blog #6 - about the fifth wave....

Wow. I loved the book The Fifth Wave by Rick Yancey. It was awesome. There was a lot of humor mixed with some romance but a lot more mystery and action. I was the perfect balance! The major plot was the main character, Cassie, trying to find her brother. That was her main goal, not falling in love with the mysterious guy in the woods who saved her life. About that... What the heck??? In the movie the "big reveal" about the creepy guy in the woods was totally obvious from the start. In the book it took me a little while to get it. I mean, the actor who plays him kind of even looks like an alien so that's how I knew. In the book, the characters were also WAY more developed (obviously). I could always tell what they were feeling. 

At one point in the movie, I thought Cassie was pissed at the guy in the woods (I do not know his name) but they were definitely not mad because they started making out. That was something I was not expecting, I may have sheildes my eyes because I act like I am 5 sometimes in moments like that. The movie was way over dramatic with the romance. I feel like it was to appeal to the female audiences, but it still sucked. 

The movie also had way too much action. There were some parts wher eI didn't even understand what was going on because there was so much gunshots and fire. I hate movies like that. That probably why I hated The Fifth Wave.

blog #5 - trailers ( The Fifth Wave )

(this is the trailer that i watched and will be referring to)



I do not have very high expectations for this movie. I absolutely loved the book, and I am afraid the movie will ruin it. The book was mostly "oh no aliens we have to shoot them before they shoot me." I feel like the movie will have a more "lets have a thought out action plan to kill this one alien soldier we should blow everything up" sort of perspective. I hate stuff like that, movies over dramatize everything. They just need to kill the guy, not shoot a randomly placed barrel of gas to blow up an entire town.



I am also very confident in the fact that the movie will have too much romance in it, to appeal to male and female audiences. The trailer had stuff blowing up and guns (for guys) and hot guys and making out (for girls). The romances in the book were subplots, they do not need to take up the entire movie. There were no "I love you's" so are the romances that important?



To be completely honest, the main character (Cassie) does not match the images in my head at all. I pictured Cassie to look like a killer, because she is in the book. She stops at nothing to find her brother. The girl who plays her (Chloe Grace Mortez) I personally dislike as an actress in general, because of the movie If I Stay. In all the trailer I have seen for the movie, Cassie always looks scared. In the book she never really shows fear. I mean, look at this picture. She is alone in the woods and still looks horrified.









She also looks scared in this picture.





And this picture (even though she is with a hot guy and a gun)





Look! She's scared again.





She isn't scared of owls though.

blog #4 - adaptations

1) I screamed.
2) I threw the book off my bed.
3) I buried myself in my pillow.
4) I took a 30 minute mental relaxation to comprehend what I had just read.

That was me while reading the turning point of Gone Girl. I loved that book. It is one of the few books that I read in one day. It was one of the few books that I read in one day. I was just written so well, it read very fast. For this book, I HATED the movie. It was just weird. They over exaggerated the sexual parts and it was very unnecessary.

As for books I hated but movies I loved, one word - Divergent. I have so much to say about this book and movies. About the books. I only liked the first one. I read Divergent in one day. It was such a fast paced book, reading was easy. I was yelled at multiple times in my classes to stop reading and pay attention, I love books that make me do that. I thought I found a new series that I could potentially fall in love with, but boy was I wrong. When I got Insurgent the next day, I started reading. I hated it. Nothing was happening. I still forced myself to read it though, because that's the type of reader I am. It ended up taking me a month to read it. After I finally finished Insurgent, I was so  relieved. It then took me three months to read 38 pages of Allegiant, and I still didn't finish it. It was so bad. However, I did love to movies for this series. They were so action packed and exciting. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time, I watched them both in one day. I think the movies portray the story a lot better than the books.

A representation of my feelings in the Divergent movies.

blog entry #3 - writing a book review

Basic Information:
Title: See Me by Nicholas Sparks
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: October 13th, 2015
# Of Pages: 496
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Brief Intro: This book is a kind of cliche romance, but still full of suspense, action, and many emotions.  

Body:
This book takes place in Wilmington, North Carolina. Wilmington is a quiet small beach town on the North Carolina coast. See Me is written in a dual perspective. One is Maria, the other is Colin. Maria and Colin are also the main protagonists in the novel. The mood in the book is fairly tense at times, there is this third perspective that is very threatening to Maria, which the reader doesn't understand until the end of the book.

This book is a romance between Colin and Maria. Colin is an MMA fighter, with a very rough past that has landed him in jail many times. If he messes up on more time, he could face up to 20 years in jail. Maria is a shy family driven girl. One very bad heartbreak really messed up her love life. Colin and Maria met through Maria's sister, Serena, who Colin has classes with in college. They fall deeply in love with each other. Colin becomes very protective over her, especially after they figure out she has a stalker. The truth unfolds, and a lot of pressure is put on their relationship.

Analysis and Evaluation:
I believe the writing of this book was beautiful. Nicholas Sparks is a very beautiful writer in my opinion, and this book didn't change that. Some of the points in the book were kind of boring, and I was having trouble getting through them quickly. For like 175 pages of the book, Colin and Maria were only dating. No action or fighting or anything like that. Just pure dinner dates and romantic gestures. No thank you. Anyways, even though some of the book was slow, it was still very well written.

I think Sparks did achieve his purpose of this book, to entertain. I was entertained throughout this book, and if I wasn't I would have stopped reading.

To Wrap Things Up:
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone that likes Nicholas Sparks romance. I put him in a genre of his own because his books deserve as much. Sparks really knows how to tell a story without a cliche plot, and I love that about his novels.


                                         

Researching my author... Nicholas Sparks

Nicholas Sparks is rich. Very Rich. He has written 18+ bestselling romance novels, capturing the hearts of teens and women today. Some call him "The King of Hearts" because of his romantic knowledge. In general, he is not a very verbal talkative person. He does much better writing books. Fun Fact: Nicholas Sparks doesn't curse. Ever. Not in real life, or in his books. He says:

"Profanity can be an easy fix, a crutch used to express anger or frustration. Creating those emotions without bad language is much more effective. And challenging."

Sparks writes about 2000 words a day and a book a year since 1996. That's 20 years! All of his writing does pay off, his books fly off the shelves. The book sales, 97 million, don't lie. His fan base grows daily, based on the fact that all his books are about true love. A fan of Nicholas says:

"There's a comforting feeling you get when reading a Nicholas Sparks novel, something apart from the characters getting together and experiencing true love. It's that the world in which it happens, even if it's not like the 'real world,' makes sense. It's a simpler world and it's easy to understand - and something about that feels like a rescue. Now, I don;t need a man to rescue me. I’ve worked and been on my own two feet all my life. But that feeling, or notion, of rescue that I get from a Nicholas Sparks book—once in awhile, that’s just nice."

The Notebook is the book that really sparked Sparks’s career. His first two novels remain unpublished, yet The Notebook was a sensation. In a short period of time he was struck with a 1 million dollar deal for its movie rights and a book deal. That’s pretty good for a debut novel.

                               

His family life has had a very big effect of Sparks’s writing. HIs mother died in a horseback riding accident when she was 47, and his dad died in a car accident when he was 54. The grieving author turned to writing as a source of comfort, he wrote about a man who writes letters to his deceased wife and sends them out to sea in bottles. The book, later titled Message in a Bottle, was inspired by his parents' relationship.

Sources Used

http://www.biography.com/people/nicholas-sparks-562686#big-break

http://www.gq.com/story/nicholas-sparks-what-women-want

 

Why do I read?

I read because reading is awesome. I can feel like I am experiencing things that I will never experience in my life. I will never be a teenage boy going to a wizarding school, but Harry Potter sure does make me feel like I am. I absolutely love Harry Potter, it's what got me in to reading. I was only in third grade and I was obsessed. I remember the first time I read Harry Potter, I started reading them because I loved big books. Therefore, I skipped the first three. After almost finishing the fourth book, I went back and read the first ones due to the fact I had no idea what was going on.

I read because it makes me laugh. Books that make me laugh out loud are my favorite, they make me realize that I don't need Netflix or YouTube to laugh all the time. Reading gets me off my phone and computer, and my mom loves that. reading gives me a 100% valid excuse to stay in my room away from my family. Sometimes I really need to get away from them, so I read from when I wake up to when I go to bed (on weekends anyway). They say watching screens before bed is super bad for you, so now I just read for 2 hours instead.

Lastly, I read because I'm forced to. This sounds bad, but it isn't. When I am forced to read I actually have to do it... no excuses. Then that gets me back in to the "swing" of reading so to speak. Now a days it is very hard for me to want to read because I have 2 seasons of Parks And Recreation to watch on Netflix, and I will always choose that. When I am in reading mode I won't touch my computer or phone for days. I want that again, so I read to get back to that place. The place where I will read two books a week for months on end. Setting reading goals and records to break and feeling very accomplished when I achieve them. I miss that a lot, and I have to do to get that again is read!!

FINAL BLOG POST

This is my attitude towards reading.

To be totally honest, I love reading. I read all the time. I like it because it's relaxing, and I like to branch out and discover other authors writing styles, to see who I like and don't like. To make time for reading, I always get my homework done at school or right when I get home. The biggest obstacle I have when making time for it is that I would rather read than study for a test the next day. My best reading experience was reading Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. That book was so crazy and I still think about the ending sometimes. The worst experience I had was reading Reality Boy by AS King. I hated that book, I didn't see the point in it. Therefore, it took me forever to read it and I was in a reading slump for like 3 weeks. The last time I was "lost" in a book was this February when I was reading Room. We had to drive to Kentucky that day and I read it the entire way there and back, and finished it. That book was amazing. I like choosing my own books because only I know what I like to read. As for my future goals, I want to read more classics. I read two this year and I really enjoyed them.

This is an accurate representation of me blogging.

I think the best part of blogging is being able to track my reading progress throughout the year. The worst part about blogging is remembering to blog, and trying to figure out what to talk about. I think there is value to posting your thoughts online because my teachers and my classmates can see what I'm reading and if they want to read it, they can too. I think that if we did the circle thing where we all talked about what we were reading that could help others find books.

This picture describes my freshman year.

I think I've grown a lot as a student. In middle school, you didn't really have to try very hard for your grades. Now that I'm in high school, you really have to work hard. As a person, I think I've been a lot less shy than I was at the beginning of the year. Being at a new school and trying to make new friends was kind of hard, but I eventually got around to it. I think the most positive experience I have had this year is going to a new church, and entering a youth group. Some goals that I have for my sophomore years is to keep my 4.0, and meet more people.