I’ve always liked nonfiction and autobiographies and personal accounts and diaries have always been my favorites. And when I saw that Go Ask Alice was written by an unknown author, I wanted to read it even more.
When I started reading, I started thinking about Ellen Hopkins’ Crank. I felt like I was reading it again, but GAA, of course, felt real and like something I could hold on to. The language is something that I can really see a 15 year-old girl writing. But it was still able to surprise me and keep me engrossed in the story.
I find it really hard to talk about the book because it does have a lot of shock factor that can’t really be analyzed. It’s just unexpected and there’s so much in the story that we don’t know. You would hope that things would start to look up, but a month of her diary is missing and we don’t know how she ended up where she is. It’s almost like we’re the ones on drugs, blacking out, and waking up in an unknown place. There’s so much that we don’t know and we keep reading hoping to find out.
We’re left hoping for a better ending or even some type of closure, but we hit another wall and left wondering what happened. And why?
8.7 of 10
A little over a year ago at Heroes Con, I met Evan Dahm. I didn’t expect to really meet any artist, I was more into finding weird comics and wandering around, but on one of the ads tables, I saw a sheet of paper with a green guy holding a lantern. I thought it was interesting so I just held on to it. But about thirty minutes before I left, I walked passed a table with the same sheets and similar work. The guy, Dahm, handed me a sticker and said if I found the time, look at his website. But of course, I got suckered into looking at his comics and I was pleasantly surprised and I bought his book. A few days ago, the last pages of Order of Tales were put on his website, and I was very pleased.
I started reading Order of Tales the same day I bought his book and quickly realized that it was well drawn, well written, and loaded with tons and tons of great fantasy. It follows the basic fantasy formula of good vs. evil, small town type hero, some type of love interest, but he has draw it so well that it feels new again. I’m so used to reading Lord of the Rings and The Wheel of Time that it’s easy to get bored with them, but seeing it draw in a simple black and white format and seeing so many unique looking characters brings back the same feelings of excitement and glee I had when I first read LotR and WoT.
Dahm has built a new fantasy world that we get to explore more in his “Overside” stories, and continues to bring characters from his previous work, Rice Boy, back to develop them even more. He’s developing a history for a world and making it better and better.
Order of Tales ended well and looked great. I still have so many questions about some of the people and what happened and some of the places and just everything that I want to keep reading his work and I can’t wait to see more of his world and it’s development.
9.4 of 10
Adolescent Lit. is making me read a lot of books that I didn’t think I would read. I’ve seen bits and pieces of the film version, but I wasn’t really into.
But what I can remember from the movie, the novel was very different. The basic plot was pretty much the same, but everything else is vastly different.
While the movie really explores the world and the characters that live there, the book goes more into language. Like in most fairy tales, there are of course different species of creatures and animals and they all have their unique languages, but when parts of the dialogue is written in that language without a translation, I can’t understand what’s going on. A character does eventually translate, but it’s a waste. The back of my copy came with a translation guide, but you have to learn the language. It’s a big waste. I can understand why it would be interesting to learn the language and have your own “secret” code, but it really hinders the reading experience if you have to be part of a select group to read certain parts.
There are a few other minor parts about the book that made it difficult to read. I’ve always thought that fairy tales needed to be in third-person, and Ella’s first-person account doesn’t feel like a fairy-tale. It needs to be told in a way that it feels like your grandmother is telling it to you.
I believe I’ll be sticking with Brother’s Grimm.
3.9 of 10
Yeah, I didn’t get anything done this week. Car trouble made me grumpy, busy getting the brother off to Korea, and it’s Fourth of July weekend. BUT, I will be putting up six this week and try to get back on track the week after. And we’ll be all caught up. I might do two weeks of six posts to make up for this week. Yeah… Something will be up tomorrow. Go time.
I can’t remember how I found American Elf, but when I first started reading it I really didn’t like it. All the comics are really short. They aren’t always funny. They aren’t always that entertaining either. So I pushed it aside and didn’t read it for a few months.
But for some reason, I kept it bookmarked and I clicked on it ever once and a while and I saw that there were tons and tons of these little comics. I didn’t realize that this guy has been drawing this comics everyday for like seven years. So he draws a little comics about his day, everyday? Whoa.
I started looking through several months and got through about two years when it really clicked. You can’t just read one of these comics and understand or get what he’s doing. He’s writing his autobiography everyday in pictures. They may seem like the most unrelated events and bore you, but as a whole, you’re looking into his life. He’s letting us look into his personal life in a way that’s totally unique and different from any book.
We get to see him happy, sad, pissed off, tired, hungry. He keeps it all interesting and unique. And while reading about the most uneventful events in this guy’s life might seem, well uneventful, they are important to him. And he’s letting us be a part of it all and read about it.
8.1 of 10
I’m not the biggest sports fan, but I do watch the bigger events like the Super Bowl or the Olympics and there are a few teams that I will just pick up and watch when they play. But soccer?
Yeah, I watched the entire World Cup match between the US and Ghana. I’ve never been interested in soccer ever. I didn’t play in a league when I was younger (I played tennis), there wasn’t a team at my school, and there aren’t any big teams anywhere near where I lived (There may have been some smaller leagues but I wouldn’t know).
Now of course, it’s the US trying to be the best in the world at something, so my American spirit comes through and I obviously have to chant “USA! USA!” if something good happens and hope that they prove to everyone that we’re the best at everything. And everything right now is soccer.
I’d seen maybe ten minutes of soccer (ever) before I started watching this match, so I went to trusty Wikipedia to brush up on the rules, which still don’t make since, and tried to watch. Well of course the US would be down in the first five minutes of the game I decide to watch. Great.
The rules are ridiculous. I’m still confused as to how they just let some guy just lie on the ground, stop play, let the clock keep running, carry him over to the sidelines on a stretcher, then he stands up under his own power, walks off, and then nothing happens. Totally BS. I would have called out any team that did that. Where’s the yellow card, or that red card, or give them a corner kick, or a penalty shot, or give them something.
Soccer’s weird.
Of course I’m disappointed that the US lost, but whatever. It’s soccer, who cares.
6.0 of 10
Since I’m taking Adolescent Lit. in the fall, I’m having to read a lot of books that I would never read. I immediately knew that this was one of them. The cover of mine says “Winning. - Entertainment Weekly.” The less trashy celebrity gossip magazine said that it was winning? Wonderful…
What My Mother doesn’t Know is garbage. It is probably the worst book I have read this year. It ranks in the same area as The Awakening, it’s that bad. Now in defense of the books, I’m not at all the intended audience, but there could have been some depth. This 15 year old girl just talks about how she’s boy crazy and that’s it. It’s a string of unrelated events that try to come together in a story about halfway through. But no. It doesn’t work. No story. Major fail.
It does try to do the “look like it’s deep poetry” route. There are only a few words on each page and it’s broken into stanzas, but it’s not unique or interesting to read. It fails tremendously. I am incredibly thankful that Ellen Hopkins got it right and actually wrote a compelling and good story doing the same thing.
What makes it all the more ridiculous, it was banned… WHAT?!? There is nothing remotely inappropriate for readers. It’s intended for readers in about 5th-7th grade maybe? Those kids know WAY more than what they talk about in this book. It’s almost comical how not inappropriate this book is.
I just can’t fathom how bad this book is.
1.0 of 10
(All the links for books are from Barnes & Noble since they are providing me with lovely free internet. Thanks guys!)
I’m not that big of a Superman fan, but I do have a few of his comics. They’re okay. I really didn’t think much about him until I heard David Carradine’s monologue in Kill Bill v.2. I perked my interest in the idea of Superman, but I’m more into the lesser known superheroes.
It’s a Bird however made me think of Superman very differently. The new writer for Superman has all of these problems with writing the character and himself, but I could really see the problems that Superman has. He has this identity that he can’t set free, he feels as if he’s the one under all the pressure, he has to be there all the time. He’s the one who’s there to save the day. Everyone’s day. Everyday.
He’s this ever exposed character that we all recognize and that we all hope for. The guy that’s going to win and solve all the problems. But who’s there for Superman? We all look up to Superman, but who can he look up to? Everyone’s heroes had someone that they can draw influence or talents or ideas from, but what about Superman? Why does he come to the rescue everyday?
The story goes a lot deeper into family affairs, disease, and pressures of life, but I kept thinking of how Superman is exposed to the world as this great and powerful superhero, but how does he want to be seen? What can we give back to Superman?
7.0 of 10
I remember when I borrowed this game from a friend after it had just come out. Geez it was hard. My brother and I spent a good two weeks trying to beat it. We never did finish it. Made it all the way to the end, but couldn’t quite beat the last boss or two. A few weeks ago, I saw that it had been added to the Wii Virtual Console, so I finally fessed up and bought it.
Super Mario RPG is freaking amazing. It was great when I first played it, but now with years of experience in playing video games, the experience was even better. The whole game scheme works well, the characters are fun, the game play is challenging but makes you want to play better. There is very little to say about it that’s bad.
There’s a lot to the game as well. The main story is fairly short. You could probably beat it in 15 hours if you took it easy. But there’s so much that you can do! Tons of sidequests and extras that make it even more fun. Sure the main story line is what you’re going to want to beat, but you HAVE to do the extras. You don’t want to just beat the game, you want to annihilate it. So you could easily spend 40-50 hours just getting all the extra stuff, seeing all of the events, and getting the best items in the game.
My only problem, is that the story is a little lame. It’s very linear and there isn’t too much back tracking that you have to do. Building up your characters does take a little time, but just about halfway through the game, you’ll find enough places to grind and have everyone going pretty well.
I beat the game today. I spent about thirty or forty minutes trying to beat the last boss. It was so worth it.
8.4 of 10
Somewhere or another I heard a cover of “Vampires in Blue Dresses” and I liked it so I bought the album, listened to a few tracks and hated it. I found it on my computer and decided I would listen all the way through and see if it was any better the second time. It wasn’t
Margot and the Nuclear So and So’s “Dust of Retreat” is kind of annoying. The entire album fights with each other in a gross mix of harder rock/punk/indie and a guy who doesn’t have a voice that makes me want to listen to it. He doesn’t make it strong enough to make it rock, but it isn’t low and soft enough to make it indie-esk or soulful.
Parts of songs are good. But for most of them, they switch between soft and sweet to punk rock and almost a metal sound. There are only two tracks that do this well but again the vocals ruined it for me.
The lyrics are kind of good. They kept me entertained for the most part. But not enough to make me want to listen to the over again. It just wasn’t that present to listen to. I guess I was looking for more a concept or theme but I never found it. I’ll just have to keep my eye out for better covers.
2.1 of 10