Every Soul A Star Review

Title: Every Soul A Star
Author: Wendy Mass
Pages: 322
Version: Paperback
Publisher: Hachette Book Group, Inc.

I've finished Every Soul A Star by Wendy Mass this week. I'm going to go ahead and say right now that I think this book is probably geared towards younger people more near age 12. It's more of a middle school sort of coming of age book. That being said, it wasn't bad, just really not the best book for an older audience. This story centers around three main characters; Ally, Bree, and Jack. They are all very different people and by chance, end up meeting and becoming friends. Ally lives at the Moon Shadow campground and has for most of her life. She is the girl that is "different from every other girl". That leads me to Bree. Bree is essentially "every other girl". She is into clothes and make-up and wants to be a model. Jack is a slightly overweight kid that doesn't really have any friends. He has to go to summer school because he doesn't pay attention in class and spends all his time drawing and playing video games. Bree's parents decided to move to the Moon Shadow to take it over after Ally and her family moves away. Neither Bree nor Ally is happy with this. Everyone is at the campground for an eclipse. Anyway, I'll go ahead and say that I really did not like the characters much at all. And that was a big problem for me. Bree is one of the absolute worst characters I have ever seen in any book. I hated her for most of the book. She was so unlikeable and so superficial... I don't even really know what to say about her. The other two were fine, but they weren't really anything that spectacular to me. Another big problem I had with this book is that everything was so incredibly predictable. I knew exactly what was going to happen throughout the whole book and I really didn't like that. That being said, this book had an interesting setting and some really unique things about it that mostly had to do with the setting and the fact that it is centered around an eclipse. About the cover, I actually really like it and I think it's quite nice for this book (even if the person on it doesn't really look human). So anyway, I would recommend this book to younger people maybe around middle school aged.

Every Soul A Star and Predictions

This week, I started reading Every Soul a Star by Wendy Mass. I am currently on page 259 of 322. This story focuses on three main characters; Ally, Jack, and Bree. They are all very different people, but they end up coming together at the Moon Shadow Campground for an eclipse. Ally lives at the campground and loves it there. She is home schooled and has a brother that she is very close to, Kenny. She is also very interested in astronomy and the stars and is very knowledgeable. Bree is one of the most popular girls in her school and dreams of nothing more than being a model. She doesn't really relate to her family much because her parents are scientists and her sister, Melanie is very smart and doesn't care what people think of her. So basically the opposite of Bree. Jack is a slightly overweight kid that likes drawing and science fiction books. He doesn't pay much attention in school and people tease him so he is supposed to go to summer school because he failed science. Bree is told that her whole family will be moving to the campground to take it over. That means Ally is being forced to move from the campground too. Neither of them want to move at all, but they end up being forced to no matter what anyway. Jack becomes friends with Ryan who is Ally's friend that visits the campground every summer. Ryan encourages Jack to start working out with him and Jack agrees. Jack meets Ally and Bree later sort of through Ryan. Ryan ends up really liking Bree because of how "hot" she is. Jack starts liking Ally because he thinks she is beautiful and smart. Since Jack is at the campground to get out of going to summer school, he is supposed to help with a special project to find exoplanets with his science teacher. However, his science teacher gets a call about his wife being pregnant and so Jack ends up having to do the whole thing himself with his friends. There is a massive storm the first day and so they end up hiding up in a shed on the hill they are supposed to use to look at the exoplanets. They continue with the experiment the next night and successfully take their data, possibly finding an exoplanet. This book is ok so far, but I think it's really meant for younger people because it's somewhat juvenile. I really really dislike Bree in this book which makes it much harder to like as well. We'll see how it ends though.

Now for the question of the week. Prediction is one of those reading skills that teachers all over America force on students. For some, this skill/obsession seems to happen naturally; for others, they would rather let the story unfold as it happens. What type of reader are you? Do you predict what's going to happen? Do you ever stop reading just so you can formulate predictions based on the story so far? How far do you take your predictions? Are you like me and let your predictions overtake you so that you HAVE to read the last page to see if you're right, or do you avoid reading the last page at all costs because knowing the ending ruins the story?

I would say I can definitely predict how a book is going to go sometimes. I don't go out of my way to predict what's going to happen or see if I'm right or anything, but I do think about what's going to happen next if I have some sort of good idea. I never really let prediction take much of a role in my reading though. It's not a very important aspect to me, I'm perfectly content with letting the story unfold as I go. I also don't really care if I'm right or not because of this, it's just not that important to me. I read to experience the story, not be right about what happens in it. Reading the last page isn't something that I usually do either unless I'm really bored with the book and wondering where it will go. I mean obviously I have to try and predict what will happen in books that I read for school usually because we have to analyze it so much, but when I'm reading for pleasure I really don't.

Every Day Review

Title: Every Day
Author: David Levithan
Pages: 322
Version: Hardcover
Publisher: Random House, Inc.

This book is about a person called A that wakes up in a new body every day. Essentially, he falls in love with the girlfriend of one of the bodies he inhabits. He ends up not being able to let her go and so decides to try and convince her to work out a relationship with him. The whole book is really about them seeing how this relationship can possibly work. I ended up reading this book in about three days I think. I finished it pretty quickly. At first, it took me a little while to actually get into it because I felt like I had to get used to the author's writing. For some reason it just seemed a lot different stylistically compared to books that I normally read. I decided to read this book because I thought the plot was a really cool and interesting idea which it definitely was. However, in the beginning of the book it starts out with sort of introducing A (the main character) and shows him in a guy named Justin's body. After A meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon, he realizes that Justin doesn't really treat her right and so tries to make his day with her really special, hoping to change Justin. Over the course of this time, A somehow completely falls in love with Rhiannon. I personally had a problem with this. I simply do not understand how he fell in love with her so deeply in a day. It seemed really unrealistic and strange to me. After this, he tries to go and see her whenever the body he is in is convenient to get to her. This seemed a bit... creepy to me. He knew her for one day, she has a boyfriend (whose body he was in), and yet he wants to see her and almost stalk her in a weird way. Soon problems start to arise and A ends up telling Rhiannon about his situation and confesses his love for her. Her character seemed to take it somewhat like a normal person would so that was good. Later on in the story, there is sort of another subplot happening while this romance plot is going on. I honestly don't really know why they put this other subplot in, it ended up not really going anywhere at all and didn't actually add much to the story. It would have been a really interesting addition if it had actually had some sort of role in A's life, but it didn't. This brings me to my biggest problem with the story. The ending. It did not satisfy me at all. It left so many things up in the air and yet it doesn't really seem like it can be continued. Basically, I didn't like the ending at all. In addition, the book was slightly inappropriate at some parts which I was not a fan of, but it wasn't terrible. Also, the cover is pretty nice, but I personally am not a big fan of the yellow that they tinted everything. Anyway, this actually is a pretty good book. If you like semi-unrealistic romance with a cool sort of underlying issue then I would read this for sure. However, if you want a really fantastic ending, I'm not sure this would be the best book to read. The ending makes sense, but.... just see for yourself.

Challenge 8- Once a Witch and Always a Witch Review

Title: Once a Witch

Author: Carolyn MacCullough

Pages: 292

Version: Hardcover

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

Title: Always a Witch

Author: Carolyn MacCullough

Pages: 276

Version: Hardcover

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company

So I just finished the second book of this series today. I originally read the first book because I read a review on Katie's Book Blog. The series consists of two books (Once a Witch and Always a Witch). I figured it would be best if I did a combined review for both of them. First of all, here's a bit about the books. Tasmin Greene comes from a family of witches and the night she was born, her grandmother predicted that she would be the most powerful of them all. However, Tasmin's Talent (specialized magical power) never showed up. She was somewhat of an outcast in her family because of this. Since she is "normal" she decided to go off to a boarding school in Manhattan to get away from all the magic. One day while she is at home working in her family's shop, a man comes in looking for her talented sister, Rowena. He ends up mistaking Tasmin for Rowena and asks her to find an old family heirloom for him. This strange request ends up sending her on a journey through time that unlocks secrets about her family and herself. I absolutely adored these books. I would say the second one was my favorite out of the two, but is definitely a lot more sinister and dark than the first one. I really liked the characters in the book which was nice. Tasmin is quite dynamic and I found her very interesting as a main character. The enemies of her family were also quite good even though they were truly evil people. Tasmin's sister, Rowena was also a really strange sort of antagonist to Tasmin. She was crazy and bitter, but did end up being important at the key times. And she also proved to be a major problem in the first book (not that it was her fault). As far as the story goes, I loved it. The first book was a lot of background and building up to everything in the second book. I would definitely say that the second book is much more exciting because most of the key events happen in that book. Once a Witch was necessary and also great though. The second book goes faster overall. I couldn't put it down. I actually had to make myself stop reading it so I would still have something to read while I was waiting to get my next book. It was fantastic. It has romance, time travel, magic, and some great enemies. I really did love this series. I also really like the covers quite a lot, the colors are nice and reflect the feeling of each of the books rather well I would say. I would recommend it to anyone that is looking for a pretty fast read and likes the things I mentioned above. I don't know if I can say much more without giving away some of the plot so I'll just leave it at that. It's a great series. I love it. Read it.