Book #65 – If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Continuing to read across the United States, I travel North to Oregon. If I stay was first published in 2009 and was made into a movie in 2014. It is told in first person narrative through the eyes of Mia, a high school student with dreams of Julliard. The story is about dealing with grief and life-changing choices. But it’s also about love and family and growing up.

This was an extremely poignant book for me to read right now. I lost my beloved cat of 9 years yesterday. While some might say that there’s no comparison between losing a pet and losing a family member, Revere was my family, and there were scenes in this book that reminded me of the panic and pain I felt when I found out I’d never hold him again. So, please read this review with that in mind, I guess.

Book #408 – The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

 Part of the reading across America list, I chose this book for California. I figured I’d start on the West Coast and work my way East. Then swing around and get Alaska and Hawaii. (Let’s see if that lasts) Written by the prolific author James Patterson in 2005, I believe this is the only young adult series he’s written. And you can definitely tell because it doesn’t have so much of the “I’m a girl and there’s a boy and oh my god, my pubescent emotions” and more “I’m here to chew gum and kick butt, and I’m all out of gum”.

The book series has since been made into a manga series, a movie, and my friends’ build projects for wings. Oh god, the feathers.

Book #4 – 1984 by George Orwell

First published hot on the heels of World War II, this dystopian novels has become a favorite of high school reading lists. Mine veered a little and went with Fahrenheit 451 and Animal Farm instead. So, I got the taste for anti-thought dystopia and the anti-communist propaganda without reading 1984. I will say this, if you haven’t read Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, Animal Farm, The Handmaid’s Tale, Ender’s Game, The Hunger Games, the Giver, or Divergent… I might reference them. Because it’s very difficult to reference Big Brother without referencing rival thought processes and contemporaries.

Also, I definitely didn’t set out to make this review read like a book report I’d write for high school, but that’s sort of how it ended up…

Getting the Visual – a more colorful list

Originally, the list was a statistics project. Which is why the current format is a very bland looking table with columns of rather unimportant data unless you’re wanting to see how well ratings follow a bell curve, or if people generally follow a logarithmic curve. (The answer is, yes, they do, most of the time.) There is no color to it, though, and I’ve learned that my slight dyslexia caused a multitude of spelling errors. You should be glad this site has spell check.

The solution?

Book #35 – Me Before You by Jojo Moyes

I will warn you that this book made me cry. I apparently cry at a lot of things though, like the ending of Schindler’s List and short films about beggars… so, you might be more stalwart than I am about this book. I warn you only because when this book first came into my world, I wasn’t warned at all. Thank you, my loving girlfriend, for not saying anything when you found out I was reading it.

Originally published in 2012, the book became a movie in 2016. It starred Emilia Clarke as Louisa Clark, and I have to wonder how she felt being called her last name for most of the film.

Book #744 – Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

This book came out when I was in college, and would have immediately gone to the top of witchcraft obsessed high school me’s wishlist for books. Sadly, I was a broke college student reading my way through Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, and whatever heat transfer book my professors were swearing by that year. So, the cursory glance over at the back cover while browsing the small literature selection in the campus bookstore? About as far as this book got with me 8 years ago.

The set-up is pretty much your typical high school transfer student….

Book #2 – Divergent by Veronica Roth

I know what you’re thinking. This is the first review, why is Book #2. Because this was Book #2 on “The List”, ranked with 2,339,658 ratings on Goodreads at the time the list was created.

I should premise this by saying I watched the Divergent movie when it came out because at the time, I was fascinated with dystopian futures the way practically everyone was in the post-Hunger-Games era that was the time of my college years. Unfortunately, while reading the book, I recalled next to none of the movie save small snippets.