An Unhealthy Addiction

                It always starts innocently enough.  I say I'm just going to go watch some TV.  But that's where everything normal stops.  When I turn on the TV, instead of watching something that would make me a better human being, I watch something that even the weirdest people have probably never even heard of. 

                Goosebumps.

                Do I like it?  Of course not.  It's irritating and predictable and the characters are always so childish.  But if I really don't like it, why do I watch it almost every day?

                I would like to blame someone else.  Maybe my dad is to blame, after all, he was the one who thought we should have Netflix.  I could blame the lack of interesting TV shows.  But to be able to do that, I would have to finish watching all of the cooking shows I have recorded.  I could blame my sister.  She likes them too, well, that or she's a really great actor. 

                The funniest part is, they don't scare me.  I'm not just saying that to sound brave.  The only way they could scare me would be if I couldn't sleep (so pretty much every night) and I'd have nothing to do so I think about creepy things.  It doesn't make sense.  Four A.M., can't sleep, I'm sitting alone in a dark room and I think about creepy stuff. 

                But when I freak myself out, it isn't the pictures of the weird looking vampires from Goosebumps that I see.  I see the Other Mother from Coraline; I think too much about the man in the black suit from the Stephen King short story I read.  (It's in Everything's Eventual, I couldn't sleep for weeks after I read it);  I wonder if the shuffling in the dark is my cat or Capricorn struggling to free himself from my bookshelf; or maybe, reaching way back, Cluny the Scourge is making his rounds.    

                So what do I get out of these shows?  They barely entertain me, they don't scare me, they never tell you the ending.  Why do I insist on watching them?

                Maybe I have too much spare time.  But judging from the number of library books I have, I should be reading all day. 

                So if it's not that I have too much free time, and it's not that I secretly like them (because no matter what everyone thinks I still do not like them), what is it? 

                The special effects are terrible, I make fun of the plot lines (which, by the way, are terrible), but it's still one of the most watched things on my Netflix queue.  I even watched The Nightmare Room on Chiller-The Nightmare Room is like Goosebumps, but it's been made recently, at least, I think it was. 

                I should be writing.  I should be cleaning my room.  I should be doing something interesting.  I could bake soufflé, I could watch Doctor Who (seen all of the recent ones, can't wait for the Christmas special - perhaps no Goosebumps that day).  But no, I watch Goosebumps. 

                I'm happy to say that I only have a few unwatched episodes left, so soon I'll stop watching them.  I hope...

What I've learned from reading The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

                Did you know that there's one food that's in almost everything we eat?  I didn't know until I read The Omnivore's Dilemma.  Corn is in almost every food we eat, especially processed food.  Think about it, the cereal you eat for breakfast probably has corn syrup; the soda you drink at lunch is mostly corn; even the meat you eat for dinner (if you eat meat) is made of corn.  The cows, chickens, pigs, sheep, and even the fish that people eat all ate corn.  So, of course, the meat is made of corn, too. 

                But corn isn't just in food, it's in cosmetics.  It makes the cover of your magazine shiny.  Corn is in fireworks and printer ink.  Corn covers more acres of land than any other living thing.  Even humans. 

                Forty-seven percent of all the corn grown in America is used to feed animals.  But cows should eat grasses, not corn.  When cows are in feedlots, they have to eat antibiotics to stay healthy because it is so dirty and their diets are so bad.  If the cows aren't healthy, how is the meat healthy?  Well, it's not.  Meat from a grass-fed cows is healthier than the meat from a cow who ate corn.  In feedlots, cows even eat bits of other cows.  That's wrong. 

                I didn't know how terribly the animals in feedlots were treated.  If I wasn't a vegetarian before I read this book I would be now.  I won't go into details about what happens to the animals in feedlots, but it's not good.  There isn't even a rule for how much bacteria can be in the meat.

                The part that I found the worst (well, one of the worst parts, all the things about the meat industry were pretty awful) was that humans keep making more efficient ways to kill things.  No other species does that!  Sure, cats eat meat.  So do dogs and a bunch of other animals.  But only humans have entire buildings devoted to murder. 

                In farms, if chickens peck other chickens, they get their beaks cut off.  If pigs bite the tails of other pigs, they get most of their tails cut off.  They only take most of the tail so that the next bite will hurt more.  They do that to "teach the pigs not to get bitten."  Cruel. 

                Twenty cows an hour suffer a painful death.  If those numbers alone are not enough of a reason to think the modern meat industry is cruel, let me put it a different way.  Five percent of cows killed every hour die a terrible, painful death.  To the people who run slaughterhouses, that's okay. 

                Do you know what protein meal is?  It's the bits of animals that people don't eat, all mashed together and fed to other animals.  This isn't so bad if the animal is a carnivore.  But can you imagine eating your own kind if you were a vegetarian - say a hen or a cow?

                Don't even get me started on fast food.  In 1960 a serving of McDonalds French fries only had two-hundred calories in it.  Now, fifty-three years later, it has five-hundred.  It has over double the number of calories it had fifty years ago. 

                One of the chemicals in chicken nuggets is a suspected cause of cancer.  Why is that in there?  Chicken nuggets also have lighter fluid either in them or on the box to preserve freshness, but if humans eat too much of it, they'll die.  Six chicken McNuggets contain twice as much fat as a regular hamburger.  Since McDonald's is selling chicken nuggets in twenty packs, it's like they're trying to make people sick. 

                Koalas used to eat more than just eucalyptus leaves.  Now that they only eat one thing, their brains are smaller because they don't have to think about what they eat.  What about humans?  If we eat mostly corn does that mean that our brains will get smaller too?  If it does, will there be a small group of people who didn't just eat processed food and corn who still have a full-sized brain?  What does this mean for the future of humanity?  I don't know. 

                Some "free-range" chickens are kept in a barn for most of their lives, then they have the option to go outside.  But they're already so used to living in the barn that they don't want to go outside.  Often, by seven weeks old-when they're killed-the chickens can't even walk anymore.  Why do people feel okay eating this? 

                Another thing I learned is that only one percent of mushrooms are safe to eat.  Some mushrooms have false mushrooms that look exactly like them but they'll make you sick. 

                I really learned a lot about food when I read this book.  I would recommend it to anyone who's curious about where their food comes from.  

My Kindle Lies

When I was reading Artemis Fowl on my Kindle, I checked to see how long it predicted it would take me to finish the book.  That's just another weird feature my Kindle has.  It said four hours.  Well, I'd be able to finish that in one day!  Four hours later, I hadn't finished it.  I even stayed up really late so I could read it.  The next day I read for an hour.  The next day I read for three and a half hours.  A few days ago I read for about four hours during the day and then a few more hours before I went to bed. 

When I was getting ready for bed, I looked to see how long it would take me to finish the book.  Thirty six minutes.  I almost wanted to read slowly to savor the last thirty-ish pages in the book.  I read really fast after [SPOILER] Butler got attacked by the troll and almost died because I had to see what happened [END SPOILER] but I will admit I considered putting my Kindle in a desk drawer and forgetting about it for three years.  However, I do have a paperback version of the book and nothing could have stopped me from reading it, not even a character almost dying. 

Anyway, I started reading at ten thirty and read until eleven.  I wasn't done.  I wasn't even near done.  I still had twenty seven minutes left.  What?  I had read for half an hour, I should have been nearly done.  At that point I hadn't slept well for a week and I had to go to sleep soon.  But I was reading Artemis Fowl, nothing could have stopped me from finishing it.  Not even sleep.  I even read during meals.  I was unstoppable. 

I read for another half hour.  Not done then, either.  So I read for another hour.  Then, after two hours of almost nonstop reading, I was done. 

So, either I fell asleep sitting up holding my Kindle and didn't notice or move for a about half an hour, or I was daydreaming way more than I realized.  Or I did that thing where it feels like I blink and then it's a few hours later.  I'll never know for sure. 

I've learned a valuable lesson:  If my Kindle says I'll be reading for an hour it actually means four.  Lovely.  Another thing I've learned from this experience is that I need to finish reading the series and I can't stop thinking about it until I do. 

Make sure you remember one thing if you have a Kindle Touch:  They lie. 

From now on I'm only going to be able to trust one thing on my kindle:  Time.  The actual clock time.  And I might not even be able to trust that because after daylight savings time stopped I never got around to resetting the time.  Now my Kindle is a completely unreliable storage unit for virtual books, imaginary books if you will.  At least I still have real books on real paper on a real shelf with a real clock by my bed.  

I want to like it!-Books that just weren't right

Sometimes I need a specific book for a specific mood.  That means that getting books out of the library can be hard because I never know what book I'll want.  My mood can change daily, even hourly.  I can be worse than my cat who asks you to pet her and then turns to kill for doing so.  One day I'll be in the mood for a light happy romance and the next I'll be reading some depressing novel written in poetry.  Here is my list of books I want to like, but just read at the wrong time. 

School Spirit by Elizabeth Cody Kimmel-I want to like it!  I want to like it a lot!  I know so many people who read the series and loved it.  I want to read it and not think about how I could never identify with the main character at all.  EVER.  I found it at a library book sale, and now it has a warm, happy home on my windowsill acting as insulation. 

The Girl Behind the Glass by Jane Kelley-When I found this book on Goodreads, it seemed creepy and exactly like something I would want to read.  I got it from the library and I was even more excited when I found that it was sort of told by the thing (ghost?) that lives in the house!  Exactly like something I'd read and love.  But, as I said, it was sort of told by the thing. At least, I think it was but I don't know.  I didn't finish the book.  I flipped ahead to see how it ended.  That was it.  I was done.  It started to get a little repetitive and I wished it would just wrap it up.  Without me wrapping it up myself. 

The Search for WondLa by Tony DiTerlizzi-This was recommended to me by one of my friends.  I got it at Summer Reading last June.  I read about fifty pages and stopped.  I still haven't picked it up again.  I want to like it.  I really liked the Spiderwick Chronicles when I was six.  And I always want to give books by authors I like a chance.  It has a little too much robots-rule-the-world stuff going on to really catch my attention. 

Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage-(I'm going to try to keep my complaining to three sentences.  Here I go.)  I could not identify with the main characters.  I expected it to be magical, and it wasn't.  I tried to read it twice and I couldn't do it.  (I can't only do three sentences, sorry.)  The main characters stole a boat.  Stole a boat.  I wouldn't do that!  Not in a million years!  Then they returned the boat to the man they stole it from and took the reward.  I'm not anything like them. 

Perhaps someday I will try these books again when the mood strikes me.

A review of The Sinister Sweetness of Splendid Academy by Nikki Loftin.

                After Lorelei's school burned down a new one goes up in almost no time at all.  They think the school burned down because of a wiring issue, but her new teacher Miss Morrigan says something about leaving their ovens on.  (I can't remember if it says that it was wiring or ovens, but I would guess that Miss Morrigan had something to do with it whichever one it was.)   Lorelei's parents don't want to send her across town just to go to school, but what about the new one-Splendid Academy? 

                The school seems perfect-there are bowls of candy that magically refill themselves (awesome if they weren't fattening the kids up), the playground is amazing, the kids give themselves grades, and they can skip classes if they don't like them!  This school is perfectly splendid. 

                But there's a dark side to their new school.  Miss Morrigan teaches not one class, not two classes, but all the classes except music, and there's a secret to the sand.  It isn't what it looks like.  

                The characters in this book were very real.  The preteen girls acted exactly like how preteen girls would act in real life.  They use the same insults, talk about the same things, the girl named Alison even reminded me of someone I knew.  Even Lorelei's relationship with her older brother Bryan seems realistic.

                Lorelei's stepmother, Molly, is truly evil, but not magical.  If she had turned out to be magical I would have been really surprised.  At the wedding Molly was telling someone that she thought it was fate that Lorelei's mother died just so she could be part of their family.    That is an evil thing to say but you don't have to be magical to be nasty.

                In the beginning of the book, it hints at Lorelei's secret.  I immediately wanted to know what it was.  I even considered skimming the rest of the book to see what it was.  (I didn't, though.)  You'll just have to read it to find out for yourself. 

                Even thought this was a great book, it still had some flaws. 

                My mother gave me a new book to read when I was in the middle of this book.  The new book is way better than this one and I wanted to know more about the people from the new book than the ending of this one.  (I don't blame the book for this, though.  I blame my mother but I highly recommend The Ocean at the End of the Lane.) 

                Some people say that love is blind, and in Lorelei's case it was.  Principal Trap treated her better than Molly did, she seemed like she loved her, she seemed almost like a real mother.  Because of this, Lorelei didn't want to face the truth about her.  If it had been me, I would have guessed she was evil, not go back and forth about it. 

                The parents, even though they were told about what was happening at the school, didn't believe Lorelei.  Not that a parent would believe their child if their child were saying all kinds of weird things about their teachers being evil.  But wouldn't they at least wonder where they were getting all of these stories?

I would give this book four stars.  

An open letter to someone who will never read this

Dear acquaintance (I'm sure you would wish to stay anonymous),

I promise to try to make this short, I wouldn't want to waste your time by telling you how terrible you make me feel.  You have so many more important things to think about and do.

You have no idea that you bother me so much.  If you did know, then I think you would have stopped sometime during the three years I've known you, yet you show no signs of stopping anytime soon.  I'm starting to think you like to get on my nerves. 

Unlike all the other letters to people who won't ever read them that I've seen, I'm not going to say that I really do love you.  Unless I become a masochist with an unhealthy love for you, my nemesis.  If I can love my nemesis, I love you.  But since people don't usually love their nemesis, I still wish I never met you. 

Oh, the times I've pictured myself laughing at you and walking away.  *Bliss*  I've wished so many times that I could tell you that you're keeping people away from me.  There's a reason I go out, and it's not too hang out with you. 

But for some reason, I can't help but feel sorry for you.  I'm honestly surprised I'm the only one who feels so bad.  Why wouldn't other, nicer, people feel bad for someone like you?  Probably because you scared them away.  When you find someone who might be nice to you, you tend to get a little clingy.  Who am I kidding?  You get really clingy.  And critical, and overbearing, and downright mean.

You've never once said something nice to me about anything.  Let's take my hair for example.  I love my new haircut but I have a feeling you think "pretty" is the standard view of pretty: Long, curly, blond hair, bright, blue eyes, probably someone who's a couple inches taller than me.  That's fine.  I don't need to be "pretty" to lead a successful and happy life.  Prettiness can fade, looks aren't everything.  I'd like to have green eyes, I'd like to be a few inches taller, but these things don't matter as much as other things. 

I'm not perfect either.  I can be very sarcastic sometimes.  But you don't get it.  Ever.  I'm sure you aren't the only one who thinks I'm a real jerk just because I said something sarcastic.  But nobody's perfect, it doesn't matter.  However, only you feel the need to correct my sarcasm with facts.  It's a joke.  I'm not stupid. 

And just to clarify, a guit-air is a guitar.  And I'd rather you didn't point it out next time.  I've had this speech impediment for my whole life.  When the evil letter 18 (AKA the letter R) is right after the letter A, I can't say it.  I never could, and I'll never be able to say it.  It's only now, thanks to you, that I've become so embarrassed by it. 

But don't worry, my dear, there are still plenty of insults that don't have the offending letter 18.  J

And you might be wondering why I said "my dear" in the last paragraph.  I'm a poet-and "my dear" sounds much more poetic than anything else I might say. 

I still clearly remember the day you looked me in the eye and said there was something weird about me.  Right back at ya!   

The fun part of all of this is that I can write anything about you, and you still won't know who it's about.  I know this is true because I've even read some things about you in front of you.  You didn't get it. 

When I see you, I feel like I have to censor everything I say.  It's not like I say anything bad, but you just can't keep your mouth shut, if I told you something, everyone would know.  Or you would criticize me, correct me, make me feel wrong. 

It's amusing to think about who will read this.  You know about my blog, you never told me if you like it, but you know. 

The next time I see you, you'll probably ask me who it's about.  I'll just say that the person would probably wish to remain anonymous and I wouldn't want to hurt any feelings by pointing fingers at people. 

This is my way of telling you this.  I'll never have the courage to tell you it was you, not even through an email.  And if, somehow, I find it in me to stand up to you and tell you that you're not actually my friend, you won't be listening.  But that's probably for the better.  Does this letter make me mean?  Does it make me bad to spill out my feelings?  Is it wrong to finally crack under the pain of constantly being put down by someone who calls you her friend?  I've said nothing for three years.  Swallowed all that you had to give.  I think I'm full up now.

Well, I promised to keep this short, and it's getting pretty long.  I don't want to waste your time by talking about my feelings. 

Just remember, when you ask who it is, I won't point fingers.  I wouldn't want to be like you. 

"The next time you point a finger, I'll point you to the mirror."

Paramore, Playing God.  

How to Tell if Your Best Friend is Supernatural

With all of the teen fiction about supernatural friends, crushes, and enemies out there today, you may wonder if these things have a basis in reality.  And if so, is your neighbor a vampire?  Is your mother a werewolf?  Is your BFF a zombie?  Are you in love with a mermaid?  Is your favorite teacher an angel?  Here I present a quick and easy guide to spotting the weirdly supernatural in your friends and enemies. 

                If your friend doesn't like to go out in the sun, has strangely red lips, teeth that seem to grow before your eyes, and always seemed slightly evil, they are probably a vampire.  Up the odds if they have sparkly skin.  (Or, like me, your friend is just very pale and likes to wear a lot of makeup.)

                If your friend is loved by everyone, always happy, and can sometimes predict the future, they're probably an angel.  (Or they might just be really popular and make a lot of lucky guesses.)

                If your friend smells like rotting corpses, has a greenish tint to their skin, and has an unhealthy interest in brains-mostly human ones-they're probably a zombie, or some other undead thing.  (Or they might just need some perfume and a better hobby.  Ideas on these lines would make a great birthday present.)

                If your friend is an unnaturally good swimmer, has a beautiful singing voice, and seems to be able to breathe underwater-or just stay under water for a very long time- they're probably a mermaid or other sea-being.  (Or they just took voice lessons and like to swim.)

                If your friend is strangely absent from most things for a couple days of every month-mostly when the moon is full-and they love dogs, they're probably a werewolf.  (Or they just like dogs, and-for some reason or another-they're always busy around the full moon.)

                If your friend is sort of see-through, rarely opens doors, and likes to talk about ghosts or times from long ago, they're probably a ghost or spirit.  (Or they have a germ obsession and long for the good old days when we could live in ignorance of the tiny bugs plotting our demise.) 

                If your friend has any combination of the above symptoms, they are a mutant supernatural.  No one really knows what/who they are, and it's probably best not to ask them about it.  (Or they could just be a teenager.  It happens.)

                According to this, I'm a vampire.  A vampire who doesn't like any of the many books about vampires I got from the library.  I'd rather be a mermaid.

                Once you identify the supernatural make-up of your friends, it's best not to tell them.  Because, whether or not they turn out to be supernatural, they will identify you as crazy. 

                P.S.  It's probably best not to make anything with garlic to feed to anyone who may be a vampire, never give silver jewelry to your werewolf friends, and never urge your ghost friends to head toward the light.  But feel free to use one or more of these for your enemies.  

That Stupid Girly Whisper Thing

Most teen and preteen girls probably know exactly what I mean.  If you even dare to do something different, like, oh, I dunno, carrying a plastic food-storage bag full of neon pink wool around in your bag, some popular girl will laugh at you.

                I am very sorry to say that I am guilty of carrying that aforementioned plastic food-storage bag of wool in my book bag. 

                There is nothing better than being able to say that the sweater I crocheted is made out of one hundred percent personally hand-spun wool.  And I love nothing better than to be able to do something that few others can do.  This should be a common occurrence in the knit/crochet community.  Spinning rocks!

                Perhaps my situation is more peculiar to the outsider when right next to that bag o' wool I have a homemade spindle.  I have to admit that the spindle is lopsided and doesn't spin right, and the wool catches on the unsanded edges of the wood.  But my father made that spindle for me, and I love it. 

                I don't spin because I'm some strange and mysterious person.  I don't spin because I have to.  I spin because I'm bored.  When someone's talking to me at the library I could be seen spinning.  When I'm waiting for something to be done, I'm spinning. 

                When I'm at the library, about to go to a library movie night, just waiting for it to finish being set up, I will be spinning.  And there you go.  I've come to my complaint. 

                When two seemingly popular girls are waiting too, and you pull out your lopsided spindle and plastic bag of wool, they have to laugh at you.  It's in their social contract.  What else would they do to pass the time other than laugh at someone who's doing something productive?  If they haven't noticed, when I'm done I'll have a nice pink ball of wool.  When they're done texting their friends about the weird girl with a sheep in her bag, they will have absolutely nothing but bad karma. 

                I was starting to get a little uncomfortable with the whole situation.  They were texting someone on their phones-probably all of their equally-popular-non-spinning friends telling them what a weirdo they had to wait with-and I was spinning away.  So then I decided to break the ice by saying something funny.  My list of wool-related jokes is not very long, so I said the first slightly funny thing that popped into my head.  "I'm the only person I know who carries a sheep around in her bag."  I thought it was great.  The best wool-themed joke I have ever come up with. 

                But did they feel the same?  Heck no!  They looked at me like I had an extremely catchy case of consumption-clearly the malady of choice for people whose  hobbies are still stuck in the 18th century.  They might have even taken a couple of steps back.  I honestly wouldn't have been surprised to hear them say something like, "That short girl with a bag of pink lint is trying to communicate with us." 

                I wouldn't have cared so much when they didn't laugh at my sheep joke if they didn't have to whisper and giggle behind their hands, all while obviously looking at me out of the corner of their eyes. 

                So, from now on, I won't waste my wool-related humor on people whose interests are dictated by the most popular person in the group and limited to OMG and LOL.  I'll just share my jokes with people who actually think that wool-humor is the best thing ever. 

                At least I can feel sort of happy that, even though I was laughed at, I will still have a nice fuzzy pink ball of yarn and all they'll have is a couple of texts.    

Books I've given up on.

These are all of the books I tried to read but just couldn't get through:

Mean Girls, Facing Your Beauty Turned Beast by Hayley DiMarco.  Page I stopped reading:  22.

Meridian by Amber Kizer.  Page I stopped reading:  43.  I'm still trying to read it but I don't think I'll be able to get through much more.

Uglies by Scott Westerfeld.  Page I stopped reading:  121.  I really want to like it, I just can't really get into it.

A review of Deadtime Stories the Witching Game by Annette Cascone and Gina Cascone

In the description of this book it promised to "give you more than goose bumps."  That couldn't be further from the truth.  At best, this book was mildly creepy.  A ghostly woman who loves to kill people is trapped in a mirror for, probably, the rest of time and is accidentally let out by a bunch of kids who have no idea about old creepy mirrors OR ghosts of any kind. Really people?  For someone who, like me, loves to have terrible nightmares after they read a horror story this book would be like a walk in the park making daisy chains and singing about fluffy pink ponies.  No, this book was not what I wanted.  

            According to Goodreads 70% of people liked this book.  I looked as hard as I could but there were no one star reviews, and only two people rated it one star without giving a review.  One of those people was me.  

            So what's really so bad about it?  Was it the poor writing style?  What about the underdeveloped characters?  Or maybe it was the predictable, bland plotline that was more like an episode of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic than a real book.  Would you like me to go on?  Didn't think so.  *sigh*  Children these days just aren't into the kind of horror they should be.  If they want something really scary that will really give them nightmares they should read Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke, or anything by Stephen King if they want to read from the best.  I would recommend Goosebumps by R.L. Stine before I would recommend this.  And I don't like Goosebumps. 

            Don't even get me started on the graveyard scene!  I read that part alone, at night, in the dark, and I was bored.  Does every boring kids' ghost story have this predictable graveyard scene?  From what I've seen, yes, it does. 

            As you can see, I am seriously disappointed with this book.  With a name like Deadtime Stories and a picture like the one that was on the cover this should be the kind of book that left me shivering under my fuzziest blankets.  But it didn't.  It was more like reading a cute book about bunnies and cupcakes, not Bloody Mary.

            And now we come to my next complaint.  The real Bloody Mary wasn't the person from Deadtime Stories - she was Mary Tudor, Queen of England before Elizabeth I, known for her bloody executions of those who opposed her.  If you're going to write a book about someone named Bloody Mary at least do your research. 

            And did anyone else notice how much this book was like Coraline?  Creepy things, being trapped in another world-like place, having to battle the evil thing in the end but knowing it will come back someday to get you.  If I knew how much this book was like Coraline (a really creepy and well-written book) I would have just read that, I wouldn't have wasted my time on this book. 

            Because of all of the problems listed above I will rate this book a half star.  Wait, one star is the lowest I can go?  Really?!  Okay, one star.  BUT it's the lowest one star rating any book has ever gotten.  

I watch too much Doctor Who.

Two days ago, I was watching the newest episode of Ant Farm.  In this episode, Chyna travels back in time to 1986.  I love time travel and was excited that they had something like that.  When Chyna tries to go back home she finds that the time machine is broken.  Because of this, she's forced to stay there.  In the present time, Olive and Fletcher are waiting for Chyna.  Then the older Chyna comes in.  She explains to them what happened and why she didn't return as the young Chyna.  Somehow they've had a time machine in some closet all this time and they just bring it out and fix it.  A real time machine wouldn't be fixed so easily.  How would they even know how to start fixing the time machine!?  The technology is still years and years away!  I was okay with that, I guess.  It's a Disney channel TV show, it's pretty obvious that everything will turn out fine.
I'm going to pretend that it's normal to fix a time machine that was stuck in a closet for thirty years and keep going.
The time machine was fixed and all they needed was someone to go back in time and break the original time machine before it could go into the future.  Of course, while Olive is saying how they need someone disposable whom nobody cares about I can't help thinking that she's going to suggest that Fletcher is the one to go.  I was right.  The old Chyna says that she'll go.  This would actually work because if the time machine was destroyed then Chyna never would have gone back in the first place.  Because of that the old Chyna would disappear.
For a while everything worked out well.  Chyna was back and all the other ANTs were happy.  That was when the really, really old Chyna came.  She told everyone how she couldn't go forward in time because the time machine was broken, so she had to live there again.  This isn't possible!  How could the old Chyna even exist if young Chyna never went back?!
Am I wrong?  The older Chyna shouldn't exist, so why is she there?  Maybe she's actually an evil alien determined to take over the world!  The writers for Disney channel need to watch more Doctor Who.

Top ten best books so far this year!

This is my list of the ten best books for the first half of 2013.  

10.  The Name of This Book is Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch

9.  Doll Bones by Holly Black

8.  The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann.

7.  The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente

6.  May Bird and the Ever After by Jodi Lynn Anderson

5.  The Undrowned Child by Michelle Lovric

4.  Wish by Beth Bracken and Kay Fraser

3.  The Books of Elsewhere, The Shadows by Jacqueline West

2.  Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke

1.  Reckless by Cornelia Funke 

A review of Doll Bones by Holly Black.

I liked this book.  I thought it might have needed more emotion, a little less action, more explanation, and it would have been much better it there was an epilogue.  Overall, though, I liked it.  

            Some bits of the book were totally awesome:

            *there was a creepy doll made of a little girl's corpse

            *the main characters had to go on a creepy quest to Ohio

            *the doll could move and do things that were so creepy!

            There were also things that could have been improved.

            There could have been more explanations: Why did some people see the doll (known as the Queen) as a real person?  For instance, in the diner ("Table for four?"),  and on the bus ("I'm not talking to your blond friend!"), and at the donut place (I can't remember the quote, but what the man said was something close to, "Your blond friend looks hungry, here's a donut.")  The man on the bus could have been crazy, it wouldn't surprise me.  After all, he was talking about aliens.  Then there was the man at the donut shop.  It didn't seem like he was kidding, and if he was, he was really convincing.  What about the lady at the diner?  Did she really think the Queen was a person?  Who knows and, without the author explaining, we will never know.  

            There was maybe too much action.  I know that the main character was a boy, and in boy books there tends to be more action than emotion, but with two-thirds of the main characters being girls, it would have better with more emotion. 

            It wasn't exactly clear who was the main character.  I think it was Zach.  Alice and Poppy were just his friends.

            The book left many questions unanswered. 

            Was it the Queen who wrecked their campsite?  (I would say yes, but I would love if there was something paranormal.)

            Were the people just pretending that they thought the doll was real?  (The guy on the bus was crazy, no question about that, but what about the other people?  The world may never know...)

            How did the Queen get into the girl's bathroom trashcan?  Did Poppy really just go to the bathroom and leave the doll there by accident?  I would hope that the doll moved, but, if she didn't wreck the campsite, I would have to say that she was left in the bathroom.

            Why did Eleanor's (the Queen's) father turn her body into a doll!?  (If he really missed her so much he should have given her a proper burial.)

            The first 160 pages went by very slowly.  The last thirty pages rushed by so fast it didn't make sense!  

            I guess I couldn't really identify with anyone.  The characters all either ran away from home, stole, or told each other's secrets like they were nothing!  I found all of these traits to be out of character for me so much that I couldn't really relate to people who acted that way.

            I liked the book.  It wasn't the creepiest horror novel I've ever read, but it wasn't the worst.

             Three and a half stars.  Four if there's a sequel with all the secrets revealed. 

I'm doing a poetry reading at the library tonight!  Wish me luck!

A book review of The Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

For some books, it's a better read the first time.  This is one of those books.  I like the series, but I don't love them.  This wouldn't be a good series for anyone nine and under.  It discusses kissing and dating and stuff like that - young children would find that gross.  (Even I found the kissing really gross and I'm twelve.)  I read the first book a year ago and I thought it was okay.  I have trouble identifying with Mia because she's so unlike me.  Mia is boy-crazy and she goes on (and on and on and on) about stuff that could be covered in a sentence or, at most, a paragraph.  (I understand that figuring out you're a princess would be hard, but why not even tell your best friend?)  The most annoying part was that Mia never said no.  She could have said no to her grandmother sending her to a salon and forcing her to have a makeover.  She could have said so many simple things that would have stopped all her misery.  But, of course, if that happened we wouldn't have a story, would we?

                        I read the first four books and then got bored with the series.  How many books can there be in a series before they start to get repetitive?  Even those four books were sort of boring.  It always turned out that someone had the thing they needed to save the day or just at the right time someone did something and everything was great. 

                        These books are okay, but, for once, I liked the movie better than the book.

                        I would recommend this to people who want a light read. 

                        Three out of five stars.

A book review of The Peculiar by Stefan Bachmann

This was such an amazing book.  It was very magical but was still set in our world. 

            In the book, all of the changelings are disappearing and showing up dead-and hollow-in the river.  Nine changeling children so far have suffered this fate.  The main character, Bartholomew, looks close enough to a human, but his sister, Hettie has branches for hair.  One day, the changeling across the street from Bartholomew gets taken by a lady in a plum-colored dress.  She leaves only a circle on the ground.  When Bartholomew steps into the circle, he is taken to another place.  When he gets back home, he has strange marks on his arms. 

            The book could have been written a little better:  There could have been more details in some places and the plot didn't have to move so fast. 

            Some reviews of this book said that it was "dark" and "not for children."  It was dark.  It was very dark sometimes.  That doesn't mean that it isn't for children!  

            I would recommend this book to anyone who loves magic, dark fairies, and adventure. 

Five out of five stars.  

A review of Remembering Raquel by Vivian Vande Velde

The cover of this book is very up-beat and cheerful-red background, white butterflies, and bold, black, curly lettering.  The book is the opposite.  The entire book is sort of disconnected.  The stories of how the people did, or didn't, know Raquel are good separately but not together.  It also lacked the page-turner quality that is so important in books.  The part of the book that I really liked was Raquel's blog:  She talked about becoming a crazy cat lady and about how no one would ask her to the dance.  It's still depressing but it's the cheeriest part of the book.  Through the book, everyone is wandering the same thing.  Did Raquel not see the car?  Was she pushed? Or did she knowingly step in front of the car?  In the end, the question of what happened isn't answered.  There really isn't a conclusion or someone saying that they figured out what really happened.  I know that in everyday life you don't know what happens and sometimes you just have to pick the ending you like best, but this could have been wrapped up a little better.

            The book wasn't bad but it wasn't good either. 

            Two out of five stars.

A review of Princess For Hire by Lindsey Leavitt.

This is the kind of book where you always get something from reading it.  That is, you get something the first time you read it.  What I got from it was that it's cool to be you but it's fun to try on someone else's personality or live someone else's life.  I'm guessing that isn't what everyone else was getting.  It was an okay book, a little too predictable for my taste.  In the book Desi Bascomb is miserable at her job (she works at a pet store and-when the book starts-is humiliated by her worst enemy).  One night, while taking a bath, she's looking through the job section in the newspaper when she sees an ad in bright colors that stands out from the plain black and white of all the rest.  At the bottom of the ad, it said, "Call Meredith" but it has no phone number, so she calls Meredith and throws the paper across the room.  Suddenly Meredith appears.  And so, the story really begins.  I tried reading it again, thinking it was really good the first time.  Maybe I should have waited longer, maybe I just wasn't in the right mood to read it again.  My main problem with it was that it's a page turner, don't get me wrong that's great when you read it the first time, but the second time you pretty much remember every word of it so you don’t have the same excitement to read the next page.  It had a sort of boring ending.  Desi is in a dunk tank for work (there's a festival and she's the person getting dunked even though she didn't want to do it in the first place) and, right as she's dunked, she thinks she's drowning.  Meredith comes and takes her away.  That's not the end of the book but the timing is too good to be true.

            Over all it was good, I got what I wanted from it and that's all that matters to me.

            Three out of five stars.  

A review of The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall by Mary Downing Hahn

            In The Ghost of Crutchfield Hall, a twelve year old girl named Florence leaves the orphanage that she was living at to go to Crutchfield Hall where she believes she will live a happy life. 

Here are some problems I had with the book:

On the back of the book it says, "Uncle said the dead did not return.  He was wrong."  This is a truly creepy sentence.   But was the ghost creepy?  No.

 It says that Sophia, the ghost, can easily glide through things, but then she can help make a snowman.  This does not make any sense.

Florence wants to befriend the ghost.  I can't criticize very much as I would try to befriend anything other worldly.  However, Florence seems very proper and well-behaved.  Someone who doesn't seem like she would befriend anything the slightest bit creepy.

The book says that Florence and Sophia look nothing alike but they are mistaken for each other 2 or 3 times.  The day she arrived, Florence's aunt thought she was Sophia.  Another time, Florence was wearing Sophia's dress and again her aunt thought she was Sophia.  If they didn't look alike then Florence should never have been mistaken for Sophia. 

Finally, Florence does not think for herself.  She will do ANYTHING the ghost has her do.  If she is really a twelve year old girl she should be thinking for herself.  Maybe this wasn't encouraged at the orphanage so she doesn't have experience with it.  If Florence had fought against Sophia, Sophia would have become something much more creepy and menacing.   If Florence fought back, the book would have been much better.

If you are wanting a truly creepy book this one is not for you.

A book review of Real Mermaids Don’t Wear Toe Rings by Helene Boudreau.

            The first time I saw this book was at the library.  It looked really good so I checked it out, unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to finish more than half of it.  Later that year I saw it, and the sequel Real Mermaids Don’t Hold Their Breath, at a book store so I bought both of them.  I started the first one right away and finished it in less than a week.  It kept me reading which I liked, it had a fast pace, and the main character Jade is very easy to identify with. These are all things I liked. 

            What I didn't like is the last chapter.  After Jade saves her mother from the Freshies (mermaids that live in fresh water not salt water) everything is back to normal, almost.  She still has the problem of her being mother a mermaid and everyone thinking that she's dead; Jade is a mermaid, too; her BFF Cory is hanging out with a girl who thinks Jade is nothing more than a piece of trash.  In the end, Cory realizes the error of her ways and apologizes to Jade for ignoring her, sort of predictable but it was cute.  The pool party that Cory had been planning for the entire book was actually a surprise birthday pool party for Jade.  Jade's crush Luke was invited as a special guest and Jade is very happy.  She finds that he is a mermaid too and that he likes her too.  There is a lot of kissing in the end that might disturb some children and the stuff about getting periods and other more mature things might be lost on a younger child. 

            Over all this is a cute book.  But if you want something with more depth and personality to the characters then read The Tail of Emily Windsnap by Liz Kessler.

            Three out of five stars.