Broadway Lights

by Jen Calonita

Broadway Lights is the fifth book in the Secrets of my Hollywood Life series, and it's just as good as the others. In addition to providing a good look at Broadway actors and actresses as well as life in NYC, this book was really fun and cute. I sped through the whole thing in a little over an hour and was very satisfied with the way the story ended. This book is a must-read, especially for those who love acting and theater!

City of Glass

I just finished reading City of Glass (Mortal Instruments #3) by Cassandra Clare last night. I don't want to give anything away, but I just wanted to say that it was AMAZING. (In fact, the whole series is amazing.) The plot was so fast-paced and dramatic, and there were so many suspenseful cliffhangers.

One thing I really liked was all the quotes and allusions to the Bible throughout the book; I felt that they definitely added to the story and made it more interesting. I also liked learning more about the characters' pasts and all the unanticipated twists that happened because of some character's obscure past. :-)

I think most people have already read these books (I would have gotten my hands on them earlier if there hadn't been so many holds at the library!), but if you haven't, I would strongly recommend it. Cassandra Clare skillfully weaves together fantasy, paranormal fiction, adventure, and more in this highly popular series.

Fairies

Inspired by Eyes Like Stars this week:

(Cropped from the Eyes Like Stars cover.)

little bursts of light
flicker with energy and
the prospect of cake.

(Poetry Friday roundup here.)

Readergirlz chat TONIGHT!

First of all, Happy St. Patrick's Day!

And second of all, don't miss the LIVE readergirlz chat tonight! We'll be joined by Scott Westerfeld, the author of Leviathan (which we've been discussing all month at readergirlz). The chat starts at 6 pm PST / 9 pm EST.

I'm hoping to make it tonight - we'll see how the homework goes!

National Poetry Month - April 2010

I've finally decided to do National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) for the first time. I'm really excited - the poster is so pretty and I'm looking forward to see what other people come up with too.

I will try to post most of my poems up, but I'm sure that some of them will be too horrible to put up :)

night

Winter is almost over, but it has been freezing lately. I found this poem that I wrote a couple years ago - it fits in nicely with the weather we've been experiencing here.

*
of winter skies where
crimson stars release their golden heat
against the cold indigo night-

upon the ground lies crisp snow like the
smell of cinnamon on Sunday morning,

turned to ice between the mountains.

the place where arrows point towards a chasm
on a spiraling pathway
is where I find my home.

Anyone know what happened to Poetry Friday?

Kreativ Blogger Award

Thanks, Milli!

The rules are to thank the person who gave you the award and write seven random facts about you that someone may not know. Then tag seven people that you think should receive this award! I tag anyone who wants to do this!

1. White is one of my least favorite colors.

2. Whenever I read an interesting or unusual name in a book, I always read it backwards to check if it spells out anything that way. I think the only times I was rewarded were during Holes by Louis Sachar (the main character's name is Stanley Yelnats) and in Harry Potter (The Mirror of Erised).

3. I greatly prefer animated movies (Disney, Pixar, etc.) to movies with actual actors/actresses. Harry Potter is one of the only exceptions.

4. (in my opinion) Two movies that were just as good as the book: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

5. I don't like dark chocolate.

6. I love going to the dentist.

7. On a similar note, I love the taste of the fluoride at the dentist's.

Books I've Been Reading

After reading so many raving reviews about this book, Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder, I decided to pick it up. I was really glad I did so because this book is awesome and I think that most people would enjoy it.

One of the main selling points for this book was the originality - I've never heard of a book before that focused around the idea of a food taster who tested for poison. I also liked the characters with their wide range of personalities and I felt that they really added to the story.


If you liked Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series or Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett, you'll enjoy this one as well. Heist Society is about a girl named Kat who is a professional thief. She gets into the middle of a huge art robbery mystery and, with the help of her relatives and friends (all thieves), is forced to solve the mystery and restore the paintings.

The pacing and action in this was great, and I really liked how Kat managed to put together all the random facts together in the end. The book ends with some new questions, so I'm hoping there's a sequel!


Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld was pretty interesting too. I'm never read steampunk before, and I found it very engaging. My interest was also piqued by the fact that it was a retelling of World War I - I had almost no idea what WWI was about before I read this book, so I learned a lot too.

This book is the readergirlz pick of the month, so come on over to the blog and join in the discussions!

untitled

I've been having tons of homework and competitions and events lately, which is why you're not seeing me around much. Hopefully I will have more free time next weekend...

But anyways, I found this quote on my quote-of-the-day widget on iGoogle and I thought it was interesting:

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Hunger Games, anyone?

Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief Movie

So I went to see the Percy Jackson movie last weekend (after looking forward to it for almost a year). I thought it was pretty good, overall. The plot had changed quite a bit and a lot of stuff was taken out, but I liked most of the additions.

I really liked Grover in the movie. Even though he didn't match the Grover in the book, he still had a lot of funny lines and always kept the mood light. I thought that Logan Lerman was great as Percy too - he looks exactly like Percy and his acting was a little too angsty, but still good.

The only character who really annoyed me was Annabeth, which is sad since she's one of my favorite characters in the books. First of all, the actress didn't look much like how I imagined Annabeth; in fact, she looked a little like Fergie at some places. Plus, she was wayyy meaner than she was in the books - I could never imagine the book Annabeth purposely hurting anyone during Capture-the-Flag. The rest of the characters ranged from good to ok - Chiron was awesome and all the gods were meh.

The plot was different, but still interesting. I mean, it's only a two hour movie and they had to cram a lot of stuff in. The whole overarching plot of Kronos rising to power was cut out, but that's understandable.

The fight scenes were my only other problem. I don't know much about sword fighting, but what I saw of it in the movie looked really choreographed and cheesy and fake. Annabeth kept raising the sword above her head and kept managing to block other swords even without looking back - I thought that was pretty unrealistic.

But in the end, I thought that the movie was worth watching. Different from the book, but still entertaining.

Robotics Guest Post

I have a guest post about robotics up at the Royal Educator's Treatment blog, which strives to bring together educators and discuss (sometimes controversial) topics in education.

I participated in a robotics competition last year and my team ended up going all the way to the international competition. (We won first place in the Teamwork Award there!) I was asked to put in my two cents about robotics for the blog's "Kid's Eye View" series... go check it out!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I don't have a wonderful story or yummy cakes to share today like some people do, but I'd just like to say:

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Hunger Games 3 Book Title and Cover!

I don't know if you've already seen it or not:

But it looks so cool! I love the blue-silver-white color scheme, and I love how it contrasts with the first two covers.

I can't wait!

(Thanks to Scholastic for the official announcement!)

I was wondering...

Over the past week or so, I've been reading The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (let me tell you, the hardcover cover is pretty ugly). It's interesting so far, but one thing that really put me off at first was the layout and formatting of the pages. The copy that I have (from the library) has a fat and unpleasant font and there's hardly any spacing.

This made me wonder: we often judge books by their cover (you don't want to admit it, but you probably do), but do you ever judge a book by the way it looks inside? I know that I've often put down books because of tiny print or a distracting font. Are there any particular fonts or layouts that work well for books? (I love the Garamond font in Harry Potter, for example, and I love original art at the beginning of each chapter.)

Feel free to answer in the comments... :-)

The Secret Crush

by Tina Wells

I reviewed the prequel to this book, Mackenzie Blue, back last March. And well... I didn't really like it that much. I'm very pleased to say that I enjoyed the sequel much, much more.

In The Secret Crush, Zee's class is putting on its very first rock-and-roll musical. Zee is having a lot of fun working on the props, script, costumes, and more. Plus, the musical is her chance to get Landon (the cutest boy in school) to notice her. However, Zee later finds herself caught between several different directions (schoolwork, friends, the musical...). Will she be able to pull herself together in time for the musical?

This book was really cute and fun to read. I haven't read a book about a musical or school play for a long time, so it was great to read about the process of putting a musical together. I was worried that the characters would still be kind of cliched, as they were in Mackenzie Blue, but I was glad to see that all the characters were explored more in-depth. The mini-illustrations in the book were fun to see and really added to the story. Overall, The Secret Crush is a wonderful book for upper elementary school kids, and older readers will find themselves smiling as well!

(Review copy provided by publisher.)