Friday Wrap-Up

I've decided that on Fridays I'm going to do what I call a wrap-up...I'll think of a more creative title later. Anyway, I'm going to give a brief summary of what I did, read, etc. during the week. I can't commit to doing this every Friday though. I'm kind of a busy person. But here goes...

Alrighty, so let's start with my week. This was the first week back from Spring Break, so most of us were still on vacation mode. Aaand since Charleston decided to be crappy and rainy while I was there last week, I felt unusually white this week...it was embarrassing. It's hard to believe I was just halfway across the country a week ago! I was a bit lazy and a huuuge procrastinator this week. Wait, that's nothing new. Forget that last line. I had rehearsal for the passion play at my church coming up on Palm Sunday. I'm so excited to be the whitest middle-eastern character ever! Ugh, I need a tan. So then the highlight of my week was White Sox opening day. My family kind of revolves around the Sox during baseball season. And no, that is NOT a good thing...not if you've ever seen anybody like my dad when he watches games. But I got to skip school yesterday for it. Don't worry, my dad actually told the principal at a luncheon a few weeks ago that this was happening. But I missed musical rehearsal and my director got really mad...oh well. I sat in the suites with Maggie and it was pretty awesome. It was soooo foggy but it was a great game. I think she may have been embarrassed by my screaming though...hehe.

Okay, to the books. I read three books this week: The Last Song by Nicholas Sparks, Extraordinary by Nancy Werlin, and The Arrival by Shaun Tan. None of them were really too exciting. I gave The Last Song a four out of five stars ONLY because of the story line. I am not a fan of Nicholas Sparks, sorry. I know that's shocking because everybody loves his books, but I simply don't hold onto his writing when I read books he's written. I'm not much of a sappy kind of person, not in reading at least. So it wasn't a huge favorite of mine. But I think the story line he has is the most realistic of all the books he's done, with A Walk to Remember coming in a close second. I give him props for having kept onto this many fans this long, though.

Next was The Arrival. Now this book was a little bit different than other books I've read because it was all pictures. I've read two others like this-Persepolis by Marjane Sitrapi and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. But this was STILL unlike them in that it included no words, at all. The story was about coming to new places, togetherness, and how everybody's stories connect. I gave it a four out of five stars because I simply loved the idea of all pictures, giving it a challenge; as well as the illustrations because they were soooo good! I had to read this book for English so I put post-it notes on certain pictures and pages to make note of what exactly what was happening.

Last was Extraordinary. Okay, I'll be honest. I went in with low expectations on this book not only because I don't like fantasy too much, but also because I had read sooo many bad reviews on it....and they were all right! It was terrible! These two faeries come onto earth looking like people and try to get a girl, Phoebe, to admit that she was ordinary. In order to attain this, they continuously cut her down..and then put her mom in a coma! It sounds dumb...and weird. And it was. I gave it a two out of five stars simply because I could have written better than that, even when I was in middle school! The author's continuous use of the word also sounded so unrealistic in dialogue and made her seem like she was unable to find other words like also. Terrible writing! But once again, I give her props for trying. Aaaaaaand. The end.