"Sunshine In My Sky"

Yep. It's really happening. It is NOT a figment of your imagination. I am actually writing a new post on my blog! Who'd would of thunk it? Ha ha. This isn't going to be a long one by any means, but it is just to say my blog is alive and revitalized.

Each blog post title is going to be a song title that I currently relate to or just plain enjoy/like. I will then post a link to the song (linked to youtube probably...unless someone can tell me a better way to do it).

This time around it will be about my progress at LSU and life in Louisiana as it unfolds. So far, the only thing to report is this: LSU has the most beautiful campus I have ever seen and I'm pretty sure it is the most beautiful campus ever. See picture for proof. -->
The entire campus looks like that. It is awesome.

Classes start Monday and I'll be taking a steady 16 credits. It will be a very busy semester but I have complete confidence that I can do it.
well. I have confidence I can do it. But I am very excited about the program here, the opportunities here and the experiences available to me here.

Well. That is it for now.

"Into the Wild Nerd Yonder--my life on the dork side"

Into the Wild Nerd Yonder
--my life on the dork side.
By: Julie Halpern


"So my final nights of summer were wasted with mediocrity and cigarettes. Barrett drove us to Denny's, Bizza acted like Bizza, and, as usual, her magical Bizzabilities charmed the pants off of them. Not literally, of course. The conversations turned away from music and moved to food, TV, movies--anything that Bizza deemed worthy of chatter. As the days went by, my skirts got smokier, and the weeping willow tree house got lonelier. Thank god, the summer is just about over. Yeah, I used to like the first day of school. Until my best friends decided to turn punk."

That is the last paragraph of the first chapter and I honestly didn't need anymore convincing that this book was going to be a winner. It is humorous, it is extremely clever, it is touching and it has just enough teenage angst to make for a great book.

Halpren completely got in touch with her inner teenage nerd and brought her to life in the form of Jessie, a high school girl who enjoys sewing her own skirts and is a self-proclaimed mathlete. She is accessible, she is perfectly enjoyable. Jessie's story takes her on an interesting adventure through finding herself, her place in high school (because EVERYONE has their place in HS), and discovering that who your friends were in JR high are not necessarily going to be your friends in HS. Jessie finds that being who she wants to be is more important than who her friends want her to be.

I laughed, I didn't cry, but I did enjoy this book with every ounce of me. In so many ways, this book is perfect. Even though this book is classified as Young Adult (YA), I do not care what age you are or what your popularity status or friend number was in HS, you will enjoy this book.
TWO thumbs up.

The Chosen One

The Chosen One
By Carol Lynch Williams

This book follows 15-yr old Kyra during her last few months in her polygamist family and in the commune. Kyra has become aware of her reality and how it is not her only option, nor is it the option she wants. However, this is not a way of life that is easy to get out of when you are 15 (if ever). She has a secret pastime where she hides in a tree in the farthest part of the commune and reads books she is not allowed to read that she gets from a book-mobile. She does something else that is even more forbidden than reading books--she fell in love with a boy. A boy who she was not promised to. Kyra has to make a decision that will actually determine the rest of her life. This decision is not an easy one.

Chosen is a book that some could call a "coming of age" story, but I would call it a "life changing" story. It was so easy to get drawn into the story and to immediately feel for Kyra and her situation. There were moments of pure hate for some characters, immediate love for Kyra, moments where I couldn't help but feel physically sick and sad for Kyra. It was a good book that I absolutely enjoyed, however, it was such an easy read that I read it one day. Some see that as a good thing or an impressive feat, I see it as a little disappointing. When I read a book, it isn't so that I can read it in one sitting, it is so I can enjoy and become engaged into a story.

I recommend this book as a good read for an airplane ride or a road trip or something where you have a large chunk of time that you want to go by quickly. I truly did enjoy this book so I do recommend it, just don't expect it to be something that you need to invest a lot of time in.
Thumbs up.

What if I...

Promise to blog at least TWICE a week, will you all (aka the 3 or 4 ppl that read this) spread the word about my blog book recommendations? What do you think? Deal? Let me know....

Thriteen Reasons Why

Th1rteen R3asons Why (Thirteen Reasons)
By: Jay Asher


Two reviews of the this book will help explain what I want to get across about how I feel about Reasons.
"Every once in a while you come across a book that you can't get out of your mind. Jay Asher's Thirteen Reasons Why is one of those books" --Ellen Hopkins, author

"Thirteen Reasons Why is a mystery, eulogy, and ceremony. I know, in the years to come, I will often return to this book." --Sherman Alexie, author

While this is yet another book that I have no personal connection to, this book so deeply discusses a topic that I don't think is often enough discussed. I think it is brushed over because it is too dark and sad to even what to give a real definition to. Suicide.

Whenever the topic of suicide comes up (which is thankfully not often) the conversation ends with some version of "they were selfish", "they will never be reunited with their physical body", "they were sick but they gave up". It really bothered me because I couldn't understand how people saw it as such a black and white situation. I have never had anyone close to me commit suicide, but I'm intelligent enough to know that it doesn't make sense to believe that one person just wakes up one day and decides to take their own life without explanation.
This book carefully but cleverly looks at all the reasons and experiences in the character Hannah's life. There usually isn't just one reason that brings a person to this unbearably sad decision.

This book was wonderfully written. It was captivating, it was sad, and it was smart. It didn't make light of such a sensitive topic, it looked at a rash decision in away that forces people to also think before they judge those that took themselves away.

I will not lie to you and say that it was an easy read, but I personally could not put it down. I was drawn in from the first page.
It will make you sad and it will be hard to read, but I highly recommend it.
Thumbs up.

Jumping Off Swings

Jumping Off Swings

By: Jo Knowles


Swings is about a girl who gets pregnant in high school and the story is her path to acceptance and her choice. To explain why I loved this book, I am going to draw from the author of the book herself (talking about a girl from her high school): "When she came back to school after having the baby, no one said a word about why she'd been away. Her ex-boyfriend acted as if nothing had happened. i used to watch him in the halls and wonder if he'd been changed at all. One night she told me it was her baby's birthday, but she hadn't seen him since his birth. I could see the pain in her eyes. I couldn't stop thinking about the silence surrounding what happened, but how it must have changed so many people's lives. I wanted to explore how one pregnancy can affect many people in vastly different and profound ways."

I don't exactly know why I was so affected by this book. I am not personally a mother, which obviously means I am not a TEENAGE mother either. Yet I have a surprising amount of friends who are. Swings is a story that I have no specific relations to but I do have one friend who got pregnant about a year out of high school and she made a difficult decision--actually each decision surrounding teenage mothers is difficult--but she made the decision to keep her son. She has tried her hardest to make her life better so that she can make her son's life better. She did not get a dead-end job and disappear or give up hope for a stronger life. She just recently received her bachelor's degree. I am so proud of her.

But that is not the point. The point is this story. This story shows that while the pregnancy physically affects one person, it emotionally affects many others. The friendships that are strengthened throughout the pregnancy is incredible. In my friends' lives, there were some who were lucky and kept their true friends, but there were some who didn't. Some had the fathers stick around, yet many did not.

I loved this book because while I have NO personal connection/relation to this story, I felt every sadness the main character, Ellie, felt. I felt every hurtful word or rumor. Getting a reader to so strongly feel the words and scenarios an author is trying to get across is a difficult job, but Knowles was so successful. She develops these characters with such sensitivity and with love that I knew she genuinely wanted to tell a story not out of judgement but out of compassion. I don't think that Knowles is saying to readers (especially young girls!) that if a young girl has good friends around, getting pregnant in high school is okay, but I think that she is saying that if by some unfortunate turn of events a young girl does get pregnant that all hope is not lost. Ellie's story turned out alright. Her friends got a happy ending. Everyone is going to be okay.

I wish that I could more eloquently explain the enjoyment I got from this book. Instead, I am just going to strongly recommend this book to you. Please read. Please enjoy.
Two thumbs way up.

The Hollow

The Hollow

By Jessica Verday

The Hollow takes place in Sleepy Hollow and it plays a lot on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving. The main character, Abbey (!) is quite fond of the Legend and is proud of her city because of the fame the Legend has brought. The story follows Abbey and her path to gain back her happiness due to a death close to her. Along the way, Abbey meets someone who might be able to help her get that happiness. Then throughout it all, she learns that the Legend of Sleepy Hollow might not be a legend after all, but fact.

This book I had high hopes for because it's main characters name is Abbey, and you can never go wrong with a story about a girl named Abbey right? Well the character's name was the highlight of the book. The Hollow is a 500+ page book and it got truly interesting around page 400. Not what is expected from a book so long. It was the kind of book that throughout it I kept asking myself "why am I still reading?? I'm bored!" Also not a good sign. However, I did keep reading because when it comes to books, I'm not one who can easily stop reading. I have a need to know how it ends. When this book finally ended (!!), it was then that I discovered it is part one of a series. A series I will not be reading.
Unfortunately, there is another flaw with this book. Even with the knowledge that it is a series, there were so many plot lines that I wasn't quite sure which to follow or if it had ended with a sort of non-ending. I know that if Verday truly wants to keep a series going, she can't end all plots, but as a reader of some great (and decent) series, I know that there is a better way to do it. Harry Potter for one. In each of the books there is a smaller issue that is at hand, but it is resolved at the end and the bigger issue continues with more information to continue on with.
Even the dreadful but somehow intoxicating Twilight series has a small issue that ends but continues to the bigger conflict. Hollow just ended.
Verday isn't necessarily a bad writer, but I will say that she is not the greatest story teller. I wish her luck, but I will not be reading the next book in the series.
Thumbs down and not recommended.