Between Shades of Gray

Hey guys! I'm back! I haven't read a whole lot since I last posted because I was busy with finals and stuff. Oh yeah, I graduated high school, by the way. It was pretty awesome. :)

Anyway, I've read a few books but I finished one today that I felt deserved it's own post. Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys.

I was just browsing books on Amazon and it was in the 'customers who bought ____ also bought these' section. I was iffy about it because I'd never heard of it before, but after seeing the overwhelming number of positive reviews I was sold. One person in particular stated "If there's only one book you read this year, make it this one" so I assumed that if it made that positive of an impact on someone, then I would at least like it a little bit.

I liked it a whole lot more than a little bit.

Short summary:

The book is about a 15 year old girl named Lina who lives with her parents and younger brother in Lithuania during the early 1940s. One day, her entire life is thrown into turmoil when she, her mother and her brother are thrown into a crowded train car and shipped to a work camp. She is labeled as a criminal by members of Stalin's army and is exposed to many horrors that take her life from care-free to horrifying. Lina finds solace in drawing portraits of the people she comes in contact with and attempting to discover the fate of her missing father.

Some things I learned:

I for one never recall learning in depth about Joseph Stalin's 'purges' in school. This book actually taught me a lot of things that I never learned in school. (And they told me I was wasting my time reading so many books). These purges claimed anywhere from 20 to 60 million lives, including children and infants. The majority of these deaths were of those who did not support Stalin's reign and spoke out against him. The rest of the deaths were of their families. It is argued that the majority of these deaths were not 'intentional' by Stalin's army but were a result of starvation, illness, or exposure to the elements. Only about 1 million were personally shot by officers. Regardless, the numbers are staggering and the simple fact that they don't actually know how many lives were taken is upsetting and shocking.

A Conclusion:
And so, I must say I recommend this book. It is a beautiful story about an amazing family and group of people and is an amazing way to get an in depth look at one of history's less explored events. It is very sad and often a little grotesque, and although it is recommended for 12+, I found it to be a bit graphic in describing it's scenes of death and abuse. However, it is very realistic and does not 'sugar coat' the historical events. It's a fascinating look inside of the minds of the victims of Stalin.

Next, I'm reading Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson and I expect to be finished in the next couple of days. :) Talk to you guys soon!

LOTS OF BOOKS.

Hey there ya'll! (is that appropriate? Am I allowed to say ya'll or should I just not?)

It's almost summer and hopefully that means that I'll get to do a few more legit book reviews. I've just been really busy. That's a total lie. I guess the truth is that I've just been reading so much lately that it's really hard for me to review each and every one. But today I'm just going to run through the list of books I've read since I last posted and give you a brief compilation of my thoughts on the book. I'm just going to assume that you already know what the book is about so I don't have to go into a long summary or anything. :) Thanks for being patient to those of you who are still with me, here. :) (I'm going to start at #28 because it's the 28th book I've read this year. The first 27 can be found on my last post.) Also, rating is on a scale of five *'s.

28.) The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry- I'm a Lowry fan. I loved The Giver series and I figured The Willoughbys would be similar to the series. I figured it would be a bit dark, and I was very wrong. I found that it was insanely clever. It was disguised as an innocent parody of classic stories meant for children, but it actually carried an awful lot of adult messages. As a quick example, the middle Willoughby child, Jane, is constantly battling her brothers and other male characters in the book due to her gender. It's addressed in a funny way, but the Jane's feminist nature carried a lot of weight with me. The book is intended for children 8 and up, but I think that people of all ages could appreciate it's message, particularly those who grew up reading fairy tales about perfect families and children. It really flips those stories on their heads. (Rating: ****)

29.) Hate List by Jennifer Brown-I went into this book with very high expectations and as a book lover I really should learn my lesson with this. I figured that it would be emotional and sad, but I just thought it was annoying. Let me state one fact about the book before I continue: The book was inspired by a Nickleback song. Now, I'm not saying that's entirely bad...okay I am. The book wasn't the best, in my opinion. I didn't care much for Val. I thought that she had a desperate-to-be-different attitude that I just struggled to grasp. I did, however, appreciate the flashbacks to her relationship with Nick before the shooting. Those few moments were the only time I felt any sort of emotion at all. (Rating: **)

30-34.) The Delirium Series (including Hana and Raven) by Lauren Oliver-So this series was introduced to me by my very dear friend Sage, and I freakin' loved it. The premise of it itself sounds so cliche and silly but it is so well done. Never in a series have I had so many freakouts in such a close span of time. Luckily, I didn't have to wait between novels. If I had, I might have died. It is such an intense series. All of the characters are very dynamic which is usually hard to come across particularly in series. I fell in love with Alex, I fell in love with Julian, I hated them both and then loved them again, it's crazy guys. It's absolutely crazy. I can't even tell you how crazy it is. Please just take my word for it and read these books. The three novellas are all less than 100 pages each and add great depth to the book that came before it. (The order is Delirium-Hana, Pandemonium-Raven, Requiem-Annabel) DO NOT SKIP OUT ON THE NOVELLAS. I'm going to be honest, I didn't read Annabel. Once I finished Requiem I was in shock for quite some time and was a bit mad at Lauren Oliver, to be honest. Give it a shot. I'm serious. (Rating: *****)

35.) Eleanor & Park by Rainbow Rowell-There have only been a few books recently that I've been so excited to read that my palms literally got itchy until I got my hands on them. Unlike Hate List, Eleanor & Park did not disappoint. It was amazing. From page one, I was utterly in love with Eleanor. I felt like she was the character that most resembled my personality, possibly out of any book I've ever read. Rowell eloquently grasped what falling in love in high school is like, realistically. Without all of the ooey gooey stuff. In fact, Eleanor and Park don't even share their first kiss until the book is almost over. The author I would most compare Rowell to would be John Green which is the highest compliment that I can give to an author. It was beautiful. (Rating: *****)

36.) Just Kids by Patti Smith-I hate nonfiction with a bloody passion. However, I was forced to read this book because I really didn't want to fail english. Luckily for me it wasn't bad. Other than Patti's incessant name dropping (boastful at best) I thought the story was great. Robert and Patti's relationship was so remarkable it's almost difficult to imagine that it ever happened. I don't know that I would've chosen to read it on my own, but I really didn't think it was that bad. If you're interested in what life was like in the late 1960s, or if you're a fan of Smith, give this one a shot. (Rating: ****)

37.) Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card-So my dad gave me this book when I was about 11 and I was never able to finish it because...well, there's really no reason. I probably started it and made it halfway a dozen times and I was finally able to conquer it this week after an intense 7 year battle. And it was really good! I'm normally not a sci-fi fan. At all. But this was a sci-fi story that was almost believable. The ending was rather intense and was so worth the kind of slow pace of the first half of the book. Also, Ender was really cool and I'm feeling a bit guilty about my major crush on him because I don't believe that at any point in the book he's older than 11. (Rating: ****)

38.) Room by Emma Donoghue-This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time I was reading it. I've wanted to read it for quite some time and I really liked it. Ma was such a strong character throughout the whole novel and Jack's voice narrating the novel was a really fresh idea. For those who don't know, the story is told from the perspective of 5 year old Jack. Basically what is happening is Jack's mother was kidnapped at the age of 19 and has been held in her captor's shed for 7 years. Her strength as a mother ultimately saves herself and her son's life. I highly recommend this book to just about everyone. It's rather hard to get through because of how realistic it is, but it's very much worth it. (Rating: *****)

OKAY THAT'S ALL I HAVE FOR NOW! I have a small stack of books I got from Salvation Army that I'll be reading this week so I'll let you know how that goes. :) Right now, I'm reading She's Come Undone by Wally Lamb but it may take me awhile because finals are next week and all that fun stuff.

Talk to you soon! I promise!

I'm terrible at this blog thing....

Hey guys! It's been... A long time. Why does it seem like that's how my posts always start? Oh we'll. I kind of suck. Hopefully I still have a few of my followers! My main point for this blog post is to show you a list of the books I've read so far this year. But first, I just wanted to point out how crazy it is that I'm 3/4 of the way through my senior year of high school! My graduation is in June and I am absolutely thrilled. However, I am a little nervous about what lies ahead. One step at a time, I suppose. :)

I've also been doing a lot of writing. Nothing good, but writing none the less.

Now to the best part! Books! The following is a list of everything I've read in 2013. Ready? :)

1. Matched-Ally Condie
2. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas-John Boyne
3. Every Day- David Levithan
4. Beautiful Creatures-Kami Garcia
5. The book Thief-Markus Zusak
6. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist-Rachel Cohn
7-15. Series of Unfortunate Events 1-9-Lemony Snicket (don't judge me. I've never read them before.
16. Wintertown-Stephen Emond
17. If I Stay-Gayle Forman
18. Ruby's Imagine-Kim Antieau
19. How They Met and Other Stories-David Levithan
20. Girl, Interrupted-Susanna Kaysen
21. Mister Death's Blue Eyed Girls-Mary Downing Hahn
22. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time-Mark Huddon
23. The Bell Jar-Sylvia Plath
24. Let the Right One In-John Lindquist
25. The Lovely Bones-Alice Sebold
26.Marley and Me- John Grogan
27. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan-Lisa See


That's it so far!! I've read a lot of great books and I've still got a lot of books to go. I hope to at least make it to 100 and beat my record last year! If you have any recommendations, let me know!

Warm Bodies Movie Review *MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS*

So my friend won tickets to an advanced screening of the upcoming movie Warm Bodies starring Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer. Unfortunately for her, she couldn't go. Fortunately for me, she gave me the tickets! So my boyfriend and I were really excited for the opportunity to go!

As far as the theater itself went, it was not the best. Long story short they collected everyone's cell phones. Of course I understand it was for security purposes, so the movie wasn't recorded and distributed, but it was kind of snuck on us. They let us past the ticket collector and guided us to the auditorium that the movie would be in and then kind of jumped out with plastic bags and made people hand over their electronics. I was really uncomfortable with this and refused. We decided to take our electronics back to the car, except I took my cell phone back in. I felt uncomfortable about leaving it with strangers or in the car. Luckily, they took my word that I didn't have it on me and we were let in.

The second mistake on the theater's part was the fact that there was a couple with a very young toddler who was disruptive. It wasn't even the toddler that bothered me, it was his mother. She spanked him multiple times and wouldn't leave the theater. Finally, a manager came by and said something to them. Still, they didn't leave. The manager gave them multiple warnings until they finally left. At last, I could focus entirely on the movie.

The biggest thing that stood out to me were the parallels to society. 'R' has a flashback to how things were before the plague spread at the beginning of the movie: everyone was disconnected and focused on their electronic lives. (The irony of this, of course, came in the form of the smuggled cell phone in my pocket). This, to me, was like how we are turning into zombies. We are constantly plugged in. Luckily, there's a way to remedy this: love.

All in all, it was a great movie. However, the whole "tell a girl to stay put and she runs away" thing is getting old. But it helped to progress the story. 'R' was a completely lovable protagonist and the movie was funny and heartwarming. I would recommend it to pretty much anyone who's looking for an all around movie. :)

okay, that's all I have for you guys!! Go see Warm Bodies on February 1st!