#0049 Island of the Blue Dolphin - Scott O'Dell

I ventured back into my middle school days and picked up this book again. Ever since I read this book, I knew I had picked out a name that I would have named a little boy (if I ever had a kid). BUT after rereading it, my memory did not serve me well. For some reason I thought it went into detail about the dolphins and how she had a relationship with them. This was NOT the case. There are no relationships with dolphins in this book and I am completely confused where I got that false memory.

Anyway, here's to another child's novel. Easy enough for a middle schooler to read and there is a few action sequences, but it's mostly a book on survival. The way that the girl was brought up had no problem finding food, building shelter, and defeating the wild dogs that came and killed her brother. The book just kind of ends with her sort of being rescued? You don't really find out what happens to her or if those people that take her away are really "good" people. You have to let you imagination run with what you think happens. 4 stars Mostly a recommendation for kids. It's not the best survival book I've read, but it's nice that a little girl is the main character when it comes to survival. So, yay for girl power!

#0048A Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer

Even though I don't like books that are sad, I really enjoyed this book. I've always been interested in Chris since I saw the movie. Yes, they tell you at the very beginning that he died so that's not ruining the book at all. To me, this book feels more like an essay than a nonfiction novel.

Most people believe Chris McCandless to be crazy. I mean what is a 20 something year old doing giving away all his money and possessions to trudge through America where the road is his home? What does he know about the wilderness? In my personal opinion, I believe he knew more than what most people thought and his death was more of a horrible accident than an act of stupidity. 4 stars

#0047A Sandstorm - James Rollins

I was completely surprised by this book. I have never read a James Rollins book before, but I've seen his name a lot from working in a bookstore. As you can tell, in the picture of the book, it says "NONSTOP ACTION ADVENTURE" They were not joking. There are 4 parts in the book which is broken down into chapters which is broken down into times. This book goes by days and hours and sometimes even minutes.

*spoiler* The only complaint I have about this book is none of the main characters die. This has happened in 3 books now and really it just makes it unrealistic in any world/fantasy. *spoiler*

But the action takes off right away with a huge explosion and every chapter is just so jam packed that I had a hard time putting it down. Another thing that I liked is that you knew what everyone was thinking. You knew what the bad guys were doing and then what the good guys were doing. That being said, if the good guys were falling into a trap that the bad guys set up, you already knew about it. I was literally talking back to the book. "No! Don't do that! It's a trap!" I have never done that before and now am a little embarrassed confessing that.

You like a thriller that has nonstop action adventure? This one is really good. 4 stars

#0046A The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

*****Some spoilers******
I remember working at Borders and this book coming out in paperback. We had to sell a certain amount of them every week and it was the easiest book to sell. It was already so popular overseas. Men and women alike were drawn to the book. I don't know if it was because of what they heard, or if it was the title or the bright neon yellow cover. I usually don't like reading things just because they are popular, but then I also had a great deal of people recommend it so I dived in.

"Just get through the first part of the book," they told me. "And you will get hooked." Well the first part of it was completely boring, so they were right...to an extent. It did get better for me after the first two chapters. Usually people shy away if the beginning doesn't grip you, but since I've made this goal for myself, I have trudged through several books so far that I just didn't like and I really really really wanted to put down.

After getting through the whole book (and I do mean getting through it) I placed this book in my bookcase all disappointed that I bought it. The book was pretty decent, I do have to say, but the content of the book is what bothered me. Was it just me, or did the main character sleep with ever important woman character in this book? Me being just a small bit feminist found this quite disgusting. It's not like that in real life. I know, I know, books aren't real life and whatever, but sometimes part of the story just doesn't seem real in it's own world. Women and men really shouldn't just go around sleeping with everyone, I mean it's not realistic that someone could get everyone around them.

I'm also a person that when I read a book I become the characters. That's why I hate reading sad books because all the "depressing" and "horrible" stuff happens to me. Watching movies are different for me, I can place myself out of the story mostly because I can see what the director wants me to see, but in books I can choose to make each world the way I want it to be. Frankly, I just can't help putting myself in these characters. I can be someone I'm not for a couple of hours. So, yeah, this book had a lot of rape and bad things throughout the book. I wasn't too happy about that.

For granted, the book did hold my attention and was exciting at times, but there was too much stuff eating at me throughout, so that's the reason why I didn't like it. Although, I can see why it's popular because all of the mystery, and why people like it. I don't judge. I think it's completely okay to disagree. 3 stars

#0045A The Austere Academy - Lemony Snicket

Book #5 of this series. Like I said earlier, I will update about all of them when I'm done. All I can say is that this particular book has made the series better. There are more characters to fall in love with and it makes me want to read the next book unlike the previous four. Not that they other ones are bad.

#0044A He's Just Not That Into You - Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo

If anything, this book offended me. I was always told that I should read this, so I gave in. It's not written like a story, for those who thought. I actually read this completely out of order. The chapters are on a different topic each time. A guy isn't into you if he doesn't call you, or he doesn't ask you out, or sleep with you. The message I got was that a guy should do everything and you have no say in the relationship. I know the book says that women are worth all of that, but it's not fun to just sit around and wait on your knight in shining armor. I think that is a load of crap. Women these days are more strong and more aggressive. We want to do things ourselves and if we ask out a guy, it doesn't make the guy any less manly. Just my opinion. And my opinion is I didn't like it. I just don't have anything else to say about it. 2 stars

#0043A Xenocide - Orson Scott Card

Book #3 of the Ender's Game Quartet. Xenocide was not as good as the 1st one or the 2nd one, but it was still very good. Ender is still on the planet Lusitania where humans and pequeninos live together in some sort of peace. Ender has also hidden away the Bugger's Queen on their planet as well so she can repopulate her species. Ender was actually the one who killed off that species of alien many many years ago. On Lusitania, there is a virus, called Descolada, that has infested everything. While it kills humans, it helps the pequeninos enter into their "3rd life". The humans have a short amount of time to figure out how to get rid of the virus without hurting the pequeninos before the Starway Congress gets to Lusitania and kills off everyone.

Of course this book ends where the 4th book begins so after a short while I'll get to Children of the Mind. Since I started this book, I got a new job and I've only been reading during my break so it took more than a month to finish this and it was 400 pages and the font is really really tiny, but I'm not making any excuses or anything ;) The only thing that made this book hard to go through was because there was a lot of dialogue and many time where you read just the thoughts of every character. But Card does a great job shaping characters and you grow to love each and every one. This book goes more in depth with certain people that you didn't hear about much in the other books, but I guess since this is a quartet I'm slowly getting through the entire story. I quite enjoyed it though. 4 stars