Book Review: This Star Won't Go Out

By: Easter Earl
Pages: 431
Release Date: January 28, 2014
Goodreads | Amazon

Summary: A collection of the journals, fiction, letters, and sketches of the late Esther Grace Earl, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 16. Photographs and essays by family and friends will help to tell Esther’s story along with an introduction by award-winning author John Green who dedicated his #1 bestselling novel The Fault in Our Stars to her.

Rating: 5

Review: This book was so inspiring, honest, hopeful,happy  and funny.

This was the first biography/ non-fiction books I've read in a while and it is definitely worth the read. Ester Earl was an inspiring girl that always found a way to be happy and smile even during the toughest times of having caner. It is truly a book of love and growing up. The book is filled with notes from people that knew Ester and loved her. There is a touching introduction by John Green and he knew Ester and created Ester Day for her as a day to express love for others. Not the romantic type of love but the love for your family members and friends because too often people forget to say they love those people.

Ester mentions multiple times where she wishes she could do more and help more people and leave her mark on the world. She was able to. Though John Green and now this book she has become an inspiration for so many people. Ester shows us how it is possible to live a meaningful life even if it is short. We can do so much even when we're young.

For this first page it just draws you in and you learn t care about Ester so much, even though you don't know her. It is such an honest story because everything either written by someone that knew Ester or by Ester herself. There are journal entries from Ester. I don't think she ever expected others to read them but she is so honest in them and we learn so much about her. It was so nice to read something so honest and simple. She was funny and quirky and real. She was so real about everything she didn't sugar coat it she just excepted things for what they were and tried to make the most of it.

It is definitely worth reading and you will learn so much about love, hope and life.

Favourite Quotes

"I do hope that when the day comes, whether in 1, 10, or 100 years, I don’t want you to think of me and feel sad."

"Isn’t it sad that so often it takes facing death to appreciate life and each other fully?"

“And I realize now that that was . . . that’s the best way to love someone. Hold them close, know that you’re loved, let it wash over you”

DFTBA
-Janussa

Books Review: Prophecy

By: Ellen Oh
Pages: 312
Release Date: January 2,2013

Summary: The greatest warrior in all of the Seven Kingdoms... is a girl with yellow eyes.

Kira’s the only female in the king’s army, and the prince’s bodyguard. She’s a demon slayer and an outcast, hated by nearly everyone in her home city of Hansong. And, she’s their only hope... 

Murdered kings and discovered traitors point to a demon invasion, sending Kira on the run with the young prince. He may be the savior predicted in the Dragon King Prophecy, but the missing treasure of myth may be the true key. With only the guidance of the cryptic prophecy, Kira must battle demon soldiers, evil shaman, and the Demon Lord himself to find what was once lost and raise a prince into a king.

Intrigue and mystery, ancient lore and action-packed fantasy come together in this heart-stopping first book in a trilogy.

Rating: 3.5

Review: This was a really refreshing read. It was different and unique.

Kira is feared by everyone and it's about her finding a way to be normal while still being a dragon slayer. To me it was refreshing because huzzah there was no love story. I think there's now this expectation that every YA or any book needs to have some sort of love story but it doesn't. What's wrong with a women wanting to do things by herself and not wanting to get married. This is the case for Kira, her mother and the queen wishes her to be married as all lady's should but she really doesn't want to marry. Girl power!

Well that's not what the majority of the story is about but that made me happy. Kira is the protector of the prince and therefore she must protect the city and the king and queen as well. There is a ton of action and people aren't as nice as they first seem.

It is beautifully written and the characters are all very different and interesting. I loved how everything played out it keeps you on your toes wanting to know what will happen.

I had a hard time following parts of the book because it was in third person. I'm very used to books written in the first person and it was hard to follow conversation because sometimes it just says what they were talking about without the person's exact words in quotation marks. other than having a hard time following parts of it I loved everything about this book.

The fighting scenes were well written. They were fast and exciting. I always loved reading them.

I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy and wants a book without a love story.

DFTBA
-Janussa

Book Review: The Great Gatsby

By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Pages: 180
Release Date: January 1. 1925

Summary: In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem

Rating: 4

Review: This story is not a story where you love the characters or where it's happy and good. It is so much more than that. F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a picturesque scene of the 1920's Jazz age.

This book is filled with symbolism. Everything that happens in the books means something. The places, the people, and even the weather. You can notice so much if you pay close attention and the themes are generally reoccurring.

I read this book for school last year and I had to reread it this year and it was even better the second time. It's not a book to read about good examples because you learn more of what you shouldn't do, but it's about Nick Caraway finding his way in the world.

Nick goes to New York to get a job in the bond business. He meets many people but he also befriends the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As the novel goes on it seems to be mostly about Gatsby attaining his dream of having Daisy again. It is a coming-of-age story for Nick. He turns thirty in the book, and that is the promise of a new decade when his life should be mostly figured out. He is surrounded by the chaos of the 20's, the circus of everyone's life but he doesn't want to be part of an act. He wants to stay away from all the moral decay of the people in New York. Through the book his has a change in character at first he loved New York. It was the city where anything could happen and he enjoyed it.

I loved this book and it raises so many questions: about morals, life, friends, and trust. It is beautifully written and the setting of the 1920's is amazing everything was bigger, better, and crazier. I would love to just be a standby person in the story and feel all the excitement and see what it was like.

I would definitely recommend it and if you have the opportunity to read it for school you should really read it because it is completely worth it

Favourite Quotes:

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

“I hope she'll be a fool -- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

“The loneliest moment in someone’s life is when they are watching their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly.”

“I wasn't actually in love, but I felt a sort of tender curiosity.”

“There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.”

“You see I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.”

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.”

DFTBA and have a great weeekend!
-Janussa

Poetry Corner #25

I'm really sorry I wasn't able to post this week I've just been really busy with school and I've barely been able to fit reading in. I just transferred schools this year and at my new school they have a fantastic library so I will have even more to read now!

I will have more book reviews up starting tomorrow and I hope to be able to read toms this weekend!

The Soul Selects her ow society
by: Emily Dickinson

The Soul selects her own Society —
Then — shuts the Door —
To her divine Majority —
Present no more —

Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing —
At her low Gate —
Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat —

I've known her — from an ample nation —
Choose One —
Then — close the Valves of her attention —
Like Stone — 

I love Emily Dickinson and maybe I post her poems to often oh well they're worth it.

DFTBA
-Janussa

Poetry Corner #24

Be Kind
     By: Charles Bukowski

we are always asked
to understand the other person's
viewpoint
no matter how
out-dated
foolish or obnoxious.

one is asked
to view
their total error
their life-waste
with
kindliness,
especially if they are
aged.

but age is the total of
our doing.
they have aged
badly
because they have
lived
out of focus,
they have refused
to see.

not their fault?

whose fault?
mine?

I am asked to hide
my viewpoint
from them
for fear of their
fear.

age is no crime

but the shame
of a deliberately
wasted
life

among so many
deliberately
wasted
lives
 is. 

I'm happy that I'vestarted blogging again it makes me happy and gives me something to do!

DFTBA
-Janussa

Monthy Roundup & Looking Forward to Febuary

 

Perfect Lies (Mind Games #2) ---Kiersten White

Ignite Me (Shatter Me #3) --- Tahereh Mafi

I can't think of very many books that come out in February so I'll do some of the book I want that came out in January.

     

Her Dark Curiosity (The Madman's Daughter #2) ---Megan Sheperd

This Star Won't Go Out: The Life and Words of Easter Grace Earl --- Easter Earl

Into the Still Blue ( Under The Never Sky #3) ---Veronica Rossi

There are so many new amazing books!

Also, if you haven't heard of tThis Star won't go out you should click on the link. It's a about Easter Earl a girl who died at the age of sixteen in 2010 from Leukemia. There is a forward by John Green and it is an inspiring story.

I linked the books to goodreads so just click on the titales and you can read summaries of the books.

So they released a TFiOS teaser Trailor!

DRUMROLL
A TFiOS MOVIE TRAILER

I think the trailer is perfect and I'm super excited for the movie! What  do you think?

Well January went fast!
Favourite book from January was probably Between Shades of Gray.

Right now in school we're choosing our classes for next year. Next year will probably be really hard but I'll get though it somehow.

DFTBA

-Janussa

Book Review: Nantucket Blue

By: Leila Howland
Pages: 294
Release Date: May 7, 2013

For Cricket Thompson, a summer like this one will change everything. A summer spent on Nantucket with her best friend, Jules Clayton, and the indomitable Clayton family. A summer when she’ll make the almost unattainable Jay Logan hers. A summer to surpass all dreams.

 Some of this turns out to be true. Some of it doesn’t.

When Jules and her family suffer a devastating tragedy that forces the girls apart, Jules becomes a stranger whom Cricket wonders whether she ever really knew. And instead of lying on the beach working on her caramel-colored tan, Cricket is making beds and cleaning bathrooms to support herself in paradise for the summer.

But it’s the things Cricket hadn’t counted on--most of all, falling hard for someone who should be completely off-limits--that turn her dreams into an exhilarating, bittersweet reality.

A beautiful future is within her grasp, and Cricket must find the grace to embrace it. If she does, her life could be the perfect shade of Nantucket blue.

Rating: 2

Review: This was a cute summery story about Cricket  Thomson. Cricket goes to Nantucket in the hopes of having an unforgettable summer. Her summer was unforgettable but nothing like she expected. She expected to spend it with her best friend, Jules, in Nantucket. She expected to be the girlfriend of Jay Logan. She expected everything to go perfectly. This is all before Jules calls to tell Cricket that Cricket can't come to Nantucket with her. She goes to Nantucket anyway, finds a job so she can stay and hopes to surprise Jules and still have a great summer. Within the first week of being there Jules acts completely different and admits some terrible things and Jay starts ignoring Cricket. And that's only they beginning.

It's an interesting story of Cricket finding her way and trying to survive in Nantucket but not everything can be paradise.

This is a total summer read even though I read it in January it

It was a simple, cute story. I enjoyed most of it but it lacked something that made it different from all the summer, beachy love-stories. Why must the majority of love stories take place in the summer? I've read some really good summer love stories but this didn't stand out as much. It was a cute love story but that's it just a cute love story. It lacked life and flare to make it special.

I was disappointed this book could have been better. I know other people who read this book will disagree with me but just was not something extraordinary, it was just average. When looking for favourite series average and normal will not do I need something special, different, unique.

It's a cute story but  don't feel like I learned anything or that I'm better off now that I've read this book. I'm sure this book is great for someone but it just wasn't for me.

DFTBA
-Janussa