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.