Bright Blue Miracle by Becca Wilhite

Genre: Young Adult

Synopsis:
Bright Blue Miracle, by Becca Wilhite, is about a seventeen year old girl named Leigh Mason. Leigh's mom get's remarried, and Leigh is not ready to share her room, her family, or her best friend, Jeremy, with her new step-sister, Betsy.

Leigh's younger twin sisters don't seem to have any problems adjusting to the mixed family. In fact, they seem to think Leigh should be excited to have a sister her own age so she can see what it's like to be a twin. Maybe Leigh could be friends with Betsy, if she wasn't completely gorgeous, tall, athletic, and practically perfect in every way. It doesn't help that Jeremy wants to date Betsy either.

Unfortunately, this isn't the only struggle that Leigh is facing. They all seem to lead up to one big crisis that will either bond the family or tear them apart.

Review:
This was a short, fun, and easy to read book. It wasn't without it's emotional roller coaster. The author really lets you sympathize for both step-sisters, even though the story is from Leigh's point of view. I still caught a few glimpses of what Betsy was feeling. The book doesn't involve the parents as much, especially the step-dad. The story is really mainly about the two girls learning to accept each other. There are some tender learning moments from Leigh's Grammy that really touched me.

"Sometimes terrible things happen. Sometimes they happen because someone makes a choice that affects lots of people. Sometimes awful stuff just happens because things go wrong. People die, and that always hurts our hearts. But there's always something to learn from a tragedy." (pg 77)

Overall I liked this book alot. I don't think it is one I will re-read, but I would definitely recommend it to others.

Haiku Pooh!

I realize I haven't written a haiku in awhile. I don't have any excuses; I just haven't done one. While catching up on my google reader I had the pleasure to read some fun poetry on the Rebecca Reads blog. Her idea was to do a book review in poetry. Her book review was on Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne, and one of her poems is a haiku. Yay! So I am linking up to her post to alleviate the lack of haiku here. Thanks Rebecca!

Playaway Audio books

I just found out about a new format for audio books. I might be the last one in the world to have heard of them, but I was pretty excited. They are called Playaways. They are basically audio books on their own little MP3 players. My mom checked one out at the library. It is so simple to use, because there is no downloading, syncing, or anything like that. Read more about them on the Playaway website. The only con I noticed is they are extremely expensive. They range in price anywhere from $40 to over $200 for some. I don't know about any of you, but I definitely can't afford that.

Fortunately, Playaway partners with another site called Simply Audiobooks that does rentals similar to that of Netflix. You can pay a monthly fee for between 1 and 3 playaways at a time. When you are done with one you simply mail it back and they will send you then next available book in your queue list.

If that is still too pricey, you can always check your local library for their selection. Anyway, I just wanted to share with everyone about Playaways, because I think they are really cool. What do you think? Have you ever tried a Playaway?

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder

Rating: 5 of 5
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy

Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder was a book that I had been wanting to read for awhile. I had read many great reviews for this book and it's sequels. I must say I was not disappointed. At first I was slightly taken aback, because the book started out being completely different than I expected. What I thought it would be like was a girl in school studying poisons or something like that. What it actually ended up being about was a girl named Yelena who was going to be executed for committing murder. On the day of her execution she was given a choice to become the Commander's food taster or to be executed. She of course chose to be the food taster, which meant she then had to learn all about poisons. As if the chance of death by poison wasn't enough, she also had to deal with some unwanted death threats from other sources - one being the father of the man she killed. Fortunately for Yelena, she has some allies on her side.

This book was very intense with plenty of intrigue and surprises. I highly recommend it!!

Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Jo's Boys is the final story of the March family that began with Little Women. I don't know why it took me so long to read this book, but I renewed it three times, took it back to the library, checked it out again a few weeks later, and renewed it again before finally finishing. I am ashamed.

I did enjoy the book. It was fun to see how all the orginal students from Plumfield School ended up. This book also had some very apparent themes. A big one was women's rights. In her time, Louisa May Alcott was a big supporter of women's right to vote, and was the first woman in her county to register to vote. One can tell from her writing that she viewed women as capable as men and supported the idea that women become educated and do something meaningful with their lives. In our day that is the standard, but in her day it was pretty forward thinking. There are many parts throughout this book that exemplefies this thought. There is one part in particular where Nan, a girl aspiring to become a doctor, is trying to get the boys onto her side for woman's suffrage. One boy replies,

"I should be the most ungrateful fellow alive if I did not love, honor, and serve women with all my heart and might, for to them I owe everything I am or ever shall be."

I thought that quote very touching.

Another theme in the book is redemption. The book (and trilogy) as a whole is very Christian in nature. This book dealt a lot with coming of age, and learning through trials how to be a better person. There were stories of three boys in particular that each went through different struggles, but eventually redeemed themselves to become better men. Each of them stated that their education and times at Plumfield was their saving grace.

I believe a third theme was the importance of a good education, especially for females. I think that is pretty apparent, since the main setting of the book is the Laurence College (previously Plumfield school).

If you have read Little Women, I would fully encourage you to finish the trilogy and read Little Men and Jo's Boys. I daresay you won't be disappointed. I wanted to share the last line of Jo's Boys, because it does a nice job of ending the trilogy.

"And now, having endeavored to suit every one by many weddings, few deaths, and as much prosperity as the eternal fitness of things will permit, let the music stop, the lights die out, and the curtain fall forever on the March family."

I read this book as part of a Classic's Challenge.

An Important Message

Hello loyal readers!

I just wanted to let you know I might have even less time for blogging in the immediate future. The reason for this is because my dinosaur computer might finally be breathing it's last breath. Currently my hubby is backing up all my files on safe mode, but I haven't been able to get it to start normally. My husband does have a laptop, but since he is starting back to work (teaching) in a few weeks, as well as starting back for his master's degree, I have a feeling I won't be getting much use out of his.

I will still try to post every now and then. I am going to keep reading, but I'm not sure how keeping up with book reviews will go. Actually, I've been doing a pretty bad job at that lately anyway. It has been a busy summer. Until next time wish me luck, and maybe I can get a new computer for Christmas.

BBC 100

I saw this on Trin's Bloody Bad Book Blog. I thought it would be fun to try.

Have you read more than 6 of these books?

This is a great quiz by Jamie @ Book Nerd Extraordinaire

The BBC believes most people will have read only 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Copy this into your NOTES. Look at the list and put an 'x' after those you have read. Tag other book nerds. Tag me as well so i can see your responses!

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen (X)
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (X)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte (X)
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (X)
6. The Bible (X) (Does is count if I've read most of it??)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte (X)
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell ()
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ()
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens (X)
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ()
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ()
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare ()
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier(X)
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (X)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ()
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ()
19. The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger ()
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ()
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (X)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ()
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X)
26. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ()
27. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ()
28. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
29. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ()
30. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ()
31. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ()
32. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (X)
33. Emma-Jane Austen (X)
34. Persuasion - Jane Austen ()
35. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis (X)
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hossein (X)
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ()
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ()
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (X)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell ()
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving ()
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ()
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ()
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
47. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding ()
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan ()
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel ()
51. Dune - Frank Herbert ()
52. Cold Comfort Farm ()
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen (X)
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ()
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ()
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens ()
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ()
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night - Mark Haddon ()
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ()
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck ()
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ()
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt ()
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold ()
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas (X)
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac ()
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ()
67. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ()
68. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ()
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville ()
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens ()
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker (X)
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (X)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ()
74. Ulysses - James Joyce ()
75. The Inferno – Dante ()
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ()
77. Germinal - Emile Zola ()
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ()
79. Possession - AS Byatt ()
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ()
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ()
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker ()
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ()
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ()
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
86. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (X)
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom ()
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ()
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton ()
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ()
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery ()
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ()
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams ()
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ()
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ()
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas ()
97. Hamlet - William Shakespeare ()
98. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
99. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo ()
Ah, ha there were only 99 if you go to the other sites 26 is missing.

Woo hoo. I have read 26 of the 99 listed. Okay, I'll take off a half point for the Bible. Hey, it's a big book. Still, I am less than 50%. It looks like I have more reading to do. I have The Three Musketeers and Persuasion audiobooks ready to listen to. I just haven't finished them so I can't count them yet.