Book 15

Title: Wuthering Heights

Author: Emily Bronte

Pages: 284

Date finished: May 29, 2010

Publication: 1907

Grade: 8.5/10

Plot:
The name of the novel comes from the Yorkshire manor on the moors on which the story centres. The narrative tells the tale of the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and how this unresolved passion eventually destroys them and many around them.

Book 14

Title: Vampire Diaries pt. 2 The Struggle

Author: L. J. Smith

Pages: 237

Date finished: May 26, 2010

Publication: 1991

Grade: 8/10

Plot:
Picking up where The Awakening left off, Elena confronts Damon about Stefan's disappearance. But when Elena stands firm on her rejection of Damon's romantic advances, Damon refuses to help find Stefan. Elena must turn to her best friends, Bonnie McCullough and Meredith Sulez. Bonnie, who is a witch, uses magic to track down Stefan. The girls discover Stefan trapped in the bottom of a well, close to death. After Stefan's rescue, Elena offers him her blood to recover.

Book 13

Title: Carrie

Author: Stephen King

Pages: 245

Date finished: May 22, 2010

Publication: 1974

Grade: 9/10

Plot:
It revolves around the titular character Carrie, a shy high-school girl, who uses her newly discovered telekinetic powers to exact revenge on those who tease her. King has commented that he finds the work to be "raw" and "with a surprising power to hurt and horrify." It is one of the most frequently banned books in United States schools. Much of the book is written in an epistolary structure, through newspaper clippings, magazine articles, letters, and excerpts from books.

Book 12

Title: Impulse

Author: Ellen Hopkins

Pages: 666

Publication: 2007

Date finished: May 18, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Book 11

Title: Slaughterhouse-Five

Author: Kurt Vonnegur, Jr

Pages: 215

Publication: 1969

Date finished: May 9, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Book 10

Title: The Giver

Author: Lois Lowry

Pages: 180

Publication: 1993

Date finished: April 16, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Plot:
The novel follows a boy named Jonas through the twelfth year of his life. The society has eliminated pain and strife by converting to "Sameness", a plan which has also eradicated emotional depth from their lives. Jonas is selected to inherit the position of "Receiver of Memory," the person who stores all the memories of the time before Sameness, in case they are ever needed to aid in decisions that others lack the experience to make. When Jonas meets the Giver, he is confused in many ways. The Giver is also able to break some rules, such as turning off the speaker and locking his door. As Jonas receives the memories from the previous receiver—the "Giver"—he discovers the power of knowledge. The people in his community are happy because they don't know of a better life but with the knowledge of what they are missing out on it could create chaos. He faces a dilemma: Should he stay with the community, his family living a shallow life without love, color, sound and knowledge or should he run away to where he can live a full life?

Book 9

Title: Vampire Diaries: The Awakening Book 1

Author: L.J. Smith

Pages: 253

Publication: 1991

Date finished: April 19, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Plot:
The first volume of the series introduces the reader to Elena Gilbert, a popular high school student in Fell's Church, Virginia, and her best friends Bonnie, Meredith, and Matt. A former friend, Caroline, is also introduced and revealed to be Elena's antagonist. As her senior year at Robert E. Lee High School begins, Elena meets and becomes involved with a mysterious new student, Stefan Salvatore. At the Homecoming Dance, Elena is upset to see that Caroline has shown up with Stefan, and later leaves with Dick, Tyler, and Vickie to go to the cemetery. After getting Elena alone with him in the graveyard, an intoxicated Tyler begins to assault her, but she is rescued and brought home by Stefan. As Elena and Stefan fall in love, strange attacks begin to happen in the town, and Elena encounters another mysterious man - Damon, who turns out to be Stefan's older brother. During a Halloween fundraiser at the high school, Bonnie finds their history teacher, Mr. Tanner, dead. When Elena leaves to go to the boarding house where Stefan is staying, she finds him on the roof, feeding on a dove. She starts to back away in fear and falls from the roof, but he catches her and then they both go back up to his room. Stefan reveals his past, and explains that he wasn't avoiding her, but protecting her. Stefan tells of his love for a young vampire named Katherine, and his fight against his brother to get her. He says that Elena reminds him of Katherine, and that Katherine was unable to choose between him and his brother. Katherine killed herself, claiming it was an attempt to bring the two brothers together. However, her death just fueled their feud, and Stefan and Damon fight, resulting in both of their deaths, and re-awakenings as Vampires. After Stefan takes Elena home, Damon shows up to taunt Stefan with his own desire for Elena. This leads to a vicious fight. In the morning, Elena becomes extremely upset with Stefan's disappearance.

Book 8

Title: The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

Author: Paul Zindel

Pages: 109

Publication: 1970

Date finished: April 2, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Plot:
The play revolves around the dysfunctional family consisting of single mother Beatrice and her two daughters, Ruth and Tillie, who try to cope with their abysmal status in life. The play is a lyrical drama, reminiscent of Tennessee Williams' style.
Shy Matilda "Tillie" Hunsdorfer prepares her experiment, involving marigolds raised from radioactive seeds, for the science fair. She is, however, constantly thwarted by her mother Beatrice, who is self-centered and abusive, and by her extroverted and unstable sister Ruth, who submits to her mother's will. Over the course of the play, Beatrice constantly tries to stamp out any opportunities Tillie has of succeeding, due to her own lack of success in life. As the play progresses, the paths of the three characters diverge: Tillie wins the science fair through perseverance; Ruth attempts to stand up to her mother but has a nervous collapse at the end of the play, and Beatrice—driven to the edge of sanity by her deep-seated enmity towards everyone—kills Tillie's pet rabbit Peter and ends up wallowing in her own perceived insignificance. Despite this, Tillie (who is much like her project's deformed but beautiful and hardy marigolds) secretly continues to believe that everyone is valuable.

Book 7

Title: Nightfather

Author: Carl Friedman

Pages: 130

Publication: 1991

Date finished: March 16, 2010

Grade: 9/10

Plot:
A young girl and her two brothers try to come to terms with their father, who feels compelled to recount his concentration camp experiences over and over again.

A young girl and her two brothers try to come to terms with their father, who feels compelled to recount his concentration camp experiences over and over again

Book 6

Title: Percy Jackson: The Sea of Monsters

Author: Rick Riorday

Pages: 279

Publication: 2006

Date finished: March 16, 2010

Grade: 8/10

Plot:
During school, Percy is stuck playing dodgeball against large seventh graders who turn out to be Laistrygonians. They summon explosive fireballs and attempt to kill Percy, but he is protected by Tyson, a friend, who is unharmed by the monsters' fireballs. Annabeth saves Percy by stabbing the last Laistrygonian from behind and takes Percy and Tyson back to Camp Half-Blood. They find the camp under attack because Thalia's tree, which protects the camp, has been poisoned by an unknown intruder. Chiron, the assistant director, has been fired because he is suspected of poisoning the tree, and is replaced by Tantalus, a spirit from the Fields of Punishment.
Percy finds out that Tyson is a Cyclops and Poseidon claims him as his son. Annabeth and Percy ask Tantalus to send somebody on a quest to find the Golden Fleece, which he does, sending Clarisse. Percy receives help from Poseidon, who gives them three Hippocampi, and together with Annabeth and Tyson, ends up on a passing cruise ship, the Princess Andromeda, which is revealed to be owned by Luke. They are captured and learn that Luke is trying to revive Kronos, a Titan who is the father of Zeus. They manage to escape and are later saved by Clarisse, who has a boat of her own that was given to her by her father Ares. It is destroyed upon entering the Sea of Monsters, known to mortals as the Bermuda Triangle. They reach the island of Polyphemus and save Grover with the help of Tyson and Clarisse, recovering the Fleece in the process. They make their way to Florida, and Percy sends Clarisse, with the fleece, back to camp. Percy, Annabeth, Grover and Tyson are captured by Luke. Percy manages to contact camp with an Iris-message, tricking Luke into admitting he poisoned Thalia's tree. In a duel with Luke, Percy is nearly killed. He is saved by Chiron and his relatives, the Party Ponies. Chiron is rehired after being proven not guilty, and the Fleece cures Thalia's tree of its poison, and Thalia herself is spewed out of the tree.

Book 5

Title: The Stranger

Author: Albert Camus

Pages: 154

A.R: 6

Date finished: March 2, 2010

Grade:10/10

Plot: The title character is Meursault, a French man (characterised by being largely emotionally detached, innately passive, and anomic) who seemingly irrationally kills an Arab man whom he recognizes in French Algiers. The story is divided into Parts One and Two: Meursault's first-person narrative view before and after the murder.

Book 4

Title: Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

Author: Rick Riordan

Pages: 375

A.R: 13

Date finished: February 24, 2010

Grade:10/10

Plot: Percy Jackson is about to be kicked out of boarding school...again. And that's the least of his troubles. Lately, mythological monsters and the gods of Mount Olympus seem to be walking straight out of the pages of Percy's Greek mythology textbook and into his life. And worse, he's angered a few of them. Zeus's master lightning bolt has been stolen, and Percy is the prime suspect.Now Percy and his friends have just ten days to find and return Zeus's stolen property and bring peace to a warring Mount Olympus. But to succeed on his quest, Percy will have to do more than catch the true thief: he must come to terms with the father who abandoned him; solve the riddle of the Oracle, which warns him of betrayal by a friend; and unravel a treachery more powerful than the gods themselves.

My thoughts: I really liked this book. It really reminded me of Harry Potter, and just a little headsup Harry Potter is briefly mentioned in the book, which I found to be very respectful of Riordan to give a nod to the great book. I liked Percy and Annabeth the most in the story, because I found them to be really good characters that teens who read the book can easily relate.

Highly recommended!

Book 3

Title: The Outsiders

Author: S.E. Hinton

Pages: 180

A.R.: 7

Date finished: January 14, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Plot: Rivalry between rich and poor gangs in 1960s Oklahoma leads to the deaths of three teenagers and intense soul-searching for one of the kids involved, a sensitive fourteen-year-old writer named Ponyboy.

My thoughts: I really loved this book! It was great from start to finish! I just hated that some favorite characters had to die. It did not take me very long to get into the plot and I was very shocked by the events that unfolded. Highly recommended!

Book 2

Title: The Little Prince

Author: Antione de Saint-Exuupery

Pages: 111

A.R. : 2

Date finished: January 14, 2010

Grade: 10/10

Plot: This enchanting fable tells the story of a pilot downed in the Sahara and a boy from outer space who teaches him the meaning of life.

My thoughts: I really liked this book! It was such a cute story and I am really glad I sat down to read it! I am excited about watching the movie. The meaning of life, according to the book, "Everything important is invisble." Which is completely true especially in this day and age. I highly recommend this book to kids as well as adults.

Book 1 of 2010

Yay first book!! As previously mentioned in the closing of the 2009 reading challenge post, I am embarking on a year long misson to read 104 books by years end. I plan to to read atleast two books a week and maybe a third if I have time. Being a Highschool Senior, I believe since I quite fancy English and Grammar, I shouldn't have a dilemma on reading the aforementioned number. Wish me luck!! :D

Title: So. B. It

Author: Sarah Weeks

Pages: 245

A.R. 6

Date finished: January 3, 2010

Grade: 9/10

Plot:
Heidi It is being raised by her neighbor, Bernadette (who suffers from agoraphobia, a fear of being in crowds, public places, or open areas, sometimes accompanied by anxiety attacks) and her mom, So B. It. Heidi says her mother has a “bum brain,” but in reality, her mother is mentally challenged with a vocabulary of 23 words. Bernadette took in both females when Heidi was just a baby and they have become an unusual, yet loving family living in Reno, Nevada. Heidi has a lucky streak that comes in handy when money is tight, but this luck is not always a good thing. Heidi wonders about many things: when and where she was born; the identity of her grandmother; and what does her mother mean when she says “soof” all the time. One day, while rummaging through a drawer, Heidi finds an old camera and has the film inside developed. She recognizes her mom as a young woman at a location called Hilltop Home in Liberty, New York. After many unanswered phone calls, Heidi begins a journey to New York to find out about her mom and her own past. The people she meets and the discoveries she makes will change her life forever.

My thoughts: I really liked this book! It was certainly a very fast read and had deep thinking characters that the reader could easily relate to. My favorite character was Heidi, she was way ahead of her years. She spoke what she felt and never apologized for anything she said or did, even when those comments hurt those she loved and respected.
Highly recommended! :D