Thirteen Reasons Why By Jay Asher

             I just finished reading this book Thirteen Reasons Why for the second time. This honestly is a great book and it keeps you asking questions and thinking even up until the very last page. This book is about a teenage boy, Clay Jensen, who receives a package from a classmate that had killed herself. In the package are a series of 7 tapes, they are filled with her voice recordings, 13 reasons why Hannah Baker (the girl on the tapes) did what she did. Every new reason is a new person and Hannah made sure that the tapes get around to each of those people after she is dead so they know what they did to her. The tapes are really transformative for Clay. If the people that are getting the tapes are the people that lead her to kill herself, what did Clay do that is so bad that he ended up on the tapes? You have to read this book to find out. Overall a wonderfully written sad book, but it's worth it.

What others thought of this book:

"Brilliant and mesmerizing."-Kirkus, starred review

"Thriller-like pacing."-The New York Times

"Suspenseful and addictive."-Entertainment Weekly
"A book that you can't get out of you mind."-Ellen Hopkins, best selling author of Crank, Burned, Glass, and Tricks



Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

           The book I decided to read is Before I fall by Lauren Oliver. I liked her other book Delirium a lot so I decided to read another one of her books. What really got my attention about this book is the front cover. If you look at the top right hand corner you see what says "What if you only had one day to live." Seeing that really made me interested in how the book will turn out.
        This book is about a girl her name is Samantha Kingston and she has it al, popularity, looks. February 12th is supposed to be a normal day but it ends up being her final. Was she negligent or careful? What caused this to happen to her? But the catch is she wakes up the next morning! Want to know how, why or what read the book to find out.
         "You'll have no choice but to tear through this book!"-Jay Asher author of 13 Reasons Why
          The very first line of the prologue kind of catches you off guard "They say that just before you die your whole life flashes before your eyes, but that's not how I happened for me,"(pg. 3 Oliver). I hope you decide to read this book and that you enjoy it.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

            I have just started reading the book Delirium by Lauren Oliver so they is not much I can say about the book yet. But the reason I wanted to read it is because it was rated 4/5 and many authors had such great thinks to say about this book. 
           This book is the first in a dystopian trilogy. Delirium has also been featured on the New York Times Bestsellers list. This book keeps you wanting to read from the very first sentence which is " It has been sixty- four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure. Everyone else in my family has had the procedure already."
          A basic summary of this book is in this future United States the government declares love as a disease and the make a cure and force everyone to get it by the time they turn a certain age. Lena is excited to be getting the cure because she knows the power it can have and that it destroyed her mom. With 95 days left until her turn for the cure Lena meets a boy. Read the book even if you think the ending may be kind of obvious because it will be worth it.

“Censorship causes diminished individual thought.”

1) Guy Montag meets Clarisse, who contradicts the ideas of the society that they are living in.   3) Montag realizes he is living in darkness and hasn’t really thought about what he is doing when he burns the books filled information. 5) Montag asks Mildred questions such as when and where they met. She cannot remember. 7) Montag decides to read Dover Beach outloud to Mildred and her friends, who then become very upset. 9) Montag becomes a fugitive after killing Beatty and knocking down the other firemen. As he escapes, he gives some of the books he hid to Faber.

2) Montag returns home to find Mildred collapsed from taking too many sleeping pills; he calls over a medical team to save her. 4) He later responds to a call to burn the house of a woman who is hiding books. However, she chooses instead to burn herself (and the books) using a match. 6) Montag goes to Faber’s house to discuss books, specifically the Bible,  and what he should do about wanting to keep the books. 8) He gets called in to go burn another house, only to find that out that it is in fact his house they are scheduled to burn. He later finds out that it is his wife who placed the call. 10) Once Montag reaches the river, he is no longer followed. He begins reminiscing about events in his past and notices many details about the nature around him. He also finally remembers where he met Mildred. He meets the new society which values and memorizes books and becomes part of it.

Quotes:

Part 1-

“We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the constitution says, but everyone made equal . . . A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.

Breach man’s mind.” (pg 58)

Part 2-

“‘...the televisor is real. It is immediate,it has dimension. It tells you what to think and blasts it in. It must be right. It rushes on you so quickly to its own conclusions, your mind hasn't time to protest,’what nonsense!’” (pg 84)

Part 3-  

“Even if she dies, I realized a                                                     

moment ago, I won’t feel sad. It isn’t right. Something must be wrong with me.” (pg 155)

“He stood breathing, and the more he breathed the land in, the more he was filled up with all the details of the land. He was not empty. There was more than enough here to fill him.” (p. 144)

This theme is important to our understanding of the story because it showed us that the characters had their own thoughts and their own opinions but the censorship did not let them have the full individual thought they could have had.

Censorship causes diminished individual thought relates to our modern-day society because on a daily basis we stop ourselves from doing things just because somebody else could be watching or vice versa. It is important for us to study this theme because we need to realize that we all have an opinion and censorship shouldn’t stop you from doing something you believe in.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

           
            This month I have been reading the book  Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. This is a great book for someone who loves mysteries and thrillers. Like the cover says there are two sides to every story. The chapters alternate one will be about the Husband, Nick Dunne, the other about Amy Dunne, the wife. I still have 1/4 of the book to go but I can promise the author Gillian Flynn has added so many twists and turns. Nothing that happens is expected by anybody.
         Basically it is both of the main characters 5th anniversary and the wife, Amy disappears. Nick tells many lies but is he a killer? Read the book to find out; it keeps you on the edge of your seat guessing what is going to happen on every page. I can't say much about this book without giving something away, but overall this is an amazing book by Gillian Flynn, I definitely rate 5/5 stars.  This book was on the New York Times Bestsellers List for 85 weeks. Gillian's previous novels were all also on that list.  This book is by far one of my favorites and definitely worth the time.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

                The book The Perks of Being a wallflower is a really good coming of age tale. It's the point of view of a teenager named Charlie who is going through High school. This book is basically a diary but a little bit more "intimate" and instead of him writing in a book he is sending them to someone we never really find out who, but it doesn't matter because when you read it, it feels like he is sending them to you. There are many points in this book which just get you to stop and think. For example my favorite quote from this book is " Charlie, we accept the love we think we deserve," (page 24). If you do decide to read this book be sure to read the epilogue it gives you a little bit of information of what terrible thing that happened in the past makes him act the way he does.
              You may be wondering or not how the title got its name The Perks of Being a Wallflower. In this book there is a point where he catches his friend doing something, he listens to what his friend says about it and promises not to speak of it. His friend (Patrick) says "He's a wallflower,"  (page 37) and then to Charlie he says "You see things. You keep quiet about them. And you understand," (page 37). The author of this book is also the director of the movie which is great because he really did do a good job of making it a movie. You have to keep in mind that in the book his name and all his friends names aren't their real names he just uses them so the reader can not find out who he is. We never find out his real name. This book shows you the twist and turns of someone's life and what those memories even from years ago can cause you to do unexplainable things.  

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

     This is my 2nd blog on the Maze Runner. This book is getting more and more interesting every time I pick it up to read it. Throughout this book you can really see the development of all the characters and how they react in certain situations. After finishing this book I am excited to see what James Dashner has to offer in the rest of his series.
          The point in the book where I last stopped was when there was a new girl that came in the box (if confused read previous blog of Maze Runner first). The book has gone a long way since then. The main character Thomas, along with two other characters gets trapped in the maze. Who got him stuck in it? Does Thomas survive? Do the others survive? Or do they all die from the grievers? The grievers are these scary creatures that come out mostly in the night time in the maze and no one has ever survived being trapped in there with them through the whole night. This book is  post apocalyptic meaning it's like a sub-genre of science fiction that is concerned with the end of human civilization. So basically something terrible has occurred in human society and hundreds of boys have ended there in "The Glade." And now since the main character has arrived things are changing. The first girl has arrived, the Grievers are dying. Read the book to find out why all of this is happening.