Nose in a Book

My to read pile. Only The Jane Austen Book Club is a reread. Cannot decide between reading The Thirteenth Tale or I am the Messenger next.

alias grace books decisions i am the messenger reading the girl with the dragon tattoo the jane austen book club thirteenth tale to read taken by me

7 years ago 14 notes

A year ago today I started the 50 book challenge and I ended up reading 210 books, thanks to unemployment. Pictured is some of my favourite books I read this year.

You can read more about my book challenge and my favourites here.

50 book challenge book challenge books reading taken by me my bookshelves

7 years ago 102 notes

Day 10: A Book That Changed Your Life

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. I read this with my Dad the Christmas I was 8 and it was the first book book that made me love reading.

30 day book challenge books reading taken by me

7 years ago 433 notes

Book Review: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

Sleepy Hollow is a small town in New York, inhabited by Dutch settlers. Ichabod Crane is the superstitious village schoolteacher. Ichabod is trying to win the hand of Katrina Van Tassel, a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl in the village. When Ichabod leaves a party he attended at the Van Tassel estate, he is chased by a mysterious headless horseman on the lonely road leading to his house.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is a short story that pretty much everyone is familiar with but not very many people have actually read. I’ve seen the Disney version, the Wishbone episode and the 1999 film with Johnny Depp. However, I’d never read the book (which I happened to own.) This Halloween, I thought I would finally give The Legend of Sleepy Hollow a try. I was surprised to find wit and humor in this book, especially concerning Ichabod (who I still picture as looking like he did in the Disney cartoon.) Irving’s prose is a bit wordy, but I liked his writing overall, especially some of the descriptions of animals and plants. He did a very good job at painting a picture of a sleepy little town. The story is fairly simple, unlike the Tim Burton film. Ichabod leaves a party late at night, and is chased by a headless horseman. Ichabod is never found. I loved how we never know exactly what happened. Overall, it was a creepy ghost story that is perfect for Halloween.

4/5

“They are given to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.”

book halloween reads reading book review

7 years ago 19 notes

When I was in fourth grade (in 1999) we did something called “Book It” with Pizza Hut. I don’t remember the specifics, but if you read a certain amount of books in the month you got a free personal pizza (and a button like this). We never went to restaurants, so that was a big deal in its own, but the waitresses would come out and talk to us about the books we were reading and what not. And that’s why I still love Pizza Hut, even though I never actually eat there anymore.

Book It reading pizza

7 years ago 75 notes

Book Review: Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O’Malley

Twenty-three year old Scott Pilgrim’s life is pretty awesome. He lives in Toronto with his roommate, Wallace Wells, and he’s currently in-between jobs. Scott spends his time playing bass in his band, shopping at goodwill, playing video games and listening to music. Scott is also dating Knives Chau, who is only seventeen. Things become complicated when he meets Ramona Flowers, who is literally the girl of his dreams. Cool and mysterious, Ramona is the opposite of Knives, and Scott can’t stay away. Unfortunately, if Scott wants to date Ramona he will have to defeat her seven evil ex-boyfriends. Will Scott, the ultimate slacker, be able to fight to be with the girl he loves?

Amazing! I loved the movie and I loved the book. I’ve wanted to read this ever since I saw the movie last year. However, since I knew I’d read it very quickly, I didn’t want to spend the $10 to buy it. After waiting on a very long list at my library, I was finally able to read it a few days ago. The movie followed the first book very closely, and I wasn’t disappointed. I basically love everything about Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life. First off, Scott lives in Toronto, and many references are made to places in the city. This might make me sound very lame, but I love it when books or movie reference places I’ve been to. The characters were amazing; they were all quirky, original and very funny. Scott’s kind of a strange hero; he’s a major slacker and can be a jerk at times, but he can also be charming and adorable. Overall, he’s a good guy who has a lot of growing up to do. I found Ramona to be a lot more likable in the book than in the movie. I found Movie-Ramona to be annoyingly aloof, while Book-Ramona feels more like a real person to me. The plot definitely was original and quick paced. I really liked the drawings, especially the funny captions (such as the diagram of Scott and Wallace’s apartment and who owns what.) Overall, Scott Pilgrim’s Precious Little Life was a quick read that was fun, original and hilarious. I don’t usually read graphic novels, and this makes me want to read more of them. If you are a little bit nerdy, I’d definitely recommend this. I’d also recommend this to reluctant readers. Easily one of the funniest things I’ve read in a long time.

5/5

book review scott pilgrim books reading

7 years ago 24 notes

“Book Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs”
“When Jacob Portman was a child, his grandfather would tell him stories about the orphanage in Wales where he grew up during World War II. The orphanage was home to many...

Book Review: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

When Jacob Portman was a child, his grandfather would tell him stories about the orphanage in Wales where he grew up during World War II. The orphanage was home to many peculiar children, including a levitating girl, an invisible boy, and a brother and sister who both had super strength. Grandpa Portman had a collection of old photographs that supported his tales, which he shared with his grandson. As Jacob grew up, he came to realize that the photographs were faked and that his grandfather’s stories were just fairy tales. At fifteen, Jacob has just accepted that he will live an ordinary life, only to then witness something extraordinary. After his grandfather’s suspicious death, Jacob is haunted by the strange creature he may have seen, and by his grandfather’s mysterious last words. Jacob begins to see a psychiatrist who encourages him to delve into his grandfather’s past, so that he will finally find closure about his death. This leads him and his father to a small island in Wales, where Jacob sets out to explore the orphanage and perhaps meet Miss Peregrine, the headmistress. Will exploring the old and abandoned orphanage help him understand his grandfather’s death and his last words?

Despite the hype about his book (including a positive review from John Green) I was a bit hesitant to start it, mainly because my library classifies it as horror. I thought it was going to be a terrifying and morbid book, and was nervous about reading it. I’ve never read a horror book or seen a horror film before, and I get freaked out really easily. Anyways, I obviously gave it a shot (and I’m glad I did) and I’m not sure it actually is horror. I obviously don’t know anything about the genre, but the book is more paranormal, or even fantasy.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children exceeded my expectations. I thought it was amazing. Original vintage photographs appear throughout the novel, which was one of the things I loved. The photos make the book itself visually appealing and add to the over all mood and tone of the novel. The photographs are one of the first things that caught my interest, but they don’t overshadow the rest of the novel. The story itself is great- I don’t want to give away too much about what happens, since I think it’s important, in this case, that everything that occurs is unexpected. I was drawn into the plot and into the mystery behind the life of Grandpa Portman. I liked Jacob as the protagonist and was very interested in the children, especially Emma and Millard. I really wanted to know more about them and their pasts and I hope that that could be revealed in a possible sequel. I’ve heard some people say that they rather this book not be part of a series, since a follow up could fall flat. I think that Riggs could pull off a sequel just as good as the original. His fantasy world is well shaped and fascinating. I was engrossed in this book and found it to be well written and very imaginative.

Overall, this book was wonderful and unique. It was creepy in a good way, and very fresh and original.

4.5/5

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.”

books miss peregrine's home for peculiar children ransom riggs reading Book Review

7 years ago 21 notes

Book Review: Life As We Knew It by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Sixteen-year-old Miranda is a normal girl who lives in Howell, Pennsylvania. When news of an asteroid hitting the moon becomes all anyone can talk about, it just seems like an excuse for her teachers to assign more homework. Asteroids have hit the moon before, but this is the biggest one on record. The world is shocked when the asteroid knocks the moon out of orbit and closer to the earth. Suddenly, the life Miranda has always known is gone. The world is suddenly hit by tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. With unreliable electricity and shortages on gas and food, Miranda and her family have to worry about surviving for the first time in their lives. Things they have never had to consider are decisions they have to make daily. Can Miranda refuse helping others if it means keeping her family alive for another day? Will she put her younger brother’s survival ahead of her own? When the world seems to be falling apart, Miranda writes a candid journal about life as she knew it.

I should start out by saying that this book freaked me out a little bit. This may have been because I finished it at night, but I think it was mainly because what happens to Miranda doesn’t seem so distant from our reality. While the futures shown in novels such as The Hunger Games feel very far away, the events in this novel feel like they could actually happen. And some of them have, on a smaller scale. Natural disasters happen much more frequently than they should. People are recurrently predicting the end of the world, the most recent being last May. In the weeks leading up to the millennium, I’d go to a friend’s house and their basement would be stocked with canned food, matches and emergency supplies. The panic leading up to Y2K reminded me a bit of the panic in this book, except one was warranted and the other was not. I’ve also known people who were living in Quebec during the 1998 winter blackout, and had to worry about keeping warm. Knowing people who have had similar experiences to Miranda’s family makes this book feel very real.

Life As We Knew It is told in Miranda’s diary entries, and I can’t help but wish it wasn’t. The book dragged along a bit in the middle, and I feel that it would have worked better in a different format. Miranda appears to be a lot younger than sixteen in her diary, and maybe this wouldn’t have been the case if it were simply told in the first person. Despite this, I couldn’t stop reading. Even if some parts were slow, I still was dying to know what was going to happen next. The plot is mainly focused on Miranda’s daily life, and there isn’t a lot of action. However, I think the author’s ability to emotionally affect the reader offsets any flaws in the writing. I found myself bringing Miranda’s world into my own and worrying about the fact that we don’t have a wood stove in our house. It was interesting to see how different characters dealt with things, such as Megan immersing herself in religion and Dan and Sammi leaving Pennsylvania. Miranda’s mother was hard to relate to at times, especially since I have trouble understanding how she could put one child ahead of the others. Of course, I’m not a parent and I’ve never been in any life-threatening situation, so I can’t claim to truly understand what she was going through. Early on in the novel, Miranda’s mother decides that her family is the most important thing, no matter what. A lot of interesting questions are asked throughout he novel, such as the cost of survival and whether you’d be willing to put your own well being over a friend’s. This book would definitely be a good choice for a teen book club.

Susan Beth Pfeffer took an interesting concept and turned it into a gripping and unsettling novel about an average family fighting for survival. This book had a strong effect on me, and it succeeded at making the events of this novel feel so real that I couldn’t help being a bit paranoid. A quick and thought provoking read, I’d definitely recommend Life As We Knew It.

4/5

“I feel myself shriveling along with my world, getting smaller and harder. I’m turning into a rock, and in some ways that’s good, because rocks last forever. But if this is how I’m going to last forever, then I don’t want to.”

Book Review Life as we knew it post apocalyptic YA books reading lit

7 years ago 55 notes

Book Review: Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

If you have yet to read Delirium, the first book in the series, then it would be wise not to continue reading this review.

Now that Lena has escaped Portland and found her way into the Wilds, she wants to move on and start over. She wants to forget the person she used to be; a girl who believed everything society told her, and saw love as a life threatening disease. Lena managed to escape just before she was to undergo the procedure that would stop her from ever feeling true happiness or sadness again, although in the process of fleeing she lost her boyfriend, Alex. Now Lena is one of the Invalids who live on the outskirts of society. With her new group of companions, she struggles to survive and find food. While things are much more difficult than they were in Portland, she at least has her freedom. As time passes, Lena becomes part of the resistance and lives under a false name in Brookyln. She finds herself in grave danger when she is asked to keep an eye on Julian, the son of a prominent leader in support of an earlier procedure. While their cause is for the good of everyone, to what extreme will the resistance go to to stand up against the government’s fear of love?

I haven’t been waiting for this book as long as some people (I read Delirium in August) but it feels like I waited forever. While some sequels to terrific books can be a letdown, thankfully Pandemonium was worth the wait. The book is told in chapters that alternate between ‘now’ and ‘then.’ ‘Then’ follows Lena’s life after she escapes into the wilds and meets up with a group of Invalids. ‘Now’ follows her life as a ‘cured’ member of the resistance in New York. This format worked very well, since the two different paces complimented each other. Honestly, I can’t imagine it being done in any other structure. If the events of Pandemonium were told in sequence, it would have dragged on too much. While it had a slow start, Pandemonium quickly took off and was fast moving and full of suspense. The interesting thing about this sequel is that only one of the characters from the last book appears in it. And that, of course, is Lena. After having to leave everything she knows behind, Lena has grown a lot as a person. The hardships she faced as she left Portland have helped her grow and leave the person she used to be behind. As Delirium began, Lena was almost exactly the type of person the government wanted her to be. She believed in The Book of Shh and feared deliria. Now, Lena is immersed in the resistance, fighting for the right to love. I don’t actually want to reread my Delirium review, since it was one of my earlier reviews. However, I do remember saying that while Lena felt like a bit of a flat character, it was because she grew up in a society that encouraged her to be ‘flat.’ So many things have changed Lena since then, and in Pandemonium we get to see more of who she really is. After this book, I don’t think anyone could accuse Lena of being flat or undeveloped anymore. I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that Lena has another romantic interest in this book. I knew that this was going to happen, and I had an idea of how she would meet this person. My predictions on that front proved to be incorrect, although I guessed who was going to be Lena’s new boyfriend as soon as he was introduced. I know a lot of people were not looking forward to this aspect of the plot, but but I ended up feeling just as Lena does by the book’s end. Of course, the big question when reading a sequel is how it measured up compared to its predecessor. While Pandemonium didn’t quite match Delirium, it was a compelling read that was darker and perhaps more thoughtful than the original. I think one of the reasons I preferred Delirium was because of the writing. The prose was much more poetic and enchanting. I suppose you could measure how much you enjoyed a book in a series by how much you want to read the next book (or if you want to read it at all.) If Requiem was already out, I would probably have gone to the bookstore to buy it right after finishing Pandemonium.

4/5

“Grief is like sinking, like being buried. I am in water the tawny color of kicked-up dirt. Every breath is full of choking. There is nothing to hold on to, no sides, no way to claw myself up. There is nothing to do but let go.”

book review lauren oliver pandemonium

6 years ago 5 notes

Book Blogs That Only Post From Credible Sources

Whether that means linking to flickr or deviantart or only posting their own pictures, as far as I know these blogs never use weheartit or post anything uncredited. I’m sure I missed a lot, but here’s some.

Pretty Books

The Girl and Her Books