What Exactly is the Bookworm's Journey?

My biggest goal for this blog is to encourage other people to branch out and read books from different genres. The reviews that I have posted were about books that I read that I would not normally read. 

I used to always just read Young Adult fiction and would never stray from books everyone else my age was reading. I would always read the books I needed to for class, so I figured that those were different from what I normally read. As school went on, the books we read started to seem the same. Every year there seemed to be a dystopian novel on either the summer reading list or the syllabus. At one point, I told myself that I never wanted to read another dystopian novel if I could help it. Then, I came across Crazy House by James Patterson. I have read all of Patterson’s young adult novels and I love them, so I gave this one a try because I had no idea it was a dystopian novel- I was just along for the ride!

I have never read a zombie book (at least not that I can remember) before Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard. They always seemed interesting to me, but always got overshadowed by other books. I thought that zombies in books would scary me too much. I picked up Something Strange and Deadly because I thought that I wouldn’t be interested in finishing it, so that I could focus on school. Naturally, I got drawn into the mystery of why the Dead are coming back from their graves and the other mysteries that present themselves throughout the book. The zombies took a backseat and were nothing like the ones from The Walking Dead! Maybe I’ll read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Seth Grahame- Smith and Jane Austen soon…..

Nonfiction never really crossed my mind, fiction always had my attention. I came across Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond on Pinterest, just looking through book list pins.  The book list I found Guns, Germs, and Steel under was called “Books That Changed My Life”. I read what the blogger said and that caught my attention because I took a class called Human Geography in high school that I really enjoyed, so I immediately looked it up on my local library’s website and went to check it out. Like I said in my review, it took me a good chunk of the summer to read this book, but I liked it because I was learning so much!

Maybe it’s because I really need to explore past the teen fiction section of my local library.... I just know that I picked them because they sounded interesting to me. It’s like looking for hidden gems: you look in new places to find something shiny that catches your eye. You can’t keep looking in the same place for hidden gems because soon you’ll run out of places to look or you won’t treasure what you find as much as you used to! Would you try venturing out every once in awhile to find a unique gem?

Who, What, When, Where, and Why?- "Guns Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond

    Have you ever wondered why certain societies were more successful than others? Well, Jared Diamond can provide answers more satisfying than they had better weapons, their army was too powerful, or they spread deadly diseases to local populations. Diamond explains in great detail, how human society evolved and how their different environments shaped how they developed.

    I spent quite a while reading this book. The beginning was a little hard for me to process, but as I continued to read, I began understanding what I was reading and putting the story together with what I knew. It’s just crazy! While reading, I would just tell my parents a little fact that I would read because I wanted to tell them what exactly I was reading about, and I wanted to share the knowledge. Every little fact just blew my mind! For example:

   When Australia and Papua New Guinea were one landmass, it was home to large animals like marsupial leopards, 400 pound flightless birds, and crocodiles that lived on land before humans came around! It is believed that the humans killed them all because of their improved hunting skills and these animals evolved without the presence of humans, so they didn’t learn to be afraid of them like many others did in other parts of the world.

    Diamond openly admits that there are not always clear answers, even now. He gives the best explanation he can give with the knowledge he has collected in his career. Sometimes that involves saying that there just isn’t enough information right now to make a definitive assumption. The details are important because of the big difference they can make, as Diamond often stresses throughout his book. “The devil is in the details”, as the saying goes! Although this all sounds quite intimidating, Diamond does break things down and he is also very passionate about the topic that he is writing about. This comes through in his writing and makes the reader excited to learn about his exploration into human history! 

So Much Mystery, So Much Intrigue!- "Something Strange and Deadly" by Susan Dennard

      The Dead are walking, her brother is missing, her dad is dead, her mom is trying to marry her off, and she is trying to hold down the family finances. When Eleanor Fitt puts more focus on her brother’s disappearance, her life becomes increasingly dangerous as she finds herself in the Spirit-Hunter’s lab more often than would be advisable.

      Something Strange and Deadly was interesting. You’re confused and looking for answers from the very beginning. There is even an air of mystery around Eleanor’s life outside of finding her brother, for example, while she interacts with the charming Clarence Wilcox. Why are the Dead rising? How? There’s even some extra mystery….

      I just kept on turning pages, even when I told myself this is the last chapter, the last page. This story did fall a little flat during society scenes, even though there was plenty of curiosity such as to where this friendship between Clarence and Eleanor would go or what kind of spirit came out of the seance (yes, there is supernatural mischief), but it would pick up when Eleanor would be pulled back to the Spirit-Hunters. I do see how the social gatherings add to the story, though, because Eleanor would have a revelation or something in the scene would help move the story along.

      Something that I really enjoyed about this book is that almost all of the characters tie into the mystery, they’re all connected to the people who are behind everything! Everyone faces their demons, both literally and figuratively! I also enjoyed the change of pace when the scene changed from some sort of social gathering to Eleanor running around with the Spirit-Hunters because of how much more action there is, whether it be Eleanor trying to figure things out or everyone fighting off the Dead. It wasn’t sudden, there would be a couple of paragraphs of transition, but it was faster sometimes which kept me on my toes.

     Your thirst for answers will get the better of you. Once you start reading, you won’t be able to stop. I’m warning you right now, make sure your schedule is empty the next few days because this is one of those page turner stories. It isn't constant action, but your curiosity might just make you finish it!

What Makes a Crazy House Crazy?- "Crazy House" by James Patterson

    Suddenly in a juvenile death row prison, Becca Greenfield needs to be good until her sister Cassie can come and rescue her. First Cassie has to find Becca, though, because she seems to have disappeared without a trace……. Will Cassie be able to do what’s necessary to find and rescue Becca?

    Crazy House by James Patterson and Gabrielle Charbonnet drew me in with the mystery as to why Becca was in prison, even if she is supposed to be a rule-breaker. To be fair, I wasn’t searching for what genre this book was, I just wanted to read a good book by an author whose books for young adults I have enjoyed in the past. So, I got swallowed up by a need for answers as to why a small town teenage girl and others would be put on death row seemingly overnight because that’s something people seek answers for.

   As for the actual story, so much goes unexplained until the very end, where the fact that this is indeed a dystopian novel, gets dropped on everyone: the Greenfield sisters, the friends they made along the way, and the reader. In my search for answers, I have even more questions now that need to be answered in a sequel or, even better, an entire series! What do the rebels do, exactly? The rebels that take action in the community the Greenfields live in are not actually a part of the official rebellion group. Every member is considered to be missing, how are they going to use that? As far as we know, these teenagers are not seen after they become a part of the rebellion. The one adult we know for sure who is a leader kills someone under the assumption that she works for the mayor. How did this even happen? The rich obviously took over, but everything is so intricate that it’s hard for me to picture this story being the end result for the fantasy that the rich one percenters had. There needs to be some suspension of reality because there are just huge question marks as to what is actually going on, like what actually makes this story dystopian? The rich are living it up in crazy expensive beach houses on the coasts while everyone else is working in their isolated communities that just do work in one industry. The government institution in the Greenfield’s community does not care that a lot of teenagers have actually gone missing and people believe that they just ran away. No one is allowed to go past the fence that surrounds the community.
    Everything points to Crazy House being dystopian, but I just have so many questions that are overriding the things that I enjoyed about this book, things that make it stick out from other dystopian books. At the end I had more of a hunger for answers than satisfaction that the Greenfield sisters are back together and safe with everyone who helped them.