My favorite part was when the teacher put her hand into Zeke’s mouth.

This beautiful story is set in the same world as Wish, and follows Idalee Lovett as she enters a songwriting competition. The only problem? She has only a broken, old guitar that doesn’t stay in tune. And if she could afford a new guitar, she could win. Luckily, she knows that her late grandfather hid treasure in the house, that might just help Idalee win.

I liked this book, however, I felt like it didn't really have much of a main plot. I liked all the different perspectives though, and I liked how Rhys went to visit Tamlin. I also liked all the details in the book.

“All the Answers” is a great book, And is definitely five star material. I highly recommend “All the Answers”. I absolutely loved “All the Answers ”.

3 stars, perhaps 2.5 if I'm feeling pessimistic. State of Fear is a fast-paced mystery/thriller/adventure novel that comments on eco-terrorism and the political agendas surrounding climate change. The plot follows Kenner and his team (Evans, Jenniffer, Sarah, and Morton) as they work to halt a group of environmentalists from committing heinous acts intended to draw media attention to the issue of global warming. To begin with the good, State of Fear is incredibly engaging. I began the book apprehensive, as it appears to be a classic delayed-gratification novel that forces the reader to sift through 200 pages of character development and world-building before providing any action. I was pleasantly surprised, however, that the plot mirrors that of a YA thriller rather than a Ken Follett book. In the span of ~300 pages, each major character nearly dies multiple times; truly, the majority of the novel is descriptions of how each character cheats death. Coming out of 3 nonfiction novels, I found the action to be a pleasant addition to my otherwise insipid reading streak. Crichton also does a relatively decent job integrating science into the plot. I'll admit, there is indubitably some (a lot of) preaching, and a few of the characters function solely as mouthpieces for Crichton's scientific/political beliefs. Regardless, blending global warming and murder-mystery is a challenge, and I think it was done with relative precision here. As a science enthusiast, however, I have to acknowledge that my interest in the nonfiction elements of the book may not reflect masterful writing by Crichton, but rather my own desire to understand the complexities of climatology. On the topic of climatology, State of Fear provides a perspective on global warming that was entirely new to me. Crichton repeatedly questions the validity of scientific claims regarding climate change. He provides graphs and footnotes that reference specific studies - an element of the novel that I relished. Throughout my education, man-made climate change has rarely been presented as anything but a certainty, so I found this argument to be both fascinating and highly uncomfortable. To me, it's important that I continually expose myself to beliefs and rationales that I disagree with. State of Fear may not have significantly altered my understanding of global warming, but it forced me to view climate as more complicated than I had previously understood, and I think that's important. *(I have not gone through and confirmed the relevance + validity of the studies/data referenced by Crichton) Now for the negatives... The vast majority of the characters in State of Fear were a tad...1 dimensional. Kenner's a genius who magically comes up with statics whenever they are relevant. Every environmentalist is a bit of an idiot. Evans is a vulnerable puppy dog who never understands anything, thus empowering Crichton to insert his climate/political beliefs at regular intervals. I understand that Crichton needed to create a clear hero/villian situation in order to propel the novel's plot, but I wish the two sides were slightly more complicated. In other words, It would've been nice if Kenner's team wasn't entirely good and everyone else wasn't entirely bad. Character development can make or break a book, and State of Fear's frequent stock characters prevent it from being a 4-star book for me. Also, from a slightly less serious perspective, I did not want to read about cannibalism. No part of me went into State of Fear thinking, "Wow, I would love to read 3 pages of humans eating other humans!" Frickin' diabolical. I briefly mentioned this above, but we have to acknowledge how outright preachy State of Fear is. Evans as a character was literally CRAFTED so that Crichton could spend pages upon pages explaining climatology and political agendas. Personally, I wasn't incredibly turned off by the information-dumps, but at times they were poorly integrated. Anyway, State of Fear was relatively enjoyable and interesting, but it's not a book I will likely return to or recommend fervently.

3.5 stars - Hyperion was fine. For a Huge Award winning novel, I wasn't blown away. That saying, I probably wasn't the target audience. The novel follows a group of 7 pilgrims as they take the last pilgrimage to the world Hyperion, home of the Shrike. Each pilgrim has a different reason for journeying to Hyperion, and the majority of the book is spent diving into each pilgrim's story and woes. To begin with critique, I'll immediately note that each chapter of Hyperion is around 100 pages. Personally, I prefer when chapters are digestible in one sitting. The book's format, however, lends itself to long chapters, as a pilgrim's entire story must fit within a single section so as not to confuse the reader. Thus, I understand Simmons decision to allow for such enormous chapters, though it frustrated me while reading. Otherwise, Hyperion is a bit of a "trust the process" novel, as the reader is left relatively uninformed and/or confused for an extended period of time until information is slowly doled out. While I acknowledge that there is educational merit to such a format, I did not enjoy it here. Regardless, the most displeasing aspect of Hyperion was unrelated to the novel itself, but rather my taste as a reader: I simply cannot enjoy romance plots. Multiple of the novellas within Hyperion are romance-driven, and I, having never experienced romantic attraction, was incredibly underwhelmed. To move on to the positives, Simmons is skilled at creating unique voices for each character. Each sub-story is written in the appropriate character's voice, and I found that both impressive and enjoyable. More so, the ending of Hyperion is, in my professional opinion, masterful albeit irritating; it's the type of ending that forces the reader to say, "I wish it didn't end this way, but I know that I had to." I'd recommend Hyperion to anyone who is prepared to commit to it. There's a lot to learn, but there's also a lot to miss (I'm sure I missed most of Simmons' message as I snoozed through sex scenes).

allergic is about a girl that on her birthday she and her family decided to go to a shelter to look at the dogs. when she was petting on she had an alergic reaction. later she found out that she is alergic to the fur on the dogs and all anaimals

3 stars - Opening Skinner's Box details some of the most influential psychological experiments of the 20th century. Each chapter describes a different researcher and what they learned. I read this book for my upcoming AP Psychology class, and while I found it generally interesting, I don't think I have much to say review-wise. I'm not a huge psychology enjoyer. I respect it as a science, of course, but I find it relatively frustrating. Regardless, I did take interest in many of the experiments Slater describes in this book. She's good at making research accessible, and thus I never felt confused nor overwhelmed by information. HOWEVER, Slater adds far too much of her own interpretation for my taste. I do not particularly care about her personal life, especially against a background of significant psychological experiments. Every chapter is filled with clumsy metaphors or sentimental scenes of Slater's child, and I got very tired of it. My favorite part of Opening Skinner's Box was the chapter about lobotomies, chapter 10. Slater argues that psychosurgery has received undeserved negativity, comparing procedures like lobotomies to modern psychiatric medications. I actually found this comparison to be relatively eye-opening. I've always been told that early psychosurgery was fundamentally evil, but Slater creates a complex, arguably sympathetic reappraisal of it. Critics often cite her closing arguments as anti-pharmacological, but in a society that leans more and more on (and normalizes!) psychiatric medication, I found Slater's opinion to be both thought provoking and somewhat refreshing. Anyway, Opening Skinner's Box is a fine book. If you are interested in psychology and unfamiliar with the fundamental experiments, I would read it. It's as accessible as nonfiction can get.

I would give the book "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart a 2 out of 5 stars because it was boring and dragged on. The story follows four gifted children who are brought together for a secret mission, but I found that the pacing was slow and it took too long for interesting things to happen. Even though the characters each had their own personalities and skills, I didn’t feel very engaged with their journey. The puzzles and challenges were sometimes confusing and didn’t keep my attention. Overall, I didn’t enjoy this book very much and would only recommend it to readers who don’t mind a slow-moving story.

I like how Juliette becomes a lot more confident in this book and then at the end she ends up thinking she killed everyone which destroys her confidence making her vulnerable to being kidnapped by her parents.