Book Review- The Summoning

After years of frequent moves following her mother’s death, Chloe Saunders’s life is finally settling down. She is attending art school, pursuing her dreams of becoming a director, making friends, meeting boys. Her biggest concern is that she’s not developing as fast as her friends are. But when puberty does hit, it brings more than hormone surges. Chloe starts seeing ghosts–everywhere, demanding her attention. After she suffers a breakdown, her devoted aunt Lauren gets her into a highly recommended group home.

At first, Lyle House seems a pretty okay place, except for Chloe’s small problem of fearing she might be facing a lifetime of mental illness. But as she gradually gets to know the other kids at the home–charming Simon and his ominous, unsmiling brother Derek, obnoxious Tori, and Rae, who has a “thing” for fire–Chloe begins to realize that there is something that binds them all together, and it isn’t your usual “problem kid” behaviour. And together they discover that Lyle House is not your usual group home either…


I've seen this book around the library and I've heard lots about it. So one day I finally decided to read it, give it a try. I figured, it sounded cool but even though the library had the rest of the books, I decided to just get the first one in case I didn't like the first one. 


So this book pitch is pretty detailed and tell you basically what happened in the beginning. So the first ghost Chole sees is this janiter that died at her school in a fire and this ghost wants to tell her something. Well she freaks out, punches a teacher because he thinks she's trying to kill herself, and then ends up at the house for crazy kids. 


At first every one seems like normal kids, except that a few of them are different. The kids soon find out about Chole's ability to see ghosts and she begins to see them even at the house. The first ghost she sees is this ghost inside this locked closet in the basement. But she can't figure out how to get to him.


As the kids get "better" they are able to return to normal house. There's only two kids who leave during the story, Liz and Peter. Peter is "better", but Liz is sent to this hospital. Later on, Chole begins to see Liz's spirit but as she finds out from Simon and Derek, there are people who are able to astral project their spritis out of their bodies. Only, Chole isn't really sure if Liz is doing it without knowing...or if she's dead. 


So they go through the story, Chole slowly learning to trust all the kids except for Tory who's a bit actually crazy, and begins to find out the horrible truth about the house. Some crazy guy way back built the house to kill people like Chole- people who can raise the dead and speak to them. And she also slowly finds out the the rest of the kids in the house also have powers and that the people who run the house also know about their powers. 


So they realize that the only way for them to live...is to run. But do the escape? I'll find out in the next book.


Now the characters were all very good, except I didn't really like them. Chole was good but she was too stubborn and untrusting. I did not think that most of the characters were very good. Tori was too self centered and too unhappy to be liked at all, she bugged the crap out of me. Derek came off as a bully and I wasn't sure what to make of him most of the time. It was confusing. And I think Simon was an okay character although I wasn't too sure if they were suppose to like each other or not. To me, Chloe seemed to like Derek more. 


The plot was very good and interesting. I kept on wanting to know more and find out what was going to happen. But some things were really gross and creepy and sometimes I thought that the descriptions got a little too...descriptive for me. But otherwise than that I really like the mystery behind the story. 


But that being said, I really liked the book it was just the characters that turned me off the story. Otherwise I would have given it five stars, but I'm giving it four stars. Would I recommend it, yes I would, but only to people who like paranormal stuff and don't mind some gross stuff. 


On Goodreads: The Summoning
Her website: Kelly Armstrong


So, have you read many books that deal with ghosts? Did you like it? 


Sincerely,
Peony

Classes that might be fun.

So I meant to post yesterday but I got caught up in packing for my trip today. Well since I'm all settled in pretty much, I'll try to find something interesting to make up for yesterday.

I've decided that since school is coming up or some of you may have already started school, I'm going to talk about some cool classes. At my school, you can take a bunch of neat ones but really only once you're an upperclassman. Some of ours include:

• Creative Writing- Yep, I'm sure most if not all of us, would really enjoy this class. I really want to do this class this year but I got put into British Literature. 
• Law and Justice- Here the teachers makes you watch Criminal Minds the whole time and then stops the show have way through and you have to guess what will happen. Afterwards you talk about the outcome.
• Comparative Religions- Here we learn about a whole bunch of different religions besides the different kinds of Christians (Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists, etc). Religions like Wicca, satanists, paganism, and voodoo are some of the examples. 
• Digital Photography- Here we learn about all the different stuff you can do with a camera and kinds of photo editing programs you can use. 
• Ceramics I and II: Pottery! Whoo! I really wanted to take the first class this year but instead they put me into Foundations of Art. 
• Pseo Classes- These are online classes you can take. The homework is stuff you have to do on your own and not only do you earn a high school credit for this but you earn a college one too. There's a bunch of stuff like American Sign Language and psychology (which my school also offers). 
• Christian Family and Life- From what I've heard this class is where we learn about how to raise families and live ours lives in a good Christian way. 
• Earth and Space science- Here we learn about space and where we have stargazing sessions too. We also study rocks and learn how to identify them.

Well that's all I can really think off the top of my head, but I know that this year my school is going to try something new. We're trying something called the J-turn. Here after Christmas break, instead of cramming finals and extra lessons in before the quarter ends, for a whole week, our teachers will be able to teach something special. Like one teacher might have a cooking class or another might have us carve a boat out of a tree. 

Plus then the seniors and juniors get first pick. So if you're a freshman and one of the special classes you want to take are full, you'll have to suck it up and take something else. Also, we'll only be able to take one or two classes the whole week. I hope it'll be fun! 

And apparently this year, my school is also making all of the freshmen take a new semester class called Freshmen Ordination, where they'll learn stuff like organizational skills.  We'll also have this new program every other Wednesdays where we'll get out of school an extra twenty minutes. But if you get a pass to a teacher's, you have to go in and work on that stuff until either the bell rings or you get your stuff done. 

So I think this year will turn out interesting. I think most of my classes are okay, although I want to switch out of Foundations of Art and British Literature. What cool classes does your school offer? Have you ever gotten to do any of them? What are the worst classes in your opinion? Does your school have any interesting programs? 

Sincerely,

Peony