason.  Sorry.


Moving on to "anti-family."  I wrote a whole post on this a year ago, aptly called Soapbox Rant.  Basically I talked about how many politicians talk about "family values" as if their opponents, or people in the other political party (they're Republicans talking about Democrats, mostly) don't have any type of family values.  It's quite ridiculous.  Just because some people don't limit a "family" to a marriage of one man and one woman and their biological children doesn't mean they don't have a sense of what family is, and it definitely doesn't mean that they don't have morals.  And Tango Makes Three is all about family.  It's about a not-so-typical penguin family, but the overwhelming, blatant theme in the book is family.  So this reason for challenging the book does not make sense at all.


And finally, we have "homosexuality."  Yep.  They're homosexual penguins.  So this reason makes sense, but I still think it's wrong.  First of all, banning books is wrong.  Decide for yourself what you want to read to your children.  If you don't like it, don't read it, and don't let your kids read it.  Second of all, the fact that something contains homosexuality does not make it bad.  You disagree with homosexuality?  I think you're going to have to get over it, because it's not going away.

Deep breath, rant over.  And Tango Makes Three is a sweet story about family and love.  The illustrations are cute, and the story itself is warm and fuzzy.  The fact that it is a true story makes it all the more wonderful.  I, for one, think we need more books like this for children, and I will definitely be reading it to my son (once he gets over that whole tearing-book-pages thing).

Book 10/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

Yesterday I was looking at my book shelves and my husband came up to me and asked me what I was doing.  I told him that I was trying to figure out which book I should read next for my "Off the Shelf" Challenge, since I only have 4 months left to finish and I still needed to read 6 more books.  I told him that I wanted it to be kind of small, because I have a lot of other books that I want to read soon.  He randomly grabbed a book from the shelf and held it out.  It was small (120 pages), and it happened to be a book that qualifies for the challenge.

It was Night, by Elie Wiesel.  I grimaced and said, "But that's just depressing."  Handing it to me, my husband said, "Oh, just get it over with."  So I did.  I started it last night and finished it today, which isn't something that happens very often with me.  I have gotten faster with my reading in the past few years, but it still takes me a few days to read even the smallest of books, or even the quickest-paced, most engulfing reads (like Glow). 


For those of you who don't know, Elie Wiesel was a teenager when he, along with his family, was forced into concentration camps during the Holocaust.  Night is his first-hand account of all that he went through during that time.  Not the happiest of stories.  I knew that it was a true story going in, thus the "But that's just depressing" comment above.  But since I read so much fiction, I realized once I was a few pages into this book that I was treating it like it was fiction.  My subconscious was taking in these characters, scenes, and events and making me think that they were part of a fictional tale.  I knew it was a true story, but I flew through it, almost pretending that it wasn't true.  


I'm not sure if I'm articulating this well.  Let me just say that, while this book is not explicitly graphic, there are a lot of horrendous (and I mean horrendous) events mentioned throughout.  Some of which dealt with small children.  Actually, the first horrible event that is told in this story has to do with atrocious things happening to small children.  And my brain just kind of clicked, tricking myself into temporarily pretending that this was all a tale of fiction.  Occasionally something would happen and I would stop and think, "Whoa, that person was actually real.  And he actually did and said that."  But my mind would kind of shake away the thought and go back into novel-mode.


I'm sure my psychologist friends would say this was a kind of coping mechanism or something.  Something to keep me from thinking too hard about such a depressing subject.  I agree.  That's totally what happened.  I couldn't think too deeply about these things that he described, because I would unravel and then I wouldn't have been able to finish this wonderful book.


Now, here, I want to clarify something.  The fact that I couldn't think too hard about the events in this book in no way means that I think that this book was fiction.  I know it was what actually happened to the author.  I know that all of these horrible things (and countless others) actually happened to millions of people.  I think the people who deny the Holocaust or say that it was a hoax have got to be the most ignorant people in the entire world.  And obviously, it goes without saying that Hitler, and the Nazis, were some of the most evil, messed-up people in the entire history of the human race.


I also want to say that, although I am not Jewish and I do not have any direct link to people who were killed or persecuted during the Holocaust, the way I read this book was in no way trying to belittle what happened to them.  I will never know their pain, but I feel for them as strongly as anyone else.  I also do not wish to go against Mr. Wiesel's impetus for writing this book:  so that we don't forget, and so that it never happens again.  The fact that I couldn't think too deeply about the events in this book as I read it does not mean that I will forget what happened, or that I will ever tolerate anything similar.  The Holocaust goes against everything that I stand for as a person.  


And even though I couldn't bring myself to think about the events in the book too deeply, I always knew that it was a true story, and that it was a story that needed to be told, and one that I needed to read.  One that everyone needs to read.

Book 9/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

Book Cover Photo courtesy of illiterarty.com

The ninth book I read for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge was Lullaby, by Chuck Palahniuk.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long, long time.  I saw Fight Club in theaters when it came out in 1999, and soon after, I purchased the book that it was based on.  I loved the movie, and enjoyed the book as well, and so a few years later, when I saw Lullaby on the shelf, I bought it as well.  But I didn't read very much back then, and when I actually tried to read it I just couldn't get into it.


Then a few years later I tried reading it again, but I still couldn't get into it.  I tried reading it just a couple years ago, but I was either pregnant at the time, or had just had my son, and so the fact that there are a lot of babies dying in the book made me put it down again.


So the other day, when I realized I only had 4 1/2 months to read 7 more books for this challenge, I remembered this book was sitting on the shelf.  I had just re-watched Fight Club for a post I wrote over at Reviewsin5.com (Top 5 David Fincher Movies), and I thought, "Yeah, I should finally read that."


So the beginning was hard, because, like I said before, several babies die in the first part of the book.  Now, it's not graphic but it's still hard to read when you're a parent, especially a parent of a young child.  Here's a little background about the book before I go any further:  Carl Streator is a journalist who has been assigned a story about SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), but while investigating, he notices that most of the crime scenes include a book open to the same page.  On the page is an African culling song, a lullaby that was traditionally read to the terminally ill, in hopes that they would die a peaceful death.  So Streator goes hunting for all the books, along with a few other odd-ball characters, trying to destroy them all before the lullaby kills too many people.  The problem is, he's got the lullaby in his head, and is inadvertantly killing people, simply by thinking the words to himself.


So the plot line, I think, is pretty cool.  A lullaby that, said aloud (or even thought), can kill?  And luckily the dead babies only appear at the beginning and at the very end, so once I got in the meat of the book I really enjoyed it. However, a lot of creepy stuff happens here and there, and the end is pretty messed up.  I wish that some of the gross stuff had been left out, because I really don't think the story needed most of it.  Although, I guess it wouldn't be Chuck Palahniuk without it.


Another thing I noticed when reading the book, is that there is a very strong voice throughout.  Palahniuk's phrasing of sentences, his informal style, is such that, if I were to open one of his books without knowing the author, I would realize it was his work right from the beginning.  I mean, that could be a good or a bad thing.  He's got his own style, which sets him apart from others. But unfortunately, it could limit his writing.  If all of his books sound the same, if they have the same voice, then that voice becomes Palahniuk's voice, not the voice of his characters.  Which means that either all his characters end up sounding the same, or the voice sounds weird on certain characters.  Does this make any sense?  It makes sense to me, but it's hard for me to articulate. 


I'm really glad I finally got through this book.  I mean, it's been sitting on my shelf for at least 6 years.  But overall, I have to give this a 3/5, a medium ranking.  While some of the story is great, I really didn't like certain parts.  I would reccomend this book to others, but only to people who have read and loved other books by Chuck Palahniuk.

Pottermore, Glow, Writing, and More...

Wow, how long has it been since I've written a post?  The beginning of June?  Jeez.  Well, we've been pretty busy over at reviewsin5.com, so writing on my own blog which really has no major theme has fallen by the wayside...


So, what has been happening?  Well, if you've been under a rock you've missed the whole awesomeness that is Pottermore!  Basically it's an interactive website that allows Harry Potter fans (like me!) to explore the books and material in a new way.  Highlights:  you get to be sorted into a Hogwarts house and get a wand, both of which J.K. Rowling created the processes herself!  Now I'll finally get to officially see if I'm a Hufflepuff like I think I am...


So Pottermore opens to all in October, but recently there was this thing called The Magical Quill challenge, where fans could solve clues to gain early access to the site.  I was one of the lucky few to gain this early access (as were several of my friends)!  Now we just have to wait until we get our Welcome email that will let us know that we can go ahead and get onto the site.  Man, I try to be a very patient person, but it's proving to be quite hard waiting for that email!


I've also been doing A LOT of reading.  So far this year I've read 45 books!  Granted, 17 of those were Sweet Valley High books, which are only around 150 pages each.  But some of the other books have been pretty hefty!  My original goal was to read 35 books this year, and I reached that number in May!  Woohoo!  Unfortunately, my other reading goal was to complete the 2011 Off the Shelf Challenge by reading 15 books that have been sitting on my shelf for a while, waiting to be read.  So far I've only read 8 for that challenge.  But I still have 4 1/2 months to reach that goal!

Photo copyright St. Martin's Press

I'm super excited about one of the books I read recently.  It's called Glow, by Amy Kathleen Ryan.  I received an ARC through a giveaway on Goodreads, and the book will be released in late September.  Glow is a young adult novel set in the future, where two spaceships are on course to "New Earth," where they hope to preserve the human race.  The story revolves around two teenagers, Waverly and Kieran, who are poised to be the next leaders of their ship, the Empyrean.  But when the inhabitants of their sister ship, the New Horizon, invade the Empyrean and kidnap some of the children, the ships' course changes and an impending battle thrusts Waverly and Kieran into those leadership roles earlier than they expected.


Here's my review from Goodreads:  

WOW! I LOVED this book! There is so much action and suspense throughout the whole novel that it was really hard for me to put it down, so I only stopped reading when I absolutely had to!  

The characters are very complex; just when you think you have a character figured out, Amy Kathleen Ryan throws a wrench in your theory. I really found myself liking a lot of the characters, and even having sympathy for the antagonists.  

There are a lot of themes going on in this book, the obvious ones being one's duty to their community, and morality vs. faith or lack thereof. The religion aspect gets a bit heavy near the end of the book, but I think Ryan did a good job with showing the advantages and disadvantages of both organized religion and atheism/agnosticism.  

The only problem I really had with the book is that it's not even published yet, and the ending is left wide open for sequels, which means fans will most likely have a LONG time to wait for the second book in the series.  

I highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys YA books, especially those who also love Science Fiction!


Also, I just (finally!) started editing my 2010 NaNoWriMo novel.  I'm really excited about this book and I hope to have this 2nd draft ready for beta readers within the next few months.  But I really have no idea how long it will take me to get this draft done...


Other than that I've been taking care of my nearly two-year-old son and working hard on Reviews in 5.  The site has been live for about 4 1/2 months now, and so far it's going great!  Please visit the site and be sure to "like" us on Facebook!  


That's all for now.  Hopefully my next post won't be two months from now!

Book 7/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

The seventh book I read for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge was The Time Machine by H.G. Wells.  


I don't really have much to say about this book, other than I enjoyed it, and I wanted to watch the movie version with Guy Pearce as soon as I finished it, but it isn't available to view instantly on Netflix, so I'll have to wait a while.


I really enjoy Science Fiction novels and movies (or are they called SF now?), and although I don't know the history of novels focusing on time travel, I would have to say that this must be one of the most influential, if not one of the first of its kind.  It's a simple story, and I was kind of left wanting more - wanting the narrator to join the Time Traveller on a trip to some other point in time, just so that I could read about it.  I think that's why I enjoy Doctor Who - The Doctor and his companions are always going to a different time, to a different place, with each one being more wondrous than the one before.


Overall, I enjoyed the book and, in reading it, realized just how much I want to read more about time travel.

Book 6/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

Book cover courtesy of reader2.com

The next book I chose to read for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge was The Notebook, by Nicholas Sparks.


Let me just start by saying that for me, liking a book like this is a bit weird.  Yes, I am a bit of a hippie and I believe in things like love and equality and such.  Yes, I am madly in love with my husband, and I believe him to be my soul mate.  But, other than that, books like this - cheesy romance novels, I guess you could say - I normally don't want to read.  Don't get me wrong - I love a good love story, and I think that most stories have to have some type of love included, whether it be romantic love, friendship love, love between parents and children, whatever.  But most of the time I cringe when I see something too sappy.


Oh, who am I kidding?  I loved this movie, and I really liked the book.  It wasn't the best writing in the world, and while the author tries to give you a bit of mystery, you know what's going to happen in the end, who she's going to end up with.  I've only read one other Nicholas Sparks book - The Last Song - which was a book club pick, and I really didn't like that book at all.  But I don't know what it is exactly with this story (The Notebook) that makes my heart feel like it's going to burst and makes me worry that I'll start crying and never stop.  I think, though, when I first watched the movie, it was simply the love story that did it to me, and the pain of watching your love slip away with Alzheimer's.  But this time around, as I read it, I think I also had strong emotions towards the details about them watching their children grow, which makes sense because now I am a mother myself.


Anyway, you might call me a hopeless romantic or whatever, but I'll always love this movie and I really liked the book as well.

Book 5/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

Book cover courtesy of illiterarty.com

For my 5th selection for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge, I read The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  This was another book that I should have read in high school, but I don't think I ever finished.  Looking back, I'm really not sure how I passed some of the tests I took in school.  I must have skimmed over it and found out the major details, or maybe used Cliffs Notes.


So, reading this book now, it took me a while to get into it.  But I think that was partly because of the writing style, and partly because the book just didn't get interesting until about two-thirds of the way in.  Therefore I ended up liking the book more than I thought I was going to, but I think I really only enjoyed the last third of the book.


I'm interested in seeing the film now, especially since a new adaptation is set to come out in 2012, and is starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, Tobey Maguire, and possibly Ben Affleck.  Overall, though, I think I still have to give this book a medium rating, like a 3 out of 5, because, even though it's considered a major classic, it doesn't rank up there with my favorites.

Book 4/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

For the fourth book of the "Off the Shelf" Challenge, I chose to continue to read the books in the Hitchhiker's Guide series, by Douglas Adams.


Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the series, and unfortunately it didn't, to me, live up to the first two installments.  There were parts that made me laugh, parts that made me nod at Mr. Adams's genius, but there were way too many parts that made me look up from the book and shake my head and say, "What did I just read?  Why is this not making any sense?"  Of course, that might be what a lot of people think while reading any of the Hitchhiker's Guide books.  The fact is that Mr. Adams continually goes off on tangents that you presume are random, but in fact, they come back later on in the book, and if you simply glossed over those tangents earlier, you won't get the humor in their later appearances.  But for some reason this book seemed to drag on a bit more than the first two and didn't seem to have quite as interesting of a plot.


All that being said, I must also mention that the reason that I might not have enjoyed this book as much as the first two could perhaps be because of the oodles of books on my shelf that I am dying to read right now.  Those books will have to wait a bit longer, though, because I just got a copy of my friend's book and I'm itching to read it and become a real-life Beta Reader.  ;)


But overall, I love Douglas Adams and his humor, and I envy his creativity.  This book, while good, just wasn't as good as the first two.

Book 3/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

I went through a phase, as I've said before, where I didn't do a lot of reading.  This meant that many of the books that most people read in high school went untouched or unfinished on my shelf.  One such book was the third book I chose to read for the "Off the Shelf" Challenge:  To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee.  


When I started this reading challenge, I knew there were several books that I simply could not ignore on my shelf any longer.  This was one of them.  I was supposed to read it in high school or junior high, but I never finished it.  So when I sat down to read it recently I had a few ideas about it in my head.  I knew the main plot of the story.  I remembered a few of the characters' names.  And I knew that it was one of those books that you're "supposed" to love.  And if not love, at least like a lot.  It's a classic.


But I wasn't sure if I was going to enjoy it.  And for the first 15 or so pages, I was sure that I had stopped reading it as a teenager for a reason.  But I stuck with it, and lo and behold, I ended up really liking it.  I am a strong supporter for equal rights for all humans, no matter their race, religion, sexual orientation, or nationality.  So this book was right up my alley.

But regardless of the moral of the story, there were other things that simply appealed to me.  I loved the court-room scenes.  One of my favorite movies is 12 Angry Men, with Henry Fonda.  If you love mysteries, whodunits, court-room dramas, etc., check out this movie.  It, too, is a classic.  So when Atticus Finch was in the court, questioning witnesses, it made me excited to figure out what actually happened between Tom Robinson and Mayella Ewell.


Then the ending happened.  Or snuck up on me with a vengeance, is more like it.  Now, I know most people out there have read this book but for those who haven't, I won't talk about it.  I don't want to spoil it.  But let me just say, I didn't see that coming.  And then, in the final pages of the novel, I have to say that there was closure.  And with all the series that I've been reading lately, it's refreshing to read a stand-alone book with nice closure.

Book 2/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

For the second book in my "Off the Shelf" Challenge, I read the second book in the Hitchhiker's Guide series:  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams.


At first I was thinking that I wouldn't like this story as much as the first in the series, but as the book went on I began to enjoy it more and more.  The first book was just so clever, and this one also proved to highlight the incredible creative mind of Douglas Adams.


I'd rather not include any spoilers, so my review will be brief.  I'll make a list, shall I?

• I loved the bit about the existential elevators who "became terribly frustrated with the mindless business of going up and down, up and down, experimented briefly with the notion of going sideways, as a sort of existential protest, demanded participation in the decision-making process and finally took to squatting in basements sulking."  
• The part about the ship which was delayed from departing for nine hundred years seemed Twilight Zone-esque (which is a good thing in my opinion).
• The part about the man who ruled the Universe kind of made my head hurt, simply because of the way it was written, and the way he spoke to himself.
• The place where Arthur and Ford end up is quite a nice twist and an interesting take on history.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book, at least as much as the first.  It was laugh-out-loud funny and continued to highlight the wonderful creativity of Douglas Adams.  I'm excited to read the next book in the series.

Book 1/15, "Off the Shelf" Challenge

The first book I read for my "Off the Shelf" Challenge was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams.


I remember, in high school, one of my friends held up a book and said, "You need to read this."  I wasn't a huge reader in high school.  I read tons and tons and tons in elementary school, but when I moved at the age of 11, all I cared about was being cool, being popular.  And apparently, reading was not cool.  (Of course, now I think it's one of the coolest things in life!)  So a lot of books that my friends read in high school, I read in my late twenties, or I haven't read them yet at all.  I'm trying to make up for this, and this reading challenge will help a lot.


So in high school, my friend held that book up and told me I needed to read it.  I automatically wasn't really interested, because although at that point I was quite beyond being popular, I still wasn't back in the reading saddle.  But I glanced at the book, and most likely nodded and made some type of committment to read it.  But the only word I really caught from the title was "Hitchhiker's."  My 17-year-old brain thought, "Ugh, is this a story about bearded old men and their travels along the U.S. highways?"  I was not interested.


Fast forward about ten years, and somehow I saw the film adaptation.  I don't remember when I saw it, or with whom, but I saw it, and I loved it!  This was what my friend had told me about all those years ago.  She hadn't been crazy!  She had actually known me really well!  Ever since then I knew I had to read the books.  I bought them last year, but they've been sitting on my shelf while I read books for book club and other books.  But they've been sitting there, kind of taunting me, saying, "Don't Panic.  We'll be here when you're ready."  And then I decided to take the "Off the Shelf" challenge and they were the first on my list of must-reads!


All I have to say is, Kelli, I wish I had listened to you back then.  Oh the things I have missed! I have only read the first story, but I plan on reading the others for this challenge as well.  As far as the story goes, I laughed out loud through so much of this book, and I think anyone who says that this is not an amazing idea is crazy.  I mean, people who manufacture planets?  Come on!  What writer out there wouldn't kill for an idea like that?


So, 1 book down for my "Off the Shelf" Challenge, 14 to go!