Finally a New Post

July 6, 2014

I haven't posted in a long time but I've been busy with school and sports. Here is another thing of reading logs.

Enjoy

The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics by Daniel James Brown

Non-Fiction

This book is a book about the University of Washington’s rowing team and their quest for gold in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin. I am a huge history nerd and love reading books about WWII and the Olympics. I enjoyed reading how a team of average people who had been growing up poor and were able to pull together a victory during Hitler’s Olympics when Germany was the favorite team to win. The book gave an inside look at how rowing works and just how badly some people wanted to win. I definitely recommend this book to everyone.

Ashfall, Ashen Winter, and Sunrise by Mike Mullin

Dystopia

This trilogy tells the story of a boy named Alex living in the United States near Yellowstone National Park and what happens to him when the Yellowstone supervolcano erupts while he is at home alone. Yellowstone is a place I visited when I was ten years old and it left a lasting mark on me. The place holds a special spot in my heart. Reading about what could happen if the volcano does go off was really interesting and Alex was a protagonist I connected with. He does meet a girl but their relationship was not just romantic it was about surviving the disaster.

Panic by Lauren Oliver

Fiction

Panic reminded me of a game played by high school students at many high schools across the United States and Canada. It has been called many names but the basic premise is everyone has a water gun and attempts to get other people out without getting out themselves. Well in Panic they play a similar game but a lot more dangerous than shooting people with water guns. Students at Heather and Dodge’s school compete in dangerous tasks such, as robbing someone’s house or jumping off a cliff into the water below. Since the water gun version was going on at my school it was easy to imagine what might happen if my high school did a similar version of Panic like the book. I couldn’t believe people would do the dangerous tasks when their lives were in danger just so they could win the game.

Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell

Non-Fiction

This book takes place in the Catalonia area of Spain during the Spanish Civil War. I had read Animal Farm and 1984 also by George Orwell but I had no idea he had written a non-fiction book. I enjoyed learning about his life aside from being an author. I had no idea he had served in a militia group in Spain.  I also enjoyed learning about what led him to write Animal Farm and 1984 and why he didn’t like the government.

Peeps and The Last Days by Scott Westerfeld

Dystopia

This series was the last series of books by Scott Westerfeld that I had left to read and I was holding off on it for some odd reason. When I finally picked them up and read them I couldn’t put them until I reached the end of the books. Peeps and The Last Days follow a few characters through a world with a parasitic disease that causes people to become vampire-like people called peeps. Like all of Scott Westerfeld’s works this series was really well written and made me at the edge of my seat waiting to find out what would happen in the end. One thing that did creep me out was that every few chapters there would be a chapter detailing some horrible disease. Reading these gave me insight on to diseases I was already somewhat familiar with, but it also freaked me out knowing some of the diseases are quite easy to get such as toxoplasmosis.

The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd

Dystopia

The first book in the Carbon Diaries series is set in 2015 and the second book is set in 2017. They follow a girl named Laura living in the UK when the UK starts carbon rationing because climate change has gotten so bad. Laura is just trying to have a normal life going to school and trying to get the attention of a boy while the world is spiralling out of control. This book series was definitely one of my new favorite series since Laura is very relatable and the events of the series could easily happen in the next couple of years. The way Saci writes I felt like I was right there with Laura going through her family problems and boy problems while trying to manage her band and deal with carbon problems. The author write about a future that could easily happen with the way we are treating our world and I would rather not have my children grow up in a world where we have carbon ration cards and a horrible climate.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

Dystopia

I know the famous saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, but boy did I misjudge the Giver before reading it. The image on the cover is an older man who looks almost like a rabbi and when I saw it I thought it was another Jewish book about philosophy or something. So I left it sitting on the shelf at the library and walked away. But the books still stayed on my mind and when I heard it is going to be a movie I decided it was high time I picked it up and read it. I loved it and read it in one sitting. Lois is a fabulous writer and Jonas was a very easy character to connect with. The book makes me feel like I am Jonas and I am learning the truth about his world as I go along. When Jonas receives his role as the new receiver of memories he has no clue what the world was like before everything was turned the same. I really got a clear sense of what it was like for him to learn about our world for the first time. When people ask to describe color it’s very hard to describe it exactly right. My favorite parts in the book are when Jonas, who has lived in a black and white world his whole life, is seeing colors for the first time. Picturing his wonder at all the things he missed out on in the world just shows how much memories matter and how important it is to remember them all.


I will be moving this blog from Blogger to a google site since it makes it easier to have different topics aside form just reading logs. Here is a link to the new site: Just Being a Bookworm
I have all my old reading logs and old posts on the new website.

Thanks so much for reading this!

Dena