Camille+A



=So Welcome = The following is a list of novels I consider to be worthy of the literature class' 2011 list of great works. note: the following are in no order - choosing these works is hard enough, let alone ordering them!!

//Just before we get started, I feel obliged to note that you do not need to feel obliged yourself to read all I have written about the following novels - for I seem to have written a lot. If an abundance of words dissuades you from looking at the texts I'm writing about yourself, DON'T READ IT ALL!! Instead, take a look at the links ands goodies I have attached down the bottom of each entry. I seem to have this ability to waffle on about books that I love, and I will be quite upset if my prolonged raving about them puts you off reading the texts yourselves.//

So, without much further ado;


 * ONE **

__The Knife of Never Letting Go ~ Patrick Ness __

 A beautiful novel that is one of the most original pieces of literature that I personally have ever read. This is the first novel of the 'Chaos Walking' trilogy, which follows the story of the new world, where due to a virus, men's thoughts are projected for everyone to see while women's remain silent. Todd Hewitt believes himself to be the last boy in Prentisstown - a ghost town of a settlement, consisting of men, and which lacks the existence of women -which is due to, as Todd believes, the Great War which occurred against the world's indigenous race, the Spackle, before he was born. The novel is told through the thought process of the main hero, Todd Hewitt, which brings a real personal connection to the character, and due to his beautiful nature, even when he's faced with tough decisions, the reader cannot help but empathise with his wrong choices and reconciliation. Although the book is written in the style of an easy-read novel (easy, due to the casual language of Todd's thoughts used throughout it, and how he is in fact illiterate due to the banning of books in his town), the novel also deals with the political issues of sexism versus privacy in world where your every thought is projected, yet a select few can keep their thoughts to themselves. It's set in a time where this relocation to the new world has already occurred, and we're only seeing the consequences of unknown decisions made upon man's arrival and the settlements that were made before our character's time. This is a great story, as imagery used in the book is vivid and impacting, and leaves ideas and concepts running through your thoughts for weeks after.

//I don't have a particular order to this canon of mine, but I'm trying to make a particular point of putting this one up the top. :)//

**Memorable Quotes:** //First line:// > > //"It’s what’s true and what’s believed and what’s imagined and what’s fantasized and it says one thing and a completely opposite thing at the same time and even tho the truth is definitely in there, how can you tell what’s true and what’s not when yer getting everything?// > //The Noise is a man unfiltered, and without a filter, a man is just chaos walking"// >
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//“The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say. About anything.”//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//On the 'Noise'://
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"But a knife ain't just a thing, is it? It's a choice, it's something you do. A knife says yes or no, cut or not, die or don't. A knife takes a decision out of your hand and puts it in the world and it never goes back again."//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Here's a good review to give you a better feel for the novel.] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|This is Patrick Ness' Blog] - Here you can find information also about the rest of the trilogy and other of his works.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**TWO**

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Feed ~ M.T. Anderson __ <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This futuristic novel is set in a world where people have 'feeds' implanted in their brains at a young age which directly links your mind up to the internet; shopping, communication, information - the feed basically has unlocked the human potential so everyone has the same amount of intelligence and access to the world. However, what would it be like to live in this society without one? And how far is too far to stop calling one human? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I originally read this novel a couple of years back and honestly I think I read it a little too early because I was old enough to understand the deeper themes of the novel past the initial futuristic narrative, but too young to be comfortable reading about it. Nonetheless, this thought-provoking novel really struck home to me as it highlights the growing issue of getting left behind in the world's race to keep improving and developing - and how insome cases, being left behind can be debilitating.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The story follows a teenager by the name Titus, who has an average existence of a usual teen in this future world; where his actual friends are about as close as facebook friends, and the world is at his fingertips - or at least the world is accessible online. He lives a completely ignorant existence until he meets a girl who had no feed until the age of 5 - well above the safe implant age. She introduces him to what this world of his really is - a world void of animals in the seas or lakes, where beef is grown in farms, and where she is slowly dying a horrible, slow death due to the Feed that is needed for one to function in the society. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Yet don't let this sad introduction keep you from reading this novel, because it's a beautiful piece of work!!!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The piece is really written very cleverly. Take for example, the first line: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"We went to the moon to have fun, but the moon turned out to completely suck." <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The reason why I love this quote is that in it's simplicity, as a first line it has already done three things. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">1. Established the main character is a teenager, due to the casualty of the language. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">2. Established a set time for the novel - obviously the future, because why else would a teenager go to the moon for fun? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">3. Left the reader with the nagging question 'Why does the moon suck?!!' <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Anderson doesn't outright set the story for the reader plainly, like "Titus lives in the futuristic world of 2200 where interplanetary travel is a daily event", but subtly hints throughout the text, enough to give the reader an idea, but such that he's also subtly hinting that the world and setting for events isn't as important in the future as it is now - as everything 'important' now happens through your Feed, yet his subtle descriptions completely paint the world for you.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Take a look at M.T. Anderson's blog] - it's really interesting how the author has reviewed his 2001 work and how the world is increasingly becoming like his world in 'Feed'. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|here's a concept video of the novel made by some fans to show the general idea of what a Feed is]


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">THREE **

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Series of Unfortunate Events ~ Lemony Snicket (a pseudonym for the writer Daniel Handler) __

<span style="color: #ff0a0a; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 80%;">NOTE: The series of novels, not the film. While the adaption for screen starred Jim Carey, even his acting couldn't do the story, and the mysterious Count Olaf, justice.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It's one of those series that you read a while ago and really enjoyed - yet you seemed to have missed the bigger picture of the whole thing. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I originally read this 13 book series (unlucky no. 13!!) at around the age of 11 and read the whole thing over a span of two years. However, it wasn't until I recently went back to the first novel out of curiosity that I discovered the truly sinister and complicated narrative hidden under the text you read. I know this sounds kind of twisted, but that's truly what I found fascinating about this book.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The story follows that of the Baudelaire children, whose parents died in a mysterious house fire that destroyed their mansion of a home while they were spending a winter day at the beach. The children each have their own defining characteristics - Violet, the eldest at 14, is an inventor, who carries around a ribbon which she ties her hair up with whenever she's inventing to keep her hair out of her eyes; Klaus reads profusely, and had read every book in his monster of a library by the age of 12 (when the house burnt down), and has the cunning skill of remembering every single thing he has read, which covers a wide variety of subjects; and Sunny, who's defining characteristic for quite a few novels is that she likes to bite things, which later develops into a skill of cooking.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">From the day they find out about the death of their parents form Mr. Poe (their financial advisor) at the beach, they're shipped off to live with their new 'Guardian', Count Olaf - a washed up actor that has a completely evil side to him, who seems connected to all the misfortune that the Baudelaires ever experience, and who will do anything to inherit the Baudelaire's massive fortune. After finally convincing Mr. Poe that Count Olaf is an unfit Guardian, after an incident involving the narrowly avoided child-marriage of Violet to Count Olaf, the three of them are shipped off to Guardian after Guardian, never truly finding a home - and Count Olaf hot on their trails, disguised with sinister plans in hand which seem to exploit the Baudelaire's guardians' kind natures, and ultimately end in death or disaster.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The whole entire conundrum of this book is really what has drawn me, and thousands of other readers, really into this novel. So many levels of conspiracies and deception are laced throughout the entire series, which requires multiple readings and deep conversations to fully understand who's on what side of this conspiracy of VFD, what those three letters really stand for, who killed the Baudelaire's parents (as the fire was obviously not an accident), who really are the people that the Baudelaires meet, and how will they ever get out of this mess? <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I know, the way I'm introducing the novel is probably raising some more questions than answers, but that's what I love about this series - that these questions remain unanswered unless you really, closely read the novels and read into everything.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Also a note; something I find quite humerous is the way in which the author directly addresses the reader to explain words. For example, as Count Olaf runs a theatre troupe, Snicket describes the scene before a play starts as: <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"Pandemonium: a word which here means "actors and stagehands running around attending to last-minute details"

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Take a look at the first book] - also, take heed to the feisty comment by a certain 'Chris'. Just goes to show that not everyone can agree on what makes a great book.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Memorable Quotes:** > >
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"It is a curious thing, the death of a loved one. It's like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down through the air and there's a sickly moment of dark surprise. The children's grief was not only for their uncle but for that tender hope that they might have found home again. A hope which, thanks to a villainous actor, was now slowly tumbling away."//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"The book was long, and difficult to read, and Klaus became more and more tired as the night wore on. Occasionally his eyes would close. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over. He found himself reading the same sentence over and over."//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"Reading is one form of escape. Running for your life is another."//


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">FOUR **

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">A truly disturbing and wonderful novel, the Lovely Bones is probably one of those books that people judge based on it's cover.. or reputation. However, once you get past the awful rape and murder-scene at the start of the novel, you get really into it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Susie Salmon was 14 when she was raped and murdered by her neighbour, the sadistic Mr. Harvey. I won't concentrate on the rest of that scene, but the whole novel is written as a memoir, written by the way viewing her family from her porch in Limbo - the past catching up until the point in time near halfway through the novel. She describes looking over her family as they fall apart without her presence - her mother has an affair, her sister struggles without her, and her father becomes obsessed with finding her killer, who he suspects to be Mr. Harvey, but frustratingly can't prove it. Yet all the while, she seems to not show much emotion in response to her death - explaining the way she felt about things when she was alive, but implying that 'the dead don't dwell on emotions', even if she's describing her own death - a feeling which leaves you with empty feelings about Susie, as though she left her passion with her body on the way to Heaven.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is a novel that I thoroughly enjoyed reading, yet at the same time I probably won't read again because of the strong issues dealt with very bluntly and matter-of-factly in the novel. Despite that, I think it's a novel that people should at least read once.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">One of the most interesting imagery that was really vivid and effective was Sebold's description of Limbo. Salmon, who believes to be in heaven, now 'lives' in this world where you're mainly solitary, and while she insists she's happy and at peace, the world is so alien and quiet that you can't help but feel uncomfortable to ever find yourself in a place like that. At the end of the novel however, you're made aware that this was infact Limbo, where she was waiting to finish her 'unfinished business' before she could pass on.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Memorable Quotes:**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//""When I first entered heaven I thought everyone saw what I saw. That in everyone's heaven there were soccer goalposts in the distance and lumbering women throwing shot put and javelin. That all the buildings were like suburban northeast high schools built in the 1960s." (Later she learns that your heaven is whatever you truly want it to be and, sometimes, other people's version of heaven intercepts with your own.)//


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973"//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|If you're interested, take a look at this extended review of the novel.] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Here's the trailer for the adapted film]


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">FIVE **

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Paper Towns ~ John Green __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is the first book of Green's that I read, and when I finished, I then moved on until I'd finished all of his published works up to date - all because of this book. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While this novel is technically classified as young-adult fiction, it's one of those novels that I consider to technically not have a 'genre' - because to group it with a bulk genre like 'Romance' or 'Drama' isn't an accurate description of the book at all. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It follows the story of Quentin Jacobsen (//brilliant name//), who after years of living next door to his old childhood friend/love interest Margo Roth Spiegelman, is visited by the girl in the middle of the night to go on a prank-spree across town to get back at her 'friends' who have been lying to her. He has an amazing night, far more exciting than any other he has ever experienced as an introvert, and expects the next day at school to be hanging out with Margo and everything will finally be the way he dreamed. However, the next day she dissappears, leaving ghosts of clues behind, which Quentin sees as a sign to get him to follow her. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">What he instead finds is the side of Margo that no one has ever seen, and leaves him thinking about the bigger meaning of life, and how others perceive it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The way Green writes is very personal - like peoples thoughts unedited. The reason why his novels are so appealing is because he breaks down big ideas, about finding who you are and your place in the world, and translates them into the 'teenage language'. Having said that though, this book isn't for people whose only literature escapes are magazines. While some of the language itself is casual, the themes and even the plot line are really complex and in-depth, and so the book is separated into three parts: The Strings, The Grass, and The Vessel; the three similes of how the characters interpret the way that people interact with each other, and their connection to the world - the theme explored throughout the book. (For this to make sense without my long interperative explanation, you'll have to read it!) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">John Green has this amazing way of really talking to you like an equal through the avatars of teenage heros, who are normal, just like the rest of us, including odd habits which make them quirky and different - for example, Quentin Jacobsen's friend's parents have the Guinness World Record for the largest collection of black santa figurines. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I thought this book should make this list, as it has made many others, and I like to search for new mediums on which to encourage people to really take a look into the world that is Paper Towns.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Memorable Quotes:**
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"Margo always loved mysteries... I could never stop thinking that maybe she loved mysteries so much that she became one"//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"Here's what's not beautiful about it: from here, you can't see the rust or the cracked paint or whatever, but you can tell what the place really is. You can see how fake it all is. It's not even hard enough to be made out of plastic. It's a paper town"//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"I have never really thought of him as a person, either.... A guy whose strings were broken, who didn’t feel the root of his leaves of grass connected to the field, a guy who was cracked. Like me." ~on the dead man the two had found in the park as kids.//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Here's a longer list of quotes to check out. (Please do if you have the time...)] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Mr. Green's website.]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 70%;">ALSO as a note: John Green and his brother Hank Green have a vlog on youtube which spins really awesome ideas and such. Please [|check it out]. He often talks about his novels, as well as just some really fun, interesting topics. :)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**SIX** __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**'**Winnie the Pooh: the complete collection of stories and poems' ~ A.A. Milne __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ok, I'm assuming you're saying 'But Camille!! There's so many more amazing pieces out there, which you would prefer to shun in order to mention Winnie the Pooh? Why?', and to you I say "If you don't consider Winne the Pooh great, you wouldn't know greatness if it dropped on your foot!" (no, I don't really say that. I'm lovely, really.) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The truth of the matter is, I recently sat down to read this book and got thorough enjoyment out of it - 15 years after first receiving it. That is what I call good literature. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">There is this specialness that surrounds the innocent simplicity of this book. Reading about these characters is like visiting old friends, and it's the kind of children's book which caters for adults too, with clever little play on words which don't make much sense as a kid but that doesn't concern you at the time, as you're too distracted by the Hundred-Acre Woods too notice. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I think I would be right in saying that the Winnie the Pooh chronicles was the main part in not only my childhood, but that of many of those around the world, so truly this is a classic.

//My Favourite Bit:// <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"An Introduction is to introduce people, but Christopher Robin and his friends, who have already been introduced to you, are now going to say Good-bye. So this is the opposite. When we asked Pooh what the opposite of an Introduction was, he said 'The what of a what?' which didn't help up as much as we had hoped, but luckily Owl kept his head and told us that the Opposite of an Introduction, my dear Pooh, was a Contradiction; and, as he is very good at long words, I am sure that that's what it is."

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I LOVE IT


 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">SEVEN **

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows ~ JK Rowling __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I assume you'll be finding this book on probably all the other wiki pages. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">That fact alone basically says everything about this novel - apart from what I'm about to tell you, of course. It is the most original piece of work that I have ever read, and probably will ever <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;"> read in my life. To top that off, it's been read by basically everyone around the world so is a brilliant conversation starter if you were, say, on a Japanese exchange program during the Summer Holidays this year.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Honestly, what's "bloody brilliant" about this book is that it ties up the rest of the mysteries left by the other six of the series in a neat, inarguable complete way. So many complicated narratives which lace through each other throughout the series come to light, which you can only truly appreciate if you go back through the series and see many references even from the second book. (I have a feeling the first book was kind of like the 'pitch' idea for the series, because aside from introducing the characters and the ultimate mystery of who Voldemort is, it doesn't seem to have much to do with the rest of the darker, more intimate novels of the series).

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I also love this book as it created a world that was so foreign, weird and extraordinary, but at the same time ultimately believable and seemingly possible to live in. Not many fantasy-genre books do that at all. By linking the world of wizardry in Harry's world to modern day England, and inter-lapping them frequently, JK Rowling created this race of wizards which is almost believable, and left the possibility that since we're 'muggles', we're just out of the loop on their existence.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Also what I love is how the spell names are completely believable as spells - originating from latin or some other important, dead language, they sound like what they are. Infact, here's a [|complete list] of them to have a look at!

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">She literally created an entire world from the ground up - from wizard childhood stories, to creatures, to languages (parseltongue!), to complex rules on magic. It's utterly fantastic and so indepth, that I think she probably had written a lot more about the world that she couldn't even fit in the text (for example, she later explained that the reason why Dumbledore didn't ever get married or anything was because he was gay, though this wasn't included in the text) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">And while she does this, it doesn't sound like a dorky fandom at all! What I mean is, when it comes to complex worlds created for narratives like Star Trek, it seems that a lot of people that gravitate towards them are (excuse me) of the 'unordinary' type. However, Harry Potter has been read by young and old in basically every country because the world of wizardry is familiar, yet as it's also so foreign everyone can relate to the wonder of it.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The relationships between the characters are so believable, as she tackles the issues of growing up and the way their relationships change so well that you see the characters mature before your eyes, but just like in real life it's so gradual that you feel like they've always been like that. For example, the issue of when Ron starts falling for Hermione, and thinks that she is in love with Harry - as he's the Boy Who Lived, and everyone seems to either love him or hate him at some point in the book. He gets really jealous, but Harry only thinks of Hermione as a sister since they'd grown up together and he hadn't ever had a proper family. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Quite honestly I could go on about this book, so I think I'll stop here and just paste a few quotes from the last novel below.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Memorable Quotes:** >
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">//"Harry thought fast, his scar still prickling, his head threatening to split again. Dumbledore had warned him against telling anyone but Ron and Hermione about the Horcruxes. Secrets and lies, that's how we grew up, and Albus… he was a natural… Was he turning into Dumbledore, keeping his secrets clutched to his chest, afraid to trust? But Dumbledore had trusted Snape, and where had that led? To murder at the top of the highest tower…"//
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">//"Dumbledore's betrayal was almost nothing. Of course there had been a bigger plan; Harry had simply been too foolish to see it, he realized that now. He had never questioned his own assumption that Dumbledore wanted him alive. Now he saw that his life span had always been determined by how long it took to eliminate all the Horcruxes."//
 * <span style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 3em; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">//"There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors than to his triumphs."//

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">and yes, that was short and sweet... in the case of Harry Potter anyway. :)

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**EIGHT**

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Sonnet 18] ~ William Shakespeare __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Ok, I realise this piece is completely different to the works on the rest of my list, but honestly this is such a beautful poem that I had to include it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Now usually, for me, Mr. Shakespeares poems seem a bit 'old and dull' - nothing that really stands out, especially when it comes to his sappy love poems. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">While this is the case, Sonnet 18 seems to be different. I understand he wrote the sonnet in his 'earlier' days, so the poem isn't as technically sophisticated as some of his other works, but it's just a plain, beautiful sonnet and seems to be the most realistic of his lovely-dovey poems. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">By simply stating that to call his love one 'a summer's day', at first sounding like a lovely synonym, would be incorrect because she's more lovely and temperate than what a summer's day can be, the poems showing true deep emotion and thoughtfulness. The syntax of the poem is just beautiful and flows so easily, and the words used are so soft that they cannot be pronounced harsh by the reader - which gives the poem a real softness about it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I'm not really one to fully analyse poems, but the reason why this poem stood out was because you could just see the true love emanating from the poem without having to over think or analyse the text itself. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The way he describes how death itself will not gloat when she is in the company of him, is a powerful image of how he thinks that his impression of her isn't just how she affects him, but how she affects and reacts to others. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">He then ends by basically dedicating the poem to her, saying that while she will not live forever, as long as the poem is around, she will live through the poem for others to bask in her company.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**NINE**

__<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Stargirl ~ Jerry Spinelli __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">I think it's important to mention this book in this list, as the theme it carries is very important and relevant to us as a group of teenage girls.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It's a story that follows a boy named Leo Borlock, who's always been mingling with the crowd at this school where everyone HAS to be the same, to keep the status quo. However, along comes Stargirl and nothing about her mingles. She sings ukelele-accompanied serenades in the cafeteria, wheres no makeup (shock horror!), wheres clothes that are __different__ and has a personality. She's such a caring person too - she knows everyone's birthdays, despite them knowing her, and goes out of her way to please them with a surprise birthday gift - she's just one of those people that cares way beyond the reach capable of most people. So when Leo starts going out with her, the school views him suddenly as being different too, and because of it he is also shunned - the way that high schools work, I suppose.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This is such a wonderful book, because the novel deals with the real issue of how awful high school can be (in a co-educational environment, of course!) in America, or anywhere for that matter, and also shows that there is life after high school and things that happen now may be awful, but mainly it's just teenagers trying to make everyone conform, so no one has to deal with being different.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It's one of those books that although it ends happily, you're left feeling empty. In the case of Stargirl, this doesn't mean that the story was poorly written. On the contrary, I feel that the anti-climatic ending, with no change after all the characters did to try and make conformity break in their school, represents what true life is like - although what the characters were doing was right, doesn't mean that people were going to appreciate and help them for it on a larger scale. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">It's also written cleverly in the way that the narrative is in the second person - well, first person, Leo, telling the story of the second person, Stargirl. This form of narrative just truly showed what a 'follower' Leo was in the beginning, and even after Stargirl is gone, as he is the character with not much of a story to tell, and instead told those of people he met - typical of a teenager, who wishes typically not to tell of their story if it's 'different'. If you ask me, all he has going for his individuality is his collection of porcupine neck-ties.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Finally, it tells us to leave those who don't care about us behind, and move on to better things - which is basically the hardest thing to do as a teenager. Yet as Stargirl is capable of leaving, despite her 'happy-wagon' being a few marbles short on her happy scale half the time (a reference you will understand once you read this novel), it shows what a strong character she was to realise her talents and efforts were being wasted on people that didn't care enough, and she was better of leaving and finding her place where people will appreciate her as much as she does them. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Stargirl was a book which I was encouraged to read, and I feel better off having read it - so I think that it's worthy of our literature cannon.


 * Memorable Quotes:**
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"When a stargirl cries, she sheds not tears but light."
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">"She might be pointing to a doorway, or a person, or the sky. But such things were so common to my eyes, so undistinguished, that they would register as "nothing" I walked in a gray world of nothing."
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">"We wanted to define her, to wrap her up as we did each other, but we could not seem to get past "weird" and "strange" and "goofy." Her ways knocked us off balance. "
 * <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 80%;">"It's in the morning, for most of us. It's that time, those few seconds when we're coming out of sleep but we're not really awake yet. For those few seconds we're something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then...and then -- ah -- we open our eyes and the day is before us and ... we become ourselves."

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|Have a read of an excerpt] <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">[|This is Jerry Spinelli's website]

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**TEN** __<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Looking For Alaska ~ John Green __

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Another of Green's novels, Looking for Alaska follows the story of Miles 'Pudge' Halter, who has moved to a prestigious boarding school named Culver Creek after living the life of a solitary, invisible boy in his old highschool - from which none of his friends came to his goodbye party. He has the intriguing hobby of memorising famous people's last words, such as François Rabelais who's last words were "I go to seek a Great Perhaps", who's words echo throughout the novel as Pudge goes out into the world to seek his own Great Perhaps. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">At Culver Creek, Pudge meets the Colonel (his roommate, and mathematical genius), a Japanese boy named Takumi, and "the hottest girl in all of human history", Alaska. Pudge is completely enthralled by Alaska, and despite her massive mood swings, and heavy use of alcohol and cigarettes, he falls for her hard, despite her having a boyfriend which she feels the same way about. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">However, not to spoil the novel in anyway, after a complicated and intriguiing turn of events, Alaska freaks out one night, asks the boys to help her escape the eye of the Eagle (the coordinator), and unexpectedly dies in a car accident - though to where she was heading, what the significance of the white tulips in her back seat were, and why she had felt the intense need to leave at 3am with a BAL of 0.23 was a complete mystery. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">Though it was this mystery which had Pudge falling for her in the first place. She smokes heavily, yet lives to the fullest. She has a bookshelf full of novels she's collected from garage sales, yet has not yet found the time to read many at all. What she has read of, she has a completely in-depth and clear view of, yet when it comes to other's understanding of her, she is completely opaque and goes through stages where she won't even answer '//who, what, when, where, why, how'// questions. It's this conundrum of this happy girl who plays pranks, who also can seem really cynical which has everyone around constantly sitting on the edge of their seats and interested in what she's doing. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The novel explores deeply the true meaning of religion, what the Labyrinth is, how we escape it, and what happens when we do. Pudge's school class of 'World Religions' plays a deep role in the novel, as what he learns or explores in class helps him interpret his experiences throughout the novels in a new, enlightened way. You see him transform from the Miles of his old school, where the worst he got up to was wearing baggy jeans and he felt his goal in life was to not care and therefore not be cared for, to the 16 year-old 'Pudge' at Culver Creek, where he lets loose, makes mistakes, takes risks and eventually finds himself in a really good place. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">This novel is really though provoking, and as it's specifically written in this way to target teenagers, it feels really relatable and extremely easy to loose yourself in. It's not all doom and gloom, and has many funny moments or interesting dramas going on, which lighten the mood and give the novel enough variety in mood that it's completely unpredictable what's going to happen next, and that's what is so captivating about it. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">The novel ultimately has a conclusion for Pudge on what he considers the Labyrinth to be, yet Green has written the novel in such a way that it's completely possible to ignore Pudge's conclusion and replace it with your own, as he gave you the tools to do so.

<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif;">**Memorable Quotes:** > > <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">//An interesting school chant at a school Basketball game when their team was losing:// > <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 10px; line-height: 12px;">Cornbread!" he screamed. > CHICKEN!" the crowd responded. > Rice!" > PEAS!" > And then, all together: "WE GOT HIGHER SATs." > Hip Hip Hip Hooray!" the Colonel cried. > YOU'LL BE WORKIN' FOR US SOMEDAY!"
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">"When adults say, "Teenagers think they are invincible" with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, because we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible because we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">"Imagining the future is a kind of nostalgia. (...) You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you'll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present."
 * <span style="color: #181818; font-family: georgia,serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px;">"The Colonel led all the cheers.

[|John Green's Link for LFA] [|Other people's reviews who have read the book]