Pendragon: The Merchant of Death

When you first pick up this book, it may seem boring to you. The typical magical universe where there are multiple dimensions. But this book is different from the rest, because only a select few can travel through these portals. These people are called (surprise!) TRAVELERS. In this first book of the 10 part series. In this book Pendragon goes with his Uncle Press, who is also a traveler, to stop Saint Dane (the bad guy) from destroying the territory of Denduron. Read the rest of the summary here:

Summary

At first, I too was skeptical about this book. My first thought was that this book would be another typical Sci-Fi book with multi universes and such. But the thing about these territories in Pendragon was that each of them were going to reach a certain turning point, and it could be pushed either to good, or destruction. Also another interesting thing about the territories is that there can be multiple for one world. For example there is First Earth, Second Earth, and Third Earth. All of these territories are moving forward at the same time. The actual character Pendragon caught my eye. When he first went to a territory, he was a rookie that didn't know much. He wasn't that much of a help, which is different from the typical protagonist. Also the villain Saint Dane was different from the regular villains because he had a calm, cool collected front even after SPOILER Pendragon and the rest stopped the destruction of Denduron, which he was trying to push the turning point towards destruction. He simply said that even though he lost then, in the future Denduron would be the first to fall, the first domino. Will he do it? Will Pendragon survive!? FIND OUT IN THE NEXT EPISODE OF PENDRAGON! Just kidding, but I found this series very good, one of my favorites, and would recommend to everyone, even the people that don't like fantasy.

Fahrenheit 451 Narrative

For my narrative I am going to be continuing the story in the point of view of Mrs. Bowles (the one who swore that she would never go back there):

I stumbled out of the house in a furious rage. I ran straight to home and joined my 'family'. Instantly I started to relax.
"Stupid fireman with his stupid book," I sniveled. Why did poetry hurt so much? Why did people want to hurt others like that? I watched my 'family' for a while longer, my heart beat slowing down. I felt relaxed... but why did I have this sense of dread in my heart? Why did listening to that poem arouse such emotion out of me? Never before had I cried, not even for my first divorce, or my second husband, dead! But why for this? Bawling I ran out the front door, tripped on the sidewalk and cried. Cried for all my husbands, my children, and the sad...sad poem.

Slowly I got up and went inside.
"Sleeping pills... I need sleeping pills," I murmured to my self. I took the vial, popped the cap off, and swallowed all of them. I limped upstairs and went into my bed. I put my seashells in my ears, listening to the soft music and sounds, rocking back and forth in my bed. Slowly, without thinking, I reached for the phone. I dialed some numbers,
"Hello? Fire department? I have to report something..."  After the phone call I lay in bed, with tears on my face. I didn't even know why I was crying. Something about... a poem... maybe? I didn't care. I closed my eyes, and went into a deep sleep. I never woke up again.

Lord Loss

WARNING! If you are squeamish or cringe at horror... you may want to turn away. But if you enjoy horror books, or even want to try something new, then you may want to stick around.

Honestly, I never really enjoyed horror books.. I just wasn't interested blood and gore. But then I read the book Lord Loss and it completely changed my perspective of horror. I realized that horror books are a lot more than just blood and gore, they also have a complex story line. Lord Loss instantly caught my attention. SPOILER! It starts off with Grubbs' (the main character) family being torn to shreds by demons, and Grubs barely escaping. He has to team up with his uncle Dervish to find the demons. If you want to read the rest of the summary click here:

Summary



This book caught my attention from other horror books because of one thing, the antagonist. He is described to thoroughly well, I could picture him in my mind. Lord Loss. He is the antagonist in the book who killed Grubbs' family. I really enjoyed how in depth the author, Darren Shan, went into describing the characters in the book. As you read along, it was like painting in your head, every scene perfectly described. You might say that with all that description the book would be boring, but it was not. The book was still fast paced, quickly jumping into the important parts. Also I enjoyed the ending of the book, it was a semi-cliffhanger. Some people don't like cliffhangers because they don't like to be left in the dark, but I do. It gives me something to look forward too, the next book. Fortunately for me the whole series is complete, so I won't have to wait for the next book.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. It brought me a new understanding of horror, and I appreciated horror books for the first time in my life. I used to think that horror was just random violence, but I was wrong. If you're sitting here reading this blog and thinking, "What's so special? It's just a horror book." Then go out and at least try the book, you might like it.

Lord Loss Review:

Semester 1 Reflection

This first semester sure seemed to fly by. Seems just like yesterday when we walked into the school, awaiting our new high school lives. This semester in honors English, I have done a lot in both my blogs and outside of class.

I have always loved reading. Back in Intermediate school, I used to read about a new book every week. Yet, when I reached 8th grade, it seemed like my love for reading had disappeared. Possibly it was because I had much more work than before in 8th grade, but I stopped reading. I stopped going to the library, and stopped checking out new books. But this year, my love for reading has rekindled. I read about 10 new books this semester. It may not have been a lot from before, but it was definitely something. I enjoyed reading new books and series such as the Maze Runner series, the Divergent series, and the Ranger's Apprentice. I normally like fictional books, so that's what I choose when I selected my books, and I don't regret the decision. Also, the weekly blog posts also encouraged me to read more, because we had to write about what we were reading.

The blog post, again, rekindled my love for reading. Aside from that, we also posted about stories we were reading in class. At first, my blog posts were not the best, I'll admit it. But as I progressed along, I started picking up things that made my blog posts slowly, but surely, better. They are still not perfect or the best in the world, but they still have come a long way since I first started blogging. For example, at first all I would give is a quick summary of the book, and what it contained. But I started adding more and more voice, and my own thinking of what I thought of the book. And soon, most of my blog posts reflected what I thought of the book, not just some short summary of what I read. I also linked sources to where I find summary's or statistics, in case someone wanted to look more into the book I was blogging about. Near the end, I started stating specific evidence from the books too, justifying my thoughts of the book.

Although my blog posts and Independent reading has grown more in the last semester, it could be better. To start things off next semester I am going to use my good reads more often. I barely used this semester, but now I will keep updating my good reads with my recent books and quotes. Also, with my posts I am going to add more connections with my thoughts and the authors, by possibly putting in a video of the author or an interview that happened with author, so people can see 'both sides of the story' so to speak. Tied in with this is that I will be trying out different genres of books, not only fiction. Even though I enjoy fiction books, most likely I will also like another genre of books, who knows? And a last thing that I can greatly improve upon, is my comments. Each week I did in fact make a comment (sometimes made two) but they were all a couple days late. I am going to get into the habit of making a comment right after I publish my post, so not only my post, but my comment is on time as well.

All in all this first semester was a blast, and certainly a lot smoother than I thought it was going to be. Next semester I hope to accomplish more reading, books aside from genre. Also I want to greatly improve my blogging, connecting with the reader and expressing my own thought. 

The Kill Order

So I feel kind of awkward posting another blog from the same series, but this is the last one. We all know of what happened to Thomas and the rest of the world in the Maze Runner series. But... how did it all start? Why did it happen? Well, I'm here to tell you, after reading the prequel of the series, The Kill Order.

The Flare was released into the world 13 years before Thomas' time. It started to spread rapidly, and soon it was out of hand. A couple of brave people, Mark, Trina, Alec, and Lana, tried to stop the Flare by delivering an immune girl to the government so they can try to find a cure. If you want to read the rest of the summary click here:

Summary

I found this book interesting, but a little depressing.  The people in this book had already gone through a lot of pain, and at the end SPOILER they end up dying. Also, since we know that their effort was in vain, because we know the Flare was present even during Thomas' time. SOO basically in the end the entire story of The Kill Order was basically a waste. The only part that really seemed to matter was how the Flare was introduced. I don't think this book was really necessary. Honestly, I am done with death and destruction for a while.

If you have read The Kill Order how do you think the story was? Do you think the story was necessary?

The Death Cure

It has all come a full circle. After going through so many hardships, suffering so much, and losing friends, Thomas' story has come to an end.

After the Scorch Trials, Thomas, the gladers, and the members of group B were carried away to WICKED's headquarters, where they were all told a devastating truth. They all had the Flare. And to make matters worse, there was no cure to it, and that was WICKED's goal, to find a cure. They told them that all the kids were being used as test subjects, to record their brain patterns and try to find a cure. Also, they told them that most of them were immune to the Flare, yet some were not because they needed a control group. Newt was one of them. After hearing all this, Thomas learns that WICKED wants to cut open his brain to try and complete the cure. He and the other gladers don't trust WICKED, so they run away and counter attack and destroy WICKED. But some friends die along the way such as Teresa and Newt. At the end the gladers and other immune people, after going through a flat transporter, arrive in a wildlife paradise, where they will live out the rest of their lives as the rest of the world goes into extinction.

I found this books ending kind of sad, and confusing. All the effort that the gladers and WICKED go through... for nothing? In the end, basically the world ends except for the small group of about a hundred people. How will they survive without the help of others, and without technology? I feel like this ending was left a little incomplete, and that the author could possibly make a sequel to this series, maybe showing the story of Thomas' kids and how they travel back into the real world. What do you think?

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier

I am reading the book A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier. This book is about a 12 year old kid, who has to go trough things no child, or man, should have to go through. His entire family was killed by a group of rebels, and these rebels were killing people throughout Sierra Leone. Ishmael was taken in by a squad of soldiers fighting against the rebels, and was trained to become a deadly killing machine. For three years, Ishmael and other kids killed and killed, hopped up on drugs. But after these years, Ishmael was taken to a rehabilitation center and started a new life.

The main idea of this book was to show the struggles, and pain of war. Ishmael's entire life almost got ruined, he lost his family, he was fighting in the front lines, he could have died anytime. He showed the struggles of life in Sierra Leone as a boy soldier. Specific examples of the hardships of the war is the lose of his friends and family and he had a lack of food and resources to survive.

Summary(Link)

The number of boy soldiers that fought in the Sierra Leone war was shocking. It was 5,000-10,000 kids. Most of them died, they didn't have the luck that Ismael did when he was rescued to be rehabilitated.

Link

Also many people don't realize this, but even today children are being used to fight wars. Examples of this is that many countries use child soldiers such as: Uganda. The outside research connects to the realization that war is full of pain and struggles. In our memoir it just refers to Ishmael being recruited. However, when Chris and I researched this we discovered that must children were drugged and abducted to join these countries armies. This connects to our realization because it shows how much pain the family went through when the child was taken away and was fighting for his life. It also shows the pain and struggle of war not only affects the victim itself, but also their family.

A Long Way Gone is an interesting book, that shows a different lifestyle. It shows the struggles and problems that people faced in the past, and still do today.

Ismael Beah older: