1st Quarter SSR

The book that I read for 1st quarter SSR IS White Out, by Robert Marcum. It is about a hunter and his clients, a father and daughter, the latter being a successful lawyer and the former a hotel business owner. It is about the hunter bringing out the pair to a secluded mountain ranges. In these mountains Raif Qanun, the hunter, teaches Terri, the daughter, to shoot and live in these areas. During these times there is a prime deer specimen that they kill and gut. While Raif is gutting the animal, Terri finds something that horrifies her, and makes her lose her lunch. This discovery leads to many assumptions of the reasons this thing could have happened. In the end it leads to Raif hinting down the man that started the whole fiasco. This book is a suspenseful fiction that keeps me at the edge of my seat, which may seem like the stereotypical answer for everyone when they read the book but it did. It was so intense in some places that I literally screamed and threw the book across the room because of something that happened, my family looked at me like I was crazy, but it was THAT good. Also it is the kind of book that keeps people involved while it is not 100% action, for example there is a bit of chemistry between 2 characters that developed into something more serious, so for all of you romance lovers there is that. Finally there is a slightly religious action and they mention Terri and her fathers religion and how respectable it was, which doesn't really impact the story but may deter some people from reading it.

1st Quarter SSR Book Review: The Five People You Meet In Heaven

This quarter, I read the fictional book entitled The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom, as this captivating novel encompasses a total of 196 pages. The main character, Eddie, lives out the rest of his life on a day to day basis, working at the Ruby Pier amusement park as a lonely and elderly man. On his birthday, Eddie sacrifices his life after attempting to save a girl's life, pushing her small body out of the way of an descending and free falling roller coaster cart. He awakens, and realizes that he has died in the mortal world, ascending to a place neither Earth nor Heaven, but rather, in an intermediate stopping point. Eddie is soon whisked on a journey of encountering 5 lives he's both inadvertently and directly impacted; people whose lives were changed forever due to his choice of action in his past life. While on this journey, Eddie paves the way towards reflecting upon what he described as a meaningless and uneventful life, ultimately confronting who he was as a human through the 5 paths he had intertwined with.
In the novel, I appreciate how simplistic the book's writing was, as the novel never complicated the plot line with irrelevant information, convoluted descriptions, or fluff, getting straight to the point of Eddie's journey. The seemingly innocent and calm demeanor perpetuated in the novel was also an aspect of the writing that I liked, as the novel painted pictures of Eddie's experiences as a child, and ultimately tugged on my heartstrings through recollection of his old memories, both happy and sad. Though utilizing a simple yet captivating writing style, as a reader, I felt incredibly curious about all parts of Eddie's life, and was drawn into discovering the hidden histories behind the lives he converged with. I also loved how unpredictable the book could be, as characters of the 5 people he meets are seemingly the most random and out of the ordinary people. Yet, the novel is able to integrate their stories with Eddie's. All characters of the novel were dynamic as well, such as Eddie himself, confronting his demons throughout the duration of the novel. The book's introspective narrative allowed me to witness Eddie's evolution as an individual, page after page. Each character he meets had depth and reasoning behind their actions unbeknownst to Eddie, and caused me to question how big of an impact's created from my decisions, even if I consider them minute. I like how The Five People You Meet In Heaven emphasizes the idea of cause and effect, and allows me to reflect upon my own life through its heart wrenching plot. I truly recommend the book.

1st Quarter Reading Book Review

The Name of the Star

This book that I read this quarter was The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson. The genre of this book is a mystery and young adult with 372 suspenseful and intriguing pages. The Name of the Star, follows Rory Deveaux, an American teenager from Louisiana as she attends her senior year at a London boarding school. Her arrival in England coincides with the outset of a series of gruesome murders by what seems to be a Jack the Ripper copycat. As the bodies pile up, Rippermania spreads throughout England and Rory gets stuck in the middle of it all when she becomes a witness after seeing a mysterious man on school grounds. A man no one else has seen and who becomes the prime suspect of the crimes. As the plot and mystery unfolds, Rory finds herself in great danger and part of a group of people that are, apparently, the secret ghost police of London. The end is amazing, but you have to read it and this is the first book of Shades of  London. The main character was all confused, scared, and curious. The reasons why was she came into a different state, she was the only one able to see the murderer and she was the next target, and she was just curious to know and go to the crime scenes. I kinda felt connected because I see things like spirits or supposedly monsters, but no one sees them and calls me crazy, but I don't care. Anyways, the characters were all idiots, but I would do the same by taking all my friends to crime scenes and see what happened. This kinda help during the story, but can't say how because You NEED TO READ THIS! I wouldn't change this book at all.

1st Quarter Book Review

For my first quarter book, I chose Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, by J.K Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany that is 321 pages long. Since the book is put 25-30 years into the future, Harry is no longer the very main character. His son, Albus Severus Potter, is the new main character. He is a good twist to the Harry Potter series because you can see how much he is like his father, but the very noticeable differences. I felt very connected to him because he is at my age throughout the play and I can see where he is coming from in some of the decisions he makes. The major plot points were not predictable, to me, because you never really know what's going to happen in the Harry Potter series. To find out that he thinks the way he thinks and the actions he does are very unpredictable and shocking to anyone that really cares about the Harry Potter series. The characters in this story were on both the calm and outgoing side. Albus's best friend, Scorpius, is the one that kept Albus in check and was the more calm one when it came to missions, while Albus was the one to immediately jump into it (like his father). It helped the story because it got the readers a bit of nostalgia while reading because it reminds us of the original Harry Potter. We get to see that he passed this onto his son and that there is still more adventure to be told. If I were to change anything about the book/script, is that I would make it into an actual book. I want it to go more into depth and see this new beginning of a new era of heroes. It doesn't have to be necessarily Ron, Hermoine, and Harrys offspring, but it could be more people. The best part of the Harry Potter books were that it went into depth about the characters and it showed us how we can learn to love characters through seven different books. It made readers think that they're in Hogwarts and that they truly lived the lives of these people. If this was to turn into a new era of series that goes into depth and goes through his years, book by book, I would love it much more. However, they will most likely not do that, yet I still truly recommend reading this if you are a Harry Potter fan. If you haven't read the books yet, then I believe you should.

1st Quarter SSR Book Review

The Chain Letter

One of the books I've read this quarter was The Chain Letter by Christopher Pike. The genre of the book is horror fiction and has 192 suspenseful pages. The book begins with a group of friends who have done something wrong and thought no one knew what happened that past summer expect for them. Later on one of the friends in the group, Fran received an anonymous letter saying that she has to obey as the person commands or else something bad will happen to her and they will leak what happen in the summer. The letter gets passed on to everyone in the group making them doing things that were their weakness; they thought only someone who knew them would know. The whole story is unpredictable as you think something is going to turn out something else is brought into the story. This book has you intrigued the whole entire time. The main character Alison is a dynamic she undergoes many things involving what happening with the anonymous person, the accident in the summer, school, relationships, enemies friends, and makes an impact on her she doesn't stay the same Alison throughout the story. You feel connected to the main character and understand what she feels and what she is going through. All the characters have to live in wonder not knowing if their even able to trust their best friend. The main plot of the book was figuring out who was the mysterious person behind the letter. Who was the one knowing all this information about them and what was their purpose in forcing the friends to do such harsh things? As you go more and more into the book it gets crazier and has a huge twist. I think the book was perfect I wouldn't have changed anything about it. What I liked about the book is that it has great suspense and keeps your mind working the whole entire time. I like how it isn't only focused on the actions of what the letter is telling the characters to do but also how the characters are feeling and who they are as a person. Which makes you in deep thought if it was someone in the group or somebody else that was behind all this chaos. Many different crazy events happen throughout the book involving different people besides the group of friends and it talks about what actually did happen that summer. How there was more to the story than the characters had thought. Sometimes things aren't that obvious as they seem.

The Tuscan Child Review

The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen is 336 page book covering the story of Joanna as she attempts to put together the truth of her fathers past.  Joanna is cleaning out her father's items from her old house when she finds a letter addressed to Sofia Bartoli in Italian.  This leaves Joanna confused as her father never mentioned anything of Sofia to her even after her mother died.  Joanna then travels to the town in Italy that her father mentions of to find out the truth.
The style that the Bowen writes this book is a simplistic form of writing, nothing to poetic or fancy.  However, Bowen shifts from writing from the view points of Joanna and the views of her father Hugo after his plane is shot down in Italy and is tended to by Sofia.  This is an interesting approach in that as the reader it leaves suspense as when the big action is coming, it is cut off when the chapter ends and the next chapter dives in to the other character's point of view.
Joanna reminds me a bit about myself as I read through her experiences.  She recalls of her quest to obtain knowledge and strive to be her best as a young child.  That was me when I was young where I cared about drinking in a plethora of knowledge whenever possible.  And her drive to be at her best 247 is something that I've always preached and it was pleasant to see that in her and it makes me feel like I'm a part of the story when the main character reminds me of myself.  Additionally, Joanna took matters into her ow hands when she chose to travel to Italy to find out her father's past.  she even took time to learn some Italian so that she could communicate with the citizens of Italy.  Even though she didn't speak a language she got around that learning the language to help her learn the past of her father.  And that spoke to me in that if you really show heart for something then no matter what the barrier is, it won't stop you.

[KC]: Quarter 1 SSR Book Review

Hi kids,

Here's your quarter 1 SSR assignment:

Step 1: Create a new POST in which you review the book that you read for the first quarter. If you read more than one book this quarter, you can choose any of them to review. n your review, be sure to clearly state the title, author, genre, and total page number of the book. Then, summarize a bit of the plot (but don't give away the major spoilers!) to give us some context. Next, discuss what you liked or didn't like about this book.
- Feel free to use these questions to help guide you, but don't feel tied to simply answering them:

• How was the main character? Did you feel connected? Were the major plot points predictable? How was the writing? Poetic? Simplistic? Were the characters dynamic or static? Did that hurt or help the story? If you were to change anything about the book, what would it be?

Step 2: Once other classmates have posted their reviews, COMMENT on two other reviews. (Be sure to read the comments on your review as well and engage in conversations as necessary.)

As always, your post should be around 250 words and your comments should be at least a few sentences.

Post DUE: Friday 11/15 by 11:22pm

Comments DUE: Saturday 11/16 by 11:13pm