Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

This book is one of the best that I have ever read. The story is so original and seamlessly meld photography with the story if a little boy trying to find out more about his grandfather. My friend Sara read it and I wanted to as well and it is, at some parts, edge of your seat creepy but it will keep you hooked the whole way through.

This book is about a boy named Jacob. One day his grandfather is killed in a horrific turn of events that will change his life forever. He has grown up hearing his grandfather's stories about the peculiar children at the orphanage in Wales where he used to live and when he was younger he actually believed his grandfather's tales. As he got older he believed them less and less, until his grandfather's murder that is. You see, in the woods behind his grandfather's house he saw something strange and soon he begins to see them everywhere. His dad, believing that he is haunted by his grandfather's death sends him to see a psychiatrist who believes that a trip to Wales to see where his grandfather grew up would help him realize that the peculiar children were stories and nothing more. He and his dad go to Wales and Jacob asks one of the local kids to take him to the abandoned orphanage, they say it's haunted and will only go so far. Jacob's curiosity gets the better of him and he wanders the ground and ends up in a parallel world. He meets each of the peculiar children in turn and they become his friends. When the time loop that the orphanage is in is threatened by monsters will they get away in time? Will anything ever go back to normal again for Jacob? Read the book to find out.

As I mentioned it is truly brilliant and riveting. An edge of your seat ride. Ransom Riggs has a blog in which you can keep track of his projects, if you like his work and he also has a Youtube channel. There is a sequel to Ms. Peregrine coming out soon and there will also be a Miss Peregrine movie.

As a side note I'm REALLY EXCITED because I loved the book, it ends on a cliff hanger so I can't wait for the sequel and the movie is promising to be amazing, it will be directed by Tim Burton which some of you might already know, as per the article that I shared yesterday. In case you didn't see the article here it is http://pagetopremiere.com/2013/06/tim-burtons-adaptation-of-miss-peregrines-home-for-peculiar-children-has-a-release-date/ and I strongly recommend you read this book, here is the book trailer just to give you a little teaser about the book https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWrNyVhSJUU. Also Ransom Riggs is good friends with another one of my favorite authors, John Green, so if you go onto his Youtube channel you will find interviews and the like and John made a VlogBrother's Thoughts from places video with him which you should totally watch, just not in a dark room at midnight, so here's the link and thanks for reading! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ecVtw4NbQC8

Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James

OK, so I'm not actually finished the book yet so I can't say much, but it's really good so far. It takes place in the world of Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice" shortly after the end of the novel. In short there is party and a murder and a visit by a surprise guest.

P.D. James is a brilliant writer and very eloquent and a well established crime writer. Also if you like this book I would read some of her other novels. She has an entire series based around her detective main character Adam Dagliesh.

Her writing is brilliant and she melds the worlds of crime and Jane Austin with absolutely no seam. This book is so well written it's almost as if Jane Austin herself wrote "Pride and Prejudice" as a murder mystery.

Also if you like Jane Austin I would read not only this book but also the book by Seth Grahame-Smith "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" in which seamlessly melds Jane Austen and horror and Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by Ben H. Winters and "Mansfield Park and Mummies" by Vera Nazarian.

Camp NaNoWriMo!

OK So, some of you writers probably know about this already but for those who don't or are interested/ have done NaNoWriMo in the past go to http://www.campnanowrimo.org/  and sign up! If you have an existing NaNoWriMo account you can log in using that account. Camp NaNoWriMo starts July 1st so sign up today! OK that was your daily news bulletin. In other news I am 55 000 words into my Murder Mystery, tentatively titled "Murder on the Emerald Isle" Reminder that in and earlier post I did post a snippet and asked for feedback. So, if you've got a Google account follow me! and leave a comment on any of my posts! I welcome your feedback!

DFTBA and keep reading and writing!

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By John Green

YAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I FINISHED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK So I finally started reading The Fault in Our Stars (I've only had it for a month or so). It is, so far as I can tell being on Page 19, about a young girl named Hazel, she's got cancer. One day she meets and subsequently falls in love with Augustus Waters and they go on adventures as boyfriend and girlfriend.

IT'S NOT FAIR!!! It is not logical nor is it fair to make a character so lovable that you fall in love with him, erm, them in 4 pages. Nevertheless that is what happened. he has mahogany colored cropped hair and piercing blue eyes and he is lanky and tall and OMG! Well obviously John Green describes it better...Well, that escalated quickly...Suffice it to say, to quote the book, "The beautiful couple is beautiful." and then stuff happens and everything escalates and things go horribly wrong. Needless to say I couldn't bring myself to read the last couple chapters yet. I wouldn't actually recommend reading this book in one sitting, like a fine wine it should be savoured over a period of time. Also if you read it all in one sitting it will reduce you to a crying, sobbing wreck. I started to cry and dissolved in a whirlpool of feels. This book however, no matter how many times I cried while reading it, is a fantastic work by an wonderful author. He is a wonderful author, eloquent, intelligent and just plain awesome.

If you are not really that familiar with John Green I would recommend that you read his books and watch his Youtube videos. He has a couple of channels on Youtube such as: VlogBrothers, which he does with his brother Hank, CrashCourse, in which he teaches you about History and Literature and various other things, MentalFloss, in which he divulges some random and amazing facts and Hank does SciShow, in which he goes over science news and teaches you about science and HankGames in which he plays video games and other random things. Just saying they're all really awesome.

I would recommend that you read this book because John Green is a brilliant author and I would also suggest that you read his other books, his other books being: Will Grayson, Will Grayson (Which he co-wrote with David Levithan, who wrote Every You, Every Me (Also, I haven't read this yet, but I will this summer)), Looking for Alaska (Which I also haven't read yet but SUMMER!), The Fault in Our Stars (obviously), An Abundance of Katherines, Paper Towns and Let it Snow: A Collection of 3 Holiday Romances (Which he co-wrote with Maureen Johnson, author of The Name of the Star (which I reviewed in an earlier post), and Lauren Myracle (I also haven't read this yet))

I must say that the book is very good and very eloquently written and I can't wait to finish it. I think that once I have read the whole book I'll be able to appreciate it fully and form a more informed review and I CAN'T WAIT! And I'm going to stop the review here because I'm rambling.

Also here is another teaser/quote from the novel/ I felt like quoting the novel here

"I fell in love the way you fall asleep, slowly then all at once." - Hazel Grace Lancaster

DFTBA Nerdfighters and Readers!

100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

OK so this book is a bit difficult to get through just like a Jane Austen is hard to get through because they are very descriptive. However it is very well written and very good. I would recommend this book if someone was looking for something to read.

It is not about a guy that spends 100 years living in a cave in solitude, which was my initial thought before I read it. It is about a solitary little village which is all but completely isolated and cut off from the world and how their lives change irreparably after a traveling group of gypsy's visit the village. This book chronicles the lives of the people living in the town for a hundred years or so (hence the title). Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a very eloquent writer but, as I mentioned the book is very descriptive at parts, of course I'm not saying that you must read this book it is, as always, up to you. I would tell you more about the book and what it is about but that would be spoiling things.

The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

A modern and supernatural take on the Jack the Ripper persona. It takes our main character, a student at a London boarding school, and it thrust her into the middle of a supernatural chaos. It turns out she can see ghosts and she soon learns that if she'd talking to someone she's got to be careful they're not a ghost. She finds friends who are also part of the supernatural community and learns to use her gift and all goes well until a mysterious ghost starts killing people in the gruesome manner of Jack the Ripper, mimicking his crimes exactly. Working with the secret supernatural branch of the London Police force she works to solve the mystery of who exactly is behind the murders before it is too late.

This is a brilliant book. Maureen Johnson is a wonderful writer and really a topnotch word-smith. The writing is beautiful and very eloquent and the book will enthrall you and leave you wanting more, it is a series, this is the first book in the  "Shades of London" series. I highly recommend that you read this book.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I'm DONE THE BOOK!!!! it was REALLY GOOD. It is about Lena Duchannes and her forbidden relationship with Ethan Wate. When they discover a locket at Greenbrier that may have a key to their past who knows what forces the will unleash.

OK on the back of the book it say that fans of "True Blood and Twilight" will love this series. I beg to differ.
(Actually what it says is "Give this to fans of Stephenie Meyer's Twilight or HBO's True Blood series" - SLJ) I couldn't disagree more. I mean yes it has forbidden love between an immortal Caster and a human boy but that doesn't mean it is mutually exclusive. As far as i have read in this book there are no vampires at all...yes there is magic in abundance but magic does not always equate to vampires. I will agree that fans of the fantasy genre (and Magic in general, especially for fans of Lost Girl and Harry Potter) would love this novel. Despite the quote on the back the book itself is riveting. It sends you spinning through the small town of Gatlin, South Carolina, which, as you find out, was almost destroyed in the Civil War when the south retreated. when the niece of "Gatlin's own Boo Radley" Macon Ravenwood comes to live with him everyone is naturally suspicious and highly prejudiced simply by virtue of her being Macon Ravenwood's niece. When our protagonist Ethan Wate meets her he is instantly smitten. He finds out she is a Caster and on her 16th Birthday she will be claimed either for Dark or Light so they decide to make the most of their limited time together. Will they find a way to be together in the end? I have no idea...so after reading more this weekend the plot thickens. After disaster at the winter formal and Lena's cousin Ridley causing havoc...well let's just say things haven't gone so well for Lena...and they may only get worse from here...again, not going to give too much away here...In short you need to read this book to understand all the details and I heartily recommend it, a truly riveting read...