The Mortal Instruments

So, I’ve talked a lot about books that I’ve recently read and movies that I’ve recently seen, but this time I’m going to tell you about my favorite book series. This book series is The Mortal Instruments, written by Cassandra Clare. There are 7 (I think) books in the series and I’m trying to finish the very last one now. To be honest though, I’ve been trying to finish it for about a year now… Oops. The reason is because I really don’t want to finish the last one because I don’t want the series to be over yet. I’ve connected with the characters so much that I feel when I finish this book, it’ll just be over. Have you ever had that feeling? It’s like a part of me will be over when I finish it.

                I really like this series because it’s nothing like I expected it to be. My best friend told me to read it and at first I was like “um, okay? What’s it about?” and when she told me that it was about vampires and all these mythical creatures I instantly was like “you have got to be kidding me?’. Then she reassured me that it was better than I was thinking. When I started it, I couldn’t put it down.

                I think the reason I liked it so much was because you could never predict what was going to happen next. I really love books like that because it makes you never want to put the book down. It makes it a real page turner. It’s one of those books that you could sit down with some hot cocoa and a blanket and only intend to read for an hour but end up reading for 3.

                I can never decide which book is my favorite because each one has their own twist and turns which make each one majorly different from the others. For example, in one, you find out that 2 people are siblings but they don’t want to be because they love each other and then in the next book, they have to try and separate themselves because it’s too hard for them to be together and in the next book, you learn that they aren’t really siblings so they did all this avoiding each other for nothing. That is probably my favorite part of the plot is trying to figure out how their relationship has developed through the books.

                My goal for my Christmas break is to finish this last book so I can reread all the books again and hopefully relive the stories again. When I finish it, I’ll probably write about it and let you all know what I thought!

Cinderella Man

In my United States History class, we are watching Cinderella Man so we can see how the Great Depression impacted individuals everywhere. I thought it did a great job at showing how everyone was affected and what it might have been like. When I was watching some parts, I almost had a feeling of guilt for how much I take for granted on a daily basis and how much harder it actually could be. In other parts, I felt scared or worried for if it were to happen again (which it probably won’t, but still).

My favorite parts of the movie are watching the fighting scenes, which may sound a little weird and crazy but watching them and seeing the main character, James J. Braddock, I saw how much he really liked fighting and how much he needed this so he could provide for his family. It showed him doing anything and everything to make sure that his family was taken care of and that they were happy. Another part that I really enjoyed was the part when he had to go get the relief check from the bank so that he could get his kids back and so that he could keep his family together. Watching that part was so sweet because it really showed how much he cared about them and it also showed how he wanted to keep his family together at all costs because that was important to him.

                My least favorite part in it was when his wife, Mae, sent the kids away without consulting with him first. I didn’t like this part because it kind of showed a little bit of giving up, even though I completely understand why she did it. It made me sad because when James got home and saw that his kids weren’t there, he had a look of complete anger and confusion because he thought that him and his wife were going to talk about every decision that they were going to make and when they didn’t, he thought it was her giving up and he wasn’t quite ready to give up yet. This part showed me that there were a lot of things that people would do to try and keep their families safe no matter how hard the decision is to do it. It also showed me how some people would just give up when things got hard and how other people would try everything to keep safe and try and salvage what they had left.

                If you have not seen this movie, I would highly suggest you do because it truly is fantastic, and it really shows you how hard people worked to save their families during the Great Depression.

Christmas Movies

                You know what is great about this time of year? I think it would be watching all the holiday movies. I don’t just love watching the movies because they are cute little Christmas movies, but because they also show super big lessons everyone should follow.

                One major lesson that could be taken out of any movie is to be grateful for everything you are given and don’t wish something away because it could all change in a matter of a day. For example in the movie, “The Family Man”, a man who is very ungrateful for everything he is given is given a lesson in gratefulness.  He is shown what his life would be like if he would have married his high school sweetheart and how his life would be so much different. In this new life, he is shown that he has so many more responsibilities and so many more people relying on him to take care of them. This is a great lesson to learn because, especially around the holiday time, is a time of giving and that always brings out the gratefulness in everyone. However, I believe that we should not only be grateful during the holiday season, we should do it all the time.

                Another great thing about watching holiday movies is that I think it brings people together because there is always that one move that the whole family can just sit down and watch and enjoy together. My family holiday movie is “A Christmas Story” because my family and I watch it every year and its one time during the year where we are all in the same room, watching and laughing together.

                I love Christmas movies so much and I can’t wait to watch them all over my holiday break and spend some quality time with my family and friends!

Beautiful Boy

                Have you ever wondered what it would be like to love someone who has done something terrible that could very easily jeopardize their life drastically? Well as I have learned in the novel I’m in the middle of reading right now, there are many families going through this. This terrible thing I’m talking about is drug addiction. Drug addiction is a scary thing for me to think about because it’s yourself harming your body and I hate the thought of that. I always have and reading this novel Beautiful Boy it makes me realize how hard it would be to have to deal with this. It makes me realize how hard it would be to still trust someone after hearing someone you have trusted for so long has been lying to you, like in the story of Nic in Beautiful Boy.

                Even though I’m not super far in the novel Beautiful Boy, I already really how it’s written because when I read it, I feel like I’m standing in the background watching it happen rather than reading it. I think by writing in that way, readers are able to fully grasp how the characters are feeling. This novel is also written in the point of view of the father, so the readers get a different perspective on how its affecting his son rather than just seeing how Nic (the son) is dealing with it. Parents are always going to have a different reaction to everything compared to their children, so writing it in the perspective of the father and how he has to deal with his son change has a bigger effect. I think it does because parents are always watch their child and they know everything about them and the second they notice something different, they question what happened. Also, I’m pretty sure that when people become parents, they gain some kind of special super power that allows them to know everything so before children get in trouble parents are able to think about what is going to happen in the end so they how to deal with it.

                So far in the story, the relationship between Nic and his father is the kind where the parents trust the children and don’t meddle in their personal lives. I think that gave Nic an open opportunity to go out and try new things because he wasn’t getting a lot of pressure put on him to stay away from it. It makes me wonder what would have happened if his parents would have been harder on him when they first found out, instead of how they actually reacted, being all calm and telling him to stay away from it because it was bad. I know that if I would ever try drugs (which by the way, I’m never going to) my parents would ground me for life and never let me out of the house. I feel like they would also be very disappointed in me, which for me, would be the hardest part to handle.

                I cant wait to read more of this and figure out what was going through Nics head when he decided he wanted to keep doing drugs. I’ll probably write another blog post on this book when I read more! So until then, later lovely people!:)

Looking for Alaska

                For my first blog post about books, I kind of wanted to start of a little easier to gain the feel for this kind of thing. To start, I wanted to talk about my favorite book of all time, Looking for Alaska by John Green.

                This is my favorite book by far for many, many reasons. The first reason is I love the way it is written and formatted. I just think the way John Green laid out the book was genius because he just starts the story and you are just thrown into the story of Miles’ boring, uneventful life. That is until he meets some friends who are about to change his life forever. When he meets these incredible people, his life is suddenly changed from boring to crazy and unpredictable.

                I think that was perfect because it describes how life is for most everyone. Most people are just living life and suddenly something changes and then you have to change to compensate for that major change. Once you get settled in that new life, something else changes. Without change everything would be the same and it would all be boring.

                I also really like the fact that I couldn’t really predict what was going to happen next. In most other books I read, I can normally predict that the girl is going to end up with the guy, or the good guy is going to die before the villain is killed. However, in this, what I predicted to happen, happened really early in the novel and it confused me because I didn’t know what else could happen. I thought that was fantastic in because it kept me fully engaged in the read and I never wanted to put it down.

                One last thing I loved about this book, is the way it sounded in my head when I read it. When I read it, it wasn’t one of those “grammatically perfect” languages. It was more of the language I would use when I’m talking which made it easier to pick up on and kept me more engaged than if it was just plainly telling the story. Green made you really feel like you were Miles while reading it, just because of the way he used “I” and “we” when he was talking about Miles going out with friends, and when I read those parts I got goose bumps. I still do get goose bumps every time I read or think about it because it just made me realize many things, such as don’t take anything for granted because one moment, it could be there and the next it could be gone.  

New Topic...What?!

Hola fellow bloggers! I would like to inform you all that I have decide to change my blog topic. Now before anyone objects to this change, I would like to tell you the reasons why.

The main reason I wanted to change my topic was because I was struggling to find a topic each time. I was actually getting quite frustrated about this because there are so many interesting psychological topics to talk about. However, there was never one that I could stick with and keep researching and stay with, which got really confusing for me after a while. Another reason is I would really like to try exploring another path of analyzing and thinking that is different than a science base. Don’t get me wrong, science is still my favorite subject to study and it will probably make some more reoccurring appearances in my posts, but I think I would like to switch to reviewing books and movies because I believe that I will always have my own opinion on the book, no matter how many times I read the book or watch the movie. Another really interesting think about doing my blog about books and movies is that when there is a movie made from a book, or a book made from a movie, there is always something to talk about regarding how similar or different they are. And by the way, the book will always be better.

One more plus about doing my blog about books and movies is that it will challenge me to read more and watch movies more. By doing this, I can also work on my comparing and contrasting skills. I would say that is a good thing because, as of right now, I find it kind of hard when im trying to relate something to something else because I haven’t taken the time to expand my thinking outside of the “typical” reading selections for teenagers. By reading more, I would be able to expand my thinking and hopefully that would make me a more studious student and it will help me in all aspects of school, not just language arts.

I hope everyone is alright with this change, because like I said, there might still be some sprinkles of science and psychology because I’m still not quite ready to give that up yet. Happy reading!