Hello!
I am here for my fourth and last update for
Heidi's 2017 Adventure of Reading Challenge! Here are update one, update two, and update three.
Thank you so much for hosting this challenge, Heidi! I probably wouldn't have read them otherwise!
Wonderland Creek - by Lynn Austen:
"It's the little things that make all the difference in the world. The kind words we speak and the simple things we do for people."
Alice Grace Ripley loves to read. After getting a lot of books to donate to a library in Acorn, she decides to bring them down there herself! Alice finds several things she wasn't expecting, one of them being the fact that the librarian gets severally hurt and she has to take over. Most people don't even read, but they love the books.There is a big secret, but no one will tell her! What with gardening, cooking, and doing the librarian's will, she learns that maybe the world is better than a book, and she should get into her own story.
'It was just a pile of old wood and scraps of metal, but in their imagination it was a schooner that could sail all over the world searching for buried treasure.'
Genre: Historical Fiction, Period Drama.
"...Will it take her very long to get here?' 'Well, it depends on which horse she's riding--"
Characters: 10, there are so many and they are all so different!
'It seemed that I had baked myself into a jam tart, as Mother would say.'
My favorite:
Alice, she and I are very alike, and this is so true: 'Sometimes I hated being a fair-skinned blond. People could read my distress like a thermometer as the color filled or drained from my cheeks.'
Miss Lillie, she is amazing.
Words: 9, there are a few bad words.
'She may as well have been speaking another language. I was so frightened that her words of advice fell all around me without sinking in, as forgotten as raindrops in the creek.'
Quotes: 10, seriously, this is my favorite! It describes me sssoooo well!
"'...I didn't cause a scene. I don't know why the usher asked us to leave.'
'Gordon said it was because you started talking very loudly in the middle of the movie, saying it wasn't at all like the originally book...Gordon is still mad because he didn't get to see how the film ended.'
'He didn't need to see the end. I told him how the book ended and it was so much better than the movie. They even changed the hero's motivation. Can you imagine? That movie was such a travesty that I couldn't help getting upset.'"
Storyline: 6, there is death, blood, kissing, suggestive, smoking, drinking.
'Fighting injustice seemed to carry a very high price tag.'
It has references to these books, which I thought was pretty cool:
Sherlock Holmes, Alice in Wonderland, Macbeth.
Good For: Anyone who likes to read.
"Weeds are just like hatred and greed, you know. If you ain't careful, they'll choke all the love and compassion out of a person."
Overall Score: 8.
"That's absurd,' I said with a little laugh. 'Nobody can read too much. That's like saying someone can breathe too much."
(Well, that was definitely a mini review ;) )
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society - by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows:
(This will actually just be a mini review, because I want to do a longer post on it in the future. In other words I forgot where I put my notes, and as there is maybe a movie of it coming out, I want to compare it to that.)
It's post World War II, and Juliet gets a letter from a Dawsy Adams, a man on the island Guernsey who happens to own one of Juliet's old books. A correspondence ensures, and Juliet gets to know the people of Guernsey and their literary society.
Genre: Historical Fiction,
Characters: 7, two of the characters are mentioned as being homosexual, so that kind of put me a little bit against the book, because I don't support that.
My favorite:
Isola & Kit.
(They are the best!!)
Words: 6, there are a few bad words, and swearing.
Storyline: 7, suggestive stuff happened, smoking, discussion unpleasing, name calling, bathroom, and mention of drinking.
Good For: History fans.
Overall Score: 7!
The Headless Cupid - by Zilpha Keatley Snider:
(Also know as,
A Witch in the Family.)
'Walking through the door was like walking out of a bright morning into midnight.'
The Stanley kids can't wait to meet Molly's daughter, Amanda, who will become their new sister! But when she comes, they find she studies witchcraft. Because they don't have anything else to do, David, Blair, Janie, and Tesser want to do it too! Strange things start happening and they wonder if it really is, or is Amanda some how making it all up?
'He was remembering that she believed in good omens, like rainbows and church bells.'
Genre: Middle Grade Fiction.
Characters: 8,
My favorite:
Janie & Tesser.
'Janie always asked questions faster than anybody could possibly answer them.'
Words: 9, only one bad word.
'The sun was warm on the steps, but the air still had the night-freshened cool of summer mornings.'
Quotes: 9, '...he started having that good, slightly excited feeling that a library always gave him.'
(SPOILERS from now on.)
NOTE: I definitely don't believe in witchcraft or do I support it but it is all fake in this book. Amanda was making it up to get attention and to make her mom mad. There are some scenes where they are doing "ceremonies" that I don't approve of, but it was a made up.
'David had never heard of anybody taking up stocking robbery as a career.'
Storyline: 7, Stealing, divorce, and witchcraft though it is just to get attention.
Good For: Those who are going through a hard time, those who have experienced change.
Overall Score: 8.
'He kept it closed because he had a feeling that if he started talking he'd say a lot.'
So, I read 9 1/2 out of 11! I really was going to read
Orange & Green, but I read all these other ones first, so when I went to get it out from the library they said I could get it on the first of the year! Oh well. And, I admit I was a little scared of reading
Frankenstein, but I did read most of it, and I will finish it in 2018!
Thank you so much for hosting this, Heidi! It was very fun!!
MovieCritic
