Bag of Bones

            Currently, I am reading Bag of Bones by Stephen King.  At first, I was a little apprehensive to undertake the reading of the thick and seemingly cumbersome book.  However, I figured if the biggest King fan ever (Ms. Y) had highly recommended it for a novice King reader such as myself, I must be safe.  Turns out she was right!  Of course the usual King mystery and gore are quite prevalent throughout this book.  Yet, the simple and genuine emotions of the characters are very real.  Mike Noonan, a famous novelist who is grieving over the sudden loss of his wife, goes back four years later to their old summerhouse.  Being nearly immobilized from writer’s block and the bumps in the night, Mike stumbles upon a mother and daughter, Mattie and Kyra.  Mike immediately has sympathy for the single mother and her worries, particularly regarding her father-in-law, who is seeking custody of his granddaughter, her daughter Kyra.  Mike Noonan establishes a real connection with mother and daughter.  Could it be that Mike’s writer’s block has not only taken him back to his old summerhouse, but back to save the possible separation of a single mother from her most valued possession? 

            There certainly is much to be discussed with respect to this book.  Bag of Bones is one of those books that needs a continuous read, not setting the book down for long because all of the little details that make up the book would get lost, making the reader confused.  Much of the detailed, obnoxious ghostly business could have been reduced or even eliminated from the book.  The bumps in the night turn into a persistent buzzing sound in your ear that never seems to subside.  The realism of the story goes off track at times and the fictional novel sometimes becomes a little too difficult to accept.  Have you read any Stephen King books?  If so, did you find a similar experience?  Also, if you have read a Stephen King novel, do you believe it was worth the hours of reading in order to experience his story or would you have preferred watching a movie made from the book on the silver screen where your imagination does not have to be pushed to the limits?

          

Huck Finn

This is an area for the grade 9’s to discuss their novel Huck Finn. If you have any questions or comments about the book please put it here!

The Best Page In The Universe

 The best page in the universe is an ironic, exciting, realistic world run by a man, possibly the greatest literary genius of our time. If you are vegetarian, humanitarian, environmentalist, feminist or are from any culture at all, do NOT inquire about the site.

 The entire website is a joke. Maddox, the author of all of the blogs, pretends to be a self centered jerk who dislikes everything except chipotle sauce and Contra IV. It is very well written, but would offend people if they were to take it seriously.

 Maddox is somewhat well known, having millions of readers worldwide, and all of his fans are extremely loyal. I bring up one scenario where a man sent Maddox a hate-mail letter, calling Maddox a coward, and daring him not to censor out his email address. So Maddox posted the hate-mail, without removing the address, and soon got another letter from the same person saying that he had thousands of emails insulting him, all from his post on Maddox’s hate mail wall. So Maddox removed his email, and stemmed the flow of hate-mail, sparing the one to challenge Maddox’s authority.

 So, anyways, it’s a really funny website and if you don’t mind profanity, and can laugh at that kind of humor, then you may not want to check it out. Seriously. If you are offended at all easily, you will probably think lesser of me if you go to that site. If you do want to check it out though, ask me in real life(or I’m sure this web blog site has some kind of personal message system) what the website is.

 This will prbably be the only post about this site, as I don’t want to go into detail about anything on the site.

                                                                                           johngo

The Oath 3

While reading books such as The Oath, it is interesting to take note of how authors make use of current technology and how the story would be different if written in today’s world.

The Oath was written in 1995, which although is not ages ago, it still presents some things which would change if modernized. For example, there is talk about how since there is no fax machine, vital paperwork cannot be sent to the hero. This is obviously because this was written before the mass popularization of email and the internet.

This is even more noticeable in Peretti’s Darkness series. The two books were written in ‘86 and ‘88. The situations in this book would be very different if modernized.

If either of these books are made into movies, as Peretti has stressed he would love to do, they would have to either be adapted to modern technology, or specify the date in the movie itself.

THR3E, a novel by Ted Dekker, makes great use of modern technology. The entire plot of the book would not be possible if written too long ago. As this has already been made into  a movie, there is no fear of changing the story to make it work in a different time frame

Well, that’s all I have to say for now. Happy reading to all, and to all a good night!       

Fire Ice

I am very excited about starting to read my third book for English this semester. The book that I am beginning to read is a sequel to White Death, my first book I read this semester. I am sure the book that I am starting to read which is titled Blue Gold will be as good as White Death. The main characters Kurt Austin and Joe Zavala are also the same. After reading White Death I have gotten to like Kurt and Joe. After reading so many Dirk Pitt novels, also by Clive Cussler, I figured it would be hard to get used to new characters. I was wrong. White Death was the first Kurt Austin book that I have read and surprisingly it had many characters from previous Dirk Pitt books. This was a very comfortable change.The beginning of the novel has a prologue just like White Death did. It starts with a young professor who’s name is Francesca who had found a plant that could be used in medical treatment. Her father is very rich and hired a famous bodyguard for her travel to the US. The two pilots of the jet were replacements. Francesca found out that they were on the wrong flight path and told her body guard. One pilot came back and knocked him out cold. He woke 20 minutes later. They fought to the death. The pilot shot the bodyguard. He slumped tot he deck. Still conscious he fired three shots. Two killed the copilot and the third was a “stray”. The third bullet had gone through the bulkhead and shot the pilot in the back. Francesca had hid in the seats. When the shooting stopped she went up to the cockpit to find the pilot still conscious. After lots of trouble they crash landed.The actual novel starts in a speedboat race. This is as far as I have read in the novel. It seems very exciting, and I can’t wait to read more.

Cell

I am now currently reading a book called Cell by Stephen King. The main character is Clay. He is an artist who is in Boston for a job.

I starts out that Clay is in line for ice cream when two of the people in front of him are talking on their cell phones. All of the sudden on of the women jump up and bite the other woman in the neck. He looks behind him and another man is biting the ear off of a dog. Within minutes the whole city is complete mayham.

I already really like this book because it has action in it within the first ten pages.

Clay seeks shelter in a deserted store and meets another man,Tom. Lukily Tom seems to show no sign of going crazy like the rest of the town. After hours of watching people trying to kill each other with whatever they can find from chairs to car antenas they come to the realization that this all started with cell phones.

A man with a knife slashing at himself and everything around him goes chasing after Clay and Ted forcing them to find another hiding place. They find the hotel where Clay is staying and also find another sane person, Mr. Ricardi, the owner of the hotel.

Only minutes later, a teenage girl came running up to the locked doors of the hotel front. Rushing to her aid the three men get her inside to protect her from her own mother who was trying to choke her with a telephone cord.

When night falls Ted, Clay, and the teenager, Alice, decide to walk to Ted’s house. Along the way they see a few other sane people. Once at Ted’s house they think of what could have happened. They think that it was some sort of a terrorist attack. All the people that were talking on their cell phones went crazy and when that happened all the others used their cell phones unknowingly to try to call for help.

So far I really like this book. It is really easy to realate to and it is kind of creepy to me to think of what would happen if that was real. Almost everyone I know has a cell phone. In the future, I think that the “phone-crazies” will come back because at the moment they seem to be gone (or maybe just killed eachother). Anyway, I never want to put this book down because there is always something happening that you dont want to miss out on.

Right Hand of Evil – 2

When i left off last Janet was going to leave her husband the next morning…

That night Ted got extremely drunk and was starting to see visions. He realized that he was going to die but he really didnt want to. The next morning Janet woke up to the realization that Ted had taken the car. She was scared that he did this last night while he was drinking. Just then Ted drove up in the car. He was smiling and acting perfectly normal. Janet knew that there must be something wrong because he should not be acting fine after a long night of drinking.

For some reason Janet decides to give her husband yet another chance. She stays with him and is pleased when weeks later he is still staying sober.

One day Kim’s cat runs away and days later they find its skin nailed to their door. Days after that Jareds dog disapears. While all of this is happening Jared is slowly drifting away from the family. He moved into the basement and Kim feels that she lost the twin connection that she used to have with him.

 Kim is constantly having dreams about her brother and evil things that he is doing but she trys to convince herself that her mind is playing with her because she is uncomfortable with how Jared is changing.

Eventualy Kim breaks down at school and is persuaded into telling all the nuns and the priest what she was dreaming. They explain to her that all of her dreams were real and she starts to panic. They tell her that she is the only one that can fix what happened. They remind her of a gold cross necklace that her great aunt gave her. She goes back to the house and finds her brother and father about to kill her baby sister and mom. She takes her cross and puts it on Jared who then kills their father.

The priest ends up telling the family that Ted sold Jareds soul to the devil in return for not taking his soul the night that he drunk so much that he should have died.

Altogether, I did not really enjoy this story. It took about three quatres of the book to actualy get into the action. Most of the book was like an introduction of them moving into their house and going to school. I was disapointed because i like gory, creepy, twisted stories and this seemed just like a campfire ghost story.

City of Mask

This book is really good, it has lots of inagination. This book is about a boy who has cancer, then his dad gives him a journal and some how it brings him to what is now know as Venice. But this world is hundreds years behind ours. So when this boy named Luicen is in his time he can’t walk, has no hair but when he goes into the other world he can walk, has hair and meets the queen who marrys the sea.

Moby Dick

I am in the 7 chapter and the book is gr8. I wish i read this book a while back. It’s funny because it is, a whale!! made a guy lose his leg, but it’s a sad story for Ahab.

Deception Point

I’m reading Deception Point by Dan Brown. You know, the guy who wrote the Da Vinci Code. anyways the book is really good its about a governmental election and a fake meteorite found in the arctic. i’m  down to the last 9 PAGES!! I cant wait to finish it. what has really happened throughout the book so far is that Rachel Sexton ( the lead character) was sent to the arctic where they were doing some tests where they had found a meteorite buried in the ice. Once they brought the meteorite to the surface the amazed that they found living organisms in the water. to find out if they were from outerspace, they had to leave the habishere and go out on the ice shelf and take some samples of the ice. So Rachel, Michael, Corky and Doctor Mangor al went out side onto the ice shelf where they were attacked by Delta’s. A mysterious swat team that are trying to stop them. Well the bell rang so I’ll tell you more later.