Tiger's Curse

Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck is the first book of the Tiger's Curse series. It is about a young girl named Kelsey Hayes from Oregon who just graduated high school. She takes a part time 2 week job working for a circus. She gets awestruck with the tiger at the circus. After a surprise visit with an interesting stranger she end us going to India with the presumtion that she is going to help the tiger acclimate to the jungle. However after a twist of events she finds out that the tiger she grew to love was actually a prince over 300 years earlier and he and his brother were cursed into being tigers. It turns out she was chosen by the Hindi Goddess Durga to help break the curse that these princes were under. The original 4 books of the series are about the 4 different parts of the curse. They must collect 4 different gifts for the goddess and each book is a gift. In the beginning the tigers can be human, but only from 24 minutes for every 24 hours. They end up traveling to a strange underground world. In this world the original tiger named Alagan Dhiren Rajaram, aka Ren, is somehow capable of being a human the entire time. In this world they fight and defeat strange creatures, and collect the first of the 4 gifts. Once they collect the gifts and return to the real world that runs in real time, the princes are each granted 6 hours to be human. However, through the time that they have been together in this strange world and in the real world Kelsey and Ren have fallen in love. Kelsey refuses to believe that he could actually love her and at the end of the bookwhich is the end of the summer she decides that she is going to go home to Oregon for the school year and return the next summer to help break the second part of the curse.
For some reason, I got really into this book. I was able to substitute myself into Kelsey's place and I felt everything that she felt. This I'm sure is due to excellent writing on the part of Colleen Houck. When I finished this book and I lived to read the next one. The very next day I went to Barnes and Noble and got the rest of the books in the series. I loved this book!! I cried and I laughed and I yelled at Kelsey because she wasn't making the decisions I wanted her to. I was very sad to see Kelsey leave Ren. They belonged together. I don't think I have been so involved in a book for a long time. My entire being was so enveloped in the book that I lost track of time when I was reading. I was Kelsey. The brilliant author also combines actual history, with history from the Hindi culture along with the fantasy and storyline.
I recommend this book to anyone who like teen fantasy and teen romance. I loved it. It wasn't your typical fantasy or your typical romance. It's a great book and the gateway to an amazing series. I recommend that you read it, but make sure that you have the rest of the series at your disposal before you start reading it because I can guarantee that once you start, you won't want to stop until you have turned the last page of the last book.

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY

Thirteen Reasons Why is told from two perspectives. A young boy who is a senior in high school and a young girl who killed herself before she finished her senior year. Clay Jensen is surprised to see a box of tapes addressed to him on his from porch when he gets home from school. When he starts listening to the tapes he hears the voice of Hannah Baker which is surprising because she had killed herself weeks prior. On these tapes Hannah explains why these 13 people are the 13 reasons she decided to take her own life.
The book may seem a bit dark. No one wants to talk about death, especially suicide, but this books makes you think about your own life and makes you question if you are by chance becoming a reason why is someone elses life. This book really makes you want to change your life for the better. It makes you want to help people and to try and notice how you are impacting everyone's life around you.
I would recommend this book to everyone in high school or above. This book really teaches a lesson, but I don't think it is appropriate for young, or younger, children and preteens to read. Like I said, it is a bit dark, but it truly, truly has a great lesson to be learned. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

Things Not Seen

Things Not Seen is a book that I read a long time ago when I was in elementary, and again in high school, and again in college. It is a book that I have loved for a very long time. It is about a boy who suddenly unexplainably becomes invisible. He tells his parents and they search for a solution. In the midst of all this chaos he meets a girl about his age. He finds out she is blind and they become friends. He eventually tells her and her parents about his problem and they all search to discover what happened and if they can't figure out what happened, what to do about the problem they are in.
One thing I liked about the book is that as Bobby, who is the main male character in the book, lives his life in a way that is new to him and without alarming everyone around him about his condition. He faces the problem of not only being physically invisible, but he starts to feel emotionally invisible. This can relate to almost every single teenager that I have ever met and myself.
I really like this book and I think it is a great book for anyone to read at any time in their life. Especially if you are feeling like you are invisible or you just want a good quick read. The book is only 251 pages long. I have read it in a night. It truly is a great book. I recommend it for EVERYONE!! Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements.

The Promise

Gemma is faced with a very hard decision. She has no problem dieing herself to save the world, but she also MUST let Alex die too. This is very hard for her. She would give her life so Alex could live happily ever after. LIVE is the keyword there. She doesn't know if she is willing to let him die for her. He feels the same way about her. He can't let her die. He refuses to. He just will NOT allow that to happen. He wants to her go on living, even if it is without him. However, neither of them want to live themselves without the other person. In this book, Gemma and Alex are separate. Gemma is doing everything she can with Laylen and Aislin to keep the Mark of Maleficious out of her house. That doesn't work as well as they would have liked. Alex is trying to find his mother. Someone who he hopes will help him. Both Gemma and Alex are making deals to save the other one in the event of their death.

I cried most of the book. Mostly tears of sadness or anger, but there was the occasional cry for joy in there. This is the last book of the series. It is really good. I totally loved this one too. It ended so perfectly, but with hints of maybe future books. Just in case the author, Jessica Sorensen, wants to continue the series sometime in the future. Again it was the perfect ending to a VERY wonderful series. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this series. I can't wait to start the next series by Jessica, Darkness Falls. I can't wait. Everyone read this. It is really great! Read! Read! Read! The Promise by Jessica Sorensen.

The Vision

Gemma thought that everything was over when Stephan had trapped her. She thought that he had won when she met her dad. To be specific, she went into his head. Her dad was trapped inside his head because of a horrible thing that he did. Time then resets its self, and she has another chance. She must go save herself, then save the world. She must go find the vision that puts the world into a huge ice skating rink, and fix it. She soon finds out that this won't be easy. She also finds out that the vision she must change will change her life forever. She uses a very special object, that she trades something very special to her for, to spend as much time that she has left with Alex. She finds out that she really loves him. She doesn't want to spend another day without, but the next morning she finds a horrible surprise waiting for her.

I loved this one as much as I loved the rest of them. Gemma's final realization that she really truly loves Alex is amazing. She doesn't want to hurt him or be without him for as long as she lives, however long that may be. She has a strong feeling that it won't be very long, and so she cherishes every moment that she has with him. Reading this book, I teared up several times for several different reasons. Sometimes they were tears of happiness, sometimes they were tears of sadness. A little tip for you, if you tend to cry reading books, then lock yourself in a room where no one can disturb you. You will bawl like a baby by the end. I promise. It is another hanging end.

Again read this book! Of course read the other two first, but read it. This book is so amazing. But like I said before, if you are a crier...like me...read it in a secure location, and it wouldn't hurt if you had a box of Kleenexes there with you. It is just that amazing. The Vision by Jessica Sorensen.

The Underworld

This is a sequel to The Fallen Star. It is about Gemma going into the Underworld to get her mother. She is forced to work with Nicholas, which she hates, but she needs to get her Foreseer powers under control. After realizing that she can see things without using a crystal ball, the world is open to her. After working hard with Nicholas on this, she finds out that he can't help her when she is in the Underworld. She is of course frustrated, but she and Alex go into the Underworld to rescue her mother. After a few twists and turns Laylen runs away. In an attempt to find him before something REALLY bad happens, they all split up, and Gemma gets captured by Stephan...again.

I sooo much loved this book!!! As much as I loved the first one, I really loved this one! It was really amazing. The mix between mystical things and romance was flawless. I loved that Gemma was trying to get used to everything, when she is forced to trust people she isn't sure she can. I just totally loved it!!! When I finished reading, I couldn't wait till I got the third one to read it. When my sister brought it to me, I just about had a heart attack. I finished it in like 24 hours. I just couldn't put it down. It was sooo amazing!

I would really recommend this to ANYONE. I do actually. People ask me if I know of any good books to read and I recommend the whole series. I think that they are really amazing books. When you think that nothing else can happen, it does. This book is really amazing! I just loved it! The Underworld by Jessica Sorensen.

The Fallen Star

The Fallen Star is about a girl with violet eyes named Gemma. She is very different. She was, for the majority of her life, unemotional, but she recently had a brought on emotion that was so overwhelmingly powerful that she didn't know what to do. This seemed to have been caused by a strange prickle on the back of her neck. She then meets two characters, she doesn't know it yet, but they are very important to her future, with bright green eyes. As the book progresses she finds out things about her life that had a HUGE impact on her, and met other "people", both good and bad. I won't say much more so I don't spoil it, but Gemma is a special girl and isn't sure what to do and think all the time, so don't be surprised of she has a lot of weird mood swings.
If you have read my blogs befire, then you know not I talk about whether I liked it or not. I LOVED this book!!! I can not express how much I like this book. The book is a 419 page book, and I read it is about three days. I started it laying in my bead lade Monday night/early Tuesday morning and finished it about 1:15 Friday morning. Every chance I got I just read. I was constantly reading this book. I read it on my way to cheer, on my way home, all the time, plus leaving time for class and spending time with family. That is the quickest I have read a book in my life. I am not a very fast reader, so this goes to show how much I like this book. If you ask any of my friends they will tell you that I was constantly reading every chance I get. I even locked my self in the back room in one of my classrooms so I could get some alone time to read. It really loved this book and I couldn't put it down. I am not being bias either. It is not a coincidence that Jessica and I have the same last name. Jessica is my sister-in-law. By being told about the book, I wasn't sure if I wanted to read it or not, but I decided that one night to start reading it and from that point on I couldn't help my self. I just read.
Would I recommend this book to you? I think that if you actually read the above paragraph, then you know that I am going to say Absolutely! You should absolutely read this book. I have nothing against the Twilight Series, I liked that, but this book doesn't just focus on vampires or aliens or anything, it has several different types of fictional creatures, and some new ones that I have never heard of, but it could just be me. If you are looking for a different type of book to read and you are sick of all the romances out there, read this book. Of course this book has a romance in it, but I would not classify this book as a "girly" book at all. I think it is a great book, and I recommend that you all read it. The Fallen Star by Jessica Sorensen.

Of Mice and Men

I had to read this book for my online English class. It is about a couple men who in the depression era were looking for a job and got one. One of the men is street smart and knows how to get the job done, but the other one is a big man but he is "slow".
This book didn't end happy. I'm not one who really likes books that don't end happy. I LOVE happy-endings. It was a good book, and I learned a lot from it, but it wasn't really my style.
If you like the types of books from this era, then you would like this book. If you are a sucker for happy-endings, then don't read this book. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

The Giver

I read the Giver for the fourth time. I really like the book. It's about a boy who lives in a Utopia, a perfect society, and everything is fine. When he becomes a Twelve he get's his assignment. When the Chief Elder skips him when she is assigning the jobs, Jonas, the boy, get's worried. Afterward the Chief Elder calls him to the stage to say that he was not assigned, but he was selected. He was to be the next Receiver of Memories. This is a job of high standing, it is THE most important job. Jonas receives the memories and he and the current Receiver realize that things must change. They make a plot on how to change the Community. I can't tell anymore without giving away the book. This is the first book in the trilogy. I will be reading the next two also.
This book made me realize how grateful for differences I am. It made me want to give thanks to everything and everyone that makes this world the way it is. I can't really share my feelings about this book. I am also thankful that I have the ability to have feelings and to be able to feel. You might not know what I'm talking about if you haven't read the book.
I like this book, that is pretty obvious since I have read it four times. I would most definitely recommend this book to you. It will strengthen your gratefulness of the world and all the different people in this world. Even if you are just looking for a good past time book, I would still suggest reading this book. I had to read it for my English class, and at first I didn't like it. I didn't want to read it, but after I got to like chapter six or seven I couldn't put it down and I finished it that night. It is a really good book. Read it. I promise you will like it. The Giver by Lois Lowry.

To My Followers

To all my loyal followers, I have been slacking off and not been reading. I'm sorry. I recently just read a book and I will blog about that. Thank You, and again I'm sorry for the inconvenience.

My Daniel

Okay. I haven't posted in a few days because I started this book thinking I would like it, but I started it and I realized that it was a dinosaur hunting book. I don't know how to summarize this book, so I'm going to tell you what it says on the back of the book. Wandering through the Natural History Museum with her grandchildren, Julia Creath feels the presence of her dead brother, Daniel. She remembers a time when a fossil fever hit everyone, old and young—a time when people would even kill for those old bones under the ground. Julia becomes the Nebraska farm girl she one was, as she weaves together the story of the great dinosaur rush—an adventurous tale of love and treachery, but most of all the story of her own childhood, and of the older brother she loved more than anything. Daniel had a dream: to save their family's farm by finding a dinosaur. It was a dream that Julia shared—and that she alone would see come true.
This book gave me mixed feelings. I started off not liking this dress. I found myself only reading it some nights for a couple of hours. I wasn't really interested in it. I read it anyway. After reading about half the book, I started to like it. I don't know if I was just having an emotional day yesterday, when I finished the book, but I cried several times near the end. I don't know what it was, but I ended up liking it.
I'm not sure if I would recommend this book. I did like it, but I'm not sure I would recommend it. It is a good book for an older child, but not necessarily a good book for a young adult or an adult. It's a good story, but I can't recommend it. My Daniel by Pam Conrad.

Shudder Sequel

Okay this is really sad, and I was entirely disappointed. It turns out that there is no sequel. When asked if there was going to be one, the author, Jennie Hansen, answer no. She said that this is where it ended for her and that in real life, we don't always know how things work out in the end. I was internally saddened when I read this. I know that it probably doesn't matter that much to my readers...if I have any...but I really wish this book had a sequel. Well I guess that is enough of my rambling.

Shudder

I read Shudder by Jennie Hansen. This book is an LDS Covenant book. You have to know a little about what we believe in to understand why somethings in the book are such a big issue. I must admit that I am somewhat upset with the ending, but mother says that the way it ended means there is a sequel. I certainly hope there is a sequel. I really enjoyed this book.
The plot. The book is about two girls who have literally known each other from preschool; Darcy and Clare. Darcy has a big family, and Clare's father died when she was young and her mother died of a serious illness when Clare was still in high school. Clare was practically a part of Darcy's family her whole life. After they graduated, they went to college together, and then rented an apartment in Boise, Idaho together. Everything is going great until Clare starts dating Blaine. Blaine is no good. Darcy tries to warn her friend, but she is drown out by Blaine. Much to her dismay, Clare and Blaine get married in a church, instead of in a temple like she had always dreamed. Blaine had physically abused Clare since what seemed the beginning of their relationship. Darcy moved in with a invalid woman named Karlene. Things go haywire as there are attempts on Karlene's life; for what, they don't know. Darcy is student teaching at Boise High School, where she meets David. Again in this book there is a bit of a romance. Honestly I would classify this book as a romantic suspense. The plot just thickens from there. I can't tell anymore without giving away the ending.
How I felt. Like I said earlier, I was disappointed with the ending. I really hope there is a sequel. If there is, I want it. I really liked the book. It kept me on my toes the entire time I was reading. One point I got so caught up in the book that I accidentally called it a movie. I started it about 12:30 this morning and I read five chapters. I couldn't even put it down. Not even in church today. When I got home the first thing I did was change out of my dress, then I opened my book and started reading. About lunchtime I came upstairs and my dad told me to make potatoes and gravy for lunch. I did, but as you can imagine I read while I cooked, ate, and even when I had to go to the bathroom. As you can see, I just couldn't put it down. I loved the book.
My recommendation. I definitely would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a good suspense. If you don't know much about the LDS church and their beliefs, talk to a member you may know. Some of the things in this book aren't a big deal in the worlds standards, so it might be hard to understand why they are such a big deal for the characters in the book. I really suggest you read this book. Shudder by Jennie Hansen.

Seasons of Salvation

I started reading this book May 26, 2011 at about midnight. I read the preface, prologue, and a couple of chapters. I finished this book May 28, 2011 at about 7:30 p.m. I just couldn't put it down.
How I came to read this book isn't a super exciting story, but it is a story nonetheless. For a while now I have seem this book on my bookshelf and have thought to myself...or aloud...that I should read this book. I know not where it came from or how it got on my bookshelf, but I decided to read it.
The book is about an orphan girl, who has been in and out of 'foster houses' as she calls them; to her they were never Homes, just houses and rooms. A couple decides to adopt her. At first she is wary to trust and care, fearing that this will be temporary, like everything else in her life had been. In the end she finds a Home with a mother and father that love her. It's a Christmas story. I will admit it is an LDS book, but it doesn't preach any. In the end the Christmas Season becomes a season of salvation. Now it does have a little teenage romance in it, but that is not what the book is about.
The book made me realize that no matter the problems I have, I can accomplish anything I set my mind to. I can wallow in self pity, or I can take my trials and learn from them. If I want to do it, I can. I also learned from the book that no matter how hard my life seems to be, usually someone else out there is worse off. There are plenty of ways I can serve people, I just have to keep my eyes open.
Finally my recommendation. Those of you who are still reading this blog, which I'm sure there are few, I recommend that you read this book. It has such a great meaning to it. I'm not going to force you to read this book or even my blog, I mean how will I know if you do or don't, but I really hope you do. The book is, Seasons of Salvation by Dennis L. Mangrum.

My First Blog

I'm starting this blog so I have something to so this summer. What I have decided to accomplish this summer through this blog is to make this summer enjoyable and maybe I will attain some useful knowledge.
I'm going to read books and blog about them. I will provide a brief summary about the book, how the book made me feel, and my recommendation of the book.
So here I go on my new summer task. Who know? Maybe I'll end up enjoying to read...we will find out when the summer ends.