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.

Close Reading Bingo

Rule #6
In the exert The Mezzanine, by Nichason Baker, the author uses high language to describe the lobby of his office building along with his over the top appearance. (Found Here)

Rule #2
Baker describes as the escalator as "They were the free standing kind: a pair of integral signs swooping upward between the two floors they served without struts or piers to bear any intermediate weight" and  he tells us that "On sunny days like this one, a temporary, steeper escalator of daylight, formed by intersections of the lobby's towering volumes of marble and glass, met the real escalators just above their middle point, spreading into a needly area of shine where it fell against their brushed-steel side-pannels, and adding long glossy highlights to each of the black rubber handrails." (Found Here)

Rule #1
He says whatever comes to mind, saying that his parents "would have about two hemorrhages apiece if I told anything pretty personal about them," shows that he doesn't really care what he says, just wants to get his point across. (Found Here)

Rule #7
This excerpt was not extremely musical. (Found Here)


Best Paragraph so far:
In the opening page of Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger underscores the teenage angst bursting though the young, yet disillusioned, Holden Caulfield. Lowbrow words like "lousy," "crap," "stuff,' "hell," "crumby," and "damn" accentuate Holden's anger as he rambles the opening of his story. Furthermore, sentence fragments, such as, "One of those little English jobs that can do around two hundred miles an hour," destroy any last vestige of formality, further developing the aura of simply telling a story to a friend. Despite a Dickens allusion, the majority of the passage is purely denotative, lacking symbolism. This expository passage helps develop Holden's past. Although the majority of this passage is about Holden's family and past, the majority of the character development shines through Salinger's diction and style. (Found Here)

Practice Diction Analysis

In J. D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye, the coarsely low-level formality, barefaced connotation, and caterwauling sound convey the matter-of-fact attitude the character has towards his situation. Salinger describes the parents as "touchy as hell" but also as "nice and all" which suggests that the character cares for his parents but has to give reason for not explaining his childhood. He has no patience for small talk or background information referring to it as that "kind of crap." The skipping of details infers the apathetic regard and reluctance of speaking about the topic and telling people his story in general.

Currently

Deadly Little Games by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Crusade by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie
Damned by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

Pages This Week: 851

Pages This Semester: 2602

In contrast to Stardust, the narrator of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian demonstrates a thorough understanding of sophisticated, picturesque language( Find it here on Keep It Classy).

This is just one of the fantastic sentences in this post. She describes the language so well that I can clearly picture what the passage is like without ever reading what she looked at.

Cormac McCarthy's diction in Blood Meridian creates a common, harmonious sound to the passage. I fell like it could be a poem almost with it slow, music like qualities (Find it here on To Kill a Mockingjay).

The entire post had descriptive language just like this sentence. The adjectives used are ones that I didn't think about and she cleverly puts them together to create a ribbon of description.

Weird Poems

In the book Crusade that I wrote about in the last post, every chapter begins with a poem. They are all dark and 'scary,' I thought I should share one in case people are interested.

We are strong of mind and heart

Mesmerism our deadly art

We can seduce even the most pure

From our control there is no cure

So resist us now if you can

Declare your loyalty only to man

But in the night you'll beg and crawl

On your knees you soon will fall

Crusade

Thankfully I was able to read a second book this week, Crusade by Nancy Holder and Debbie Viguie

Crusade

 Personally I'm not a fan of vampire books and this new craze with them and of course werewolves, but I know that many people are. To gather a better opinion of these types of books I picked up a vampire/werewolf book from the library. The only real vampire kinda books I've read have been the Twilight series which was pretty good but I wouldn't say that it changed my life or that I could read it multiple times and not get sick of it.

This book takes a darker view on the vampires. The vampires cannot go out into the sun because will die (much more exciting than 'I can't be in the sun or I'll start sparkling') Solomon, the spokesperson for the 'vampire nation' spread lies that vampires can survive off animal blood, wrong, they can't. Another difference in this is that people can't be changed by being bitten, they have to drink the blood of a vampire. This vampire is their sire and they are forever faithful to their sire until their sire dies.

Remember all those legends about vampires not being able to be in the sun, not being able to look at crosses or touch holy water or garlic? Well, in this book they're all true. The vampires are portrayed as the 'Cursed Ones' and should be feared unlike the friendly Cullen family. There are hunters who are trained to kill the vampires but they're losing, terribly. The book follows the first ever hunter group. There are Hunters who are trained and then given an elixir that will make them almost as strong and fast as vampires and then there are hunters who have no potion but are still trained to fight. There is a group of six hunters that the book follows, one Hunter with five hunters killing vampires and saving people-- mostly at least.

Deadly Little Games

I have already told you about the first two books in the Touch series and this is going to be about the third.

Deadly Little Games by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Amazingly enough this book once again has an extremely similar plot line, oh wait, it's the exact same one as the past two. I had some high hopes that after two books full of creepy stalker notes and people trying to kill each other the stalker notes would be left out of the third book and left maybe just the trying to kill people? if even that. Yeah, no. Apparently I'm not good at guessing, probably shouldn't buy a lottery ticket.

This book is once again about Camelia getting stalker notes. Oh just kidding, IT CHANGED! Camelia isn't the one getting the stalker notes this time, it's ADAM. Wow, she has written three books all  centered around someone getting death threats and stalker notes and ultimately almost killed (and by the way in all three books Ben is the one doing the saving). There is supposed to be a fourth book coming out soonish and I have an awful feeling that it will too be filled with stalker notes and almost death.

I finished this book because I felt obligated since I read the other two. It isn't too bad, there is still excitement, I just wish that it wasn't exactly like the other two. It was rather fun to trying and figure out who the creepy stalker was because it is never obvious until the end but there are definitely hints to help you figure it out. It turned out to be the psycho chick that Adam started hanging out with. She loves him but Camelia is getting in the way. Of course there is a lot going on beside that but it's pretty much the best action in the book.

If you want to know more about this book just read about the other two summaries and rearrange the names and there you go.

Falling Behind

I am sad to say that even though I am well ahead on my reading I have been ignoring my blog since last Friday. I have read two books since then and have yet to blog about them. I should probably start with the book  I read last week but didn't blog about.

Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz

This is the sequel to Deadly Little Secret that I blogged about last week. In the first book we met Ben and Canmelia who were meant to be together (as all the readers know but for conflict Ben doesn't). In this second book, Ben didn't come back to school for three months and when he is at school he refuses to talk to Camelia, frustrating for all by the way. Camelia longs for Ben but decides to try and let go by dating a really 'hot' guy recently hired at her work, Adam. Their dates seem to be going really well and they are enjoying themselves... except, he's not Ben.

Throughout their dating Camelia is receiving death threats and scary stalker notes just like she did in the last book before she almost died at the hand of her ex-boyfriend, Matt. This scares, obviously, but not enough to tell her parents or the police.She doesn't want to trouble her parents with the notes because her parents are going through a rough time and she doesn't want to go to the police because she doesn't think it is serious enough. The other problem is... should she tell Adam or is he the one sending them?

Ben finds out about Adam and decides to confront him in front of Camelia. It turns out Adam used to be Ben's best friend until Adam started an affair with Julie, Ben's old girlfriend. Adam loved Julie and blames Ben for her accidental death even though it wasn't Ben's fault and began dating Camelia to get back at Ben. What he didn't expect to happen was that he would actually fall for her.

Well in the end, the stalker notes were from this creepy weirdo girl at her school who hated Ben. She framed it to seem as if Ben was the one trying to kill her and left her all those notes and such. Well, she failed. Shocker, that wouldn't make a good ending especially since there is a third book.

Style Mapping

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
The Mud Bean by Annie Proulx
Macbeth by Shakespeare

All three of these titles are similar because of the boringly aggravated language use. Sadly, due to this, there isn't much to discuss. McCarthy's is more musical than Proulx with excerpts like ' Days of riding where there rode no soul save he.' compared to 'He kepthis butt cocked to one side, his feet up on the chute rails so the bull...' Shakespeare's writing is by far the most musical, the way the poetry flows together in all of the passages plus with the rhyming,

Second Witch:
'When the hurlyburly's done,
When the battle's lost and won.' The language elevation for all three is moderately high to high and they are all connotative, the sound of the books is what really separates them.

Quarterly

Deadly Little Secret by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Pages This Week: 534

Pages This Semester: 1751

Sentences This Week:

1. "Forget him, Camelia," Kimmie says. "I mean, yes, he saved your life; it was very chivalrous of him. And, yes, he's totally buff, which further complicates things, but closure is way overrated, in my opinion, anyway." Deadly Little Secret

2. Last year he (Wes) left a Saran Wrapped rubber Teletubby in my duffel bag, along with a note that said, 'Save me. I'm suffocating.' Deadly Little Secret

I love that we get to pick the books that we read. This helps me push myself with some books and yet allows me to read a fun easy book when I need a break. I read a couple books that I have truly enjoyed while I pushed myself to finish ones that I don't care for, now that is a rare thing and something I am trying to work on. I can always tell when I really get into a book because I will read it all the time and everywhere and read over doing my homework. This past week I read two books and almost completely ignored most of my homework. I could not put them down, or I would put them down for about ten minutes while I ate or did a quick bit of homework. I came home from practice on Tuesday and read for about five hours straight and I read all the way to practice (hour and a half) and all the way back home again and then once I got home. Every time I had a break in a class, even if it was only five minutes, I would pull out my book and start reading it. I didn't pick up the third book to the series yesterday because I knew I needed to study, but then I spent the night making up what I thought the third book might be about. It's a sickness. I'm not quite sure why I am so engrossed in these books because this kind of thing is extremely rare for me.

It's like I'm caught up in a magically magnificent world where time is nonexistent and reality is nothing more than a dream.

My goals for next quarter are that I will find books like the ones I'm reading now that remind me why I love reading because I forget that a lot. It's hard for me to fall for a book and it's rare to find any that I can't put down. I need some more books that make me grow and some that make me fall back into love with reading. What I really want for this upcoming quarter is to find a balance.

Wrap Up of My Week

Last you heard, I was sick of reading The Help. Thankfully I went to the library to find another book. I found Deadly Little Secret. I actually finished it that night. It's about a girl who falls in love with this new boy at her school who supposedly killed his old girlfriend two years ago. This book is suspenseful and exciting because she has a stalker who leaves pictures of her in her mailbox and breaks into her house. The new kid, Ben, keeps telling her to trust him but everyone else says to stay away from her, that Ben's the one stalking her.

Ben can sense things, the future or past, when he touches something recently touched by a human or a human. The first time Ben touched Camelia (the main character), he could see that she would end up dead without him. It turns out that her ex-boyfriend was the one who stalked her. She loves art and works at the Knead, a pottery shop. This is where Matt, her ex, finds her and kidnaps her. He lures her out by telling her that Ben crashed into him and Matt wants Camelia to talk some sense into him.He ends up taking her to an abandoned trailer park, drugs her and ties her up. I don't want to give the whole story away so that's the ending you get, what will happen to her?

Don't worry, there's a second book, so how bad can it be? I also finished the second book which I will blog about later. :)

Getting Bored

I've been reading The Help, but I've been getting a little bored with it so I need to start another book and put this one down for a little bit before I come back to it. I would like to The Dart League King or The Forest of Hands and Teeth, but the thing is I kinda want a happy book. I've been reading all these depressing books lately and it's driving me crazy. I want a easy read that will make me laugh (either because it's supposed to or because the characters are dumb that it's comical) and maybe even a little girl drama that I usually hate. I don't know but I need to pick another book soon before I lose my mind. Well, whatever I pick I hope I don't have to put it down.

Currently (from last Friday)

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

Pages This Week: 150

Pages This Semester: 1217

 1. "Me watching Deni while pretending not to be watching Deni, which was kind of hard when your dad was a psychiatrist." Sea

2. "He should have been named White Fang."  My Life in Dog Years

3."Quincy launched himself from the ground, four-inch legs pumping, and caught the bear in the center of its chest." My Life in Dog Years 

4."I didn't mention that I considered the whole practice of school dances degrading or that they were just giant wastes of time and money." The Designated Ugly Fat Friend 

 These sentences aren't in any particular order but they all make me laugh. Each sentence is funny in the story context and I always love what makes me laugh. The only one that my readers may not understand is sentence number two. This is about the little dog who attacked a bear which is mentioned in sentence three.

Yum, Ziano's

I just had a fabulous dinner at Ziano's with my cousin and now I'm back to blog more! We both love country music and on the way home we heard the most obnoxious country song ever produced. "Bait a Hook" by Justin Moore. This song always get stuck in my head, for some reason I love this song but his accent is so insanely strong that it makes me smile :) talk about a good ol' country boy.

Here's some more about The Help:

The older generation in the book that have help seem more attached to them and think of them as family whereas the young women who have just hired help are rude and snappy towards them which makes me mad! Only a few, like Skeeter, remember having a black 'mother' raise them and still feel the sentimental connection there. If I was the help I would mouth off to those people like nobody's business, just like the character Minny. So far I am really enjoying the book but it just makes me so mad to know what these people went through because of their race. Next time I will have to pick a happy book. First the Hurricane Katrina book, then the tsunami orphanage one, and now  The Help. Yeah, I need a happy book next. Any suggestions?

The Help

This week I started my new book, The Help. I saw the movie when it first came out and I've been meaning to read the book. So far almost everything in the book is like the movie. You know it must be a good book when the movie so closely follows it. I absolutely adore Miss Skeeter. She seems to be the only one who genuinely cares about the help and treats them like real people, at least of the adults.

I hate blogging about the books I read because I feel like it spoils it for people who want to read them or might put someone off to the book. Because of this, I have decided to just write little snippets of The Help and still give generalizations but not really write a whole lot about the plot.

The help in the book all live in the same area and they're all really close because they have to be. They need each other to get on through the day. Most employers don't really pay attention to their help unless it's to tell them to do something, because of this, the help can hear the gossip about other people's help. This news, they will then spread to their friends and warn them of what the person needs to improve on before they are fired.

I will write more later but now I have to go. My absolutely sweet cousin is taking me out to dinner :)

A New Poem

I need to be adding more poems to my little black book, well actually it's brown but whatever. Here is one by my favorite poet, ee cummings

i carry your heart with me

by ee cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                  i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)