Milkweed is the story of a boy with several different names: Stopthief, stupid, runt, Jew, filthy son of Abraham, Misha. He doesn’t know who his parents are or where he came from, only that he is a Gypsy at the worst time in history it is to be a Gypsy. It’s World War II and the Nazi’s have invaded Poland. The Jackboots are people to be feared, but Misha wants nothing more than to be one of them. His mind is quickly changed when him and his orphan friends are rounded up with the other Jews of Warsaw and moved into the ghetto. But Misha is not put down by this and continues to see what other people are failing to see every day: hope.

Jerry Spinelli has done an amazing job on recreating a scene of horror, but in a way that a child would be able to understand. Milkweed is a story of hope, friendship, love, and surviving the worst. The reader will be able to grow up with Misha over the years of living in Nazi run Poland and see how his life is transformed. The only problem I actually had with the book was I thought the ending felt very rushed. While I do realize the main focus of the book is on the events of Misha’s life living in Warsaw, I feel like taking it a bit slower at the end would’ve helped bring the story to a successful close.

Although I’m not Jewish I feel a very strong connection to the Holocaust. I’ve read many fiction and nonfiction books on it and took a Holocaust and Genocide class in college in order to understand the events more. I think that Milkweed, along with other fiction and nonfiction books based on the Holocaust, should be required reading in a school setting. It’s an important part of history that should not ever be forgotten.

Hunted by the World Organization for the Control of Occult Phenomena (WOCOP), Jake is prepared to die at the next full moon. But his friend, Harley, isn’t about to let him give up so easily. Harley is a double agent, helping Jake but also working in the WOCOP. They believe they’re safe, until Jake receives Harley’s head in a box from the WOCOP member out to kill him as a way to provoke him. He wants Jake to fight, not lay down his life so easily. This tact doesn’t work as well as planned. Not until Jake meets a woman and falls in love for the first time in 200 years.

The Last Werewolf by Glen Duncan is an amazing story of werewolves for adults. Jake Marlowe’s ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude will keep the reader guessing what he will decide to do next, whether he decides to live or gives in to the WOCOP. Full of action, sex, and mystery, unraveling the story of the last werewolf is entertaining and will keep you entranced.

Glen Duncan has an amazing writing style. He keeps the main story line in focus while weaving in subplots that help connect everything together. I also think he does a great job with the tale of the werewolf. He doesn’t create new rules in order to help move the story, but sticks with the traditional werewolf, playing off of the fears we might have had as a child. Definitely a new favorite author of mine and definitely a book I’d recommend to those fascinated by the realm of werewolves and vampires.

Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List

Naomi and Ely’s friendship was meant to happen. They lived right across the hall from each other in the New York apartments. They were inseparable, even choosing to stay at home and go to the same college.  They joke around, planning where they’re going to get married one day. The flaw: Ely is gay. The other flaw: Naomi really loves him.

From the beginning they created a No Kiss List of boys that neither of them could date. But the one name they didn’t put on there was the one they should have. Bruce the second is Naomi’s boyfriend. And Ely just kissed him. Naomi plays it off as if she doesn’t care, when she’s really finally realizing that Ely could never really be hers creating a rift the could end their friendship for good.

Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan have written several books together, but they also write separately. I enjoy Rachel Cohn’s books better. Gingerbread was the first one I ever read and immediately became one of my favorite books ever. I did read Boy Meets Boy by David Leviathan and I liked it, but it was missing something that Rachel Cohn’s stories had. Together, they are a dynamite team creating characters and a world that every teenager would wish they could experience.

I would say Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List is for a slightly older audience. I think high schoolers would definitely enjoy it, but it may be a bit too mature for anyone not in high school. It’s a short and fast read and will have any teenager hunting the shelves for more of Rachel Cohn and David Leviathan’s works.

Most of you have probably already heard of James and the Giant Peach. It’s the story of a boy named James who goes to live with his two evil aunts after his parents are eaten by a rhino in the city. One day a mysterious man gives him a bag of glowing green bugs that do extraordinary things to whoever eats them. But before he can eat them, James trips and the little green bugs disappear into the ground.

The next day a peach is found growing in the tree in yard. It keeps growing and growing until it’s as big as a house. James’s aunts take advantage of this and sell tickets to people who come and see it. One night, forced to clean the yard, James climbs into the peach and meets a cast of strange characters: gigantic bugs. The peach snaps off the branch and away they go on an adventure far from James’s cruel aunts.

A popular clay animation movie, James and the Giant Peach is a book for everyone. It’s filled with adventure and characters that will win the hearts of any reader, no matter what their age.

Now, you might’ve heard of this title already from the movie version starring Anne Hathaway. If you haven’t, then you’ve been spared because the book is a thousand times better than the movie. And, yes, I generally find that books are better than the movie, but this movie adaptation is seriously horrendous. The first five minutes follow the book exactly, but after that it all goes down hill.

My desire to suddenly re-read it came when I read the Grimm brother’s version of Cinderella because Ella Enchanted is a retelling of that fairy tale except with slight differences.

When Ella was a baby she was given the gift of obedience by a fairy, Lucinda, who didn’t know any better. She spends her whole life having to obey any command given to her, even if it means killing herself. When her mother dies, she meets the prince formally for the first time. They become friends, but shortly after Ella is sent away to finishing school where she has to endure Hattie and Olive, two spoiled girls who quickly figure out that she has to do what she’s told and use it to their advantage. What’s even worse, Ella’s father marries Hattie and Olive’s mother and she becomes a servant in her own home.

Through all this she is offered a way out: while away vising a neighboring kingdom the prince writes to Ella, telling her that he loves her. The only problem: her curse could put his life and the kingdom at risk. Instead, she forges a letter from her stepsister, Hattie, that says Ella ran off to marry a rich man. On the prince’s return a year later, the royal court holds three balls so he can find a wife. Ella is determined to go, to see him for the last time before giving him up for good. But when she’s discovered, will she be able to break the curse and live happily ever after or will her curse destroy the kingdom?

What I love about this book is that it follows the general telling of Cinderella, but brings in new elements, such as the curse, that make it more interesting. The characters are also very well written. No matter how many times I read this book I always fall in love with the prince and despise the stepsisters. It’s easy to connect with Ella in her journey to living happily ever after.

I’m going to start this game of catch up with a combined review. Several months ago I finished reading A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin, but never wrote a review on it. Since I just recently finished Dance with Dragons I figured I should combine the review instead of just never doing a review on Feast for Crows to begin with.

Anyway, when I started reading The Song of Ice and Fire series I was well behind my friends who were reading them. They were sure to not give away anything about the series, but I did hear some conflicts about A Feast for Crows. Namely that there is no point to reading it. Which is a lie.

A Feast for Crows is such a tease. A Storm of Swords leaves the reader eager to delve into the next book in order to answer the hundreds of questions that were going through their head. I’m sorry to say, my friends, that you will not be getting many answers to those questions from A Feast for Crows because the fourth book follows a completely different cast of characters. All the characters who were left out of the third book switch places and become the new focus of the series.

Now I can’t go into too much detail about the fourth book because… well, honestly I read it months ago and all the books just end up blurring together anyway. But I will say that the fourth installment was not a waste of time. In fact, I enjoyed seeing the other characters that weren’t mentioned cause it gives you the view of what was going on with them in the last book. The only thing I didn’t like about it was that it was a lot slower than the third book. But that’s understandable. George R. R. Martin made the mistake of building the third book so high up that he had to take it down in order to build it back up again.

That’s when the fifth book comes in. Dance with Dragons is the latest installment of the series (and who knows when the sixth one will appear?). This one goes back to our good friends Jon Snow, Daenarys Targaryen, and Tyrion Lannister, with cameo’s from Jamie and Cersei Lannister, Arya Stark, as well as the Dornish prince.

While this book picked up speed, the beginning was a bit slow still. However, by the end I had gone through a roller coaster of emotions similar to the ones I felt reading Storm of Swords and found myself, once again, in a love/hate relationship with George R. R. Martin. His writing style remains unchanged: intriguing, giving enough detail to reel the reader in and then leaving it at a point where he leaves the reader begging for more. It honestly made me upset that I have no idea when the sixth book is coming out, and the fact that it took approximately 5 years after the fourth book was out before the fifth book was released made me resign myself to years of waiting and wondering.

I know this review didn’t go into much detail as my past ones did, but again, this series gets to a point where you don’t remember which events happened in which books. Overall, it’s an amazing series and I really would encourage anyone to go and read it. It may destroy your life a little (or a lot depending on your attachment to the characters), but it is well worth it.

Written by Paul Jessup and illustrated by Allyson Haller, Werewolves is an illustrated diary of the transition of a girl, Alice, and her brother, Mark, from normal teenagers into, you guessed it, werewolves. Now, me being a huge werewolf fan saw this book at Tunes probably close to a year ago, but didn’t buy it until recently. After reading it I have no idea what took me so long.

The story throws you right into the middle, right after Alice and Mark were bit by what they think are just wolves. But as Alice, a vegetarian, begins to have late night snacks of meat and having strange, random urges to run, she knows something is up. Mark begins hanging out with a new crowd of “misfits”. One day they convince Alice to come with the camping, and that’s when she finds out the truth: they’re all werewolves. As she tries to decide whether to stick close by them or not, she begins to realize she’s being followed. Should she confront her follower or keep their wolfy secret forever?

The one aspect of the book that I really enjoyed was that it felt so realistic. Sometimes male writers who write in the female perspective don’t do such a good job, using a lot of stereo types and making the characters unbelievable. However, I think Paul Jessup did a great job with all the characters, bringing them to life, giving the reader the chance to understand what they’re going through. None of the characters were really alike, each of them having their own distinct personality, which is a big must have so the characters don’t get blurred together.

With short chunks of writing on almost every page, this book is a very quick read (I finished reading it within the span of an afternoon). But with the amazing illustrations showing the characters in human and wolf form and great story line, this is definitely a book that all werewolf fans must read.

I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this blog. I definitely wanted a theme because, let’s face it, I’m not really that interesting (or am I?). So I decided to stick with the arts and entertainment review theme. It’s something I love to write about and I don’t really need to make time in order to do it since I read and listen to music every day. Movies and shows will be added when I see them.

Besides that there will be other updates, like possible new wallpaper choice and blog name change (something I had been playing with for a while).

The first new post will be about my favorite new albums of the year (newly released and newly bought). For now, I leave you with this note.

First off, the album isn’t too far from Steven Wilson’s usual albums, but at the same time it does differ greatly from Porcupine Tree and Blackfield, something I’ve always appreciated about his music. Even if some songs from each project sound similar, they all have their own feel to them.

What I especially loved about this album is that it’s not too crazy. It does have it’s odd music segments (which sound amazing), but it’s also chill enough that it’s an album that’s easy to relax to. Personally, I find it an album that’s good to listen to while writing (but that’s a trend I find with pretty much everything Steven Wilson comes up with).

I feel like the album is an even mixture of music and lyrics. I’ve stated plenty of times in other posts how I’m really not an instrumental fan, but while “Grace for Drowning” does have a lot of instrumental, it also has a good amount of amazing lyrics to counter it. Even when it’s mostly music, the music on this album is just so inspiring that I could listen to it over and over again without it bothering me. See, I do like instrumentals, it just takes some good instrumentals to win me over.

Then, besides the music and lyrics, you have the album booklet, which is phenomenal. That’s another thing I appreciate about Steve Wilson: that he’ll go through the effort to put together a booklet that probably a good amount of people won’t even look at. If you’ve ever watched “Insurgents” (or even if you haven’t), you’ll know about Steven Wilson’s loathing for iPod’s and mp3 players. In fact, he destroys several iPod’s in the film. The reason: it creates a portal for instant downloads instead of buying the album and getting it for better quality. Now, while I like his thoughts on the topic, I love my Zune. It’s way convenient for me. But, it’s also very rare when I download an album online. Sure, I’ve done it before, but I do like actually owning the album because it’s a safety measure. If my Zune and computer decided to blow up on the same day, well I’d still have all my albums cause I bought them. Then, you also have people like Steven Wilson who put together amazing photographs in a hard cased booklet that just astound you and speak to you along with the music.

So, I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Steven Wilson is a genius.

Overall grade: A+

Favorite song: Raider II (although Index is a close second): I first fell in love with Raider II because of it’s lyrics. The first verse drew me in instantly where the other songs, although they did draw me in, took a few more listens. I didn’t even realize the song was 20 minutes long until about the third listen when I was like, “Hey I thought this song ended already?” Surprise! I still had a whole 10 minutes left. Raider II has a mixture of everything: amazing lyrics, catchy music, slow music, and crazy music. A little bit of everything that any Steven Wilson fan can appreciate.