Book Review: Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry

Posted on February 7, 2014 by Danielle L.

If you’re in middle school, you’ve probably already read or are going to read The Giver, a John Newbery Medal award winning science fiction novel by Lois Lowry. I decided not to do a book review on it so in case you haven’t read it yet, you won’t be dying to read it before you’ve been assigned it.

By the way, The Giver is being made into a movie and will be coming out around August this year. If you are a big Swiftie, like me, you’ll be excited to hear that Taylor Swift will be playing a character in the book named Rosemary.

The Giver is actually the first novel of a quartet by Lois Lowry. The second, third, and fourth novels are Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son respectively. (You don’t necessarily have to but it helps to read the books in order.)

This review will be on the second book, Gathering Blue. A thought-provoking book, it took me longer than usual to read this one. A bit less exciting than The Giver, but nonetheless a wonderful book. It takes place in a dystopian future, where a girl named Kira is orphaned after her mother’s death. She was born with a bad leg in a harsh society that shuns imperfections. To her surprise, she is taken in by the Council of Guardians, given a comfortable room with food and indoor plumbing (which is a rare and generous thing in this era), and allowed to pursue her beautiful and amazing talent: embroidery. She trains with an old woman in how to make dyes, and is given the task of restoring the robe worn by the Singer once a year, when he sings the history of the world to the people of the village. Things are pretty good, but Kira comes to realize not everyone and everything is so true and kind…

I’m glad I didn’t give up on finishing this book; it was definitely worth the read! I can’t wait to start the third book in this quartet! I understand it ties the first two together!

-Danielle L., 6th grade

Book Review: The Power of Six, by Pittacus Lore

Posted on February 6, 2014 by rwong2002

In The Power of Six, the sequel to the book I am Number Four by Pittacus Lore, aliens called Loriens move to Earth to escape the evil Mogadorians, who have already destroyed the planet Lorien and plan to take over the universe. The Loric are each named after a number and possess superhuman abilities called Legacies. Protected by a special charm, they can only be killed off in their numbered order. In I am Number Four, the Mogadorians have already terminated numbers one, two, and three out of the nine Loric. If all of the Loric are killed, there is no telling of what the future of Earth, let alone our universe, will be like.

After destroying a school and leaving Paradise, Ohio, Number Four and Six both go to Florida to flee the Mogadorians. On the other side of the world in Spain, however, Number Seven is trying to find her chest of Lorien because she knows that it is time to find the other Loric and face their enemies. But when the Mogadorians grow stronger and start to hunt down the only survivors of Lorien, there is nowhere else to hide from death and destruction.

Pittacus Lore is a pseudonym for the authors of the I am Number Four series. The authors are still in progress of finishing the series, which many young adults love. I would rate The Power of Six an eight out of ten because there wasn’t much action compared to I am Number Four. I would certainly recommend it to young adults and teenagers who love action and adventure, and can’t wait to finish reading the series!

-Riley W., 6th grade

Series Review: The Divergent Series, by Veronica Roth

Posted on February 4, 2014 by Kaylie W.

Written by Veronica Roth, the Divergent series is an irresistible trilogy that’s full of action, suspense, and (for you girls out there) romance! The series contains three books titled Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant.

Set in a future world that has been destroyed by the human nature of greed, ignorance, and cowardice, society is split into five factions: Abnegation for the selfless, Candor for the honest, Amity for the peaceful, Dauntless for the brave, and Erudite for the intelligent. The series follows sixteen-year-old Beatrice (nicknamed “Tris”) Prior who learns that she has an aptitude for more than one faction. This is called “Divergent,” and is extremely dangerous. In order to reveal the secret kept from her city, Tris embarks on a dangerous journey with the help of friends. Along the way, she must protect herself from those who threaten to kill her for her Divergence, as well as discover the true meaning of sacrifice, facing your fears, and being brave, honest, and selfless.

After reading the first book in the series, I was captivated with the storyline and became attached to the characters. I especially loved the process of Dauntless initiation, as well as the many plot twists that made me keep reading and finish the book in two days. Insurgent was a little confusing and boring at times, but the cliffhanger at the end really made me eager to keep reading. After months of eagerly waiting, Allegiant finally came out in October 2013! And to be honest, I was very disappointed and angry that Veronica Roth finished the trilogy that way (you have to read it to find out). Although Allegiant clarifies all of the mysteries and unknown questions in the first two books, the mind-blowing finale had me curled up in a corner sobbing for hours! (ok, maybe not) How could the author do something so cruel to her readers? But after reading the third book over again, I was able to realize that Veronica Roth actually wanted to teach us a life important lesson.

I would rate the Divergent series a 9.5 out of 10 and would highly recommend it to anyone over the age of 13, whether you’re a boy or girl. Make sure to read it in time for the movie adaption coming out on March 21, 2014!

-Kaylie W., 9th grade

Book Review: A Commonplace Book of the Weird, edited by Joseph Fink

Posted on January 24, 2014 by Miranda C.

Though H. P. Lovecraft is today considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, during his life his stories were mainly published in pulp magazines and he died in poverty in the 1930s.

Lovecraft is credited with creating the genre of cosmic horror, which emphasizes the idea that humans are insignificant and helpless in a universe of unknowably powerful beings over the gore and suspense elements of the usual horror story. He often missed school due to illness and led a reclusive adult life, never knowing his father who was placed in a psychiatric institution when Lovecraft was three, influencing the often friendless and mentally unstable protagonists he wrote.

A Commonplace Book of the Weird is a collection of short stories by twenty modern authors, each randomly assigned a prompt from Lovecraft’s book of unfinished story ideas. Some are full plot outlines, others as simple as “Dream of flying over city.”

My favorite story in this collection is “Relative Damnation” by Joseph Fink, which tells the story of a teenage boy who can save his father from going to hell after a deal with the devil, but only by giving up all of his possessions, education, relationship with his girlfriend, and chance at a happy future. It raises the question of whether successful people should feel they owe their happiness to the suffering of others, even if they didn’t ask for it.

Some more of my favorites are “Dissipation” by Daniel McCoy, a series of seemingly random scenes that come together to tell the story of a future apocalypse, and “The Impossible” by Will Hartwell and Christopher Scheer, an account of the supernatural incident that made a Victorian gentleman unwilling to leave his home, with a twist introduction of another famous mythos.

I think that the book’s weakest points are the stories that rely too heavily on surrealism and have no clear plot. Though the intent may be to make the reader feel as unsettled as the characters, the narratives sometimes come off as series of disjointed imagery rather than cohesive worldbuilding or plot. “Levittown” by Mark Farr has a promising start with an alternate history in which an astronaut from the 1800s attempts to go to the moon in a steampunk rocket, but ends up switching between the astronaut’s story and unrelated scenes of angels, modern-day children, a mysterious old man, and quotes from Lovecraft himself. Though it has excellent imagery and concepts, the story eventually becomes too muddled for the reader to follow.

As is usually the case with anthologies by multiple authors, I found this book to be a mixed bag with several outstandingly imaginative stories and others of varying quality. I would recommend A Commonplace Book of the Weird to anyone 14+ (for thematic elements) who enjoys horror, science fiction, or the Welcome to Night Vale podcast, which is written by two of the contributors.

-Miranda C., 12th grade

Book Review: The Giver, by Lois Lowry

Posted on January 23, 2014 by Maya S.

Lois Lowry does a great job of completely engaging the reader in this story. The meaning of the “precision of language,” the odd recalled memories, and the speaker telling everyone what to do is quite odd at the beginning of the story. Jonas, an eleven year old boy, is living in a futuristic town and is feeling… apprehensive, as he would call it… for the Ceremony of Twelve. For each year as the people in his Community grow up one year, there is a ceremony where something happens to them. At eight years old, you get a jacket with pockets signifying maturity to hold onto your own things. At nine, you get a bicycle with your name on it. (Bicycles are the only transportation within the Community.) At Twelve, you get assigned your job; that is what Jonas is apprehensive about.

The ceremony goes more quickly than he thought and when each twelve year old boy or girl is assigned his or her role, the community elders skip over him. Only at the end they announce his assignment. He is assigned something very special… to work with The Giver. Jonas learns that not only will he have his lifetime job to be with The Giver and replace his job, but also experience the pain of the memories transmitted to him. Two big themes I found important in this story were love and conformity, which always remind me of the song “All you need is Love” by the Beatles. This conveys the message being told in the story—all you really need is love and a bond between you and someone else.

When I finished this book, I was not completely satisfied, but very moved. I felt that this is not how our future should look. The conflict between Jonas’s knowledge and the transmitted memories was very interesting. I would recommend this book to any middle and high schoolers who have some time on their hands to really get the gist of the book. Have fun!

Maya S., 6th grade

6th Grade

Book Review: Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Wenqing Z.

Dystopian novels are my favorite kinds of novels. The author usually creates a “what-if” world that follows a certain idea and looks like a utopia, which is a perfect world. However as readers, we can clearly see how negative and horrible the situation is.

This novel presents the readers a world of total “happiness.” People take soma, a kind of drug, to forget the uneasiness in life and to feel pure happiness. There is no family and children are artificially made, and during this process, people intentionally damage some children’s brain to make them stupid. Therefore the people in this society are divided into five different level based on their IQs, which Alphas do the intellectual jobs while Epsilons do the simple and dirty jobs because they can’t understand anything more. A young boy John comes from his “wild” hometown with knowledge about the Bible and Shakespeare to this New World, which has no religion, no high art, and no intellectual world; technology’s good, but creativity is bad; soma and sex define happiness and meaning of living—so how will John react to this “perfect” world?

Brave New World is a very heavy piece of reading that I would recommend for high school students; personally, I was introduced to this book at a book club with a teacher during my 8th grade. The story involves GREAT numbers of allusion and symbolism that refer to many different literature works and scientific knowledge, so if you want to really understand things beside the main story line, research is necessary. Well, at least based on personal experience, this book basically can be used on ANY SAT essay. Yes, I know you may want to know this.

This book is definitely a 10 out of 10. The great structure and the complex ideals that expressed in the book are very profound, and the story line is also interesting and unexpected. You can read it hundreds of times and still get new understanding from it every time you read it. This is a treasure chest you have to open during your lifetime, so do it now and put it on your shelf right now!

-Wenqing Z., 11th grade

Book Review: Divergent, by Veronica Roth

Posted on December 19, 2013 by Sara S.

The thrilling novel Divergent by Veronica Roth is both spectacular and engrossing and I found it almost impossible to put down.

I chose to read it for my literature circle in my English class, and nobody in my group could stick to the assigned reading because we all kept reading ahead! The story starts off slowly, letting the reader understand the futuristic “utopian” society in which the setting takes place. In the book, the government has sectioned off its citizens into five factions that are best fitting to the individual’s personality and traits. There are the Dauntless, who are the brave, Abnegation, who are the selfless, Candor, for honesty, Amity, for peace and kindness, and last but not least there’s Erudite, who are the most intelligent in the society. The main character of the book is Beatrice Prior, who is originally Abnegation but is struck with the life-changing decision of staying with her family in a faction where she feels an outsider, or going with her heart and never seeing her family again.

Through government secrets and sparks of rebellion, Divergent is a perfect fit for anyone who is a fan of The Hunger Games or the Mortal Instruments series.

-Sara S., 10th grade

Book Review: Pretty Monsters, by Kelly Link

Posted on December 17, 2013 by Miranda C.

This collection of short stories spans the genres of fantasy, horror, and sci-fi. Some stories are established as supernatural from the first sentence, while others are seemingly normal until the twist ending. The stories make use of the Magical Realism genre, in which magical elements are present, but treated as a normal part of the characters’ world, and often not the main focus of the story. Magical realism stories are often intentionally ambiguous and leave it up to the reader whether the events were real or imagined, or never give an explanation of the existence of paranormal forces.

One story I particularly liked was “Magic For Beginners,” which follows teenager Jeremy through his parents’ divorce and discovery of family secrets. Jeremy and his friends were brought together by being avid fans of a television show called “The Library.” The show is brought up in several conversations, with the characters derailing uncomfortable topics by talking instead about the most recent episode. Gradually, the reader learns that “The Library” airs at random times on random channels, with commercials for nonexistent products and actors no one can identify, although the characters aren’t overly concerned by this. The abnormality culminates in “The Library’s” main character Fox, thought to be fictional, calling Jeremy and asking him to steal books for her so that she won’t die in the next episode. Jeremy completes his instructed mission but never talks face-to-face with Fox, and so the true origin of the phone calls and the possibility of her existence is never resolved.

Another one of my favorites was “The Surfer,” in which the adolescent protagonist’s father takes him to Costa Rica to escape a viral pandemic in the near future. They share a quarantine shelter with cult members who are waiting for the return of aliens that briefly visited their leader years ago. The reader sees that one confirmed visit from aliens has not changed the future world much, and the characters’ conversations about world politics, books, soccer, and the virus take up most of the story.

Overall, I liked this book. Some stories were confusing or too open-ended, but in others the minimalist ambiguity allowed by the short story format contributed to the narrative. The author’s descriptions are concise and vivid, and the existence of ghosts, aliens, or werewolves often takes a backseat to the characters’ coming-of-age stories. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys surreal fantasy and speculative fiction.

-Miranda C., 12th grade

Series Review: The Lorien Legacies by Pittacus Lore

Posted on November 28, 2013 by Kaylie W.

When most people think of aliens, they imagine a green Martian with antennae and gigantic eyes. They usually don’t imagine an alien as a normal-looking teenage human being who has amazing super powers.

Like most science fiction books, The Lorien Legacies, written by a pseudonym under Pittacus Lore, is an ongoing series that’s full of action, suspense, and (for you girls out there) a little romance. The books are titled: I am Number Four, The Power of Six, The Rise of Nine, and The Fall of Five. The fifth book in the series is expected to be published in 2014.

The series is set in a modern day world. The planet Lorien, which is similar to Earth, has been obliterated by another race of aliens called Mogadorians. The only Loric to survive are (supposedly) nine teenagers, called the Garde, and their Cepans, who are assigned to protect their chosen Loric. Seeking salvation, the nine teenagers have come to Earth to train for combat. Their goal is to be able to destroy the Mogadorians and reclaim their home planet in time. They are each named after a number and possess amazing abilities called Legacies. Protected by a unique “charm”, the Garde can only be killed off in numbered order.

The first book in the series starts off with the story of Number Four, which means Numbers One, Two, and Three have already been killed by the Mogadorians. As the series goes on, readers will be able to meet more members of the Garde. This series is one of my favorites because the main characters are often faced with very difficult decisions and have to struggle through a number of life-threatening moments. Because they are only teenagers, the Garde sometimes don’t know what the right choices are. In the beginning, they constantly argue because they each have different views and personalities. The Garde has to learn to rely and trust one another, sort of like a team.

I would rate the Lorien Legacies a 9.5 out of 10 and would highly recommend it to anyone over the age of 12 who enjoys sci-fi and action. There are many surprising moments that will surely keep you in constant suspense and on the edge of your seat!

-Kaylie W., 9th grade

Movie Review & Book List: Gravity, with Sandra Bullock & George Clooney

Posted on November 19, 2013 by Satej B.

Recently I watched the movie Gravity in which Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are the main characters. In the beginning Sandra and George are in a space station. They are just doing routine check ups on the ship until they get a warning. The warning says that a foreign satellite broke and pieces of it are moving rapidly across the atmosphere. It was going to hit them! Sure enough it hits the ship and SPOILER ALERT—- kills George and another guy on the ship. Sandra is the only survivor, but does she have the equipment to get home? Will she ever see her home again?

I personally thought that this movie wasn’t dynamic enough. Example, in the trailer it was full of action, but the movie was filled with action for 15 minutes. The rest of the movie after the ship wreck was very dull and boring. But many people older than me thought this movie was very engaging and fun. All I know is it didn’t appeal to me. I wouldn’t say don’t see it. But I would say do not waste your money to watch it in theater. Just wait for it to come on dvd. I think many people of my age group, 7-15 years, would find this movie to be boring, because most people my age like action. But is you are not the total-action type or the Avengers kind you might have an interest in watching this movie.

All in all I would rate this movie a 6.5/10. It lacked many things to my mind. Gravity disappointed me… but just in case you’re a fan and would like some book recommendations that pair well with this movie, I recommend the following:

Space, by Roger Reid
Fourteen-year-old Jason accompanies his father to the annual reunion of long-time science colleagues at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, and finds himself involved in a dangerous and complicated mystery.
Geronimo Stilton #52: Mouse in Space!
When an evil professor begins threatening New Mouse City with terrible inventions, Geronimo Stilton is enlisted by local authorities to embark on a top-secret mission to outer space to thwart a nefarious plot.
Space Pilot Connor Grant, by Todd Templeman
In a future that embraces humanity’s desire to explore and exploit the Solar System, raiding pirates have managed to hide their enormous strange base somewhere inside it. Space Pilot Connor Grant is about to learn just how immense it can be out there.

-Satej B., 7th grade

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