One For the Murphys

This week I read One for The Murphys by Linda Mullaly Hunt. This book was AMAZING. I love reading and all of that stuff, but I don't normally care about the characters or stuff like that, and get connected to the characters as much as I did for this book, but it was AMAZING. This book is about a twelve year old girl named Carley Connors, who after getting abused by her mom and stepdad, gets put into foster care and into a house that almost seem too perfect. Carley makes new friends at school, and even starts to fit into the family, and enjoy it. But then she hear from her mother, and her life is basically torn apart. She has to choose; if she even has a choice; between her new adoptive family, the Murphy's, and her mom.
This was the best book EVER!!!I seriously connected to it, and it also was one of the SADDEST books that I read ever. You all really should read it, especially if you're a girl, because you'll connect to it more, but if you're a guy too. This was one of, if not the best, books I've ever read, and definitely the best one I've read all year. The last scene is so SAD!!!
Yeah, y'all should read it.

The Grandmaster

This week I read Grandmaster by David Klass. This book was about a freshman in high school, named Daniel Pratzer, who decides to join the chess team, although he's not great at it at all. Daniel is about the most normal kid in the world, he's basically ignored at school, his parents are the most boring people ever, and his sister is just being a normal girl in middle school. When two of the most popular and good chess players at his school ask him to come to a father/son competition, he wonders why, considering he's so unpopular, such a bad player, and as far as he knows his dad has never picked up a chess piece in his life. He then finds out that his dad used to be a Grandmaster, the highest ranking a player can be. Throughout the tournament, Daniel tries to figure out why his father quit chess, why he hid it from his family, and learns more about himself too. This was a really good book. I SUCK at chess, and I still really enjoyed it; I might have gotten some of the references more if I did like chess, but you don't have to know a lot about it in order to read this book. Overall, it was really good and not a hard read, it took me less than a day to read the whole thing, partly because I like it so much. Overall, I would recommend this book to a lot of people; it was great.

Endangered

This week I read Endangered by Eliot Schrefer. This book is about a girl named Sophie, from the Congo, who every summer visits her mom's Bonobo (they're a type of gorilla) sanctuary in the Congo. She isn't very happy to be there, until she finds a Bonobo that she names Otto. With Otto, Sophie manages to survive living with her mom for a while, until the Congo splits into a civil-war -type-thing, and her sanctuary gets attacked and torn apart. Sophie has to learn how to survive in the Congo, and has to decide if she will risk her life and possibly give it up for Otto, as well as who to trust. First of all, I have to say that this book is amazing. Second, since it was good I'm able to be picky about some of it, basically. One thing that REALLY bothered me about the book was that the emotions of the characters were all screwed up. I felt like some of the most exciting/traumatic/sad scenes were the ones the characters cared about the least. You really get to know Sophie at the beginning, but I feel like in the most climatic scenes in the book, she kind of got shut down. It made by care about the plotline, the book, and the characters less. One great thing about this book (well, in perspective) is that you actually learned something while reading it, about the Congo, Bonobos, Whatever. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it to a lot of people. It's about 350 pages, and not too hard to read. It might be a good book to bring on the overnight.

Jane Eyre

This week I read Jane Eyre. Honestly, I started reading this over break because it was the only book that I had in Washington DC. I then quit reading it because, as I had said before, I only had read the first three pages and was severely bored. Last week I kinda picked it up again and decided to give it a try. Now let me clarify; this is NOT the type of book that I normally read at all. But I thought that it was all classic or whatever and I might at least give it a try. And I did. And surprisingly... wait for it...It was actually kind of good. Jane Eyre is about a person named Jane Eyre, and it kind of follows her life and her time being a governess for these people. It does not have a lot of action in it, but the characters are pretty developed too. Overall, I would recommend this book to anybody who wants to try reading a so-called "classic" book. This book, as well as being a classic, is also pretty good so- there you go.

Carrie

This week I read Carrie  by Stephen King. This book is about a shy girl named Carrie in high school, who gets picked on by other people in high school, and abused by her very-messed-up-mother. She discovers that she has powers like telekinesis. After a couple of incidents of being picked on, in a gym bathroom and at the prom, she uses this to destroy or harm, or at least scare all her bullies. In my opinion, this book was messed up. I mean, I don't read a lot of horror books, if that's what you would classify this as, but I honestly didn't really like it. If you're going to have a horror story, I feel like there should be some suspense, and I didn't get any. I thought that the writing was great, but the plot line was just ok and the ending was kind of messed up. There was a lot of killing, really unneeded violence,  and a lot of weird stuff, (sheep's blood at a high school, for example. Really?). I think that this book was great, in terms of writing, and I would recommend it to anyone in our class who want to read a horror book with, in my opinion, not a lot of suspense, but the book was a little messed up in my opinion. There are some mature topics, if not a lot, and a lot violence and killing, so consider that before reading it. Overall, this book was fine, but not the right book for me.

Every Soul A Star

In the last couple weeks (and spring break!) I read Every Soul A Star,   by Wendy Mass. This book was awesome, actually. The book switched between the main viewpoint of three characters; Ally, Jack, and Bree, who each could not be more different from one another. Ally has spent her whole life being homeschooled on her family's camp/motel type thing, in the middle of nowhere, called The Moon Shadow, Bree is super-popular and pretty, wanting to be a model when she grows up, and Jack is kind of an outcast at school with no self-confidence at all. They all meet each other after surprising events force them to work together. This book was really good. I love Wendy Mass books, especially A Mango Shaped Space, so that set the bar pretty high for this book, and it pretty much lived up to my expectations, even if it was not quite as good as A Mango Shaped Space. One of the kind of good-kind of bad things about Wendy Mass books in my experience is that the situations that happen are not extraordinary or anything, they are stuff that could happen in real life, which is cool sometimes. I would recommend this book to people, especially sixth or maybe seventh graders, but also sometimes eigth graders who liked books like A Mango Shaped Space, See You at Harry's, or Racing in the Rain.

Starbucks

"One tall mocha frappachino, with  extra whipped cream"! A woman in a green starbucks apron leans over the counter, holding a large cup with the top filled with perfectly shaped sweet whipped cream, and a green coffee stirrer embedded deep inside. "Me." I say, and she hands me the perfectly ice cold drink, condensation gathering and then dripping down the side. "Thank you", I say, and smile at her. She smiles back. After grabbing my change, I grab a straw, peel the paper off and yank it out of the wrapper, and push the straw into the frappachino. I take a sip. And then another.Then I lift the straw up out of the drink and lick it, the coolness and sweet, coffee-chocolaty flavor of the mocha frappachino blends in with the light fluffy sweet whipped cream. A piece of ice crunches in my mouth. I close my eyes. Yuuuuummm. I proceed to eat most of the whipped cream, and then blend in the rest to make it extra creamy. I then devour the rest of the frappachino, sucking ravenously at the icy cold mixture through a straw.

I love Starbucks. They have everything, whether what you need is a tangy pumpkin scone, a rich piece of chocolate cake, an ice-cold delicious frappachino, a huge cup of coffee or mocha, a crazy hot caramel macchiato; you name it. If you were to find me at Starbucks, I would probably be relaxing in a sunny black leather chair at the mall, or even more likely in Lowry, standing in the corner of a well lit Starbucks. In my hand you would find either a pumpkin scone, a hazelnut latte, or most likely a frappachino. These are probably my favorites to get at Starbucks. If you looked even closer, you might notice that the frappachino is most likely so-called "strawberry creme", salted caramel, caramel flan, or just plain caramel, or maybe mocha. It would have whipped cream on top and would be the version of a Starbucks small size, the tall, because I can't eat anything bigger then that and I feel bad making anything that wonderful go to waste. And then I get a straw, pull off the wrapper, and the rest is history. Or I guess you could say it like that...

Yum.

And so I turn in this Slice of Life, 3/31/14, the last one, in anticipation of the amazing Starbucks that I will get  and all of the other good fortune that may stumble across me because I did all of the Slices, this being SOL #31 out of 31. It was fun, considering it's a big evil assignment, improved my writing skills, and I get Starbucks.

G'bye.