Vacation

Hello everyone!

I'm on this beautiful island in Maine, which is why I haven't been writing here much. It's hard to justify sitting in front of a computer when you have so many beautiful things to look at. Like this:

A puffin

Book Recommendation: How I Paid For College

The other day, I was clicking through GoodReads, and I suddenly remembered this awesome book I read back in high school. The book is called How I Paid For College: A Story of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater by Marc Acito. It's about, as the title suggests, a boy who gets into Julliard but can't afford to go. But then, with the help of his crazy theater friends, he devises an elaborate plan to get some money.

I have to say, I don't remember all the details of the book, which is why I'm not going to write a review of it. But I do remember that it was hilarious. So, so funny. I think those of us who were involved in theater in high school would especially enjoy it. But even if you weren't...it's still really funny. Check it out and then let me know what you think!

Also, in a similar vein, there's this book: The Havard Lampoon's Guide to Colleges. It's a hilarious spoof of those college guide books we all hated in high school. So, so funny.

Review of Tangled

It all started with the book Love and Other Four Letter Words. After I read Carolyn Mackler's first novel, I was hooked. I wanted to read everything she'd written. Then I read The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round things and loved it, too. So once I finished that, I ran right out to the library and got this one, Tangled. I'm sorry to say it, but I was a little disappointed by it. True, it had many of the elements that I liked about Mackler's other books: humor mixed with real-life situations, realistic-sounding first person narration, characters that felt like friends. But something was just missing...and I think I know what it was.

The book tells the story of four different young people who are all living very different lives: Jena lives a normal and (she thinks) boring life in upstate New York, Dakota is the hot jock at his high school, Skye lives the fast-paced life of a New York actress, and Owen mostly lives on the internet. But then their lives start to get all tangled together, and they cross paths with each other, starting with a trip to a resort called Paradise, where all four of them go on vacation.

I think it's important to point out, though, that the trip to Paradise is only a small part of the book. It begins there, but then the story goes through the months that follow that trip. The story switches narration, and each character narrates a different month, starting with Jena, who narrates about May, the month when they actually take the trip. Before I read the book, I thought the entire thing took place in Paradise, and in some ways, I wish it had, because it made for an interesting setting. At the same time, though, I guess only so much can happen in a week's vacation, so maybe that's why the author chose to move the characters around.

Like I said before, there were a lot great things about the book. The characters all had really unique voices and were going through different, complicated problems. It also really showed how little we really know about the people around us and what's going on in their lives. 

However, in other ways, the jumping narration weakened the story. Since we didn't spend much time with any of the characters, I didn't feel like any of their stories were really developed that deeply. They all felt a little rushed, except for maybe Jena. It just felt a little...empty. Also, at times, I didn't really find the character's actions or thoughts believable, especially the character Dakota, who just seemed like too much of a jock stereotype. And since there was no big, over-arching storyline, sometimes the book got a little boring, and I didn't feel pulled to keep reading. 

Even though this book did have some interesting things to say about the way people affect each other, and the way we see ourselves and others, I have to say that I just didn't enjoy reading it that much. I don't think I would recommend it to a friend. You'd be better off reading one of her other books, which, from the ones I've read, are pretty awesome.  

Top Ten Blogs I Read that Aren't About Books

Hey everybody!

It's top ten Tuesday, hosted by the Broke and Bookish Blog. Today's topic is "The ten books I read that aren't about books." This is hard for me, because most of the blogs I read have something to do with blogs, whether it's book reviews or author blogs. So I don't think I'll be able to come up with ten...but here it goes:

1. What I Wore - There are a lot of fashion blogs out there, but this one is my favorite. It's written by a woman named Jessica Quirk. She has really great style, and her blog seems really friendly and approachable, not like other fashion blogs where all the clothes are designer and nobody is smiling. I get lots of ideas for outfits from her blog.

2. Kendie Everyday -Another one of my favorite fashion blogs. She has really great style, very original. I like how colorful her outfits are.

3. The College Prepster - This blog is written by a girl I went to high school with, who then went on to college at Georgetown. I don't really consider my own style "preppy," but I still like a lot of the fashion she posts about.  Also, she writes about more than clothes, like her life at school. For me, it's always interesting for me to read about other people's college and life experiences.

4. Pearls and Lemonade - My friend Laura writes this blog. She writes about lots of different things - movies, cooking, college life. I think reading friend's blogs can be a good way to keep up with them, too.

5. Little Blog on the Internet - My friend Cassie writes this blog. She loves cooking and has some great recipe ideas!

6. Vulture's Gossip Girl Blog - I'm a huge fan of Gossip Girl, even though the show has kind of gone off the rails lately. This blog recaps the episodes every weeks and points out all the ridiculous things that happen. It's so funny.

7. The Current Conscience - This blog, written by a man named Yashar, covers a lot of different topics, most of them related to women's rights. He has a really interesting take on it, being a man and all. He's had some really insightful posts, like when he wrote about how many people manipulate each other emotionally.

8. The Good Men Project - I used to read this blog a lot, but I haven't kept up with it much lately. Still, it has a lot of interesting posts, and they're not just important for men to read. They talk a lot about how we define "maniless" in our society and what it means to really be a good man. It's really interesting to see the kind of issues men struggle with.

9. The Kvetching Board - I'm not sure if this counts as a blog, but I read this column religiously. It's posted every Friday in UNC's newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel. Students send in anonymous complaints about life on campus and in town, and then they get published. How great is that! I love listening to people complain! But really, they're pretty funny, and I can always relate to a few of them. Some will only make sense if you've been to UNC, but some a pretty universal.

Review of The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things

As you might be able to tell, I'm on a Carolyn Mackler kick, and I just read her Printz-Award winning novel, The Earth, My Butt and Other Big, Round Things. Even though the title is pretty funny, the book is actually pretty serious. But it was also funny. Let me explain...

The book is about a girl, Virginia, who lives in New York City. Sounds awesome, right? Well, Virginia is having some issues. First, she feels like she's a little bit over-weight, and it doesn't help that other kids at school and even her parents say she is, too. She also is interested in a boy named Froggy the Fourth, but she doesn't think he'd ever go out with her because of her weight. Then, to top it all off, her brother does something terrible and shocking, something Virginia, who hero-worships him, never thought he would do. This  event really shakes up her family, and it forces Virginia to rethink her relationship with her brother, her parents, and herself.

I really liked this book. Really, really liked it. First of all, the narrator, Virginia, was so likeable and funny, and she felt like a real teenager to me. I found myself nodding along with so many things she said,  and remembering that I thought the same thing way back in high school. I also really liked seeing her transformation over the course of the book, and I liked how she began to question everything that she had previously just accepted as fact, like things that her parents and brother did.

I'm also a sucker for a good family drama, and this novel had plenty of that, although it never veered into melodramatic territory. As I said before, Virginia found herself questioning a lot of what her parents did, like, for example, her mother's tendency to ignore problems in the family and pretend that it was perfect. Virginia's family also put a lot of emphasis on how she looked and made some pretty mean comments about her body, something I found to be, sadly, pretty true to life.  I think realizing that your parents and your family isn't perfect, and that they don't always do the right thing, is a big part of growing up, and this novel did a great job of showing that. 

I think Publisher's weekly said it best when they wrote, in their review, that "The heroine's transformation into someone who finds her own style and speaks her own mind is believable -- and worthy of applause." Don't let the silly title fool you, guys. This novel has some serious, important stuff to say. There's a reason it won the Printz, after all. 

The Quotable Annie Dillard

Hey, everybody!

Today I thought I'd share some of my favorite Annie Dillard quotes with you, because she is so very quotable. 

"We sleep in time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God. And then, when we wake to the deep shores of time uncreated, then when the dazzling dark breaks over the far slopes of time, then it's time to toss things, like our reason, and our will; then it's time to break our necks for home.  There are no events, but thoughts and the heart's slow turning, the heart's slow learning where to love and whom. The rest is merely gossip, and tales for other times."  

- Holy the Firm

I'm not exactly sure what this quote is getting at, but I like how it sounds, especially the last part about the heart. To me, that part means that the most important thing in life is figuring out who and what deserves your love and attention. Also, if you haven't read Holy the Firm, I would recommend it.

That one is my favorite of hers, but here are a few others I like:

"How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives"

"Spend the afternoon, you can't take it with you."

“Similarly, the impulse to keep to yourself what you have learned is not only shameful, it is destructive. Anything you do not give freely and abundantly becomes lost to you. You open your safe and find ashes.”  

-The Writing Life

“He is careful of what he reads, for that is what he will write. He is careful of what he learns, for that is what he will know.” 

“There is no shortage of good days. It is good lives that are hard to come by. A life of good days lived in the senses is not enough. The life of sensation is the life of greed; it requires more and more. The life of the spirit requires less and less; time is ample and its passage sweet. Who would call a day spent reading a good day? But a life spent reading -- that is a good life.” 

- The Writing Life

-

I'm Going to Maine!

Hey everybody!

I'm going to Maine today! I'm going to volunteer at this camp that I've worked at before. I'll be there for about three weeks. I'm really excited to go. The island is beautiful and I'll be seeing some old friends.

Lobster boat