Running with Scissors

  There were a lot of great books that I have enjoyed reading,but the one I really enjoyed was Running with Scissors the most. Its a really good book I think a lot of mature people would enjoy to read. It will fill you with laughter and tears.

  Running with Scissors is a fantastic book. The book is about a boy who lives with his mother and father. For awhile everything is fine until his dad turns into a drunk and his mom becomes a chain smoker. His parents would start to fight a lot and physically fight while he would watch it at such a young age. His parents ended up getting a divorce and his mom and him ended up moving away because the father threatened to hurt his mom. His mother was obsessed with writing and didn't really have time for him. Augustes rarely even went to school and repeated his grades a lot. His mother ended up going crazy and needed to talk to people and went a lot of times to mental hospitals. Her kid ends up living with her psychiatrist and his family which turned out for the better because he ended up finishing school which he never thought he could do and go to college.

    One thing that will stay with me from the book is how strong Auguste's is and that even though you can be put in really bad situation you can always make something positive out of it. You just have to have the right mind set. You have to push yourself to do great things and make a good future for yourself.     




This picture represents that the kid has a lot of faith in his life.

Best Book of 2014

     In 2014 I have read many incredible books that are worth reading.  However, the best book I have read was Girl Stolen by April Henry.  I recommend this book for mostly mature young adults and either gender.  Out of all the books I read I chose to write about Girl Stolen because the majority of the other books I read were very popular and most people have already read them and also because this book was full of suspense and fun to read.

     The plot of the book is about a young girl named Cheyenne, who happens to be blind accidently gets kidnapped by a man.  Cheyenne was waiting in the car for her stepmother Danielle to go into the store to get her medicine when a man is looking to steal the running car she's in. Eventually he gets in and starts to drive away.  The man driving doesn't realize that there was a blind and sick girl laying down in the back seat to give her sick body a rest when he was only looking to take the car and not her.   He doesnt stop and let her go once he sees her because he thinks she'll find somebody and tell so she is forced to go along for the journey.

     The thing I liked most about this book was the suspense, you never knew what would happen next. It was like each paragraph was a mystery and it was hard to put the book down. A part of the book that will stick in my head for a while is a part in the book when the guy gets into the car and the silence of this helpless blind girl is present.  I will remember this part of the book because each sentence led to a huge twist in the story and I never knew what would happen next. Also, the author April Henry, used very descriptive words to help picture the story plot in your head.  Even until this day I can see the story in my head.  I can picture their big black escalade truck parked fairly close to the store front with Cheyenne laying in the back with her cane in front of her. I recommend to read this book and find out what else happens.
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 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9669642-girl-stolen

Best Book of 2014

It was a simple decision to chose the best book of 2014.  I chose to write about When the Game Stands Tall by Neil Hayes.  I decided which book to write about based on my strongest connections, feelings, and emotions on the book.

When the Game Stands Tall starts off as a very successful team that has been undefeated for 12 seasons.  The coach is worried because his players are not as skilled as teams he's had and do not have the work ethic that past teams have had.  He decides that if his team is going to do anything significant that year he is going to have to inspire them to work harder and improve their work ethic.  Also, it is about a young quarterback who is just starting his freshman year and is being looked at to lead on and off the field; verbally and by example.  This causes him to believe that since it is his first year he doesn't deserve this leadership role.

I specifically liked the way Hayes showed the importance of teamwork and the bond of a team.  He showed just how important it is to be able to depend your teammates through anything.  I also liked the way he showed the relationships between players and coaches, because it portrayed real relationships between coaches and players; this also helped understand what the players and coaches are going through because they trust one another so they tell each other their problems and help each other solve them like a team should.  The part of the book that I will remember next year is when the team helps the young quarterback overcome his uncertainty about leading the team and help him to lead the team which helps him clear his mind and become a better player because he is no longer worrying about how he is going to be able to lead the team and he focuses 100% on his play.

Best Book of 2014

I had never cried to a book before. Normally I need to visually see a story to work up emotions about it, but that all changed when I read The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. I choose this book as my best of 2014 because it really sparked emotion in me, making it a book I will never forget.
Main characters Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters fall in love after meeting in a support group for teenagers with cancer. Hazel has lung cancer, but it is not deadly as long as she carries around an oxygen tank. Augustus had his leg amputated after a fumble with the disease, and thought it was all gone. Wrong. His body lights up with cancer "like a Christmas tree," and everything spirals out of control. This book is an emotional rollercoaster with deep romance and tragedy.
I will never forget how in love Augustus and Hazel were. Augustus would do anything for Hazel, and he proves his love by taking her out for fancy dinners and sticking up for her in a bad situation. Hazel tries her best to give the world to Augustus. Before they knew about his cancer, Hazel tried to separate herself from him just so he wouldn't get hurt if there were any complications with her cancer, even though she was deeply in love with him. But obviously that couldn't happen because Augustus would never let her go. Their story is absolute perfection that got me crying just from their happiness.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ItBvH5J6ss&noredirect=1
Above is the trailer to The Fault in Our Stars movie with I think really captures the beauty of the novel.

Best Book of 2014

I decided that my favorite book I read this school year was The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer. I chose this book as my favorite because there was lots of action and suspense in it. It was also pretty funny in some parts. This book was about twins, Alex and Conner, who fell into a storybook they got from their grandma. They spent most of the story trying to collect items for a wishing spell that they could use to get home. They were collecting the items at the same time as the Evil Queen, and they had to get them before she did or the spell wouldn’t work.

The thing I liked about this book was the fast moving plot. Some books I read spend a long time describing what things look like. This book doesn’t take a long time to describe these things, it just takes a paragraph or two, which I like because it keeps the story moving. I also liked it because there were a lot of jokes in the book, especially from the character Conner. Even in serious situations, Conner would always have a joke.

The thing I’ll most likely remember about this book is the way it linked together many fairy tales. Since Alex and Conner were in a storybook, they met many characters from fairy tales. The cool thing about the book was that characters from different fairy tales knew each other. Sometimes someone from one story was friends with someone from another. The fairy tales were linked together like the chain in the photo below.

http://www.backgroundsy.com/file/large/metal-chain-seamless.jpg

   

Best Book of 2014

The best book I read in 2014 was Divergent by Veronica Roth.  I choose to wright about this book because I thought that it was such a good book and has such a powerful message.
In this novel the place they live in is made up of five factions: Abnegation, Dauntless, Candor, Erudite and Amity.  There is this girl named Tris and she is part of the Abnegation faction.  The book goes through her life as an abnegation then as a Dauntless. Tris finds out that she is a Divergent, which means that she has more than one faction in her blood, and that is a very dangerous thing because they cannot be controlled and all the leaders fear that. Then the Erudite made this serum that can control a persons brain with the person not having any control over their actions at all, but it can't control the Divergent because they are immune to serums. Then they injected it into all the Dauntless.  The Dauntless started to kill all the Abnegation and whole place went into an uproar.
My favorite thing about this book is that it teaches you to never give up and don't let anyone or anything stand in the way of achieving your goal, and to persevere when things get tough in life. I feel like that is such an important message.  The part in this novel that I will remember most of all is when Tris went from being the lowest ranking on the board to the highest ranking.  Tris worked so hard to get up there, she was very determined to get in the lead and to remain a Dauntless.  This picture is showing Tris training herself to be able to fight and win.  She was very determined to get on the top of the score board and show everybody that she can be on the top even though she is from Abnegation.

Best Book of 2014

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/9802398/

The best book of 2014 that I read this school year, I would say, is The Undertakers by Ty Drago. I chose this book for the content and descriptive detail it had. It's very interesting and follows a very different plot coping with the undead and the normal. A young teen named William Karl Ritter who lives a very different life from your average twelve year old boy. It all starts when he discovers that his next door neighbor becomes a zombie. Nobody else but Will can see them until he meets the Undertakers, a squad of teenagers who are the only people that can see the zombies; leaving them as the whole line of defense to stop the undead from invading the whole world. Being the only saviors of the world, tremendous pressure is put onto Will as they make him the Chief of the Undertakers. Not only does he need to make a plan to save his family from the undead, he needs to make a master plan to save the entire world from the invasion. The Undertakers fight and fight and fight but nothing seems to be working. Until, they discover that all zombies have a secret weakness. They take advantage of every opportunity they get and pounce on the invasion stopping it before his family and the world ends, returning it back to normal, as a peaceful and warm home for humanity.
What i liked most about this book was really the descriptive detail of how the zombies looked. Ty Drago really went into detail when describing the utter most disgusting appearances of spine chilling descriptions such as, "...bloody from head to toe, the ragged green neck peeked its rotten, flesh missing head towards us" (Drago, 286).
For years to come I will always remember the plot as it was really unique and different from your normal zombie plot where everyone is dead and only a few survivors make it out alive. In this plot, only the Undertakers can see the undead leaving the rest of the world blinded to the fact they're being invaded. I really recommend this book if your interested in gruesome tales of heroes fighting zombies.