Quarter 2 Week 2 Blog Comments

LOTF Human Nature- Mary Francis

Human Nature- MP

Shutter by Laurie Faria Stolarz

This week I decided to end things with Hollow City and move on to Laurie Faria Stolarz's new book, Shutter. It was a good choice. Despite my mocking of Stolarz teen drama writing, I love it every time. I started the book and have never been more glad for a fast paced, short chaptered book in my life. I already like the main character Julian, and Stolarz has already drawn me in with the click-bait-like summary and dreamy, angsty boy.

Though I'm only three chapters in, I like the secondary characters, which is rare. Usually, the main girl's best friends are incredibly annoying and I'm ready for them to leave before they get there. These girls, however, fit the typical foil character who complements the main character by being different but endearing and I appreciate it. It seems that Stolarz is good at making likable characters seeing as this is the second series or book that I've read from her and they've all made very good impressions. Overall, I look forward to free time when I can read this book and get back to the cheesy, fast paced, teen romance/suspense that I love.

Human Nature

Human nature is difficult for me to think about because I believe that people are very strongly influenced by those around them. However, I suppose that people are good until they are made bad. No one is born with hatred toward others and everyone has an opportunity to stay that way, it's just difficult and only some people try their hardest. It seems like the world would be a better place if everyone acted on what they knew was right, but that's the thing. The way you are raised and the world around you changes your morals compared to everyone else's, so who's to say that some of the worst people aren't just acting on their human nature and what they perceive as "right".

The main place that I have developed an opinion on human nature is from my parents. My mom has always said that people are victims of their surroundings. It's natural to act similarly to those you are around a lot and I feel like that's the main effect on human nature. People start off life happy and good and that only changes because of those around them, but there need to be people in your life that will keep you on track and make you do the right things even when you don't want to. These people are who help you develop and better your human nature, because when it gets polluted by your surroundings, those people help you fix yourself.

Blog Comments Q2 Week 1

Fall Break 10/17- Ella

Fall Break- MP

Fall Break

I wish I could say that I had the wildest fall break and I went everywhere and did everything. But I didn't. I planned to go to see a movie on Thursday but that was difficult when I had construction people all over my house constantly seeking my mom's help. Fortunately, the rest of the weekend was much better despite the disarray that my house is in. Saturday turned out to be good because I saw the movie for Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and I liked it, just not as much as the first book.

I figured that there would be multiple movies in the future because it's a trilogy but I don't believe that's going to happen. The movie wrapped up the story line of what seems to be the whole trilogy and I was thankful for that. If the book had ended the story line and saved Miss Peregrine in the first book then ended, I believe it would have been more interesting. Though the movie was interesting, I felt like it was not only dumbed down for the movie, but also for the audience. The whole point of the book was that the kids weren't particularly superheroes, they just had peculiarities and I felt like the movie changed that a bit. In the movie, more far out things happened and everything was amped up a little bit too much which I see now is just for movie effect, but I wish it had been left alone and a little simpler like the book was. Finally, I'm glad I read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children before seeing the movie, and I'm glad I saw it this weekend before it leaves theaters.

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs is still moving at a slower pace than I would like, but I'm not abandoning it just yet. The peculiar children stayed a night with a group of gypsies and were then taken to a train station to go to London. Unfortunately though, wights caught up to them at the station and forced them off the train and brought the kids to their base camp of sorts. I'm hoping that now that the kids have run into some trouble that the story will pick up. However, I can't be sure that anything big will happen, seeing as the story basically could have been finished in the last book.

Despite my issues with this book, I do like that the children have become a family. Because they've been together for a very long time, it would seem like they wouldn't accept new people into their fold, but Jacob has proved that very wrong. They embraced him from the beginning because they all loved Abe, Jacob's grandfather, and it seems like Jacob has taken his place and then some. Not only have the younger children accepted Jacob, but even Enoch who initially disliked both Jacob and Abe, seems to have accepted him as part of the family. Finally, I love not only seeing the group bond like a family, but Emma and Jacob obviously mean a lot to each other and are becoming more dependent which is cute and refreshing amidst all of the drama in their lives.

Blog Comments Week 7

Procrastination: Is your future self getting a bad deal?- Ella

Procrastination response- Madisyn Paige

Nerd Alert: Reading is Good For Your Health Response

Nerd Alert: Reading is Good For Your Health by Jen Christensen is about the impact of reading on people's psychological health. Books, both fiction and nonfiction can help people work through rough patches and sort out their emotions. It has also been said by professionals that reading fictional books can better peoples' social interactions and emotional intelligence. By reading fictional stories, readers associate things that are happening in the story with real life and therefore are thinking more deeply about others and learning to empathize. If people apply what they learn about social interactions and compassion in books, they can improve their interactions with others and become better, more aware people.

Reading, though it may sound cliché, helps me with almost every problem that I come across. Whether the help comes in forms of realizing that people have much bigger problems than my own, or escaping the stress of the moment, I almost always find solace in my favorite books. In the past few years when I've found myself let down by people around me, I tend to lose myself with the characters who I know won't leave me disappointed. My family jokes about my collection of books and how I keep them in pristine condition, but they are of utmost importance to me. When I'm down or stressed about school the first thing I almost always go to is one of my three favorite series. I can pick up a book that I love, or a new favorite and find myself lost for hours in the book's reality instead of my own.

Week 6 Blog Comments

Makenzie- How to Waste time: Hot Bowl Cold Food

Madisyn Paige- Disney World

Thanksgiving

I love holidays and Thanksgiving is one of the best of them in my family. Every year Thanksgiving is held at my house, and usually the whole family from both sides comes over. In the past few years though, we've found that just family and close friends is dull so why not spice it up? (Get it, because it's fall, pumpkin spice, et cetera.) Anyways, anytime my mom is in public, chances are she will meet and befriend someone. The same can't be said about me, but we all have to aspire to something. 

On the note of my mother's popularity in public, we decided that what's the point of making random stranger friends and not inviting them to the biggest holiday we host? That's how we ended up with Dominic. Three years ago, I believe, my parents and I were in Washington D.C. and were at a riverside restaurant where my parents happened to strike up conversation with the man at the table next to us. Said man was Dominic from London. This thirty-something year old man works in the same business as my dad and was looking for a new place to live, of course my father told him that our city is great for their business, not thinking anything of it. A few months later, my dad received an email from Dominic with news that he was coming to Baton Rouge. We were surprised but embraced it and my dad picked him up from the airport. For the next few months he was around all the time, hanging out with my family and paying attention to American culture, he especially is interested in the South. So, my mom invited him to Thanksgiving and he was ecstatic, he had heard us talk about how much fun it was, and our whole family was skeptical to say the least when we told them about our guest. However, everyone loved him and he's come to our Thanksgiving every year since and is a bit of an inside joke among the close family.

Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

In the sequel to Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, Hollow City, I've honestly been bored. I hate to say it because the first book was so interesting, but now I am struggling to find it as captivating as the original. This book feels drawn out and I can only imagine how the third book will be. At this point, I want to just do what I did with the freakshow season of American Horror Story and stop and read the spoilers about the one storyline I was interested in. I think I will make myself finish this book if not for any other reason than I want to know if Miss Peregrine is saved, but I probably won't even get that information. I rarely ever stop books in the middle and I refuse to do that now.

Though the pace is probably the same in the second book, I feel as if it's not fresh and interesting enough. Emma and Jacob aren't as exciting as they were because now Jacob is stuck in the loops. He will never get back to the twenty-first century, at least it doesn't seem that way right now, and even if he did, he couldn't bring Emma with him. There's also the fact that they were forced off of Cairnholm and are now heading to London without Miss Peregrine in human form. The change in scenery was necessary I suppose, but what is really getting to me is that Riggs is not only making me curious by not letting me in on anything that will happen later, but he's doing too good of a job of it. I have no idea of the direction of the book, I don't know if Miss Peregrine will be saved and the hollows will be stopped and they'll go back to their normal loop life. I also don't know if I'm supposed to expect that the peculiars will find a way to go to the modern world or if I'm supposed to have given up hope on that. So I guess my main issue with this book right now is that I don't know what I'm supposed to be looking forward to in the slightest and it's throwing me off.