Sometimes, I watch a movie or read a book and think it's bad but am still tempted to continue on with the series. It's rare for it to happen, but that's what happened when I read Frozen: Heart of Dread a long time ago during a book exchange as part of the Teen Council. I felt it "gave off wink after wink that the next Heart of Dread will be better." To prove it, I asked for the sequel for Christmas. Am I going to buy The Fall of Hyperion and be excited about it? In your dreams. So was I intrigued to read the rest of the series "The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel?" Maybe. I don't know yet.

Imagine Magyk: Septimus Heap put into modern-day New York and you may get the picture. Josh and Sophie Newman are ordinary twin teenagers whose parents are frequent-travelling archaeologists. So all they have pretty much is each other. Fortuantely, Josh works at a bookstore and Sophie works at the coffee shop just on the other end of the street. Then they are all of a sudden dropped into the stink of hell - literally. Apparently mud Gollums and the famous John Dee, a mortal enemy of Nicholas and Perenelle Flamel, smell like rotten eggs. The bookstore is attacked and so is a book, and it is stolen, along with Perenelle, Sophie's boss, and that book stolen could mean the end of the world, says Nicholas Flamel, Josh's boss, except Josh was able to steal the last two pages, which are vital for the completion of the potion. All of a sudden, Nicholas Flamel must now go on the run with two new clueless teenagers whom he belies may be part of a prophecy: "The two that is one, the one that is all!"

Michael Scott apparently did a lot of research for this book, and I mean a lot, mentioning so many gods and goddesses, and visited a lot of the places he went. And so it's safe to say that this is a very well written book, and a few action scenes were very gripping, like when our heroes are chased on the San Francisco bridge by a pack of crows. And when it comes to supernatural abilities, there's not much else I find more magical. Books were made to sprout people's imagination, weren't they? But I'm afraid that this delightful fantasy tale is spoiled by repetitive writing style and stench jokes. There's too many "I can't believe this is happening, and I've seen weird stuff today." Too many "Is this a dream?" Too many "Why did it have to be us?" Because of this, I really felt the three hundred and sixty pages. Sometimes, I don't mind it when a book feels longer, like Michael Vey or Legend or Reboot. Those books I didn't mind because they were so good and I wanted to savour them. This book I did mind because, well, the reasons I mentioned, and it spends too much time being with the bad guy. I was happy t be with Perenelle for a little bit, but I don't usually find being locked up above a road trip to rescue. There's a character death that I wish didn't happen, because it made me a little sad, it made me question whether the cynical danger advice was actually the better advice, and the worst is that none seems to care too much. I don't know what to expect in The Magicians, but I hope that it ends up being the payoff rather than a twelve dollar commercial for the next installment like this one.

I know that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and I should say "Good for You," if you liked a movie or book more than I did, but if you loved this book, then you may need to get your brain checked.

I have to admit, there was enough to keep me mildly interested at the start, apparently a milestone for African fiction. In the Umuofia Clan lies a wealthy man named Okonkwo and who does whatever it takes to keep the village how it's always been, having feasts with yams, vegetable soup, all the royalties of a place where you had to depend on not too much sun and not too much water in case of flooding. (I don't know why or even if I ever found books about poverty an enjoyable subject.) I expected it to be about just that: Famine due to the weather, but instead, apart from celebrating the African Gods and teaching readers the way of the inane clan, despite murders, this book seems to try it's best to be about nothing in particular as it can be.

Maybe it's not my fault I hated this book. I mean, looking at how much debt and drought the media makes us see Africa in, I should appreciate a book about someone who by the front cover, looks wise and spiritual. But nothing is forgivable about a protagonist like Okonkwo. First of all, he's the only, well, memorable character, I suppose, mostly because he's aggressive and his name pops up a lot. All of the other names, like Ogbuefi Ezeunda, Ikemefuma, Ezenma, and Uchendu, etc. sound the same to me and even though I guess they're just natural names where they come from, almost every character is instantly forgettable and I half expected Chinua Achebe's name to be in the book and me to miss it. You forget their names and divert your attention to hoping something better will come up, like Okonkwo stopping his aggressiveness towards his family. Does he ever say "please" once? Does he learn anything about peace and happiness? Does anybody?

Years pass without anything really happening, except some of the meanest stereotypes you can come up with. One is how menacing white people are and how every good thing that may come from them is trickery. A protagonist I began to care for gets executed, and it is apparently because the spirit of the moons or whoever says so in the books. Here's an old saying too that I'd recommend hearing: "Never make a movie or book about a character you can't stand." That same rule applies to setting. The worst stereotype is how the men seem to become "women." So, apparently, being a man is to be ruthless, vicious and be catered for at the snap of a finger by whoever you please and is praised? Remember how I said I expected Chinua Achebe's name to be in the book? Halfway through, I was also expecting to find out he was half-Nigerian, half Kim Jong-un relative. The book for the enemy that the enemy will not reject. 

What I can say that's good about the book, though, is it's not gross, which I was expecting it to be and I was grateful for that, and that it does a good job of transporting us to a yellow, ugly, vile region of yams.

I remember I saw this book on display at my school library, and it came to mind while we were picking out books to read for our English Independent Study Units back when I was in Grade 10, or ISU's for short. I didn't know it was the sequel to Legend, but it looked good anyway. What I instead got was Half-Blood Blues because that assignment had a lot of rules as to what book we should choose. Now, after a year and a half of having the cover in mind, I'm reviewing the sequel to Marie Lu's Legend.

I thought the first legend was a pleasant surprise, but just fell apart a little bit in the third act. But did it make me pumped for the sequel? In eery category possible, yes. I love how tricky June and Day's relationship becomes. I'm not going to spoil whom, but both person is responsible for the death of a loved one from the other and they both have sacrificed so much for one another. Now June and Day decide to join the Patriots, a group working for the colonies and inside the Republic. Among them are their old friends, slugger punk girl Kaede and Day's loyal little "cousin" Tess. Still in war against the Republic, the Patriots decide that June and Day are the perfect way to start a revolution. For starters, some think Day's dead. Second of all, June was already famous and is now infamous but the Republic still worships her, and who knows? Maybe she's still on the Republic's side. Of course, she loves Day, but living with the Republic all your life can make something seem like a family. I think I'm starting to like people taking time and going things through in books. Both June and Day have so much going on inside your head, you can't not be intrigued. Anyway, the Patriots feel that assassinating the Elector is the best way to start a revolution; by defeating the belly in the beast, especially now that the old Elector has died and his son Anden has replaced him, plus a lot of the Republic is in too much hatred to really pay Anden any respect. Day, the criminal who never murdered, is now excited for his demise, but June says a little different because they met face to face in the last instalment. 

There's also a minor…well, actually, humungous love relationship between June and Tess for Day, at least Tess is making it so. I haven't found love relationships a bad thing in books generally, but maybe that's only because I've put Wild Geese behind me and I haven't read Twilight. I was a little close to pointing out that the relationship goes a little too far during a few parts of the book until the tense moments ended on a calm note. Basically, everything in this book was perfectly timed. June, Day, and Marie Lu there me everywhere. Nothing in this book was predictable in any way; I can almost call it a mystery novel. Or, I guess I can, and if so, this may be the mystery novel I've been searching for. I can't remember the last time a book made me so mixed up in a mystery about telling the truth or lying, including a moment that involves a lie detector test that goes smooth but makes the reader, and June herself, question whether she's still with the enemy and if the Republic really is the enemy. Basically, I could go on about how this book is so addicting. It makes the first book seem like a prelude and I really enjoyed the last book. I never thought love relationships could be as gripping and heartbreaking as this.

I haven't found a perfect book yet, I don't think, but damn, this book might be the one. Like MV: Rise of the Elgen, my heart was thumping hard on every page, and I can't give higher praise than that.

There are some critics that would recite how the first words of this book, and this whole series, are "Friday, August 31st,", a date, when the chapter says Nikki aid never going to write in this diary, so there's no point in putting a date on it. I'm not one of those critics. In a way, it shows how a brand new school year is about to start.

And nothing is more scary than being a new kid at Westchester Country Day for the 8th grade. This book doesn't exactly have a goal to it, but it's not horrid and random like Dick Francis' Field of 13. It's mostly about starting off what it's like in the life of Nikki Maxwell, with a little sister who's scared of the tooth fairy, a father who's the school's bug exterminator, and a mom that's nice but doesn't exactly always agree with Nikki. If there is one goal however, it's to get close to one of the coolest kids in school, a photographer for the school newspaper named Brandon Roberts, who isn't the big obnoxious letdown some might expect. Most of all though, is trying to survive life with the biggest CCP teen (Cue, Cool and Popular) or should I say CCPO, for obnoxious, named Mackenzie Hollister, who also has the hots for Brandon.

I remember I read this to my family when we were sitting down at our pool in the shade. And I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed it. The biggest thing this book has going for it is Rachel Renee Russell's sketches. They might as well be the best artwork in a picture book I've ever seen. Trust me, they mostly look better than the front cover illustration. Plus, Rachel has also created a great fashion model for girls. The way Nikki writes makes readers really feel with the girl. Sometimes, though, she, and the whole book, end up taking a few bumps. Maybe it's just because I'm a boy, but I found it dumb when Nikki makes a video showing how to make a hearing aid disguised as a phone as a plan to talk about global warming. I know I'm not a teacher, but I could feel the F raining down on her. And sometimes the book feels like since it's just basically introducing the characters, it drags on a little bit. Plus, almost every time Nikki says "I just said that inside my head,", I felt it was a missed opportunity to get a reaction. 

I certainly didn't hate the book though, and I guess I read the book fast enough to read the rest. In fact, I've read all 8. So expect a review of the 2nd Dork Diaries book sometime. But for Part 1, what I say is: "The book is like a dream Nikki has during a dramatic part: She's in her pyjamas with a ton of library books in her hand running away from two witches on Nikki's special pen the size of a broomstick, and the evil Mackenzie spitting bugs out of her mouth towards her. All that demonstrates what Nikki is hating and it's not really as bad as she, aka the narrator, thinks. Plus, also like her two best friends' ambition to run away from home because of a D in a gym exercise, the first instalment of the hilarious Dork Diaries franchise, to me, flaps more than it flies.

This book has been in my head for a long time, mostly when I saw Marie Lu's name in the praise for Taken. I don't know, it's cover is simple but attractive and metallic, very hard to forget about.

This is going to be a minor spoiler: This is a book that switches characters every time a new chapter comes up. It also changes font to be a little more clear. The characters it switches between is it's two main characters. The last book I read that did this was Jodi Picoult's House Rules, and that transitioned between five different main characters. In literature, I think what Marie did was hard, transitioning between two characters every eight or so pages. Quite balanced.

Anyway, this book is a future dystopian society book, but I'd be surprised if you didn't guess that already from the cover. And this time, it's apparently in the future so much that a): Americans have been divided into The Republic and The Colonies and they have been at war for who-knows-how-long and b): A family finds a quarter in the ground and sees it as proof that the United States, as a whole, once existed. In this future society, everyone starting at the age of 10 has to take a Trial, and these are marked out of 1500. It's a test for just about everything, sort of like being tested in Divergent, except you don't pick a side and the tests are all in one shot. You'd have to be absolutely horrid to get around 1000, however. People who pass the tests are welcomed into the Republic society. The ones who fail are sent to labor camps. And not everyone who passes the test ends up living the best life. Those who live in poverty, fugitive Day tries to help out; a boy who has been on a secret mission for the last few years to find medicine from the Republic, for the plague that his nine year old son Eden has and is getting worse. One day, during an escape, Day is forced to stab an officer to avoid capture, and one who dies a little while later. This attracts even more attention to the one person in Republican society, June Iparis, who got a perfect score on her test and is the only fifteen-year old at one of the top universities in the divided country.

That's all I'm revealing. You'll have to read the book to find out what happens afterward, but I'm not torturing you. This book had a path that it seemed to be taking, and in a way, it follows the predicted path, but in more ways, it surprises. A lot of the descriptions in the book are about the theories behind people's movements, of what they're thinking and how bent cops cheat and lie. I was thinking about giving the book a perfect score during the first half. The second half went down a notch but not that tragically. There are character deaths that I didn't see coming, and I wasn't this shocked about a death since the Escape from Furnace series. And you know? I've stopped writing that books are written well, because pretty much every book these days is written well, but here I've got to give Marie Lu credit: There is a difference between sounding beautifully and sounding like Shakespeare. This type of writing has no weird phrases, is punchy, well put to use because of its two different narrators of different religion, and doesn't feel like Marie expects us to be patient. 

When I put the book down, I was gripped immediately to read the sequels, Prodigy and Champion. The goal of the next two books was loud and clear in my head, and though the ride can get a bit bumpy because of overdoing arguments and thoughts rather than action, it promises more to come without feeling like a prelude. If you want a brief synopsis, though, let me say that this book has a hint of Romeo & Juliet, metaphorically saying what would happen if three things happened in the play. 1) Juliet woke up in time. 2) Someone evil saw them leave the crypt together. 3) The Nurse or Benvolio or someone was in trouble and still within Verona. When it comes to a story like that, the thoughts of the sequel possibilities are irresistible.