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Review // The Council of Mirrors Sisters Grimm Book Nine

by Michael Buckley

Just so you know, the actual cover is a lot more attractive than the picture. I've been reading this series since third grade, and I had to finish it even if I'm well over the target age. Hey, finals are coming up, and I'm not really in the mood to read something too strenuous.

Quick series recap and no spoilers if you haven't read it. Sabrina and Daphne Grimm are sisters whose lives took a turn for the crazy when their parents go missing. They're put into a series of terrible foster homes and have always managed to escape their evil guardians until they move to Ferryport Landing to live with their Granny Relda. The town is not as it seems. The people in it are all from fairytales Sabrina and Daphne had read. They find out that all the fairytales are true, more or less. That the works of writers like the the brothers Grimm and Hans Christen Anderson weren't stories, but documents and diaries of things that actually happened. The best part is that Sabrina and Daphne are the descendants of the brothers Grimm.

Long ago all of the fairytale characters were trapped in Ferryport Landing to keep them away from the rest of the world, but now some of them want freedom. They want out. They call themselves the Scarlet Hand, and they are responsible for kidnapping Sabrina and Daphne's parents. In this final book, Sabrina and Daphne will face the head of the Hand and hopefully win.

I didn't want to reread the whole series just for this last book, but I kind of wish I had. It's been a few years since the previous book came out, and a lot of the book harkened back to things I just didn't remember.

Once I got past the not really knowing what was going on part, I really enjoyed it. It's just a really cute fairytale read for elementary and middle graders (and apparently high schoolers). I think it was a nice end to the series, and if you're looking for a cutesy summer read you should definitely check out this book and the other nine that come before it.

Review // Divergent

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

It's really hard to sum up dystopian novels in a few sentences, but here we go. Divergent is the story of Beatrice Prior, who lives in a futuristic Chicago. In her world, the people have separated themselves from one mass to five different "factions": Amity the peaceful, Abnegation the selfless, Candor the honest, Dauntless the brave, and Erudite the intelligent. Each faction has its own beliefs about the dystopian "what went wrong", our modern-day society failed, and which values are most important now to make sure their society doesn't.

When the teenagers in this society turn sixteen, they each take an aptitude test to tell them which faction they would best fit with. After the tests, there is a ceremony where they choose a faction to join for life. Most choose to stay in the faction which they were born. Some choose to switch and never see their families again. Beatrice's situation is a little different, though. She's Divergent (clever title), which means her aptitude test results were inconclusive. She can choose to go with the Dauntless or the Erudite, or stay in her family's faction, Abnegation. As the little tagline says, "One choice can transform you." The rest of the story focuses on her fitting in with her faction, making it past initiation, and figuring out what's wrong with the government. Because it wouldn't be dystopian if something wasn't wrong with the government.

The first thing you'll notice when you pick up this book is that it's a sprint from start to finish. Within the first fifty pages, Beatrice has already taken her aptitude test, chosen a faction, and we've gotten most of the background story about this futuristic world. I loved that it was so fast-paced, and the background story didn't seem too needlessly injected into the front half, but I kind of hoped for a little bit more story. It isn't really clear why Chicago has separated into these factions, and we don't really know about any other place except for Chicago. Are there even other cities, or is Chicago the only populated place left in the world? Luckily Divergent is the first in a trilogy, so hopefully we'll get to see some more world development in the second and third book.

The descriptions of Chicago are wonderful. Nothing has really changed, except that everything is divided into factions. Without giving it away, the headquarters of the faction that Beatrice either chooses to join or stays in is just awesome. It reminds me of the senate building in Star Wars, except cooler and more vertical and more nook-and-cranny-ish.

Beatrice, or "Tris" as she goes by, has a great voice. Something that makes her so awesome, and Veronica Roth says so in a little interview in the back of the book, is that Tris is an active character and not a reactive one. She likes to be in control of a situation and proves that she can control what happens to her even if she's not the biggest, strongest, or tallest, she can be the toughest, and it earns her respect from her peers. She's also very dimensional and doesn't really fit into the protagonist stereotypes of "the hero" or "the underdog."

I liked it a whole lot. I was going to wait for the paperback of the second book Insurgent to come out before I bought it, but I don't really want to wait. There's always the library, I guess.

Just so you know, this book is going to be a movie. I can feel it in my knees. Either that or it's going to rain.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Polyjuice Potion

The Polyjuice Potion

In which Christmas arrives, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione finally use their Polyjuice Potion.

We begin in Dumbledore's office, immediately after Harry and the rest of the school finds Justin and Nearly Headless Nick post-petrification. Dumbledore's office seems really cool, full of old gadgets, his beloved phoenix, the Sorting Hat, and portraits of all of the previous headmasters and headmistresses.

Out of curiosity, Harry tries on the Sorting Hat again, and once again it tells him that he would make a good Slytherin, leaving Harry to doubt his placement in Gryffindor. I think Harry has the ambition and cunningness to be a Slytherin, but he's much braver.

Then Fawkes the Phoenix dies. It's funny that Fawkes's name means Falcon. But after it dies, it is reborn as a wee little baby bird. Dumbledore tells Harry all about Phoenixes and that he doesn't doubt Harry's innocence to the situation, even though Harry looks very guilty right now. That's one of the great things about Dumbledore: he isn't condescending and he is very trusting. Maybe too trusting, but he's smart enough to have those amazing sorts of hunches that are nearly always right.

Another of Hagrid's roosters is dead.

Christmas arrives, and Harry, Ron, and Hermione as well as the rest of the Weasleys choose to stay at Hogwarts over holiday. Draco Malfoy is staying, too, so it'll be the perfect time to test out their Polyjuice Potion on him. After the feast Christmas night, they run off to Moaning Myrtle's bathroom to drink their potion. Ron and Harry make a detour to put Crabbe and Goyle to sleep and steal some hairs.

After drinking the potion, Hermione decides she doesn't want to go, so Harry and Ron are left to find the Slytherin Common Room and Malfoy on their own. It's surprising Malfoy chose to stay over holiday, given his attachment to his parents.

When they find Malfoy, he shows them an article that says Arthur Weasley was fined fifty galleons for bewitching the car. Maybe it is solely based on blood, but I'm not sure why Lucius and Arthur have an ongoing feud. They aren't the same age, so they can't have met at school, and they are entirely different people. He also tells them how his father knows that the last person to open the chamber of secrets was expelled—and someone died.

When the potion wears off Ron and Harry hightail it back to Myrtle's bathroom. They find Moaning Myrtle cracking up at Hermione, who looks like a cat, because she accidentally took cat hair from Millicent, not Millicent hair. Not the best year for Hermione in terms of magic-related injuries, not that Harry's any better off with his arm bone situation.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Dueling Club

The Dueling Club

In which the Polyjuice Potion starts to be brewed, a dueling club is formed, a parselmouth is outed, and a Hufflepuff is petrified.

The polyjuice potion that will hopefully give Harry, Ron, and Hermione more information about Draco Malfoy has begun brewing. Harry and Hermione carried out an elaborate plot to get all of the ingredients needed, and they're brewing it in Moaning Myrtle's bathroom of all places. Fun, Fun, Fun.

There is an official Hogwarts dueling club that's formed, with Lockhart and Snape as leaders. I just realized that Lockhart tries so hard to make himself known, and he coincidentally appears in nearly every chapter in this book—being an idiot, as usual. The Hogwarts professors are very nervous about the recent attacks on the school's muggle-born students. It's one of the scarier things that happens at Hogwarts. Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in the wizarding world, and if even Hogwarts isn't safe anymore, then I don't know where I was going with this sentence. Then bad things are happening.

At the dueling club, Lockhart proves to be incompetent. Snape is taking advantage the one bit of Defense Against the Dark Arts he can teach, the Dueling Club. And together they spell out disaster. Also interesting to note, the Expelliarmus spell, which later becomes Harry's sort of signature defensive move, was taught to him by Snape.

Everything is going fine until Draco shoots a snake out of his wand toward Harry. The snake goes for Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hufflepuff extraordinaire, until Harry tells him to stop. In parseltongue. The language of snakes is something that's rare, even by wizards' standards, and if you speak it, you are automatically an assumed bad guy. Even Ron and Hermione are wary of Harry at first.

By noon the next day, everyone is talking. And even the Hufflepuffs, who are normally a forgiving bunch, are accusing Harry of being a wizard darker than You-Know-Who, who had a vendetta against Justin and meant to kill him with the snake. The worst part is, the perpetrators of the rumors are some of Harry's friends.

Shortly after, Harry runs into Nearly Headless Nick looking all dark and petrified and Justin Finch-Fletchley looking all recumbent and petrified. And everyone's fears about Harry are confirmed—not really. But gosh, Harry has just run into the worst strand of unluckiness that Hogwarts has seen in a century.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Rogue Bludger

The Rogue Bludger

In which a bludger chases Harry, he ends up in the hospital, and someone new is petrified.

Hermione's crush on Gilderoy Lockhart is utterly perplexing. Clearly he isn't smart and clearly he didn't do the things that he said he did in those books that he said he wrote. Everyone seems to realize this except for Hermione, who is still head over heels for him. It's kind of funny that she probably has the most common sense out of the three of them, yet she always seems to have crushes on famous guys. a.k.a. Lockhart, Krum, Ron.

They've started brewing a polyjuice potion in the hope of discovering whether or not it is Draco Malfoy who is petrifying the muggle borns. Hermione is pretty ridiculous at potions. This one will take a month.

Then it's the first Quidditch match of the season, and the game is addled only by the presence of the killer bludger that loves Harry. Obviously it was Draco Malfoy who tampered with it. If there's one thing you know from reading Harry Potter, it's that you can always blame Draco Malfoy. Finally the bludger does kill his arm, but not before Harry catches the Snitch and wins the game. If you want to see an accident, you should go to a Quidditch match. Quidditch itself is a fine sport, but things like dementors, jinxed broomsticks, and jinxed bludgers are always popping up at games and landing Harry in the hospital wing.

Actually, it wasn't the bludger that landed him in the hospital wing, it was Lockhart, duh. Lockhart, the big dummy, tries to mend Harry's arm but instead removes all of the bones in it. Gross. In the hospital wing, Madam Pomfrey gives him a little potion to regrow his bones (it's just that simple!). 

Dobby visits him and lets slip that it was he who blocked the platform and tampered with the bludger. Dobby means well, he really does. We still don't technically know that the Malfoys are Dobby's owners, but Holy Hippogriffs are they nasty to him. He briefly mentions that if his owners give him clothes then he'll be free. At least he never has to do the laundry. On a serious note, though, it's extraordinarily sad that owners of house elves think so little of them that they don't even provide them with the basic immediate needs of food, shelter, and clothing. House elves only get shelter, and maybe leftovers, I'm not sure.

The chapter ends with a few teachers bringing Colin Creevey into the wing, petrified. He's the first human to be. We learn that Dumbledore believes in the Chamber of Secrets and that it has been opened again.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Writing on the Wall

The Writing on the Wall

In which everyone jumps to conclusions.

Everyone jumps to conclusions. Filch and Snape jump to the conclusion that Harry petrified Mrs. Norris. Moaning Myrtle jumps to the conclusion that Harry, Ron, and Hermione hate her. Percy jumps to the conclusion that Ron is a pervert, hanging out in the girls' bathrooms. Harry, Ron, and Hermione jump to the conclusion that Malfoy is the heir of Slytherin. And the whole student body jumps to the conclusion that Harry is the heir of Slytherin. That is the gist of the chapter. Restatement of my thesis: everyone jumps to conclusions.

I find that in a lot of stories, the "background story," why or how something came into being and why it is the way it is, is just stuck in somewhere randomly in the first few pages of the first book in a series. I think J.K. Rowling did an excellent job of saving story for when it's relevant, instead of just giving it all away to start with. She sneaks in some excellent background in this chapter, the entire story of how Hogwarts came into being. And adds to it by telling us the mystery of the chamber of secrets.

The castle is struck with chamber of secrets fever, trying to figure out who the heir of Slytherin is. And Harry starts questioning his placement in Gryffindor. I said it before a while ago: the houses are pretty general. No one is simply courageous, smart, ambitious, or loyal. They're a mixture of one or more. This would probably be the opportune time to sneak cleverly in that according to Pottermore, I'm a Ravenclaw. Yeah, totally just wrote this whole paragraph, so I could say that I was a Ravenclaw.

A little sprinkling of fun for anyone who was paying extra close attention to the text: maybe it's only the older copies of CoS, and I assure you my copy is ancient, but on page 157, when Percy finds Ron coming out of Myrtle's bathroom, it's accidentally typed "Perry."

Everyone accusing everyone of everything, clever background story, house confusion, and a typo sum up my thoughts on the chapter. It wasn't very long, and not a lot happened, but it sure was a fun time.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Deathday Party

The Deathday Party

In which Harry, Ron, and Hermione attend Sir Nicholas's Deathday party, and Mrs. Norris ends up looking like the picture above.

Chamber of Secrets has never been my favorite book, but something I like more then the others is that it delves deeper into wizard culture. The first book paints a great picture of the wizarding world for you to start out with, and the second book kind of twists the lens and brings everything into focus. You get to read about things like Quidditch practice, ghosts, Dueling Clubs, squibs, and detentions and experience Hogwarts.

In this chapter, Harry is invited to Sir Nicholas's deathday party, the ghostly equivalent of a birthday party. Don't quote me on this, because I'm likely wrong, but I thought that all four of the Hogwarts house ghosts, Fat Friar, Bloody Baron, Grey Lady, and Nick, were all connected somehow through some sort of story. I realize it would take me ten minutes to look that up, but I'm being lazy. There's also a poem that was cut from CoS that is deliciously dreadful. You should check it out.

It's exceedingly sad that Nearly Headless Nick died by being chopped forty-five times in the neck with a blunt axe and still can't is denied when he tries to join the Headless Hunt team. I'm not sure if J.K. Rowling's ghosts can or do move on, but I think that if Nick could run around with those headless hooligans for a year or two, then he would want to.

We also find out that Filch is a squib. I don't really have a lot to say about that, except that it makes sense, I guess.

And finally, we round out the chapter with a little murder . . . er, petrification. In the form of Filch's beloved cat, Mrs. Norris. There's writing in blood on the wall that reads "THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE" (138). If you've been reading along, you might remember Hagrid's roosters or chickens (something like that) that he'd been keeping. Well, let's just say, he might have fewer chickens after this whole debacle. And we finish the chapter with Malfoy shouting, "'Enemies of the heir beware! You'll be next Mudbloods!'" (139), which automatically makes him a suspect. Dun. Dun. Dun. And the plot thickens.

Also, Happy Harry Potter Day. I celebrated with frozen yogurt (very wizardly). I hope you did something nice to celebrate the momentous occasion.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - Mudbloods and Murmurs

Mudbloods and Murmurs

In which the Quidditch practice season begins, a curse is uttered, and someone eats slugs.

Now that school is in full session, Oliver Wood is cracking down on Quidditch practices. Most of the people on the Gryffindor Quidditch team have other talents. Harry is a seeker and great at Defense Against the Dark Arts, Fred and George are beaters and great at joke-related magic, Charlie was a seeker and is now a dragon whisperer (whatever you call it). Alicia, Katie, and Angelina don't just chase all day (maybe). But Oliver Wood is one of those guys who eats, sleeps, and breathes his sport. He's really lucky that Puddlemore United wanted him. 

The Gryffindor Quidditch team is about to have their first practice of the season early one Saturday morning, when the Slytherin team arrives at the pitch. Apparently Draco Malfoy is on the team now, and thanks to his dad, the Slytherin team all have fancy new Nimbus 2001s. It's a little bit pathetic that when Draco is around his dad all he does is whine about Harry, and when he's around Harry all he does is flaunt the things his dad bought him and whine about how he's going to go whine to his dad about the things Harry's doing. "You wait till my father hears about this!"

Then Draco calls Hermione a mudblood. I had forgotten how big of a deal bloodlines and blood purity were in this book, and really the entire series. For the bad guys, death eaters, purebloods, family history and money are everything. For old wizarding families like the Dracos, the Blacks, and the Gaunts keeping their bloodlines free of nonmagical blood is essential. Mudblood is a terrible insult to Hermione. And the Weasleys, who are blood traitors and very poor, are just as bad as mudbloods, in a bad guy's opinion. Just as important as blood status is creature status (ahem, for example, if maybe you were a half-giant), but more on that in two books or so.

To defend Hermione—awwwww—Ron tries to curse Draco, but his broken wand backfires, and he ends up eating slugs himself. Harry, Ron, and Hermione run off to Hagrid's. At this point, we know that Hagrid's been expelled, but we don't know how.

To fulfill the detentions Harry and Ron received for flying the car to school, Ron has to polish the trophies, while still puking up slugs, and Harry has to help Lockhart answer his fanmail. I personally don't even know why McGonagall let Harry do that. Talk about your cruel and unusual punishments.

That's when Harry first hears the voice. The one that threatens to rip, tear, and kill him. You've heard it, right?

Review // The Basic Eight

The Basic Eight

by Daniel Handler

My current favorite author obsession: Daniel Handler. The past two months, I've read two of his adultier books and reread a couple of A Series of Unfortunate Events books. And it's almost summer; why wouldn't I be in the mood for a little murder?

The Basic Eight are a clique of high school seniors (there are eight of them; clever name, yes?) who are of the classy, intelligent variety. They have garden parties and cocktail parties and dinner parties, oh my. The thing is, you can be the classiest, smartest person in the whole school, but you'll still fall prey to high school drama. It's inevitable. And if things ever get too overwhelming, sometimes you just gotta kill someone to release some stress.

It's an epistolary book. What you see is Flannery Culp's edited diary, so it's a mix of what she actually wrote and what she's added later for pizzazz.

Let's talk about the narrator, the murderess, the ring leader of the Basic Eight, Miss Flannery Culp. She's unreliable and she works it. She'll have a conversation with one of her friends and then repeat it verbatim with another. She'll get a ride with a friend and tell you what they said while they were in the car, and then get out and tell you she walked to school. She tries to slyly worm her way out of things that she blatantly tells you she did earlier on. She's got panache, though. You just have to roll with it.

As for the actual plot, it's both dark and comical, and it's also very tense. It's kind of like when you conspire with your friends that your English teacher steals dogs from people's yards and eats them, and then you find out that he actually does. The foreshadowing was great. It left me on edge just waiting for the big day.

I have two criticisms, and those are that the twist ending, albeit shocking and surprising and all that jazz, fit strangely with the rest of the story. And the book was paced oddly. There were times when I just wanted to get to the climax already.

The Basic Eight is a great high schoolie satire. A great read especially for late April end-of-the-school-year days when you find yourself dreaming up elaborate ways to kill off your Chemistry teacher (not that you do that).

Review // Like Water for Chocolate

Like Water for Chocolate

by Laura Esquivel

I chose this book off of a list of books I had to read for English. I thought I'd try a little magic realism. Life lesson: any time you get to read about magic in school, it's a treat.

That being said, it is best to divide this book into two distinct aspects: the romance aspect and the magic aspect.

For a bit of background, Like Water for Chocolate is the story of Tita, the youngest daughter in the family. She lives in Mexico with her family, and keeping with the family's traditions, the youngest daughter must take care of her mother until the day she dies. This means no marriage, and for Tita, it means she must watch her sister marry the love of her life, Pedro. While serving her mother for eternity, Tita learns to express herself through her cooking, which some might even say is magical (cause it totally is, bro).

First part, a.k.a. the romance. One plot line that I absolutely cannot stand in a book is the cheating plot line. Cheating seems gross to me, and I can't stand how casual people are about throwing love triangles into stories to make them saucier, or whatever. And because of the love triangle plot of the story, I really didn't connect with any of the characters, which didn't make for a happy read. The one character I did like was Mama Elena, Tita's mama. She was a spectacular villain.

Now onto the magic, which was much more enjoyable. I don't know that the magic in the story was necessarily realistic. To me, the whole story read more like a legend or a tall tale, like the stories of Paul Bunyan or Pecos Bill. The magic bits were very exaggerated and legendary, and that was cool. Magic food is always a great addition to a story.

And the last thing I wanted to write about was the format of the book. It's set up like a recipe book, divided into twelve months with each month representing a new recipe. I thought it was a nice idea, but after a few months I was sick of the recipes, and I just skimmed past them.

It was an okay read, not my favorite. If romance is your thing, you'll hopefully enjoy it more than I did.

How to Lose a Whole Lot of Weight!!! (Triple Exclamation Point!)

I recently read an article on the internet that was about weight loss and general health. Because weight loss and/or general health appeal to everyone. And I stumbled across a paragraph that talked about how tall glasses are better than short, fat glasses, because you'll subconsciously fill the short, fat glass more than you'd fill the tall, skinny glass.

Here's a hint, and it's a good one, so lean in and listen closely:

"IF YOU'RE TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT AND YOUR BEVERAGE IS CAUSING YOU TO GAIN THAT MUCH WEIGHT WHY THE BLERKITYDERK ARE YOU DRINKING IT IN THE FIRST PLACE??? (TRIPLE QUESTION MARK?) WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING? A BIG GULP-SIZED CUP OF LARD? HERE TRY SOME FRESH WATER. BEVERAGE OF CHAMPIONS!!!"

Sorry; didn't mean to yell in your ear. . . (Triple period. Also, an ellipsis.)

Review // Life of Pi

 Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

A couple of camping trips and an adventure in the creek at the park are about as far as I've come to roughing it. I'm not that outdoorsy, and like a lot of people I've lived my life without ever having to survive. To be honest, I don't find survival stories that exciting. And it took me an obscenely long time to read Life of Pi, but don't fret, I absolutely loved it.

The story is about Pi Patel, an Indian boy who is a Christian, a Hindu, and a Muslim. His family owns a small zoo in India, but they're moving themselves and the zoo to Canada via cargo ship. On the voyage there, however, their boat sinks, and Pi finds himself in a small lifeboat with an orangutan, a zebra, a hyena, and an enormous Bengal tiger. The story is the story of his survival.

Some of my favorite stories are stories about stories, and this is one of those stories. The beginning of the book is very pretty. Pi has a pretty cool life. His family owns a beautiful zoo, and there are beautiful descriptions of all of the animals in it. He holds three faiths, and you get a little bit of insight into each. The first part of the book is very full and colorful and chock-full of gorgeous descriptions of faiths and animals.

That really contrasts with the second part of the book, the main portion, I suppose, where Pi is drifting along the sea with Richard Parker the tiger. The sea is not something that I like necessarily to read about, and I have to admit, that was what chewed up most of the time I spent reading it.

When I'm reading a book that's slow-paced or about a topic doesn't really interest me, I have to ask myself, is it worth it? Is the end good enough to justify reading all of the rest of the book? In the case of Life of Pi, I don't think it's possible to be disappointed by the ending. The last hundred or so pages are absolutely phenomenal, and it's one of those books that you can just think about forever, even when you've finished reading.

Something I especially loved was that the story wasn't laid out, like, here is the story, now here are the themes, now here is the end. Martel leaves almost the entire book up to your interpretation. How do you read the story? And if you have read it, which do you believe?

Absolutely amazing book, fantastic ending, so so so worth it.

Review // Of Mice and Men

Of Mice and Men

by John Steinbeck

For what reason, I don't know, but the copy of Of Mice and Men that I have is ridiculously tall and skinny. Perhaps like Mike Teavee, it got shrunk in a TV and then stretched back to normal size.

Of Mice and Men is about these two guys named George and Lennie. George is small, cunning, and kind of the leader of the two, and Lennie is a bigger guy who is very childlike in the ways that he thinks and acts. George spends a lot of his time taking care of Lennie, because he promised he would. They've traveled together for a long time, finding work and saving money in an attempt to fulfill their very old American dream of one day owning their own house and land and living off of it.

When the story starts, they're just arriving at a ranch, where they're going to work. George is extremely cautious all the time, to the point where you can feel something, it's not clear what, is going happen, and throughout the course of the book about a million things will pop into your head about what that something could be.

At the beginning, the imagery used to describe the ranch when they first get there and the people who live on the ranch, and just about every aspect of the place they are at is very realistic. The picture that's put out is so clear that you don't have to work at all to get a bearing of what's going on. It really brilliantly sets up the rest of the story.

The two biggest themes here are loneliness and dreams. All of the men in the book are lonely and they're all dreaming of something better. And I think being lonely and I think dreaming are two things that go hand in hand and are very human things to be.

The end actually shocked me a lot. Even though I felt something was going to happen from the very beginning, I had no idea what or how. And I was surprised. And wow.

It seems like everyone's read or been forced to read this book at some point. That's because it's amazing. You should read it too, if you have avoided it thus far in your life. C'est tout.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - Gilderoy Lockhart

Gilderoy Lockhart

In which we find out Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color. Less importantly, though, Ron gets a Howler.

If I had to compare a Howler to something, I'd say it's the wizard equivalent of your mother coming to your seventh grade shop class and threatening to use a jig saw on you because you only packed potato chips and soda in your lunch box. Except a howler would be worse than that, because everyone can hear what your mum's yelling in her scary Howler yelling voice—and you know you deserve it. And it's even worse for Ron, because Mrs. Weasley can be a beast when she needs to be. Outwardly, Mrs. Weasley is nothing but kind to Harry, but she does know how to use guilt to whip him into shape.

After the Howler debacle, Harry feels even guiltier when he sees the Professor Sprout doctoring the Whomping Willow and putting its branches in slings. Lockhart is on the grounds, because obviously he's much better at Herbology than Professor Sprout*. He also tells Harry not to let things like fame go to his head*. And also winning Witch Weekly's most charming smile award is much better than defeating Voldemort when you're a baby*. On a happier note, in Herbology class, the second years are repotting Mandrakes. These little buggers will make a return appearance at the end of the year, so don't banish them from your head completely. We also meet Justin Finch-Fletchley, a fellow second year and Hufflepuff, who we find out is muggle-born.

Chamber of Secrets was never my favorite book in the series, but something that does set it apart from the other books is that we really get to see more daily life at Hogwarts. Many more characters are introduced, we find out more about brooms and plants and Hogwarts's secrets, and more than the first book, we are informed of all these different aspects of being a with or wizard. It's just more world building, more proof that these aren't your stereotypical wizards; they're an entire world of their own, something that extends beyond the ink on the pages.

Colin Creevey is introduced in this chapter, a spritely young first year who is pretty starstruck by Harry despite finding out he was a wizard only months before. Harry and Ron get into a little fight about this with Draco Malfoy and Draco ends up insulting Mrs. Weasley, but what's new about that? Lockhart saves the day by giving Colin a picture of both him and Harry*.

In DADA, Harry finds Lockhart's classroom decorated in pictures of Lockhart*. To start the class, Lockhart gives a quiz over all of his books*, including questions such as "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favorite color?" (100), the answer obviously being lilac*. After the quiz, Lockhart unleashes a herd of freshly caught cornish pixies on the class and proves to be no help collecting them back up, even though cornish pixies aren't even that dangerous*. Ugh, Lockhart is such a fail at being a famous, charming wizard. I don't even know why Hermione is all swoony about him, when he's obviously not as smart as he's leading the rest of the population to believe.

Times Lockhart is an ass in this chapter: ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿ ✿

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Whomping Willow

The Whomping Willow

In which Harry and Ron miss the Hogwarts Express and choose a different route to Hogwarts.

A Series of Trends Throughout the Series:

1. Fred + George + Fireworks.
2. Being late to Platform every single year.
3. Falling a great distance and landing on a harmful plant.
4. Missing the Sorting Hat ceremony.
5. Getting busted by Snape while missing the Sorting Hat ceremony.
6. Getting off with minimal punishment after breaking the rules.
7. Getting reprimanded by Hermione for breaking the rules.
8. Getting cheered by fellow Gryffindors for breaking the rules.
9. Breaking the freaking rules all the freaking time.

Harry and Ron are the brand of dumb in this chapter that you can only get from a pair of twelve-year-old boys. Sending a letter to Hogwarts would have been a smart idea if you couldn't get past the platform barrier. Waiting until Mr. and Mrs. Weasley came out would have worked, too. Waiting by the  car was fine. But, no, they had to go and drive the flying car and get a whole detention for doing so (totally worth it).

The thing I love most about this chapter is the flying car, the Ford Anglia. It's a character by itself, and it is a part of the Weasley family. I love that after it wins a fight with the Whomping Willow, it totally ejects Harry and Ron from inside and becomes a wild recluse in the Forbidden Forest.

The Whomping Willow is cool, too. It is more proof that J.K. Rowling went into this knowing things. Almost nothing here is just randomly placed.

I think when they're first looking into the Great Hall from the lawn, Harry and Ron see the sorting of Colin Creevey. Poor kid: his name is only two letters different then Colin Creepy (he is, though, a bit).

Harry and Ron don't get expelled or arrested. They get one measly detention apiece. McGonagall is a strict woman, but she has a subtle sense of humor about her. Sometimes she can't even take herself too seriously.

Snape is really a grouchy pants. He takes himself to seriously all the time. He takes himself so seriously he conditions with axle grease just to prove that he can seriously pull it off.

At the end of the chapter there's a really cute scene after they've gone to bed where Harry and Ron are reunited with their roommates, Neville, Dean, and Seamus. And then the chapter ended.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - At Flourish and Blotts

At Flourish and Blotts

In which Harry and friends travel to Flourish and Blotts and happen across the infamous Gilderoy Lockhart.

It's Harry's first time traveling by floo powder, and as impressive of a wizard as he is at twelve years old, he still gets nervous and ends up in Knockturn Alley, the sketchiest of all wizardly alleys. He ends up in a store called Borgin and Burkes, which specializes in creepy objects and hides himself in a sarcophagus thing so that he isn't seen by the Lucius and Draco who happen to walk into the store at that moment.

Lucius is selling something. I'm not sure what. It probably doesn't matter, but he does possess some very sketchy objects, one of which he gives to Ginny about five pages later. The diary. Malfoy has this obsession with Harry that kind of carries on throughout the books. I think that he wants to fit in so much with his dad's crowd of Death Eater types that he constantly talks about the only things he knows about, that being Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

Hagrid finds Harry in Knockturn Alley and returns him to Diagon Alley. Who knows what he was doing there. Oh yeah, Flesh-Eating Slug repellent ahem gamblingproblem ahem. Actually it probably was the slug repellent, who knows.

Reunited at last, Harry, Ron, Hermione, and rest go to Flourish and Blotts and find dear old Gilderoy Lockhart doing a book signing there. He announces that he will be the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher and pretends to be buddybuddy with the famous Harry Potter.

You know who else is in Flourish and Blotts? Draco and Lucius. And they start something.

See here, Ginny is not some shy fangirl. She is the first to defend Harry when he's insulted by Malfoy. It only cost her a year of being possessed by a horcrux, but hey. After that, Lucius and Arthur get into a tussle, which is kind of weird, because Arthur is usually the calmest of the Weasleys and I can't imagine Lucius lowering himself so low as to fight with a "blood traitor." I guess Arthur has that "Weasley temper" everyone talks about, and Lucius forgot to eat his Wheaties for breakfast so he was cranky.

This chapter is the only chapter in the entire series in which Hermione's parents are there in the flesh. I don't know if you noticed them in the movie or not, but they're cute parent-types.

Until next time.

The Second Story Window

The downfall to a warm winter is the bugs. Huge. Bugs. Everywhere. A slight exaggeration, but there are those nighttime bugs that love them some windows, and they keep banging against mine like bullets. Every time this happens, my mind immediately jumps to the worst conclusion. That someone is climbing in my window, snatching my people up. Then I remember that my window is on the second story and it is impossible to climb in it unless you're spiderman. Guys, spiderman is trying to break into my house. My spidey senses are tingling.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Burrow

The Burrow

In which Harry is rescued from the Dursleys' house and taken to the Burrow.

A hierarchy of Harry's homes would look like this: Hogwarts, the Burrow, 4 Privet Drive. Even though, Harry would most definitely put 4 Privet Drive at the bottom of the list, it is important that he still considers it home. Every spring, he goes back to Privet Drive at first, not the Burrow or eventually 12 Grimmauld Place.

When we start the chapter, Harry is permanently locked in his room. Bars on his window, deadbolt locks in his door, the whole nine yards. Petunia even feeds him soup three times a day through a cat flap Uncle Vernon installed. It may seem like the Dursleys are doing this because they're angry at him for ruining their dinner party, and I have no doubt that they're furious, but even more than that, they're freaking terrified of Harry.

If I had a list of my favorite moments in the entire series, this would be one of them: the moment when Fred, George, and Ron all break Harry out of his room and take him via flying car to their home. It's the most exciting, huzzah moment.

There's something that Harry says: "'Watch out for the bottom stair—it creaks'" (26) that I found funny. Fred and George just broke bars off of your window, Harry. If the Dursleys slept through that, they probably won't notice the creaky stair. But it's neither the creaky stair nor the bar-breaking that wake Uncle Petunia and Aunt Vernon—hang on . . . scratch that; reverse it. It's Hedwig.

But they escape fine. And they ride off into the midnight sky, home free.

The description and Harry's first reaction of the Burrow is one of my favorite things. He notices everything, from the Burrow's whimsical architecture, to the greenish pond and weedy garden. The knitting needles that knit by themselves, and the Weasleys' clock. That clock is so cool. I think that Burrow is a brilliant contrast to the the spick- and span-ness of 4 Privet Drive.

Home free, not quite, actually. Mrs. Weasley catches them and is throughly peeved at Fred, Ron, and George. She makes many an exception for Harry, and continues to do so right up until the last book.

Harry catches a glimpse of Ginny, the youngest of all the Weasleys, whom we've only briefly seen on Platform 9¾ last year. She was starstruck then and she's very very shy now, which Ron tells us is unusual for her. A lot of people really hate Ginny, because she's fangirly at first. But think about yourself in sixth grade, then imagine yourself in pajamas, meeting your big fat seventh-grade crush who happens to be famous and also your older brother's best friend and also is staying at your house until school starts, which you will be attending together. How would you react?

Okay, how do you think Mr. Weasley developed his passion for muggles? I mean, he's one of two people who share this passion. I always imagined that he got busted for doing something at Hogwarts, and instead of getting a detention, he was forced to do community service with muggles. Dress up like the easter bunny, perhaps? (Holiday spirit.)

Über favorite moment:

"It's a bit small," said Ron quickly. "Not like that room you had with the Muggles. And I'm right underneath the ghoul in the attic; he's always banging on pipes and groaning. . . ."

But Harry, grinning widely, said, "This is the best house I've ever been in" (41).

On that note, I leave you. Goodbye.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - Dobby's Warning

Dobby's Warning

In which Dobby ruins a dinner party and tells Harry not to go back to Hogwarts.

The thing that makes Dobby so admirable is that he has to do the right thing. It's embedded in his character to do what he thinks is right thing no matter what the cost, whether the right thing is to warn Harry of going back to Hogwarts, to hit himself with a lamp, or to not talk ill of his masters. It's pretty tragic to have a heart so golden that it leads to the detriment of others. He honestly means well when he hides letters and drops puddings on women's heads. Those things just tend to upset the people he's trying to help. He's also very smart. He knows exactly what he's doing all the time. He doesn't follow orders from the Malfoys for the sake of following them, and he—forgot what I was going to say—is just really cool.

The Malfoys' plan is hinted at even in this chapter, for why else would Dobby be warning Harry about going back to Hogwarts? Of course, at this point, we don't know that Dobby belongs to the Malfoys or that the Malfoys have a secret plan. I guess despite Voldemort thinking otherwise, Lucius does attempt to bring back Voldmemort. I don't know how he knows what that diary would do, though.

Harry has another dream at the end of this chapter, where he's in a snake cage (or just a regular cage, I'm assuming it's the same cage of the snake he let loose at the zoo last year). A lot of Harry's dreams have to do with snakes and Harry's scar.

I never understood why Harry was reprimanded for Dobby's magic. He receives a letter and everything, but Dobby doesn't have the trace on him, so the wizards shouldn't have even been able to tell there was any magic going on at 4 Privet Drive. My only guess would be that 4 Privet Drive is under very strict surveillance, because Harry's a very important wizard, but I haven't a clue.

Incredibly short chapter. Incredibly short response. Learn how to spell incredibly, Sam.

Harry Potter Hullaballoo - The Worst Birthday

The Worst Birthday

In which Harry finds himself back at the Dursleys for the summer and turns twelve, the Dursleys host a dinner party to which Harry is not invited, and someone watches Harry from the bushes—but only in a minutely creepy way.

I hadn't realized how long it had been since I last read the Chamber of Secrets until I opened the book to find Vernon saying, "do I look stupid?" (1) and my own fourth-grade handwriting writing yes next to it, luckily in pencil.

It's July 31st when our story begins, Harry's birthday. This goes either unnoticed or ignored by the Dursleys who are much too concerned with their fancy dinner party to pay attention to Harry. It seems ridiculous, but I find the wizarding world to be much more believable than the "real" muggle world at this point. Characters in the wizarding world are real, extremely realistic people, and the Dursleys are not. Aunt Petunia is the ugly stepmother when she gives Harry only two slices of bread and cheese for dinner but prepares a feast for her dinner party. Uncle Vernon is just cruel for locking Harry in his room for no good reason. The most realistic person of the bunch is Dudley, and that remains true throughout the whole series. I almost feel bad for him, because his parents are so awful. Something of note: in this chapter, Dudley is the only one to acknowledge Harry's birthday.

No matter how cruel the Dursleys are, there is one thing restraining them and that is their fear of magic. It's not so coincidental that the Dursleys won't say "magic" and wizards won't say "Voldemort." It's especially apparent in this chapter. Vernon won't let Harry even write to his friends. Dudley is petrified of Harry. I think it was Aunt Petunia, who has been exposed to and knows most about magic, who instilled this fear in the other two Dursleys. That and Dudley with a pig's tail couldn't have helped. Aunt Petunia is an extremely interesting character that many people overlook and write off, and I think she has one of the most unique perspectives in the whole book, being a muggle who was exposed to magic and being so against it.

There's something very very sad about Harry not receiving letters from his friends. Hedwig is one of Harry's best friends. Even though he might take her for granted sometimes, she's his only link to the wizarding world during the summer months and the only friend he has at 4 Privet Drive. She's also the only friend who can honestly say she's been by his side from the beginning to the end.

Review // Cinder

Cinder

by Marissa Meyer

When I was a little girl not even in kindergarten yet, I watched Cinderella 10,000 times. I dressed up like her at least three Halloweens in a row, and as a four-year-old my first choice in career when I grew up was Cinderella, even though I would probably die doing all of those chores and definitely die if I saw a mouse, even if that mouse claimed to be my best friend Jaq. And now that we've established that I love me some Cinderella, let's talk about this fractured fairytale where Cinderella is a cyborg in the future.

So yeah, um, a girl named Cinder is a cyborg and a mechanic in a post-WWIV future. She lives in New Beijing, which I'm guessing is somewhere in Asia, probably close to where Beijing is currently (just a random guess though). New Beijing is the capital of the Eastern Commonwealth, a country that's a conglomeration of all of the east-y part of the world. Yes, so, Eastern Commonwealth is hit with a huge plague with a huge medical name, and this plague kills everyone who is infected with it, and there are some doctors who are trying to find a cure, but they aren't having any success. This plague comes from the moon, because there is a population of people on the moon, ruled by the evil Queen Levana, who are immune to the plague and are known as Lunars. There's also this Prince Kai guy who is looking for a wife, so he holds an annual ball, and he also kind of has a wee crush on Cinder after he takes his droid to her shop to get fixed. There's tension between the Lunars and the Earthlings. More concisely: Cinder, plague, Prince Kai (oh la la), Moon people, Evil Queen.

It was a fun read, for sure, and I mostly liked it. In terms of the actual plot of the book it was predictable but still very interesting and fresh. There was just something about reading it that I found a little jarring, a little less-than-absolutely-satisfying. I think it was the development of everything. It was a very full story, and pretty quick-paced, but I felt empty reading parts of it. Like, sort of emotionless at parts where I was supposed feel things. I certainly liked everything about the futuristic Earth, I just felt like certain aspects of the political situation between Earth and the Moon were breezed over too much to really be convinced by them. I think that's sometimes to downfall of science fiction or fantasy writing. There just aren't enough pages for it all to feel complete: something has to be compromised, whether it's the setting or the characters. Some authors do a great job of playing that balancing game, but I just wasn't convinced with Cinder.

I thought some parts were missing, but the things that were there were all good. The twist at the end was really excellent, although I did kind of guess it a third of the way through. Apparently Cinder is a part of a four-part series in which each book is based on a different fairytale. I'll definitely be picking up the other books when they come out.

❃ ❃ ❃ - 3/5

Review // Why We Broke Up

Why We Broke Up

by Daniel Handler

If you know Daniel Handler better as Lemony Snicket you will automatically know that this story is not going to be your run-of-the-mill break up story. And if you know neither Daniel Handler nor Lemony Snicket, then you're in for some quirky twists and turns along the way.

The premise of the book is a very simple something that we've all heard before: a girl returns some mementos to her ex-boyfriend and writes him a letter about why they broke up. The letter includes everything they did when they were together until they broke up. It's a story everyone's heard a million times over, but everyone's break up story is different.

Min and Ed are the two main characters. I really liked that their names, and all of the names in the story really, were very generic, short names, which kind of pounded in the notion that this breakup thing has or will happen to everyone at some point. This same story. I also thought it was clever that the story really could have happened at any point in time. Except for some midnight phone calls, there really wasn't anything that suggested that it had to be about 2012. Because again, this story could have been about anyone at any time. I personally imagined a mid-90s letter-jacket wearing Ed.

Min. She's awesome. In terms of uniqueness, she's very. She's the kind of person that people call arty, different—watches old films, drinks coffee, throws bittersweet sixteen parties. She's normal though. She's not artsy fartsy and she strives for many of the same goals as everyone else in the book. I kind of like the theme that if everyone is trying really hard to be different then they're all acting the same (hipsters). I liked her point of view and that, though she was new to dating and love and though she was writing an angry letter to her ex, she didn't seem desperate or whiny or any of the annoying post-breakup things a person could be.

I didn't like Ed. I know he's the ex-boyfriend, and if we're reading Min's side of things we're supposed to think he's a douchebagidiotassholesonofabitch, but he was very blurry and not very developed. I think there should have been some more colorful language used to express him as expressed above. Instead he was just kind of there to play the role of the not-so-observentcaringkind basketball boyfriend. I didn't really see the connection the two had to begin with . Min said over and over that she loved him, but I didn't see why. I couldn't find why they got together in the first place.

But if everything in this story is generic what makes this story different? It's the almost satirical way the story is laid out that I liked best—there was the generic break up story, the times when I thought oh, Min, don't do that, and the ending that you could do nothing but expect. It was the kind of story where you could see everything coming (I mean, it's called Why We Broke Up, you can't say you didn't see it coming), yet nothing seemed clichéd at all. It was like Min was having the last laugh. Like she's sitting with a beer at a barbecue ten years later with her hotter-than-hot husband and laughing with her awesomer-than-awesome friends and they're all telling the stories of the idiots they used to date in high school that ended up working behind the register at the Chicken Lickin' Diner.

Yes, liked. Yes, will reread at some point in the future. Yes, book did weigh more than my tiny guppy fish muscles could muster.

☕ ☕ ☕ ☕ - 4/5

Review // The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

by Stephen Chbosky

I guess that the best way to describe this book would be to say that it is a conglomeration of every life-changing thing that could ever potentially happen to someone in high school. It's an epistolary (ha, vocab word) novel written from sixteen-year-old Charlie's perspective to an unknown friend.

The book doesn't have problem/solution/beginning/middle/end plot, but it's not like it's supposed to. The story follows the path of the school year. Charlie recounts what happens to him on a day to day basis as he tries not to be a wallflower. "Participate" is the word Patrick always tells him.

Charlie's a really naïve fifteen-year-old, to the extent that at some points he seemed more like a sixth grader than a high school freshman. But at the same time that I say I can't believe all freshman are that innocent, there's something about Craig that makes you like him a lot. Like a Holden Caulfield or a John Green protagonist, Charlie is acutely observant and has thoughts that are well beyond his years and the way that he observes things just a little bit differently than everyone else does is what makes him such a great character. Something that makes me love any character is the way he or she notices tiny details about the world and people that others might miss. Despite Charlie's nerdy, somewhat socially awkward self, he's a very lovable guy, although the amount of crying he did over the course of one school year was pretty ridiculous.

Also lovable are his two best friends: stepbrother and stepsister team, Sam and Patrick. Sam and Patrick are like Janice and Damien from Mean Girls. In other words, "the greatest people you will ever meet." They cuddle Charlie under their motherly wing and teach him life lessons and stuff. I like that they're brother and sister, I thought that was pretty unique, and I loved their quirkiness. Where some secondary characters sometimes blend into the background and are just there for the sake of being there, Sam and Patrick are developed superbly and are as much a part of Charlie's life as Charlie is himself.

I had very mixed feelings about the end. It was extremely abrupt, and the denouement of the end of the school year happened, I thought, before the climax, which I'm not going to spoil. The climax was extremely shocking, and it fit with the story and explained why Charlie acted the way he did and why he thought in some of the ways that he thought. It explained a lot about his personality. But I hated the way they portrayed Sam.

-spoilers start here-

And this next part will be really spoilery, so scat if you've not read, but I really didn't want Sam and Charlie to be anything more than friends who just kissed the one time. And that's something that I don't like about stories: how a guy and a girl can never just be friends, they always have to like-like each other. I understood Sam's whole speech pre-kissing, but mleurghle, I just didn't like that scene. But minus the Sam + Charlie + Kissing + More scene,

-spoilers end here-

I thought the book was very energetic. It was able to deal with such a wide variety of topics, some subtle ones and some that were very outright (pg. 2, suicide), yet it didn't read like a soap opera or a reality TV show. And I loved it, and I recommend you pick it up. If you hate it, it's only 200 pages of your life wasted, and if you like it, there's a movie coming out later this year in which Emma Watson plays Sam. Eep!

❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ ❀ - 5/5

Review // The Name of the Star

The Name of the Star

by Maureen Johnson

So, in the book, there's this girl and her name is Rory. She's from Louisiana, but she's moving to London to go to boarding school there and also because studies show that the masses love English boarding schools (did you not read Harry Potter?). And, like, when she gets there she finds that a series of murders have occurred across the country, much the same way they did in 1888, when Jack the Ripper was around. Soon everyone is seized with fear and no answers and Rory finds herself in the spotlight when she is the only one that seems to have seen the person who police believe was the culprit. Oh, and there are ghosts.

As good as this book looked in the bookstore, I didn't actually find myself loving its innards. I don't want to cast Maureen Johnson off as one of those writers whose books I will never pick up again, but I tend to feel indifferent after reading her stuff.

It's not that there's anything wrong with The Name of the Star. The plot was good. The boarding school was good. The characters were good. I never feel particularly attached to Maureen Johnson's characters, and I don't feel like she really develops them to their fullest, but they were fine. I didn't like Jerome, who was set up to be such a cool guy and then ended up just being obsessed with the Ripper the whole time. But good is one of those throw away adjectives that means nothing.

The book was not scary. I don't read a ton of paranormal young adult books*, so I don't know if they're usually scary or not, but this wasn't at all.

I think that it's often really easy to only focus on the things I didn't like about the book, but there were things I loved about it, too. I don't want to make it sound like I thought this book was terrible, which it wasn't. For example, I love the way Maureen Johnson can set up a scene. When Rory first arrives to the boarding school and is taking in everything, I could really see the things that she described. I also love the little details she injects into her writing, like how Rory notices how her friend Jazza uses "who" and "whom" correctly. I also enjoyed Maureen's take on the ghost, twisting it beyond a Casper and into something that was realistic.

I liked the book, didn't love it, probably wouldn't be the first thing I'd recommend to you. I feel like this was a terribly generic review. Oh well.

✶ ✶ ✶ - 3/5

*Let me tell you, my local Barnes and Noble has an entire two shelves devoted to "Teen Paranormal Romance." Why, when there are only eight shelves of young adult in general, are two of them consumed with "Teen Paranormal Romance"? It aggravates me.

An Open Letter To Inventors

Dearest Inventors,

Let's play a game. It's called the annual weekly bathroom cleaning shindig. I'm no stranger when it comes to bathroom washing. Remove all empty bottles, put everything else on a shelf or in a cabinet, pour some Pine Sol in the toilet, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, flush, OXYCLEAN the bathtub, get suffocated because the smell of OXYCLEAN is as strong as Billy Mays's voice is exuberant, get out some Clorox disinfecting wipes, scrub, scrub, scrub, take out the trash, on the way inside from taking out the trash grab mop, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, slip on newly scrubbed floor, wipe off mirror, put fresh towels in bathroom, and relax. And I can finish my annual weekly bathroom cleaning shindig in fewer than twenty minutes (unless an OXYCLEAN-induced coughing fit overcomes me).

Every week, I get so frustrated when I find that the stupid little Clorox disinfecting wipes do not comma EVER comma clean up my hair. Being a girl with not long but long enough hair means that if I lose any hair at all, it will end up in one of two places: the bathroom sink or the shower. It really hinders my ability to clean, especially when Clorox wipes don't do their job of wiping up my hairs.

The proposal: a little brush, a spray, or a wipe that I can brush/spray/wipe before I disinfect that will remove my hair from the bathroom sink/shower. I know this is a worldwide problem, not just my own, and I think that the product could be a bestseller (just like the As Seen on TV meatloaf pan). That is all.

In hopes that future bathrooms will be hair free,
Sammie, Girl with Hair

Review // It's Kind of a Funny Story

It's Kind of a Funny Story

by Ned Vizzini

This is hands down my favorite read about depression, suicide, and an adult psychiatric ward that I've ever encountered. But in all honesty, how often do I read books about psychiatric wards? Answer: not often.

Craig is a fifteen-year-old boy who is accepted into Executive Pre-Professional High School, a high school for the most gifted students in New York. That's the way life works, right? You need to go to the best high school to get into the best college to get the best job so that you can have the money to get married and have kids and live the cookie cutter American Dream. Craig, however, finds himself crumbling under the pressure of how much work school his, and he works hard to crank out 93 percents in all of his classes as his friends glide their way through AP classes, volunteer work, extra credit, and honor rolls. The pressure to be a school robot who cranks out A++'s like nobody's business quickly overwhelms Craig, and one night he nearly commits suicide. He finds himself in an adult psychiatric ward at Argenon Hospital. 6th North. Five days minimum.

This story is outside of the box. I love out-of-the-box stories. Every single thing that happens during the duration of the book is unique and obscure. Every single thing in the story absolutely leaks with humor and poignancy. It's kind of a crazy book about slightly crazy people (aren't we all) told from the perspective of the relatively normal-seeming Craig.

Craig is a stressed teenager. Though the things that happen to him, like making it into New York's most competitive high school, being suicidal, and spending a week on an adult psychiatric floor at his hospital aren't things that happen to every teenager, the things that he thinks about are. A lot of the worries he had I think are really common worries among teenagers. A job, money, grades, getting into college, getting a boy or girlfriend, and school top this list. I find his character to be incredibly believable.

One of the things that makes this novel so satisfying is that Ned Vizzini himself was hospitalized for depression a few years ago. Immediately following his release he wrote this novel. The other thing is that it's not an IN-YOUR-FACE book. It's not trying too hard to be the best novel about teenage depression or the deepest novel about teenage depression. A lot of depression-related books are so darn depressing, which is pretty counterproductive if you think about it. This book is not at all depressing. I liked its spirit.

Delving into spoiler territory—in other words scat if you have not read yet—I particularly enjoyed the end. I read a review someone wrote that said they thought Craig was unreasonably happy one he got out of the hospital, but I don't think his happiness was unreasonable at all. He knows, and makes a point of saying, that he is by no means cured, but he is better, and suicide to him is now a possibility, not a probability. I thought that was great.

I really liked the movie as well. It was just as crazy as the book. I can't believe I haven't seen it before. Actually I normally don't see movies until years after they're released because I refuse to pay twelve dollars to see them in the movie theater and then I forget about it.

★★★★★ - 5/5

*Gosh, that is one word I will need to add to my "words I can't spell" list. The + rap + ist.

Flower Power: Twilight-y Book Covers

Whilst browsing among the young adult section at my local Barnes and Noble, I frequently come across Twilight-ish covers. You know the ones, fancy print, black background, flower on the cover. Dark and brooding. And as hideously irrelevant as this particular flowery cover is, I have to say this is a great marketing ploy. Giving teenagers classics wrapped in pretty flowers and phrases like "Bella and Edward's Favorite Book" is a great way to get people to read out of their vampire-werewolf comfort zone.

So yes, you could (melodramatically) argue that "TWILIGHT IS RUINING MY JANE EYRE! DIE, BELLA, DIE!" but if more people are reading it because it was stamped with a pretty pink having-nothing-to-do-with-the-story flower, then isn't that a good thing? Plus, a cover like this one is way better than a movie poster cover, which just—bleurck—ruins half the fun of reading, making up in your mind what the characters look like.

Classics covered in Twilight-y book covers and stuck on the young adult shelves get my stamp of approval (not that that holds any weight anywhere). And if you still hate the covers but love the innards, there's always the library or eBay. Remember what your local librarian always tells you, "don't judge a book by it's cover, kiddies" and "it's what's on the inside that counts" and "never fly a kite near a power line."