Book Review- The Other Side of the Island

(From Goodreads) Honor and her parents have been reassigned to live on Island 365 in the Tranquil Sea. Life is peaceful there—the color of the sky is regulated by Earth Mother, a corporation that controls New Weather, and it almost never rains. Everyone fits into their rightful and predictable place. . . .

Except Honor. She doesn’t fit in, but then she meets Helix, a boy with a big heart and a keen sense for the world around them. Slowly, Honor and Helix begin to uncover a terrible truth about life on the Island: Sooner or later, those who are unpredictable disappear . . . and they don’t ever come back.

I really really liked this book. Although I say its more for tweens than it is for older kids. I'm starting to think that my library mixes younger kid books with ones for older kids...

Anyways, I thought that the idea of this book was cool and how she took the Lord's Prayer, and things like the pledge of alligence and rewrote them for her book. I also enjoyed the characters and I thought that they were all very real. The concept of having a world destroyed by floods has been done before. Although  the way everything was done reminded me of another story. I can't think of it but the way there were the lesser people who cleaned up everything for the people makes me think of that one story. 

I thought that the writing was good and from the first page I was drawn into the story. The plot was engaging and I couldn't not read it. I wanted to finish it so much, that I finished it in a night and then finished it before I was done with Wings. I enjoyed how Honor slowly what was wrong with her society and how Honor's parents refused to conform to the rest of society. 


The characters were all very good too. Although I didn't really like Honor's parents or Helix's. I did like how the kids were named with the same letter in the year they were born. And Honor's little brother's name was very long for me. I thought that he could have been given a nickname instead of spelling out the whole name. When Honor decided that she had to conform to protect her parents, I felt that in a way it was brave of her. She felt guilty when her parents got taken because she thought that it was her fault. 


Although I think that it was interesting how Goodman changed things, I wonder if the "Earth Mother" is actually alive or if she's dead. Was she even real? And what time does the story take place in? The story only says that it is in the eight year since the world went to the Earth Mother's plan, but there is no certain year that I could find. 


While the book did end with some things left unanswered I thought that it's still a good ending for this book and sometimes its good to wonder about things. It makes us think and imagine. I enjoyed the last line and I hope that the story does actually have a happy ending even though I'm afraid we'll never know. The story I think, makes us think about environmental issues  and about the government of course. Maybe even about that we're being told on the internet and what the media tells us. 


Overall it was a good story and I enjoyed reading it. I would recommend it although I do think it's more of a younger teen's book. But older teens and adults too could enjoy this book. 


On Goodreads: The Other Side of the Island

So, what do you think about books where the author doesn't finish the story? Do you think authors should finish stories or leave them to our imagination.

Sincerely,
Peony

Book Review- Halo

Three angels- Gabriel, the warrior; Ivy, the healer; and Bethany, the youngest and most human- are sent by Heaven to bring good to a world falling under the influence of darkness. They must work hard to conceal their luminous glow, superhuman powers, and, most dangerous of all, their wings, all the while avoiding all human attachments. 

Then Bethany meets Xavier Woods, and neither of them is able to resist the attraction between them. Gabriel and Ivy do everything in their power to intervene, but the bond between Xavier and Bethany seems too strong. 

The angel’s mission is urgent, and dark forces are threatening. Will love ruin Bethany or save her?


Tip: Don't judge a book by the cover. Ayways, so the cover caught my eye right away and I was pleased to find a paranormal romance that wasn't so dark and dreamy unlike the majority of paranormal books today. I enjoyed not seeing so much darkness in this story. The cover clearly is a good representative of the story and it's very pretty. It was surprising find that it was about angels where an angel falls in love with a human rather then it being the other way around. 


While I thought that there was a lot of romance for this book, I was expecting it from the book blurb and the reviews I read here on Goodreads. But unlike the rest of the reviewers who only gave this book one or two stars I thought that Ms. Adornetto's style of writing and her choice of words was great. I loved seeing new words I didn't know and having to look them up. It was great. I was surprised to find that that Ms. Adornetto is a teen author. It gives other teen writers like myself hope that we too can get published. 


While Xavier did seem to be Mr. Prefect at times (actually a lot of the times) I enjoyed reading about him and Beth. I thought that his family portrayed a family that we could very much know. Although the characters were good, I thought that the whole "prom is such a big deal!" from the girls Beth was friends with was a little overboard. While Prom is a big deal, most girls I know don't plan their whole year trying to find dresses and stuff. We usually worry about that two or one month ahead. 


Unlike some people I enjoyed seeing the religon in this book sense I am a strong Christian, and in a way it was comforting. But even with this I thought it was interesting to see Beth's (not sure if it's Alexandra Adornetto's version either) version of what heaven is like. And I loved how her angels were different from how other angels are. The part that their skin glows, their wings are paper thin, and they have no naval is cool. 


As an angel turning human, I thought that Beth's transition from being a supernatural being to something more mortal was well portrayed. If I was an angel I would probably act the same way. Seeing how Gabriel and Ivy acted and responded to events and Beth's actions was interesting. You could tell that they clearly cared about her and their mission. I thought that for being one of the most important angels, Gabe was a good character. He wasn't arrogant or mean, but distant and reserved. Ivy was how I would imagine someone like her to be. 


The only part that I found remotely towards their actual mission was when Jack Thorn shows up. And even though they have proof that is was him causing all trouble, they don't do anything about it towards the very end. 


All in all, it was an interesting book. I thought that there was alot of unnecessary stuff and that the book could have been shorter. Beth could have been a stronger character too. Would I recommend it? Probably not. Will I read the next one? Maybe. I'm still deciding. 


So, what do you think about angel books? If you were an angel from heaven to help save the world, how would you go about it? And what would you change first?


On Goodreads: Halo by Alexandra Adornetto
Her Goodreads page (I can't get to her website listed there): Alexandra Adornetto


Sincerely,
Peony

In The News- Random Gossip and Why Teachers are Hypocrites.

First of all, we'll start with the random gossip that really isn't news but I thought that some of you may like to hear.

Rebecca Black, the infamous teenage singer who's Friday video gained fame across the world for being...the world's worst singing ever? Now, I'll admit I do not like her singing but I think that a lot of people went out of line by giving her death threats and other nasty things. Eventually, the video was taken off of youtube and we thought that we had seen the last of the teen. 

Apparently not. According to Yahoo! The singer has release a new music video called My Moment. While her voice is still awfully auto tuned and the music video isn't all that exciting, I'll give her some points for not giving up. And with this new music video, it has been announced that a new 5 song EP has been released onto Itunes today called Yes There's More!. 

Link to the Yahoo! Article: Rebecca Black New Music Video
Edit: The Music Video was taken off because it didn't work. If you'd like to see it, click the link to the Yahoo! Article.

In other subjects that is video related and I'm not considering news at all, Jerusha Hess (who apparently has cowritten things (Napoleon Dynamite, Nacho Libre and Gentlemen Broncos) with her husband, and the famous Twilight author, Stephanie Meyer, are co-producing a movie called Austenland. 

The Hollywood Reporter broke the news of this film and described it in a bit more detail as follows:

[Austenland] centers on a single, thirtysomething woman with a secret obsession with Mr. Darcy — as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. The obsession is ruining her love life because no real man can compare. When she decides to spend her life savings on a trip to an English resort catering to Jane Austen-crazed women, the woman’s fantasy of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman becomes more real than she could have imagined.

Link to the aritcle: Twilight Author to Co-Produce a Movie....

In the News
According to several reports 178 teachers and principals in Alabama have been caught in one of America's largest teaching scandals ever. For years everyone thought that everything was going great for the school districts grades kept on rising. But due to abnormal scores, investigators found that on standardized tests (yes this is why we shouldn't have them!) teachers would change their student's answers so that they would get better grades.

This, mind you, was not to help the students in any way, it was to save their own jobs. By getting higher test scores the Broad Foundation and the Gates Foundation would give them more funding. 
According to the Yahoo! Article:

One of the most troubling aspects of the Atlanta cheating scandal, says the report, is that the district repeatedly refused to properly investigate or take responsibility for the cheating. Moreover, the central office told some principals not to cooperate with investigators. In one case, an administrator instructed employees to tell investigators to "go to hell." When teachers tried to alert authorities, they were labeled "disgruntled." One principal opened an ethics investigation against a whistle-blower.

Because of the high stakes placed on these tests for teachers, these "educators" have resorted to cheating. Hypocrites! They tell us "don't cheat or you'll get a zero" yet they think it's perfectly okay to cheat themselves? How can we possibly trust them if they show us that we can't trust them.

Some of these high stakes include:

Ten states now use test scores as the main criterion in teacher evaluations. Other states reward high-scoring teachers with up to $25,000 bonuses – while low scores could result in principals losing their jobs or entire schools closing. Even as the number of scandals grows, experts say it remains fairly easy for teachers and principals to get away with ethical lapses.

In one report I read, teachers would get together on weekends or after school at each other's houses, drink coffee and eat while they would erase their students answers.  Much like some kinda of party. Why is this okay with you teachers? Why!

I think that this lady has a very good point:

"And that’s what ought to alarm us," adds Ms. Downey, "that these professionals ultimately felt their students could not even pass basic competency tests, despite targeted school improvement plans, proven reforms, and state-of-the-art teacher training."

True true. I find not only what the teachers did alarming, but insulting too. Kids are smarter than what you think. Just because there are those few who don't care, alot of us do care. And we'll do the best we can without your helping us cheat. And how did these teachers expect to get away with this? How I don't know, but something will have to be done about this so that this can never happen again.

In a recent report, the teachers and officials caught up in this scandal will be forced to resign this week or this will be forced to. So, yes teachers, there are punishments for cheating even with you too. I hope that every one of you feels ashamed of yourselves. And just think, you have now destroyed any hopes of getting another teaching job in this already bad economy.

You can read both news articles here and here.

So, what do you think about Rebecca Black's new songs, or Stephanie Meyer's new producer job? What about this teaching scandal?

Sincerely,
Peony