Thursday, March 29, 2012

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher - Review


Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: October 18th, 2007
Source: Bailey, my friend
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“No one knows for certain how much impact they have on the lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same.”

This book was so mysterious, suspenseful, and ... a little creepy. I don't have much to say except, "wow." I think for Asher's first book, he did a fantastic job at playing with your emotions. The only thing I didn't like was that Hannah didn't reach out enough to people. She just expected them to know about her problems and what was going on in her life. Then she makes a bunch of tapes blaming everyone. Half of the people on the tapes probably didn't even know they were hurting her, but they had to go through that heart stopping, mind boggling (for lack of better words) experience. I felt bad for Clay, even though he sort of betrayed her as well.


This book will definitely make you think. I give it 4 stars.

I loved the creative story format, with both of their PoV's switching back and forth, although I did get some parts confused, forcing me to go back and read it again.





Monday, March 26, 2012

GIVEAWAYS!


The lovely Jude from In Between Writing and Reading is hosting two book giveaways! One is for her goal of 1000 followers and the second one is for her blogoversary. You can find these giveaways in the links below or on my sidebar.




Happy Reading!
M

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld - Review


Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: February 8th, 2005
Source: Amazon Books
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

“Nature, at least, didn’t need an operation to be beautiful. It just was.”

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the UGLIES series. It is my favorite. Period.

The Uglies is about a futuristic, dystopian (with a tad of utopian) world where the Rusties (our generation) have died out because of their foolish attitude. This world is all based on looks- everyone has a cosmetic surgery at the age of 16, which makes them "pretty". 15-year-old Tally Youngblood can't wait to have this surgery, because once you are Pretty, you get to have fun all your life with parties and drinking. But she meets a girl, Shay, who doesn't want to be like everyone else. Tally has to decide if she wants to party everyday for the rest of her life, being pretty and just like everyone else, or to realize that what Shay is saying might be true.

There is a strong theme here -or multiple, depending on how you look at it-. The main theme that I noticed is the strong importance of individualism. Everyone in Tally's society is the same -pretty, bubbly, perfect- and there is almost no variety in personality or attitudes at all. Shay & Tally show their (sensible) views through their rebellious actions of travelling to the Smoke, where they can actually live.

I have to say this is one of the best series I have ever read. Of course, the first book is always the best, but I love the additions to the series as well. Westerfeld surely has an extremely creative imagination -- he has created hoverboards, rotating buildings, skintennas, sneak suits, and much more that will make you turn the pages so eagerly you won't realize you have been sitting in your chair reading for the past 3 hours and that you still have Chemistry homework to finish!


Go read this series now!! Thank you!

oh, and MAKE IT A MOVIE!