Coraline by Neil Gaiman

Coraline is a really creepy book about a little girl who moves into a new apartment in London. She loves to explore, and one day she decides to count all the doors in her house. She finds 31 doors that open, and 1 door that is locked. So her Mom shows her that there is nothing behind the door but a brick wall. But one night she goes back to the door and opens it. Behind the door she finds a version of her mother and father, but they have button eyes.  In this book there are 2 big symbols: button eyes represent that if Coraline would put them on she would be selling her soul, and because in this book there is a lot about being trapped in/ behind a mirror I think that is a symbol too. I can't say anymore without giving away too much, but this is a pretty quick read and I would recommend it!!

Flowers for Algernon, Week 2

This book is about Charlie Gordon, who is retarded. His teacher at school recommends him for an experiment that is supposed to make him smarter. The book is written in progress reports, and it is obvious as he gets the operations that he is getting a lot smarter. He works at a bakery, but as he gets smarter people start to dislike him, and he gets fired. When he becomes smarter than the professors and doctors doing the operations, he realizes that Algernon, the mouse they also do operations to, is getting sicker and sicker, and Charlie fears he will too. This book has so many aspects to talk about and think about, and that is why I would definitely recommend it for another book group!

Flowers for Algernon, Week 1

This week was my first week in the Flowers for Algernon book group. It is a really great book about a man who is mentally retarded. Professors and scientists decide to do a test on him that they think will make him smarter. They are also doing this test on a mouse named Algernon. Charlie does get smarter, and he starts to remember a lot about his childhood, and become a genius. But he still struggles socially. He and the mouse kind of become friends, and this book is about their stories. I have only read one week of it, but I think it is a really great book, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Water for Elephants, Week 2

This week I finished reading Water for Elephants. A man in a nursing home tells his story about being the veterinarian in a circus. It is a mystery about traveling circuses. This was a really, really great book. It is pretty long, but I recommend it a lot!

Water for Elephants, Week 1

This week I started reading Water for Elephants, which is about an old man telling the story of when he was a kid and he worked at the circus. He was a veterinarian, and he worked with the animals. This book is kind of a mystery, and about circuses that traveled on trains. A good part that sets the scene is when he is describing the circus tent. I peer inside. The tent is enormous, as tall as the sky, and supported by long straight poles jutting in different angles. The canvas is taut and nearly translucent-- sunlight filters through the material and seams, illuminating the largest candy stand of all. This book isn't very inappropriate, and it is very good!!!

Catalyst

This week I read Catalyst by Laurie Halse Anderson. It is about a girl named Kate who is relying on getting into MIT. She doesn't tell anyone, but it is the only college she applied to. Her father is a preacher, and she acts like a perfect kid, but on the inside she really isn't. Their neighbors, the Litch's house burns down, and Teri and Mikey move in with Kate and her little brother Toby. Teri and Kate have always been enemies and Kate has to work on opening up to her. This book is almost 300 pages long, and it is pretty appropriate for any age. Kate and Teri were both really deep and interesting characters. Kate has 2 sides: Good Kate and Bad Kate, and it is interesting how they both come up in the book. And Teri just has a lot of hard things to deal with, and it is interesting to see her in that position. Overall I just think this was a really good book and I recommend it.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

This book by John Green and David Levithan is about two boys with the same name. One Will has a gay friend named Tiny, and a crush on a girl named Jane, and he deals with social things. The other Will realizes he is gay when he and Will meet and a store and he falls in love with Tiny. The first sentence is: My Dad used to tell me "Will, you can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friends nose." It is pretty intriguing, and you definitely want to keep reading with that first line. This book has a few curse words and mature topics but not too many!!!