Finally

I have softball practice every week down in Pendleton about an hour and half away on Wednesday nights. My mom or dad usually takes me so that I can get homework done during the trip rather than just driving there and back and having to start homework at 9:30 every Wednesday night.  This is when I would get a lot of reading done and do my vocab homework. I don't like to read with music if it's a book I need to remember a lot about and will get quizzed over later but if it's a book I'm reading for fun I don't mind quiet music. I'm such an audio person that sometimes I find that I'm not reading but listening to the music instead which can sometimes be a problem. If it's a book I really like and can't put down then I don't check my phone very often but if it's something that I'm not enjoying then I'm constantly checking my phone or checking what's new on facebook. My mom loves reading and is always interested in what I'm reading. I'm pretty sure the only reason she is so interested is so that she knows it's appropriate. Thankfully the policy where she has to read every single book I want to read before I do has stopped. It's been a few years of freedom and I really don't want to lose that. My mom is pretty much the only one I talk to about books unless I think a friend or a family member might want to read it. That's when I give them a brief outline and tell them they should read it. You, blog, are pretty much the main one I tell about the books I'm reading. You probably think I'm pretty boring, but don't worry, this is going to be my last post, or so I think it will be.

The Lost Crown

This week I have started The Lost Crown by Sarah Miller. It's the story of Anastasia and her family starting before the revolution and probably ending at their deaths.

It's a pretty interesting book and I'm learning a lot about the family and what it was like back then. The author likes to throw in Russian so there is a little dictionary in the beginning which helps a ton.

The book begins with the family on vacation on a boat and everyone is running around having fun until Alexei bumps his ankle and hurts it. Three days later it is still swelling and now about the size of his knee and getting worse. For those of you who don't know, Alexei has Hemophilia B which means his blood cannot properly clot.

The family gets back from the vacation and Alexei is still extremely ill. His mother is having trouble holding everything together because Russia might go to war with her home, Germany. There is a great deal of war whisperings that go from sibling to sibling and trying to keep it hush hush from their mother who, unbeknownst to them, already knows.

Where I'm at right now, Russia will go to war and Alexei is still in bed so he has to miss the ceremony where his dad announces going to war and I'm in the middle of the ceremony. Reporters are going crazy trying to figure out what has kept Alexei from coming (again). He is so sickly that he often has to miss events such as this because his future country (at least it would have been before the revolution) cannot see him as sickly and weak.

Poetry Project

For my poetry project I chose the theme simplicity. I know what you're thinking-- simplicity? What the heck do you mean by that? Well, I pretty much pick poetry that is simple. Easier said than done. I could choose it for a simple context or simple language. Pretty much all my poems are significantly different except for simplicity.

This is probably my favorite poem that I've found so far.

The Crippled Girl, The Rose

By David Ferry

It was as if a flower bloomed as if

Its muttering root and stem had suddenly spoken,

Uttering on the air a poem of summer,

The rose the utterance of its root and stem.

Thus her beautiful face, the crippled girl’s,

Was like the poem spoken by her body—

The richness of that face!—most generous

In what it keeps, giving in its having.

The rose reserves the sweetness that it yields,

Petal on petal, telling its own silence,

Her beauty saying from its thorny stalk

That what it is is kept as it is given.

Currently

Nightshade Andrea Cremer
Wolfsbane Andrea Cremer

Pages These Past Two Weeks: 844

Pages This Semester: 3446

1. I wondered why I'd want my eyes to "pop"; it sounded grotesque. (Referring to making her eyes 'pop' with make-up) Nightshade

2. Our giggles transformed into miniature clouds in the cold night air. Nightshade

3. The howl echoed as it rose toward the full moon, a sound full of agony and irreparable loss. Nightshade

The first sentence is probably my favorite because I don't wear make-up and I love characters that are against it as well. Not everyone feels the need to wear uncomfortable clothes, shoes, and put on make-up every morning just to look nice. :)

The Help

Several weeks ago I said that I would put The Help down and finish it later. It turns out I've become one of those "I'm just taking a break from college and then I'm going back" kinda people because I have yet to touch The Help since I put it down. I know I would like the book and I enjoyed it when I was reading it but the motivation has kinda vanished. I have a ton of books I said I would read and still haven't that I need to get to and maybe The Help  will just have to wait in line with the rest of the books. Looks like it's home on my bench is gonna change because now it needs to be returned so other book lovers can enjoy it instead of it sitting lonely on my 'To Read Bench' with all the other books.

Wolfsbane

This is the sequel to Nightshade, which I read last week, and is part of my 'ohmigoodness vampires and werewolves are AMAZING!' experiment. I'm trying to figure out what is so alluring about them.

In the first book I just wanted to slap Calla (the main character), but in the second she seemed more reasonable but still making awful choices. Shay has decided to take Ren's place and be her mate and the pack's alpha male. Um, excuse me, but who died and made you alpha? Oh yeah, no one because Ren is still alive and the rightful alpha. Shay is constantly running to Calla's aid even though she doesn't need it. In an effort to protect her, he almost got her killed and someone else died in her place. How do you feel about yourself now Shay? I'm hoping really crappy because in the book you didn't seem too upset.

Calla is able to save some of her packmates that she had left behind in the previous book. Sadly Ren was not one. From the short scene you read where the two of them are together you can induce that he still deeply loves her and wants her safely home. I believe he would have safely made it back with Calla and her new friends the Searchers had their meeting not been interrupted by some Keepers and former packmates who decided to stay with the Keepers.

Don't think I' a Twilight hater, because I'm not. I read the books and enjoyed them-- they didn't change my life or anything but I still liked them. They certainly aren't my favorite but I don't understand the craze. I understand people liking the books and enjoying them but not why these are the best books ever and all the people constantly talking about them.


Honestly I don't understand why these books are so popular. Calla is even dumber than Bella (that says a lot). I feel like that one Jacob fan because I wish she would have chosen Ren. Pretty much everyone who reads the Twilight books adores Edward because on paper he seems like a perfect boyfriend-- stalker side included. The movie goers tend to lean toward Jacob because, well let's be honest, Taylor Lautner is much more attractive than Robert Pattison. I know it's hopeless to want Ren to win which just makes me even more frustrated with the books. The guy (Shay) who gets the main character to break countless rules and defy her parents is the one who wins over the intended soul mate who has not broken any rules and has loved the main character since he was young. That's awesome, ya know, just what I wanted.

Nightshade

 
To continue with my werewolf/vampire book experiment, I read Nightshade. It seems to me that all teenage girl books need insanely dumb teenage girls to make them popular. Perhaps this device is used to make the readers feel smart. In this book, the main character, Calla (what a pretty name), is the alpha of her pack, the Nightshades. The 'Keepers' (the masters of the werewolf pack) want to create a third pack to protect a sacred site, Haldis. The alpha in the other pack, the Banes, is to mate with Calla. Renier (Ren) is the alpha of the Bane pack and is extremely good looking, not a bad choice right?

Calla was with her second in command, Bryn, patrolling the sacred sight when a bear was attacking a human. For some reason Calla felt like she had to protect this human and she saved him, breaking a rule set in effect by the Keepers. He was bleeding out and could have died from blood loss but she healed him which was the rule she broke. In order to heal him, he drank her blood. Pack blood can heal every injury which was what saved Shay, the human (weird blood thingy-- more like vampire-ish than werewolf-y if you ask me).

Calla thinks that it won't be a big deal, I mean it's not like she's ever going to see him again right? Wrong. He was at school the next, the new transfer student. Basically she falls for Shay even though Ren is cuter and who she's supposed to be with (she admits it all the time being all he was made for me). With Shay, Calla discovers that her life has pretty much been a lie-- one that all the werewolves were living.

Anyways, Calla runs off with Shay to help the 'Searchers,' the Keepers sworn enemies, the ones she's killed and fought before. Now she's on their side fighting for her pack and her freedom.