Fangirl

          The book Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell, is a very good book. I know someone else disagreed with me on this before I started reading the book. We might have different opinions, but mine is that I totally recommend this book to other people.


          The book is about a girl named Cath, who is caught up between her blog life, college, two boys, her twin sister Wren, and her mother (whom she hates).
          Cath is a huge Simon Snow fan. Simon Snow is basically Harry Potter. Cath writes fanfiction, her own version of the Simon Snow books, and she is extremely internet famous.
          Cath and Wren leave for college, where Cath meets her Fiction-Writing teacher. Her teacher hates fanfiction, so when Cath turned in a chapter of her work, the teacher called it "stealing." In Cath's Fiction-Writing class, she find herself becoming good friends with a boy named Nick.
          Her roommate Reagan's boyfriend Levi hangs around their room all the time, and Cath finds herself drawn to him.
          Now Cath has to keep up with schoolwork, her fans' expectations, and two potential boyfriends. Meanwhile, Wren is going out to parties and pushing Cath away when they had been inseparable before.


           This book has some language and.... not-good topics, but if you're OK with that then this book is perfect!

SOL #6

SOL #6 

          

          My puppy has kennel cough. He hacks all day and all night, especially when he's tired. Poor little Mickey sounds like a rusted machine that works in short bursts. I hear him coughing when I come home from school. 

          We put Mickey and his "big sister" Daisy in Playful Pooch Doggy Daycare the day before we took a plane to San Francisco. At Playful Pooch, thirty-or-so dogs run around in a spacious yard or inside area and play with each other. 

          Playful Pooch is a small business with employees who know the dogs by name and have every single one's picture up in the front office. Daisy has been going there since she was a puppy. When you pick up your dog, Playful Pooch gives you a bag of treats and sends the dog home with a bandana. The bandanas are decorated with classic symbols for whatever holiday is closest. 

           I brought my banged-up old Toshiba computer to San Francisco with me. Playful Pooch has a "puppy cam;" a series of stop-motion-like cameras positioned all over the area recording in short quick bursts. 

           On the puppy cam, we found Daisy and Mickey. Daisy, a Golden Retriever who thinks she is the top dog, sat on the plastic toddler slide and smiled away like she ruled the world. Her big pink tongue was visible even with the gravely footage. 

           Mickey could be identified by the white spot on the butt of his all-black fuzziness. When he wags his short stump of a Cocker Spaniel tail, his little white bottom can be seen by all who look. 

           He looked fine on the camera; he looked like he was enjoying himself. 

           The evening we brought the dogs home in my mom's Daisy-fur-covered minivan, Mickey started coughing. 

           Mom took him to the vet, who diagnosed the pup. Mickey has gotten his shot for the sickness, but like a cold, he caught the cough anyway. 

           He is getting better with the medication placed in his food. The little sucker will eat anything with a trace of peanut butter on it. Daisy, who is also taking pills (we want to prevent her from getting kennel cough, too), must be bribed with lots of treats. 

          Mickey has started coughing less, but still hacks when he is excited, like first thing in the morning. 

                 

Counting By 7's

           This week, I read the novel Counting By 7's by Holly Goldberg Sloan. It isabout a child genius who struggles to fit in with normal people. She likes to study illnesses, keep a garden, and read giant books of random facts.

          Willow Chance is 12 years old and just starting Middle School, though she knows more than the teachers. On her first day at Sequoia Middle School, the students think that she is a janitor because of her "gardening outfit" that she loves. Willow takes a test, which she passes in 14 minutes. The principal sends her to counseling because of the assumption that Willow cheated; no other student in the whole district had passed the test.

          Willow strikes an unlikely friendship with two other kids in counseling and the counselor, Dell Duke. An unlikely plot twist occurs, and Willow finds herself living in a garage behind a nail salon with Pattie, Mai, and Quang-ha Nguyen. Quang-ha hates Willow, and both he and Mai are a couple years older. As Willow struggles with her predicament, she finds herself changing her personality.

          I would definitely recommend this book to those who have not read it yet.

Unfair

Unfair

          I was not clear if this was supposed to be a Slice of Life or not; the agenda only said "Why does 'unfair' test people's limits? SOL #5 should be an example of this." I am taking it as "write why 'unfair' tests people's limits." 

                                                                                                                                                                   

         People have different limits to what they find 'unfair.' For some people, like younger kids, something being 'unfair' could be that their moms didn't let them get a ring-pop at Target. For others, maybe important people, the definition of 'unfair' could be related to "Why won't the government let us buy Antarctica? It is completely unfair because we have enough money and we could use having an extra continent; it makes us seem more powerful now that we rule the penguins." 

          I think the limit of something being unfair to someone is when the person steps up and does something about it. Everyone has different times when they decide to do something. The kids probably won't do anything but yell and cry. The next day, they might decide to make a card for their parent (bribe them) so that the parent takes them back to Target and gets them candy.The important people might get a group and protest or whatnot. That is how something being 'unfair' tests people's limits. 

Me- First blog post -Thea

My Favorite Book(s)

          I really liked the Divergent trilogy by Veronica Roth; Divergent, Insurgent, and Allegiant. In the trilogy, the future's way of life gets turned upside down. I think that's a pretty good description of what happens. The whole trilogy has a twisted plot where nothing ends up as it should have. The trilogy is mostly set in a future Chicago, where the people live in five factions and the faction-less.
          Before the factions, scientists had realized that some people lacked smarts, bravery, kindness, etc. They developed a genetic mutation serum to put forward those characteristics, resulting in people who were very smart, very brave, and very kind. Those people were grouped based on what their strong suit was, in the smart faction, the brave faction, the kind, the peaceful, and the truthful. Unfortunately, the mutation didn't work on certain people, who were called "divergent." The government thought that those people were very dangerous, and had to be found and killed. In the second book, the government released armies to inject everyone with a serum that basically hypnotized them, which only the Divergent were not affected by. Using that, the antagonists tracked down the Divergent and tried to kill them.  
          A revolution finally occurred, when the faction-less decided that the whole system was stupid. Over time, the amount  of faction-less outnumbered the factions and the faction-less stormed the city. They burnt down buildings and killed the government to start a new world without factions. They destroy the city to start a new one where everything is fair.