why Lord of the Flies is annoying

1. No girls
2. No romance
3. I had to stop reading Wuthering Heights to read it
4. The boys in it are so STUPID
5. It's written in a way that is hard to read
6. I haven't finished it and I needed to a few days ago because it's for English
7. I am finding it boring and disturbing
8. IT IS ONE GIANT MASCULINE POWER STRUGGLE

We return to normal blogging very soon! Once I finish Lord of the Flies and Wuthering Heights reviews for those will go up, but maybe not in the order I orginally expected because Wuthering Heights took such a long time to read.

Also, we are about 13 weeks into the project, so halfway! Only problem is, seven is not half of twenty-six, so I am behind. However once I finish these two books (hopefully by the end of the weekend) I'll be able to start The Piper's Son. Then I'll possibly read some other young adult books, cause it's my birthday next week and I often get books for my birthday, and young adult book are a lot faster to read than 19th and 20th century stuff.

Hopefully I'll be able to catch up! I may be doing a whole lot of reading over the next term, up until my exams next term...

wordle of this blog!!

This is super-cool, and heaps of fun! You paste in any text, or give it a URL, and it comes up with an awesome artwork made of words!

I made one for the blog, using the URL. It only did the homepage, so there is a weighting towards Wuthering Heights, as you can see. Click the pic to make it bigger, and have a look. It's really pretty, don't you think!

Which I still have not finished. Or Lord of the Flies. Whatever. I'm getting there.

a 'Wuthering Heights mood' issue

Do you ever find a book that you just can't read unless you are in the perfect mood?

Wuthering Heights is one of those books, which is why I am yet to actually finish the book, or start Lord of the Flies, which I really should have read by now...

I like Wuthering Heights, but I just can't read it when I'm tired or grumpy or anything EXCEPT in what I like to think of as the 'Wuthering Heights mood'.

I was discussing this with my friend Lizzy this morning, and having read the book she was in total agreement with me about this.

I suppose I'm just going to have to try harder, if I ever want to finish the book!

AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES BY JOHN GREEN

John Green won a Printz award for Looking for Alaska, and his second novel, An Abundance of Katherines, was an honour book for the same award, and again, the award was well-deserved.

An Abundance of Katherines is the story of Colin Singleton, a child prodigy past his prime who has just graduated from high school and has just been dumped by the 19th girl he has ever dated. The weird thing is, all 19 of the girls have been named Katherine.

Colin is heartbroken, so he sets off on a roadtrip with his best friends Hassan. They end up staying in a tiny town called Gutshot, with a girl named Lindsey Lee Wells and her mother Hollis. Lindsey is unlike any other girl Colin has met, and it doesn't take Colin and Hassan long to meet and get involved with all the quirky characters in Gutshot. At the same time, Colin is trying to work out a mathematical formula that will be able to predict how long a relationship will last and, when it ends, who will be the dumper and who will be the dumpee. As the story progresses, Colin starts to realise that sometimes things can't be predicted, and that maybe he will never be able to fix his formula.

John Green seems to always write books with a male, first-person narrator. Colin, in this book, is realistic, appropriately flawed and also just a little bit mysterious, keeping the reader reading until the last pages. Lindsey Lee Wells is also an intriguing character, so much more than the outgoing, slightly immature teenager that Colin first meets.

This book was well-written, and actually very interesting to me, despite the maths! There is an appendix at the end explaining all the maths in the book (which is actually real and does work, though results obviously may vary) written by Daniel Biss, a mathematician. If you have any moderate understanding of maths, then I would actually highly recommend reading the appendix as it is very interesting, despite the topic.

Unfortunately, An Abundance of Katherines is difficult, if not impossible to get in Australia, but it is cheap from Amazon (where I got my copy) and it is worth paying the postage to get such a book.

Butterflies: 8 out of 10
Recommended for people: over 14 who have at least a moderate understanding of maths and enjoy books about roadtrips and friendships and love
Warnings: swearing, sex (not graphic) and a bit of drinking, but they are not major plot features.

home and time to read!

I just got back from a lovely family holiday down south, which was lots of fun.

I was reading Wuthering Heights down there, and I'm actually really liking it! I heard from some of my friends that it wasn't that much fun to read, but I'm really quite enjoying it.

It's very different to the last book I read (An Abundance of Katherines) but I think that's a good thing. Also, I haven't really heard from any of you yet whether you think I can count Katherines as a book. So, what do you think? If I get no objections within the next two days it's getting reviewed.

After Wuthering Heights I was planning on reading The Piper's Son, but I have to read Lord of the Flies before next Tuesday, so I may have to switch the order, which is sad. But hopefully I'll be able to finish Wuthering Heights very soon and then read both before next Tuesday.

Keep commenting, and tell your friends about this blog! I love hearing from you :)

cheating?

Sorry about the lack of blogging at the moment, I'm on holidays but I still don't seem to have a lot of spare time! I log on to blogger almost everyday and sometimes I start to write an entry but most of the time I realise that, really, I have nothing much to say.

I have started Wuthering Heights, but, if I'm going to be honest, I've barely read any of it. I've been a bit distracted by the fact that this week, a book my dad ordered for me through Amazon from America, arrived in the post.

It's An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green, who you may remember wrote Looking for Alaska. This book isn't available in Australia, which is a shame because I'm really really really enjoying it, even though I feel slightly guilty for reading it when I know I really should be reading Wuthering Heights.

So I have to ask you, my readers, something: do you consider it cheating if I read another book by the same author and then include it on my blog? I thought at the beginning I wouldn't do that but I'm kind of getting behind and this book is REALLY REALLY good, so I need your opinions. What do you think? Tell me in the comments.

Also, I have to read Lord of the Flies these holidays for school, so it's going away with me next week when my family goes on holidays. I'm taking Lord of the Flies and Wuthering Heights and possibly one more book too, maybe 1984 (George Orwell) or The Piper's Son (Melina Marchetta)? I actually have to GET The Piper's Son if I want to take it.

And I'm going to read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee after those three, so keep checking back to see what I think of all those books. I promise to blog more regularly soon!