Rant: Bad Reviews

A little while ago, I book-marked the book blog page located HERE so that I may become inspired to write rants like the one I wrote for the re-editing of Huckleberry Finn.  Well, I've found an article that might be of interest to those that are apart of the book blogging community.  You can find the original article HERE.

We've had to write them before: Bad Reviews.  It's just a fact of life, I guess.  Not every book you come across will be worthy of a five star review.  Maybe something was off, but you still enjoyed reading it.  Maybe everything was completely wrong and reading the book was physically painful.

I've had the privilege of getting a response to a review by an author, but the review was positive, so it was a completely different experience.

According to this article, a self-published author reacted in an explosive manner to a negative review of her self-published book.  She had the nerve to respond to this reviewer in the comment box saying that she preferred the positive reviews she received for the book on Amazon.  The worst part is, the reviewer acknowledged her complaints and everything just went downhill from there.

I don't know how many writers there are reading this, but those of you that are, perhaps you can attest to the fact that it's no fun getting negative feedback.  No one likes it, but it's always going to be there and that's what makes us better as writers.

What I'm confused about is why this author felt the need to say anything at all.  It's one person's opinion, you can't change their mind no matter how much convincing you do.  In the end, a good book is in the eye of the reader.  This reviewer was putting ideas and opinions out into cyberspace.  The least she could have done was thank the reviewer for the honest review.

I don't mean to come off as particularly critical.  My point is certain things should be common sense, but only a few people understand what that actually means... it's a little frustrating... all of this could have easily been avoided.

What are your thoughts on this occurrence?

I'm going to try and post a review tonight.  You'll still have a review sometime next week, because I'm supposed to finish 'Invisible Man' this weekend.  Have a lovely day!

--Jude

Teeny-tiny Hiatus

Hello everyone!

So, just a heads-up, I'm going to be gone all weekend.  You'll probably hear from me sometime on Monday, because I have sixteen total hours on a bus this weekend and I don't have much of this book left.  More than likely, there'll be a review up (ugh, finally...).

Also, I've become terribly lazy and I haven't even started to put together my March LONTEM video (I only have the crucial video bits, but there's still a little bit more I have to do in order to tie everything together and then I can put it through Windows Movie Maker and then we're good to go!).  Because of this, you will get it sometime after Monday.  Definitely sometime next week...

Next month, I learn how to write a script, in honor of Script Frenzy!  I'm really excited and I plan on writing a few one-act plays that I can hopefully use in one way or another next year (I'm thinking of my school's one-acts where students write one-act plays and a few are selected to be performed.  It's really something!).

Any way, I just thought that I'd let you know...

I will return bearing many, many, many pictures, a review (reviews?), some video clips, and a very good first high school traveling experience!  Good practice for when I go to France I guess.  Though, that'll be completely different...

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

Overdue Gallery Walk (March 29, 2011)

 It's been a while since I've shown you any pictures!  I've been meaning to do so, because I've had some saved up for several weeks.  I guess today is the day.  Feel free to critique or comment, your feedback to me is like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone dying of hunger (but smaller scale, because that has got to be infinitely more desperate).  These are from one not-spring-but-not-summer day when I had nothing to do and I didn't want to do homework and also from the trip I took to Duluth, which I might have mentioned in a subtle way at one point or another... Enjoy!

(You may click on these pictures and they will be made huge for your viewing purposes!)

Once More, We've Reached the Finish Line That Is Friday!

Good morning!  For once I can wake up on a Friday morning and not have to go to school (although that's not entirely true... I did a college visit today).

This weekend's Blog Hop and Follow Friday are brought to you by Jennifer and Parajunkee respectively.

The Blog Hop Question

If you could physically put yourself into a book or series, which one would it be and why?

Very difficult... I've always been very fond of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' and even though that world would be dreadful to live in due to the many, many deaths and the lack of gullibility, but I'm still very fascinated with Lemony Snicket's world.  Several years ago, my friends and I built a paper model of that world from Count Olaf's house to the Slippery Slope, because at the time, The Grim Grotto and Penultimate Peril had not even been written yet.  So that's why I would pick the world of 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' to put myself into.

The Follow Friday Question

Inspired by the inane twitter trend of #100FACTSABOUTME (side note: I've never understood twitter), give us five book-related silly facts about you.

Cool.  A list seems appropriate for this question (statement, whatever).

1. Series like 'A Series of Unfortunate Events' and 'Harry Potter' tend to make me obsessive beyond comparison.  Seriously, arguments have been started over these things.

2. It's not a book, but my current English teacher is the one that made me decide that I want to be an English teacher.  I get to read books for a job (oh yeah, and mold the young minds that come through my class) and still get summer vacation!  And I get to be as insane as I want and not be completely judged for it.

3. J.K. Rowling is one of the authors that inspired me to write to publish.

4. There is one shelf in my room stacked two deep along with a pile right next to it on the floor with books that I fully intend to read before I graduate.

5. I've considered learning braille purely so that I can close my eyes and still read.

So that's all for me!  I'm interested in reading everyone else's answers, so feel free to leave your web address in the form of a comment and I will try my best to come visit you!

Also, I feel that I must address this because I've been putting it off for far too long... 104 FOLLOWERS?!??!!  Holy crap.... Thanks so much everyone for stopping by and taking the time to follow and keep up with my rants and reviews!  I never once thought that this blog would get this big (though I would be lying to you if I said that I didn't hope ^_^).

Don't forget to be awesome and happy reading!

--Jude

Wednesday

I'm super sorry for the incredibly long last blog post.  I only realized its length after I published it, at which point I really didn't want to break it up into several shorter blog posts.

Finally, I have a free day!  Sadly, my free day must turn into a homework day because once again, I've been procrastinating... shocker, yes?

The following list is mostly for my benefit.  I figure I'll be strolling about the inter-webs whether I think I should be or not (for some of it I have to because I have an entire class online).  Here's the list of things that I need to do today homework-wise:

1. Reserve 'Three Cups of Tea' at the library (easy-peasy)

2. Read three chapter of 'Invisible Man' in order to get caught up.

3. Do three workouts for Online Gym and finish the other assignments that you've started

4. Write that 25 pt. paper for Online Gym (easy poshortints, yo!)

5. Practice potential competition song for band

6. Attempt to finish AP Human Geography worksheet

It's pleasing to know that I don't have any math to do (I finished it all at school.  It was probably the most stress-less assignment ever given in Precalculus in the history of ever and I was completely and utterly grateful for it... I needed to know that I could do SOMETHING in the there without nearly bursting into tears of frustration).

After that, there's a list of things that I don't necessarily have to get to, but it would be nice if I did some of them after I was caught up on homework:

1. Finish planned sock monkeys

2. Put together March LONTEM video and perhaps get it posted really early

3. Make a decent dent if not finish 'The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl'

4. Clean room... it looks like a tornado tore through with its hungry pet goat...

Tomorrow I go on a short trip with my mom, my sister, and my sister's friend, so I probably will not have internet access or if I do, I don't think I'll be on the computer very much if at all.  I will take pictures though!  They can be apart of my other project...

Excuse the boring post... have a lovely day!  I should have a book review for you in the next few days!

--Jude

The Start of Spring Break

Hello there everyone!

What I failed to mention last time I posted here was that I'm on Spring Break!  It's been a very pleasant three days plus the end of Friday.

So far, I've managed to stay up past midnight or very close to this time every night.  Most of that time is quite useful.  I've been using it for online gym time.  I'm almost done with it!  Everything is due by the 28th at midnight. The sucky thing is, most of the assignments are only worth five points, so I have to do a crap-ton of them... oh well.  Maybe I'll do a paper tonight and I can save a little bit of time.

I've also been using my late night parties (no, there aren't other people.  Night time is my time) to finish the sock monkeys that I intended to finish before Christmas.  You can probably guess how that went down (procrastination is the answer, if you didn't know how that went down).  I'm almost done.  I have two sock monkeys to do and then just the limbs, the ears, and a lion to sew on the other.  Okay, maybe I have a little ways to go.  I'm farther along than I was earlier last week.

Saturday I went with Jack to some of his family's friends house (everyone had younger kids between the ages of six and eleven while Jack's family is made up of two adults, a ten year old, a fourteen year old, and a sixteen year old, so Jack and his oldest little sister were allowed to bring friends if they wanted).  We played Apples to Apples Jr. with all of the kids and it was great fun!  I now realize that I have a very similar sense of humor to that of the eight year old boy.  So basically, everything was hysterical to me.

Anecdote time!

One of the green cards (the card that has a word that everyone is supposed to match one of their red cards with) was 'gross' or 'scary' or something like that.  One of the younger boys across the table from me, after all of the red cards were flipped over and being judged, said, "You should pick girlfriends.  They're so gross!"  To which I responded, even though my own boyfriend was right next to me, "Oh my gosh, I know!  They're just the worst!"  That same boy was also the one that put down 'kisses' when the green card had the adjective 'fearful.'  Sometimes I love kids :)

That same Saturday, I went mountain climbing in my front yard.  To be more specific, I climbed the snow bank located about two or three feet from my front steps.  I made my sister do it too and it was a hoot!

Today was an especially excellent day!  For starters, I got to try wearing contacts today.  Those things are incredibly strange... I'm still not comfortable with sticking anything in my eye, and now that I've tried them, I feel that I'm justified to say that.  I have a five day supply with me, so perhaps my opinion will change in that time.  We'll see...

Today's adventure part two takes us to the city bus!  So, I don't ride the city bus very often.  I don't usually have a reason to.  If I need to get somewhere, I'll use the school bus, my bike, my driver's license, or my parents.  However, after getting lost in down town (the place where we were supposed to go), I didn't want to drive down there, firmly believing that I would get lost again.  So my friend Avery and I took the city bus instead.  When we got there, a few stops after we got on the bus, this other guy gets on the bus and sits a few rows back from us.  Then he starts calling out, "whitey!  Whitey!"  I turn around and he's staring right at me.

Umm... thanks.  I was well aware that I was white, thanks for solidifying this knowledge.

I turned away from him.  If anyone really needed to talk to me, they could use my name or a more polite method of getting my attention.  So I tried ignoring the guy and even while I was talking with Avery, I could tell that he was still looking at me.  Contacts gave me a better peripheral.  He kept making strange faces, staring, and calling me 'whitey' until he finally left the bus, at which point, I could breathe a sigh of relief.  I was really afraid that he wasn't going to get off the bus until we did and then he would follow us.  Luckily, he had better things to do.

So that was a more frightening experience on the bus.  I've only ever had one other not-so-pleasurable experience on the city bus, but it was bearable compared to that.

You may or may not be wondering where we were going that we needed to take the city bus in the first place.  Avery and I were going to go and meet The Oatmeal!  We had both been a fan of his for quite some time and now he was finally coming to Minneapolis!  It seems like hardly anyone decides to visit Minnesota unless of course they lived here at one point.  I think there's this misconception that Minnesota is a frozen tundra-wasteland in the winter and just plain miserable, which isn't true, but it could still scare people away.

Any way!  We had to go to the University book store.  There, we got our books (they're amazing!) and then there was a short... I don't know.  I don't want to call it a lecture, because that just seems to imply dullness... There was a short talk about how Matthew Inman got started with The Oatmeal and how he got inspiration for what he created.  Many of the things he created were created because of things that he hated.  Like dating websites!  He made a website similar to eHarmony called ZombieHarmony.  I guess it surpassed the number of visits to Match.com and eHarmony itself, which I found quite humorous!

Afterwards, he was signing books and answering question at the same time.  When it was my turn, I asked him if anyone had ever asked him to draw them, to which he responded, "Yes actually!  Would you like me to draw you?"  I'm an idiot and didn't even think that this would come up, but I said yes any way and he drew this in the front cover of my book:

It started out as a picture of me the way you would normally view a human, but then he stopped... he said, "Wait a minute.  I'm going to do this differently..." and he proceeded to draw me with the body of a horse.  I can't even explain in words to you how freaking excited I was about this!  I was excited enough to fill the entire book store before, but now I had shot through the roof with excitement because I hadn't anticipated this move and it was just a good day overall!  I had even forgotten about the first bus that we had taken by this point.

After we came back home from the University, we went to Avery's house where we filmed some of the March LONTEM video, but I'll say more about this when I actually finish the video and get it posted.

A word about that last statement there, I'm going to try and get the video done before I go to Chicago, but in all likelihood, it'll be finished, but posted sometime after I get back on April 3rd.  In other words, it'll be here when it gets here.

So you now know what a blog post written after midnight looks like (from me at least.  I'm sure everyone else sounds really coherent).  How was everyone's weekend/Monday?  Hopefully it was as good as mine, minus the creepy bus incident.

Have a lovely evening!

--Jude

It's Friday! It's Friday!!

Welcome once again to Friday!  It was another slow week, mostly due to the fact that Spring Break was so close for everyone in the public schools in my city.  No one wanted to wait, but sadly, we were forced to.  And now we're here!  Nine days of blissful freedom!

The Blog Hop and Follow Friday are brought to you by Jennifer at Crazy for Books and Parajunkee respectfully.  You may click on the buttons above and below to visit their sights (and really, you should if you haven't already).

This Week's Blog Hop Question:

Do you read one book at a time or do you have several going at once?

I usually have somewhere between two and four books going.  What with English classes at school, I pretty much have to in order to keep sane.  I don't know how, but I always manage to keep the different stories separate.

This Week's Follow Friday Question:

How did you come up with your blog name?

In a nutshell, I was told to make a blog for school (and at the time I already had another blog called 'The Incessant Babblings of Jude Rosenberg' which has since been deleted for lack of... well, basically everything this blog doesn't have).  I was supposed to make one for my tenth grade English class and since our class periods are only fifty-five minutes and we had taken a test on the computers that day, I was running short on time, but I wanted to at least get a title down.  I knew I could change it later.  I brought my iPod to school in the morning and I just happened to listen to Linkin Park's 'Papercut' and the lyrics that you see in my heading were what sounded the best to me.  When I went back to put the finishing touches on this blog, I hovered on the title for a while, then I saved and there was no going back.  Well, there was, but I didn't feel the need or desire to change it.

I would love to read your answers for one or both of these questions!  Leave your web address below in the comments with a message (if you wish) and I will definitely pay you a visit this weekend!

Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely weekend and/or Spring Break!

--Jude

P.S. If you like writing, you are more than welcome to visit my other blog, The Little Blue Notebook.  I publish writing there as often as I can.  It's a blog where I can get my ideas written down and then make small comments on them (I call them author's notes).  Also, if you're tired of reading anything that I write, you're also welcome to take a peek at the combined blog that I'm apart of with my friends.  It's called Ezra, Jude, and Avery's Epic Adventure.  That's enough self-promotion.  Go enjoy your weekend!

A Review of 'The Lover's Dictionary' by David Levithan

"Basis, n.


There has to be a moment at the beginning when you wonder whether you're in love with the person or in love with the feeling of love itself.

If the moment doesn't pass, that's it-- you're done.

And if the moment does pass, it never goes that far.  It stands in the distance, ready for whenever you want it back.  Sometimes it's even there when you thought you were searching for something else, like an escape route, or your lover's face.


How does one talk about love?  Do we even have the right words to describe something that can be both utterly mundane and completely transcendent, pulling us out of our everyday lives and making us feel a part of something greater than ourselves?  Taking a unique approach to this problem, the nameless narrator of David Leviathan's The Lover's Dictionary has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary.  Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the great events and quotidian trifles of being within a couple, giving us an indelible and deeply moving portrait of love in our time."

Unique indeed.

This was another book where I reserved it online, but I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into.  All I knew was when I got that notification from the library, I was terribly excited and I couldn't wait to pick it up and take it home with me!

Any way, I started reading just last night and I simply couldn't put it down.  I would have read all night long had I not had to wake up the next morning bright and early and go to school and learn something for a change...

I liked this book because it was broken up by new vocabulary words usually every page (sometimes two, depending on how long the anecdote was).  I liked how the vocabulary corresponded with every passage, basically summing it up or highlighting a key point in the story.

Even though we never get to learn their names, it was an interesting way to get to know the two main characters, the boy and the girl.  The downside was by the end of the book, I wasn't satisfied with how much I knew about the characters.  You know, like you would in a regular novel.  So I couldn't connect with them as much as I would have liked to.

It's a very, very quick read (mostly because not all of the pages were filled up).  I read this in an evening and during every free moment I had today.  I could have easily read it in one sitting.

The Lover's Dictionary keeps you awake because, for me at least, you want to know how everything fits together in the end-- not so different from how 'Catch-22' is, to be honest.  Though 'Catch-22' is a way crazier ride...

Many of the things the narrator brought up I ended up agreeing with.  The couple that was together for ten years and were so used to each other that their annoying airs just didn't affect the other any more, those little moments that drive you insane because you love them so much, feeling like you were wasting "I love you"s or using them at the wrong time... that kind of thing.  I do believe that David Levithan and I are of the same mind when it comes to this.

Overall, The Lover's Dictionary was a quick read but with many interesting aspects in the story-telling.  I give this book:

+ 1/2 Stars!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

A Review of 'Save as Draft' by Cavanaugh Lee

"From: Izabell
To: Reader
Subject: Save As Draft


Are we Facebook friends yet?  I'm the wactress (waitress/actress) turned lawyer who lives her life online.  Any way, I've got this problem.  There's this guy Peter.  He's my best friend and co-worker, and we just started dating, which is potentially a huge mistake.  But that's not all.  There's this other guy, Marty from eHarm, and he ran with the bulls in Spain.  I can't get him off my mind.  What a mess.  I'd love your advice if you can take a second out of your crazy, high-tech life.  Shoot me an email, text me, or BBM.  And friend me if you haven't already!  You can find me on Facebook under Save as Draft.


Izabell


If that didn't tell you all that a summary should, there's also this little blurb that I felt explained the whole book concisely:


"A love triangle evolving over emails, texts, and Facebook messages that makes you wonder if the things we leave unsaid-- or rather unsent-- could change the story of our lives."


Umm... wow.  I am completely speechless (alright, obviously not completely...).  I wasn't sure what I should expect when I picked this up from the library.  Or even the night that I reserved it online.  I had never read a book that was made of email messages, text messages, and social networking notifications (those pesky things!).  For me, it was a unique format to use.

I'm a little curious, and this is just random thinking here, what did Cavanaugh Lee's manuscript look like when she first sent it to the publishers?  I can only imagine...

One thing that was really cool was that the people involved in the story, whether they were bistanders in the story or right smack-dab in the center, was that the felt real.  In fact, I think some of them might have been real, judging by the acknowledgments...

Another thing that was cool for me was having reactions so strong to what was happening in the book that they came out as words (or sounds) as opposed to formed thoughts in my head.  I have not had that with another book before.  Not that I can remember, any way.

But of course, the book isn't perfect.  There were a few things that I was confused about.  Towards the end of the book, Marty didn't seem like the same Marty.  Instead of being clever and funny like in the beginning, he turned into this creepy stalker-like guy.  He would send emails to Izabelle and they would say things like, "I LOVE YOU BABY!!!  WILL YOU MARRY ME AND BE WITH ME FOREVER AND EVER???!!!!!  I MISS YOU!!  I LOVE YOU!!!!!"  You know, that kind of thing.  I thought someone had hacked into his email account and were planting scary messages similar to the one above.  When it got to this point, I actually became afraid of Marty.

Also, why was Peter such a wuss?  The letters he wrote to his boss about needing a vacation or at least a night off seemed like very polite inquiries.  I would have sent them to my boss (that is, if I had a boss and I felt like he/she was overworking me).  My question is, why did he decide not to send them?  He was being swamped at work and his life was basically out of his hands.  Why didn't he do anything?

Rose.  Is what she did legal?  There's got to be some kind of worker's union to prevent that kind of thing... If you have read this book and you know what I'm talking about, I would love to hear from you.  I'm genuinely curious.

Overall, this was a quick but excellent read.  I give "Save as Draft":

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Movie Time! 'The King's Speech'

"The story of King George VI of Britain, his impromptu ascension to the throne and the speech therapist who helped the unsure monarch become worthy of it." --IMDB

I didn't really know what to expect when I walked into the theater.  I had merely heard that the movie was good and that I should definitely make time to see it.  I would make this very same recommendation.

King George V (you may recognize him as Dumbledore, or Michael Gambon) falls ill and eventually dies and now one of his two sons must take over the throne for him.  Initially, King George VI's brother takes the throne, but later hands it over to KG6 (that's going to be his shortened name for the rest of this post).

For the first three-quarters of the movie, I couldn't understand why it was rated R.  It wasn't a scary movie by any means, there was no nudity, no sex, hardly any language... then we reached the 3/4 mark and I figured out why.  KG6's speech therapist realizes that he doesn't stammer when he swears, so he tells him to start swearing to keep the words coming out.  So he does :)  Really, it's more funny than anything else.  I should note though that there is quite a bit of language for the rest of the movie.

I liked the movie because of it's superb cast, historical context (just before and in the beginning of World War II... I don't think I mentioned that anywhere above), humor, and excellent story-- history, I guess.

I highly recommend this movie!

--Jude Rosenberg

P.S. Might I also mention that I love the simplicity of the movie poster?

In My Mailbox

Today, I went to Barnes and Noble with a gift card that I got for Christmas and here's what I came home with!  I'm super excited to read all of these (because I haven't read them before):

Thanks for looking!

--Jude

Gallery Walk Weekend of March 11, 2011

Happy Friday!

Woohoo!  Welcome to Friday!  Quite honestly, it's about time... I'm ready for a nap!

The Blog Hop and Follow Friday are brought to you by Jennifer at Crazy for Books and Parajunkee respectfully (I'm getting so lazy with that part).

The Blog Hop question is:

 If I gave you £50 (or $80) and sent you into a bookshop right now, what would be in your basket when you finally staggered to the till?

This will actually be good!  I get to go to Barnes and Noble this weekend (hurray!  I love the smell of Barnes and Noble in the morning!), so this might just lessen the work for me (but probably not... that's just how it usually ends up working out).  Here's a wee list for you:

1. "Exit Here." by Jason Myers
2. "The Mission" by Jason Myers
3. "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen
4. "Her Fearful Symmetry" by Audrey Niffenegger
5. "Carpe Diem" by Autumn Cornwell
6. "A Dance of Sisters" by Tracey Porter
7. "Blind Faith" by Ellen Wittlinger

Some of these I haven't read before (the Jason Myers books) while the rest I have read and love or remember loving.  I haven't reviewed all of these, but you should definitely check them out sometime!

The Follow Friday question is:

Just like Ashley said (love it) "Ashley the girl..." who are You the Boy/Girl, instead of You the Blogger?

Such a hard question to answer... I don't believe we fully know ourselves just yet, but before I go all philosophical on you, I'll attempt to answer...  Jude the Girl is a stubborn teen who spends far too much time sitting in front of the computer.  Jude the Girl is a naive character-- sometimes too naive for her own good.  Jude the Girl is a horrible mediator because she hates making decisions, but very good when it comes to compromise because she's just that flexible.  Jude the Girl is ambitious.  Jude the Girl is a complex creature that can't fully be explained in one blog post.

So now, Jude the Girl really likes talking in third person, so she's just going to leave before anyone gets too mad and starts throwing things.  She wishes you a pleasant weekend and hopes that you will enjoy the lovely weather!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

A Review of 'The View From the Top' by Hillary Frank

"Tobin won't miss anything about life in Normal, Maine, when he leaves for conservatory... except for his dream girl.


Jonah would give up his player ways-- and his best friend-- for a chance with his best friend's girlfriend.


Lexi desperately hopes that her crush will see her in a new light, but fears that her love will remain unrequited.

Matt is anxiously clinging to the past, afraid that he won't be part of his girl friend's brighter future.


Mary-Tyler wishes people would look past her weight and wealth and accept her for who she is.


And then there's Anabelle, the one who ties them all together.  Expecting a quiet summer at home before heading off to college, instead she finds herself trying to sort out her love life and make sense of her increasingly complicated friendships.  Anabelle begins to question how well her friends really know her... and how well she knows herself.


With wry observations and quirky humor, critically acclaimed novelist Hillary Frank give life to six unique teens whose voices intertwine to tell the shared story of a shared summer of love, family, and friendship."

What a good read!  Allow me to elaborate...

The characters-- they were all so distinctive from each other.  There aren't very many books that can make you care about the people in them and Hillary Frank did that for me.  I would even go so far as to say she did this for the majority of the people who read this book (though of course, I don't have any statistics to back up this thought).  What's cool is that Tobin, Jonah, Lexi, Matt, Mary-Tyler, and Anabelle could be anyone.  They are very relate-able and special people.

I liked this book because I could relate to the situation that Anabelle was in.  This is still a year ahead of me, but I'm still trying to sort out my friendships, acquaintances, and relationship just so I know what's going to happen in the years to come.  On the one hand, I would love to keep in touch with everyone I know, but on the other hand, I don't want to go to college stuck in a high school mindset.  Plus, everyone is probably going to go in twenty different directions and the only way I'll be able to keep up with everyone is through social networking... and even then, those updates will probably be things that I won't understand or will be things that I could have easily lived without knowing.

Back on topic!

There are little pictures in the beginnings of every chapter that I just loved!  That's one of the things that I liked about Harry Potter as well.  It's really cool to see the two things that I love come together and compliment each other's beauty.

Overall, excellent book!  I'm not sure if Hillary Frank has written any other books, but if she has, I'm going on a treasure hunt!

It's another unplanned book, I know.  I'm going to try and finish 'Going Bovine' as soon as possible, so no worries!

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

That Friday Thing

Bonjour, mes chéris!  It is Friday, one of the greatest days of the week!

The Blog Hop and Follow Friday is brought to you by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books.com and Parajunkee, respectively (you may use the buttons above and below to go to their pages).

To start us off, the Follow Friday question:

What embarrassing thing have you done on cold medicine?

I'm going to have to do some remembering... I haven't cold medicine for my colds in a long while.  I'm a firm believer in the "suck it up" option... I can only think of talking in my sleep.  That's the strangest though.

Lastly, this week's Blog Hop question:

What is your all-time favorite book villain?

I can just imagine a lot of people saying the same thing, but... Voldemort.  I have never come across a character nearly as evil as Voldemort.  He has reached a point where he holds no value for the life of anyone else but his own, he enjoys pain, though as Dumbledore once said somewhere, "He doesn't play with his food."  But besides Voldemort, I really, really want to tell you my favorite Disney villain!  Maleficent.  She's just so freaking cool!  AND she turns into a dragon!

I'm interested in reading your answers as well!  Feel free to leave a comment below with a message and/or your web address.  I don't know how much I'll be able to see a computer, but I will try my best this weekend.  If nothing else, I'll visit you on Sunday!  

Have a wonderful weekend and Happy Hopping or Following or whatever it is people are doing this weekend!

--Jude

P.S. Don't forget to check out My Writing Blog if you're interested!  Also, I'll have a review up sometime this weekend.  I just finished "The View From the Top" so you have that to look forward to.

Egypt Today (A Human Geography Project)

I've been a little silent for a few days.  Here's why:

This is a project that I had to do for my AP Human Geography class.  I feel like I did a decent job (for throwing it together in a day because my procrastination is so horrible...), so I thought that I could share it with you.  Tell me what you think, your comments are treasured :)

I'll be doing Friday Follow and the Blog Hop this weekend, as in I'll answer the questions, but I'm going to be with my cousin, grandma, and little sister, so I can't promise that I'll have as much screen time as I normally would.  Maybe it'll be good for me to actually leave the house :)  Either way, I'll try and visit you guys that stop by on Sunday when I return to my cave.  Until then...

Thanks for reading!

--Jude

P.S. I just read a message that was sent to a group of people from the family we know that lives in Cairo.  To sum up what they said, Egypt is the perfect picture of a democracy.  There are people discussing in the street-- they are discussing their future.  Everyone is coming together for this one cause.  How beautiful!