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.