The Alchemist: first week in

I just began the book The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It's an interesting story about a shepherd boy. I haven't gotten far--but it seems sorta interesting. It's unlike anything I've read before but that seems to be a trend I have been having--starting the unknown. The book is categorized under fantasy and I only started reading it for the genre requirement. I also only started reading it because of the cover. They say not to judge a book by it's cover but I did. Oh well, Ms. Bandman said it was a good book so I'll take her word for it. It takes place in Spain not America like most books I have read. I have a poetry share today so at least I'll be able to read on the couch again! Off to more reading....Allie

Looking for Alaska: finished after two days, I guess she wasn't that hard to find!

It had a beginning and an ending, that's all. NOT. Looking for Alaska was an amazing book. I loved it so much that it was hard to put down. So much so that at one point I couldn't not continue reading. The book was set up so that it was almost divided. There was a before and there was an after. The before was all the moments before a huge prank occurred. And the whole book: it didn't have chapters, it was like this huge sequence. 186 days before, 33 days before. It was so cool. And it was funny, and you really got to see the main character's quirks. One of my favorite quotes was when the main character, Miles (Pudge) speaks of Alaska: his dream girl,

"But I lacked the courage and she had a boyfriend and I was gawky and she was gorgeous and I was hopelessly boring and she was endlessly fascinating. So I walked back to my room and collapsed on the bottom bunk, thinking that if people were rain, I was drizzle and she was hurricane".

He's so intense and the author does a great job writing as a teenager. I loved the whole book, and wanna know something funny? The back of the book said "Holden Caulfield lives on". That is so appropriate! If I had read this book a year ago, or even a few weeks ago I would never have been able to open my eyes to all the connections there are between the two books. Sickness! that's all I have to say. It was a book that I recommend to everyone I see now: that's how good it was.

My next book will be The Alchemist, I saw it on Ms. Bandman's shelf under one of the genre requirements I need so I picked it up. I read the blurb and it looked pretty good and asked a couple of people whether they liked it and they said they knew people who had read it and liked it so I took the plunge. So far I have read zero pages but I will! Who knows, it might just be a quick read like Looking for Alaska was.

Looking for Alaska: a new book for reading

I finished The Kite Runner on Sunday and I was so pleased with the ending. It really got to be a roller coaster ride towards the end. Your emotions will be up then down, then up, then down! You worried, then you felt happy, then you worried, and on and on. The ending was very simple but it was the kind of simple that you really like. Like the smell of rain on pavement, it's so simple but you can't help but love it. I started the book Looking for Alaska by John Green after a very annoying trip to the library. I love this book. I'm around 45 pages in and I just love the tone of the book. It's told in first person. I've read books in first person before, The Kite Runner was in first person but it wasn't anything like Looking for Alaska. For example, Miles talks about his parents leaving him at the boarding school and he says "At some point, you just pull off the Band-Aid and it hurts, but then it's over and you're relieved" (7). I thought that was sort of funny, I've heard the saying but never in this context. Another one of his thoughts was "I knew I ought to cry, but I'd lived with my parents for sixteen years, and a trial separation seemed overdue" (7). He's leaving the nest, but he doesn't even want to cry about it or anything--he'd rather compare it to couple's failed marriage steps. This new book is told by a teenager, a real life teenage. He has just turned on a new leaf and just started a new school. As a reader, you go through his first experiences with him, his crushing on the pretty girl down the hall with him. The difference between this book and other books I've read is that this particular author really left this huge door open, a garage even, for the reader to enter and join the main character--Miles--in his journey. I've never actually been this excited about a book after just reading 45 pages: hopefully the ending doesn't disappoint :).

Kite Runner: coming to a close (HUGE SPOILERS!!)

So, when I left off Amir was right in the beginning of his life in America. Right now, I'm at a point where he has gotten married but he has a dilemma. His wife can't get pregnant! It's so sad, but they're both successful adults now, which I'm happy about. One day Amir got a phone call from his dad's old best friend asking him to come see him. Amir goes, and finds his dad's old best friend Rahin Khan terribly sick. He asks Amir for one dying wish to go and fetch Hassan's son. He tells Amir of the life when Hassan lived with him and about his son. He then tells Amir that he is Hassan's brother. Hassan is beyond freaking out and is so angry because he feels that his life was just a lie. After a quick temper tantrum, he comes back and he decides that he will go get Hassan's son Sohrab. He is living in the slums of an orphanage. Amir treks across Afghanistan with this man Farid. None of Afghanistan is the way he remembers it. It's so sad the visuals you see him describe. They remind me of slum dog millionaire with all the poverty and orphans. It just makes me so angry and sad. It makes you want to travel across the country at that moment and take fifty kids home with you. It really does. I am really hoping that I can finish this book by next week because it's at a dramatic moment right now and I really want to finish!

Kite Runner, only 60 pages farther but tons to talk about

So far, this book has exceeded my expectations. Right now, Amir and his father are in America. His father, Baba, has been working at a gas station since they got there. This same father was once one of the richest men in Kabul with a black mustang car and a huge house. Amir is going to school and living the California life except he can't escape his memories of Hassan. America is an open door of opportunities but it still isn't able to get rid of Amir's memories of Hassan. When Baba mentions Hassan, Amir feels like

"a pair steel hands closed around [his] windpipe at the sound of Hassan's name. [He] rolled down the window. waited for the steel hands to loosen their grip" (134).

That quote was so extremely visual for me and it made a huge metaphorical connection. Amir's grief after what happen makes him feel like there is steel hands trying to choke him. He can barely live with himself. Later in my reading, Amir actually is love-stricken by a girl. He is so incredibly nervous and scared to talk to her and he

"promised [him]self that [he] would talk to her before the summer was over, but schools reopened, the leaves reddened, yellowed, and fell, the rains of winter swept in and wakened Baba's joints, baby leaves sprouted once more, and [he] still hadn't had the heart, the dil, to even look her in the eye" (144).

This quote really jumped off the page for me because it can be true for anyone and it really allows you to relate to Amir. Everyone is scared to talk to someone they have a crush on--they're afraid of embarrassing themselves, not saying the right thing, and so many other things. This quote shows Amir's true nature and his relatable nature to everyone else in the world--it shows his true human nature. And I'm off to more reading...