451° Is Fairly Warm (Honors English 1B Post #5)

     Fahrenheit 451 was only slightly painful to read. The book is split into 3 sections instead of chapters, which I'm not a big fan of. The beginning was extremely slow and boring to read. Ray Bradbury went into excruciating detail, which I find to be exhausting. An example of this is found on page 134, "The sun burned every day. It burned Time. The world rushed in a circle and turned on its axis and time was busy burning the years and the people anyway, without any help from him. So if he burnt things with the firemen, and the sun burnt Time, that meant that everything burned!". I find this paragraph to be irritating to read. He repeats the words time, sun and burned so many times that it is a little confusing. 
My brain gets tired of reading those words over and over and it makes my mind drift off so that I don't even know what I'm reading anymore.

           I had so many questions during The Hearth and the Salamander that it was hard to get through. There was apparently a war going on, they went to a doctor who wasn't a real doctor, they had a room with TV for walls; it was confusing. Even though Bradbury did go into such detail, he kind of leaves it up to the reader to figure major questions in the book (does it make me a better reader? No. It makes me more confused.) The second part was much better. The pace of the book picked up and things started to make more sense (after my countless questions were answered). One of the worst things was that the ending was unsatisfying. It reminded me of Looking for Alaska by John Green. There was a ton of build up, and I was waiting for the climax of the plot, only to be let down by the unsatisfying and almost ambiguous ending. If I had to give the book a rating, I would say 6/10. I found things I liked about the book including the theme, but the description he went into bored me to no end. Who would like 451? If you are interested in futuristic, sci-fi, and plot twists, you might just enjoy 451.

http://altarstudio.blogspot.com/2012/01/too-personal.html

Hollow City (Honors English 1B, Post #4)

We are four weeks into this trimester and I'm sad to say I haven't finished a book yet (besides Fahrenheit. But I'm not counting that). I read Miss Peregrines in two days, and I've now had Hollow City for 3 weeks. Today I took the time to sit down and actually read for pleasure and it was fantastic. I had to give myself a little refresher on Jacob's world in Hollow City. Jacob and his newly found peculiar friends are exploring their new world, still stuck in 1940 during WWII. As they are trying to get away from Nazi soldiers who are also Peculiar hunters, they stumble across another loop entrance. This is part of the book where the pictures really help. When Riggs described a house, "It was very small, and perched not atop a cloud but on a very large tower constructed entirely from stacked-up railroad ties, the whole thing set smack in the middle of a grassy plateau. It was one of the strangest man-made structures I'd ever seen." (Riggs, 76) This description was perplexing to me as I didn't understand how you could stack up railroad ties and then put a house on top of them. Then on the next page there was a picture and then a clear image in my head. After that I thought what it would be like to be there. What if I was a peculiar? Anyone could be, really. Maybe they just haven't found out about their powers yet. That's one of the many reasons I like science-fiction and fiction in general, they can make you think about what all kind of people could possibly be in the world. As far as I know, I'm human.

Hollow City Scene (Honors English 1B Post #3)

"After three hours of rowing like galley slaves, distance had shrunk the island to the size of an open hand. It looked nothing like the foreboading, cliff-ringed fortress I had first laid eyes upon a few weeks ago; now it seemed fragile, a shard of rock in danger of being washed away by the waves."
(Riggs 21-22)
Jacob Portman, a young peculiar boy watches as the island that in two weeks worth
of time had become his home disappear from behind him; it is the last time he, or any of his friends will see it again. When he first got there, he didn't know what he was looking for. His grandfather left him a trail of breadcrumbs (a book of poetry, a letter, an island, and a name- Miss Alma Peregrine.) He asked around about a house mentioned in the letter, but everyone in the town said no one had lived in the house since the bombing in the 40's. Jacob was discouraged at first, but eventually he figured out the secrets that guarded Miss Peregrines home for the Peculiars. Now that he abandoned his home, his technology, his whole life to be with them, he was with them for good. Now the home that he had come to love and feel safer than he had felt in his entire life in was crumbled up and smoldering in bomb residue. The other children had been in the house for 80+ years, and even Jacob felt himself leaving a piece of him in the house and he had only lived there for 2 weeks. 70 years later, or 2 weeks ago, depending on perspective--time isnt linear, it's more wibbly wobbly-timey-wimey than that, he finds out that the house was indeed hit by a bomb, but time was now moving forward for the children. My questions at the moment: How long are the children going to last not being protected by the Bird and the house? Is Millard's gunshot wound going to heal?

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children---Review (Honors English 1B Post #2)

I consider myself a pretty average reader when it comes to timing. I read Miss Peregrine's in 2 days. Miss Peregrine's is a story following Jacob Portman, a teenager who witnessed his grandfathers death by what everyone is telling him is a make-believe creature. After countless times of describing the creature that haunts his dreams, his therapist is the one to really convince him its just shock from witnessing his grandfathers death, a coping mechanism. Grandfather Portman's dying words lead Jacob to a book, which leads him to a letter, and eventually to the island where the children in pictures appearing throughout the book were only supposed to be real in Grandpa Portman's stories. One of the best parts of the book are the creepy pictures that appear after each of the children are described.
I would recommend Miss Peregrine's  to pretty much anyone. I'm a bit of a scaredy-cat, so I only read when the sun was up. I can't wait to get the sequel, Hollow City.

http://pagetopremiere.com/category/miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children/

http://www.amazon.com/Miss-Peregrines-Home-Peculiar-Children/dp/1594746036

August Pullman (Honors English 1B Post #1)

     August ("Auggie") has changed throughout the course of Wonder. August has been through his first year at real school, Beecher Prep, and grown up quite a bit from it. Before fifth grade, he was just the boy with a facial deformity, but after fifth grade everyone realizes he is not just that. He is an average fifth grade boy. Before fifth grade, he was a little kid. Over his year at Beecher Prep, he matured a lot (or as much as a 5th grader can mature, anyways).
     One quote that really signifies Auggies growth and maturity would be, "I think there should be a rule that everyone in the world should get a standing ovation at least once in their lives." This is from close to the end of the book. Not many fifth grader are as mature as Auggie, but not many have had to go through (and continue to deal with) the daily struggles that he does. I would say his genetic issues have aged him, but a lot of his maturity is just him.