Black Rabbit Summer: A Review

Title: Black Rabbit Summer
Author: Kevin Brooks
Rating: 8 of 10
Where I Found It: Library
Summary: When two of sixteen-year-old Pete's childhood classmates disappear from a carnival the same night, he is a suspect, but his own investigation implicates other old friends he was with that evening - and a tough, knife-wielding enemy determined to keep him quiet.
General Impression: This is a hard book to really decide how I feel about it. There are so many things done beautifully: the writing style, the emotion, the pacing, the way the narration makes you feel like you're the character (probably more than any other book I've ever read, I'm nothing like Pete, but yet found myself totally in his mindset when I was reading). But then there are a few things that seem so wrong, mainly the ending, it seemed kind of like a cop-out or something. I dunno' having read other books by Kevin Brooks, I know he likes not tying up all the loose ends (because that rarely happens in real life), and I understood him using that route in Being but in that case it was more a character being themselves, but in this book that wasn't the case. Who would I recommend this for? I'm going to do another who wouldn't I recommend this for, easily offended people, immature children, the squeamish and people who need their endings all tied up, but if your none of those people and you love a good mystery this is for you.
-Heather

The Character is Always Right...

So I have a new character, kind of. I had come up with the idea for him a few months ago, decided his character wouldn't work and got rid of him all in a period of 30 minutes. But he's forced his way back now and I decided to let him in since he wants a role so bad. The funny thing is, now that he's in the story, all these half finished dialouges are being continued and millions of puzzle pieces are coming together. This causes him to gloat quite a bit, but it's worth it.
-Heather

Touching Darkness: A Review

Title: Touching Darkness

Author: Scott Westerfeld

Rating: 9 out of 10

Where I Found It: Library

Summary: As they continue to battle evil creatures living in an hour hidden at midnight, Jessica and her new friends learn about Bixby, Oklahoma's shadowy past and uncover a deadly conspiracy that reaches beyond the secret hour.

General Impression: This is what every sequel should be. Push the characters farther, put more at stake, basically continue the fast pace from the last book to the second. I can barely put into words how unbelievably fantastic this was. Ending was amazing (not as good as Whale Talk, but still) The build up and execution was phenomenal. We get to delve deeper into the characters minds, and the history of the town; digging up some interesting back stories. It deserves to be the sequel to The Secret Hour.

I don't suggest this to you if you haven't read the first book, which I suppose I would suggest to anyone who doesn't mind getting their concept of time warped.

-Heather

Why sleep when you can
look at yourself in the mirror?-Melissa

Whale Talk: A Review

Title: Whale Talk
Author: Chris Crutcher
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
Where I Found It: Schulers
Summary: There's bad news and good news about the Cutter High School swim team. The bad news is that they don't have a pool. The good news is that only one of them can swim anyway.
A group of misfits brought together by T.J. Jones (the J is redundant), the Cutter All Night Mermen struggle to find their places in a school that has no place for them. T.J. is convinced that a varsity letter jacket - unattainable for most, exclusive, revered, the symbol (as far as T.J. is concerned) of all that is screwed up at Cutter High - will be an effective tool. He's right. He's also wrong.
Still, it's always the quest that counts. And the bus on which the Mermen travel to swim meets soon becomes the space where they gradually allow themselves to talk, to fit, to grow.
Together they'll fight for dignity in a world where tragedy and comedy dance side by side, when a moment's inattention can bring lifelong heartache, and where true acceptance is the only prescription for what ails us.
General Impression: Phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal. Addresses intense themes, has an amazing cast, amazing plot, amazing ending, overall amazing.
Though, I had a little trouble keeping some of the cast straight name wise, their actions always let me know who was talking.
I think part of the reason I liked this book so much was the connections I made to it. My school, like Cutter High, is a bit overly concerned with athletics (if the basketball team goes to state, we won't have school on Friday!) and not only did I connect with T.J.'s feelings about it, but for the first time really got to somewhat understand the other side of the issue.
This book deals with some deep themes: racism, feeling alone, abusive relationships, mental and physical handicaps, revenge, and death. These themes show up in many different forms throughout the story and weave together beautifully. The biggest theme I suppose deals with acceptance, how really, it's what everyone longs for, and how different people will go around to get it.
Who do I suggest this book to? High school age and up, mainly because it deals with some deep stuff plus there's some language and I'm tired of hearing middle-schoolers swearing all the time because they think it's cool and don't have the maturity to know that just because you know something doesn't mean you talk about it all the time. Plus the one middle-schooler who talked to me about the book made me want to rip my ears off.
-Heather

Ideas, Ideas, Ideas.

So, I'm taking a Biz Tech class and it has taught me that what really takes time with writing is the idea process. I know this because I just typed five pages in under an hour. Typically I could never do that, but because I didn't have to think up anything it was quite easy. I don't know. I just felt like putting that out there.

Ideas take the most time when it comes to writing. It has been proven.
-Heather

Writer FAQ: How can your character's suprise you?

So I recently had this question asked of me by my brother. I was talking about how I couldn't believe that my characters had done something and he had expressed how he never understood the "character's surprising you thing". My mom also made a comment about how I could just make them do what I want.
So I felt the need to add this new topic to the plate along with Novel Updates, Character talks, and Book Reviews, Writer FAQ's.
So here's where the answer lies for the question, How can your characters surprise you?
The answer all lies withing character development. You get to a certain point in your writing where your characters really are their own people, who make their own decisions that you have to go with or face the wrath of breaking the character! As you write you realize that because that character is who they are, they have to do something, and even though that may not be what you had in mind, to do anything else wouldn't be being true to the character.
So that's pretty much the answer I could probably write more on it, but I should probably go to bed or something.
-Heather
P.S. Went to the book store today and got two books I haven't read yet, so reviews coming soon.