Reading, Writing, and Me

America Panda  by Gloria Chao (306 pages) Overview: Mei is starting MIT a year early, skipping senior year, pushed forward by her parents who always demanded she push herself past extremes. They've also dictated that she's at MIT to become a doctor and that she will marry Eugene. Mei doesn't know how to cope with her parents rigid views and traditions that come from their Chinese culture. She doesn't feel like she can belong anywhere due to the conflicting expectations, and she knows she must sort out her feelings if she ever wants to be happy. Overall: 4.5 Characters: 5 I loved Mei. I related to her so much. We both need glasses (and don't wear them often), have a thing with avoiding germs, and are graduating early (something I never thought I'd see in a book). Watching Mei struggle between what she wants to do and what her parents want her to do. It's amazing to see how the college experience and the people around her help her sort out her feelings a...

Love, Simon  got me out of the house and into a movie seat with a bucket of popcorn on my lap, something not high up on my list of favorites. I'm a firm believer in waiting till a movie comes on iTunes to watch it, but I couldn't resist the opening night showing. I'm glad I went. Based on the book and the commercials, I was pretty confident I was going to love the movie. Though movie adaptions have a tendency to disappoint, Love, Simon  keeps it together with a stellar cast and a script that understands the importance of respecting the source material. The movie blends seamlessly with the book, giving readers a fulfilling visual experience. The casting, though is Simon's  secret sauce. Nick Robinson embodies Simon perfectly. He's charismatic and hilarious while also portraying the inner struggles that make up so much of Simon vs. The Homosapien's Agenda perfectly. But, while I had expected to love Robinson's performance, Abby, portrayed by Alexandra Shi...

  Simon vs. The Homosapien's Agenda  by Becky Albertalli  Overview:  Simon's story does not disappoint! This book discusses all aspects of his junior year from his friendships to his budding relationship with mysterious "Blue." Cryptic emails between the two lead Simon to want to learn Blue's identity, even if Blue isn't comfortable with that. He also must navigate tense friendship issues and even another student blackmailing him with the threat of publicizing the fact that Simon is gay before he is ready to tell the school. Through all these twists and turns, Simon responds with humor, optimism, and a healthy acknowledgement that life isn't always great, but there's a chance it can get better.  Overall: 5 Characters: 5  I loved Simon from the very first page. He has the most amazing voice to carry the narrative. The other characters are also well developed, from his friends Nick, Abby, and Leah to Blue and Martin, the antagonist. I loved the maj...

Here So Far Away  by Hadley Dyer (368 pages) Overview: George is the daughter of a cop, no, the cop in their small, Canadian town. She is also in the popular, close knit group at school. Senior year should be a breeze, even if George's future has no direction. Just one more year till she can follow her friends to the city. Senior year turns out to be so much more when she meets Francis, a handsome stranger, at the lighthouse. The only problem is that he's twenty-nine. George must navigate her new secret love and the problems that come with it alone in order to keep their secret. Overall: 4 Characters: 4 I like George. I thought she was relatable, and I appreciated her snark. Pieces of her story are very relatable as she struggles with friendships, family, and relationships. I also liked her well developed family. Her father is deteriorating from his place of glory after losing his foot to an ignored infection. Her mother is trying to hold the family together to keep them...

  Broken Beautiful Hearts  by Kami Garcia (401 pages) Overview:  Payton is having the perfect day, complete with a letter of acceptance to play division one soccer at UNC-Chapel Hill the next year, when everything goes wrong at a party she doesn't even want to go to. By the end of the night, she's in the hospital with a destroyed knee after her boyfriend shoves her down the stairs when she breaks up with him for his steroid abuse. When threats start coming in when Payton speaks out, her mother moves her in with her uncle in Black Water, Tennessee to focus on rehab there till everything calms down. Though the move is the last thing Payton wants, she may discover it is just what she needs.  Overall: 5  Characters: 5  I love Payton. She's the perfect mix of snark, seriousness, emotion, and power. Outspoken and bright, but also world weary, she tells a difficult story in a way that makes you laugh, cry, and swoon at all the right moments. The people who ...

Today is officially the day, one year ago, that I started blogging about books, writing, and other random things that I thought someone out there might care to hear me talk about. The idea started with the giant stack of books I brought home with me from the library to read over Spring Break, and I thought that they looked pretty stacked up with one another, so I took pictures, not exactly sure yet what I'd do with them. That night, I started (and finished) my favorite book of all time, All The Bright Places  by Jennifer Niven. By the time I cleaned up the messy puddle to tears I'd cried at the end, I'd already droned on and on to my mom and best friend about the magic of this book and how they must read it. But I still wanted to say more. That was the start of my first blog post. Ever since then, I've gone through reading spikes and slumps, varying numbers of posts, and long periods of self doubt punctuated by bursts of triumphs, and, a year later, the blog is bet...

Because I just got back to the snow after a long time away, I thought I'd post my frigid review of Let It Snow. Let It Snow  by John Green, Maureen Johnson, Lauren Myrachle (352 pages) Overview: Three different short stories come together to create one all-encoupacing Christmas narrative. The story starts with Maureen Johnson's "The Jubilee Express" where Jubilee is sent on a train to go stay with her grandparents for the holidays after her parents get arrested at a Christmas decorating convention on Christmas Eve. Yes, I know it's strange, bear with me. Then her train crashes, and she walks across the interstate to a Waffle House where she meets a boy named Stuart who takes her on a three mile walk to his house to warm up. They fall into a frozen creek on their way. The story continues on the same strange trajectory it starts. Then there's John's contribution, "A Cheertastic Christmas," which involves the manager at the Waffle House Jubilee...