Book Review: Delirium

By: Lauren Oliver
Pages: 441
Published: February 1, 2011

They say that the cure for Love will make me happy and safe forever.

And I've always believed them. 

Until now. 

Now everything has changed. 

Now, I'd rather be infected with love for the tiniest sliver of a second than live a hundred years smothered by a lie. 

Lena looks forward to receiving the government-mandated cure that prevents the delirium of love and leads to a safe, predictable, and happy life, until ninety-five days before her eighteenth birthday and her treatment, when she falls in love.

Rating: 5

Review: I love this book. This is my third time reading this book. I am re-reading it now because Pandemonium the final book in this series comes out March 5, 2013 so I am dying. Plus I have no review for this book and I have have to review one of my favourite books.

Love is illegal when you turn eighteen you have the procedure and you no longer love. You you are paired with a husband. I loved Lena. She was afraid of doing anything wrong she didn't want to brake laws, if I grew up the way she did being told love was illegal and that you have to protect yourself from it, I would probably be like her. I wouldn't want to brake laws or do anything wrong. Slowly Lena learns that maybe the way she grew up wasn't right, maybe just maybe love won't always "kill you when you have it, and when you don't"

I love the world that Lauren Oliver created. Ok let me re-phrase this I think it is very creative and unique. I would not want to live in a world without love. I think Lauren Oliver is a fantastic writer. It is descriptive and interesting, I love it.

Well then you have the cliff-hanger. Having read this book three times and having read Pandemonium the cliff-hanger is not that bad since I know what happens. If you don't know what happens after the cliff-hanger, well then it is a horrible cliff-hanger, I died while I was waiting for Pandemonium to come out.

Favourite Quotes:

“You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".” 

“I'd rather die my way than live yours.” 

“I guess that’s just part of loving people: You have to give things up. Sometimes you even have to give them up.” 

“Love: It will kill you and save you, both” 

“It's so strange how life works: You want something and you wait and wait and feel like it's taking forever to come. Then it happens and it's over and all you want to do is curl back up in that moment before things changed.” 

“Love: a single word, a wispy thing, a word no bigger or longer than an edge. That's what it is: an edge; a razor. It draws up through the center of your life, cutting everything in two. Before and after. The rest of the world falls away on either side.” 

“Hate isn't the most dangerous thing, he’d said. Indifference is.”

DFTBA
-Jane

Favourite Female Characters in Books

So this is my super fun random post about my favourite female character's.

1) Hermione Granger from Harry Potter
 Let's see she bright, brave, and a witch. Anyone who's read the Harry Potter series or even seen the movies will realize how incredible she is. Without her Harry and Ron would have failed miserable and died. It goes to show what being smart can do.

2) Luna Lovegood from Harry Potter
Yes I have two favourite female characters from Harry Potter, it's just such an incredible series. Luna is my favourite character from Harry Potter. She never cares what others think of her. She's not afraid to be herself and I feel like she is a great example. She is also bright, and from Ravenclaw.

3) Lena Haloway from Delirium
I love her. At first she always follows the rules and she believes everything she was always told. I understand her always believing what the government says, it was how she was raised. If I was her I would probably be the same way. She becomes really strong in Pandemonium and I love her.

Well these are three of my favourite female characters, post in comments who are yours?

DFTBA
-Jane

Book Review: The Trouble With Flirting

By: Claire LaZebnik
Pages: 288
Release Date: February 26, 2013

Summary: Franny's supposed to be working this summer, not flirting. But you can't blame her when guys like Alex and Harry are around. . . . 

 Franny Pearson never dreamed she'd be attending the prestigious Mansfield Summer Theater Program. And she's not, exactly. She's working for her aunt, the resident costume designer. But sewing her fingers to the bone does give her an opportunity to spend time with her crush, Alex Braverman. If only he were as taken with the girl hemming his trousers as he is with his new leading lady. 

 When Harry Cartwright, a notorious flirt, shows more than a friendly interest in Franny, she figures it can't hurt to have a little fun. But as their breezy romance grows more complicated, can Franny keep pretending that Harry is just a carefree fling? And why is Alex suddenly giving her those deep, meaningful looks? In this charming tale of mixed messages and romantic near-misses, one thing is clear: Flirting might be more trouble than Franny ever expected.

* I won an ARC of this from storycrush.com*

Rating: 4

Review: This is exactly what I needed. It was cute, fun and standalone. After reading a bunch of books in series it becomes a pain, you either have to wait for the next book to come out or you have to go and buy the other books. I love books that make you think deeply (thank you John Green who wrote the last three books I read that did make me think) but I also love to just read a book for the sake of it being cute. This book was delightful.

I really enjoyed the characters. I liked Franny generally she was nice and sweet, and she was normal. Being normal is good, she isn't insanely rich or cool, because well for a girl to be like that is a bit  unrealistic. She seemed real. This is a minor problem but I didn't like the name Franny. I don't know, I just didn't really like it as a name, but I liked her character so it's ok. 

Then you have the two guys Alex and Harry. I liked Alex more than Harry for most of the book. I didn't like Harry as much at first but he grew on me. Alex was so sweet and nice. Harry is the type of guy that flirts with all the girls and gets a ton of attention. I didn't like that about him but by the end he seemed I don't know, a bit different. 

It was a fun quick read and I really liked it. If you want something cute, I would recommend this. Plus you can decide for yourself who you like more Alex or Harry.


DFTBA
-Jane

P.S. did anyone notice the box around the summary, I just learned how to do it from a post by the amazing Ruby at Feed Me Books Now

Poetry Corner #14

It's the weekend! It's the weekend! I am oh-so excited and glad that I get a break from school. (Even if it is only two days long)

The Road Not Taken
     By: Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 


DFTBA
-Jane

Book Review: Paper Towns

By: John Green
Pages: 305
Published: October 16, 2008

Summary: Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life—dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge—he follows.

After their all-nighter ends and a new day breaks, Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But Q soon learns that there are clues—and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees of the girl he thought he knew.

Rating: 4

Review: This book is funny and clever. I really enjoyed this book. Maybe it was just me but I thought this book was different from John  Green's other books. Yes it was thought-provoking and clever and funny and interesting, but something seemed different. I just can't put my finger on what it was exactly. This book was a really likeable read. 

So the main character Quentin is a normal high school guy in his senior year. One night Margo Roth Spiegelman, the girl who lives next door, together they spend the night doing, well I can't spoil the book for you. In the beginning,  I liked Margo but I didn't love her. She grew on me as the book went on. She was a very mysterious character. 

The book was thought-provoking but it also had a mystery too it. I loved the three parts of the book, they all had meaning behind them. I also loved all the quotes from Walt Whitman I already knew some his poetry so it was really interesting has they tied into the book. It was really a great read. I would definitely recommend it.

P.S. Sorry this review is so short.

Favourite Quotes: “What a treacherous thing to believe that a person is more than a person.”

“That's always seemed so ridiculous to me, that people want to be around someone because they're pretty. It's like picking your breakfeast cereals based on color instead of taste.”

“I'm not saying that everything is survivable. Just that everything except the last thing is.”

“The town was paper, but the memories were not.”

“If you don't imagine, nothing ever happens at all.”

“Maybe all the strings inside him broke.” 


DFTBA
-Jane

Book Review: An Abundance of Katherines

By: John Green
Pages: 228
Published: September 1, 2006

Summary: When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type is girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washedup child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun–but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl.

Rating: 5

Review: I just so happened that I was reading this book over Valentine's Day. You would think you'd want to read a cute love story over Valentines Day but no I was reading this. It was amazing. So Imagine this:

A "washed up child prodigy" that only dates girls named Katherines, knows eleven languages, and was recently dumped by the 19th Katherine. This most-likely not your life but it is Colin Singleton's life. 

This book is amazing. There is so much John Green-ness (yes it is word) in this book. It makes you think but it was also really funny. There is also a fair amount of math in here, not that you actual have to know math to understand the book. I enjoyed the math and the random equations and graphs that pop up in this book while Colin is working on The Underlying Theorem of Katherine predictability. 

I actually really liked Colin. Yes he is a general pessimist. And yes he finds random things interesting. And yes he only dates girls named Katherine. And yes he has been dumped nineteen times all by girls by Katherine. I think it would be really interesting to have a conversation with him.

There were also footnotes and I loved the footnotes. You end up learning a lot of random fun facts.

I would definitely recommend this book, it was really fun.

Favourite Quotes: “Books are the ultimate Dumpees: put them down and they’ll wait for you forever; pay attention to them and they always love you back.”

“What is the point of being alive if you don't at least try to do something remarkable?”

“You don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened.”

“I figured something out. The future is unpredictable.” 

“Here's to all the places we went. And all the places we'll go. And here's to me, whispering again and again and again and again: iloveyou” 

“There's some people in this world who you can just love and love and love no matter what.”

“That's who you really like. The people you can think out loud in front of.” 

“What matters to you defines your mattering.”

“Because you're only thinking they-might-not-like-me-they-might-not-like-me, and guess what? When you act like that, no one likes you.”

“If people could see me the way I see myself - if they could live in my memories - would anyone love me?” 

“How do you just stop being terrified of getting left behind and ending up by yourself forever and not meaning anything to the world?” 

“He liked the mere act of reading, the magic of turning scratches on a page into words inside his head.” 

Ok that's a lot of quotes, well I hope you liked them!


DFTBA
-Jane

Book Review: Looking for Alaska

By: John Green
Pages: 231
Published: January 1, 2005

Summary: Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same.
Rating: 4

Review: So the books starts out where Miles (Pudge) is search of the "Great Perhaps". He wants to find it now not at the end of his life. I loved how the last quotes tied into the book. I enjoyed how this book had the before and after. I immensely enjoyed the after part more.The before part was good but it was just more everyday life. The after part was more of a mystery.

For the characters: I didn't like Alaska in the beginning, she annoyed me. Once I learned more about her I liked her more towards towards the end of the book. All the characters were so messed up in the beginning of the book and since I couldn't relate it was hard  like them. I didn't understand Alaska most of all. I realized you don't need to understand Alaska ... It's just who she is. Alaska said "I may die young, but at least all die smart." That's how the characters live there lives, they do crazy things but yeah at least they'll die smart.

My favourite part of this book was that it made you think and as a nerd, I have this weird love for having discussions about books that make you think. I loved that this book inspired questions. One question constantly comes up in the book over and over.

"How will I ever get out of this labyrinth of suffering?"

 I would definitely recommend it.

Favourite Quotes: “When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail.”

“Thomas Edison's last words were 'It's very beautiful over there'. I don't know where there is, but I believe it's somewhere, and I hope it's beautiful.”

"I was drizzle and she was a hurricane.”

“When I look at my room, I see a girl who loves books.” 

“Francois Rabelais. He was a poet. And his last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps." That's why I'm going. So I don't have to wait until I die to start seeking a Great Perhaps.” 

There are a lot of great quotes in this book.


DFTBA
-Jane