When I heard the news, I was devastated.  Mr. Crichton was one of my absolute favorite authors.  He wrote dramatically while being simple.  He was scientific yet understandable.  His books are suspenseful and engrossing.  His characters are alive and believable. 

I have read the following Crichton books: The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park, The Lost World, Airframe, Next, Prey, and Sphere.  Each book was stuffed to the brim with relevant technology that transported me to a setting where the story he was telling was probably fiction…but…it could just maybe happen…

I found The Andromeda Strain to be the most scientifically engrossing but the least exciting plot-wise.

Jurassic Park is one of my favorite books of all time.

The Lost World was a disappointment to me.  I view it as a publicity stunt to match the movie sequels. 

Airframe is a fabulous book.  Business mixes with science mixes with corruption and intrigue.

Next was not my favorite.  The characters were wonderful but I did not enjoy the plot of the jumpiness of the scenes.

Prey was terrifying and not altogether pleasant to read, but thrilling.  When I was done reading it, I wasn’t sure whether I liked it or not, so I read it again.

I am currently re-reading Sphere in memorium.  It is one of my favorite Crichton books; a true psychological thriller coupling fantasy with imagination. 

Even though I personally did not like a few of his books, every single one had characteristics common to Crichton’s writing.  Every single one contains his unique style of dialogue.  Every single one has the escalation points which compel the reader to grip the book in her hands and push her eyes to read faster.  Every book by Michael Crichton redefines the “thriller” genre.

I encourage you to share with me your favorite Crichton books and why.  Tell me which ones to read, and share in my tribute to this amazing author. 

Scarlett is spunky, cool, and calculating.  She is the belle of three counties with uncountable beaux (get used to that word; it comes about once a chapter at least) and the envy of every girl in the state.  She is used to getting what she wants, so it comes as a huge surprise to her when her object of infatuation, Ashley Wilkes, becomes engaged to another girl.           

The mindless lusts of a teenager provoke the internal conflict that Scarlett faces throughout all 1024 pages of the book.  Her obsession can get tiring at times, especially with the entrance of the dashing Rhett Butler (I dare you to show me a girl who is not hopelessly in love with him by the end of the book).             

Mitchell’s story is a wonderfully painted picture of Civil War era Georgia, with its aristocracy, sprawling plantations, fierce kinships, and personalities of the time.  I thoroughly enjoyed her description of the tough old ladies whose devotion to the Confederate cause never dies.  The book is both absorbing and instructive—I consider myself an expert on a Southerner’s view of the Reconstruction now.           

I don’t know if boys will like Gone With the Wind as much as girls will…but I encourage all young adults to read it!!           

Besides, Twilight fans will need something to keep their minds off the upcoming movie (and no, I am not going to see it).

Myracle writes in the manner of instant messaging, which provides her characters with frank personalities and attitudes.  One thing I love about this book (series, actually.  TTYL, TTFN, and L8R, G8R) is how each character is individual and real in herself.  Angela (SnowAngel) is spunky, boy-crazy, and sparkly.  Maddie (madmaddie) is tough, independent, and rebellious.  Zoe (zoegirl) is quiet, introverted, and ambitious.  These three “Winsome Threesome” are diverse enough to appeal to any range of readers.

Throughout the book, each girl gets herself into a series of scrapes.  Battling boys, teachers, and the “Queen Bee,” Angela, Maddie and Zoe learn that friendship is tough, but being friendless is tougher.  This sort of story makes me want to curl up with a bowl of ice cream and tell all my friends how much I love them.  Be warned: Boys may not appreciate this series as much as girls will. 

For added fun, read it out loud with two of your bestest buds.

I was almost right.  The melodramatics are very present in The Host, but the characters are real enough to distract me from that.  I read over 200 pages in an hour and a half, and came up for air breathless.  I was shocked to find that, as hard as I pretended that I didn’t, I was enjoying the book.

It is long.  It is very long.  619 pages, a full 2.5 days to read, and really no good place to put it down to pick up in the morning.  Even the boring parts (and there are long stages of boring parts) have an undercurrent of electricity running through them, just enough to make me keep turning the pages.

I finished the book this morning, after staying up past 1 for the last 2 nights to read.  Needless to say, I am very tired.  However, I am not too tired to point out the book’s flaws.  Meyer has grown as a writer since penning Twilight, but she is still overly dramatic and emotional.  In this book, that works, because when a book is over 600 pages long, a little excitement is necessary to keep the reader interested.

The pretense is interesting enough, and her character development is superb.  I’m not turning into a Stephenie Meyer über fan, but I am willing to suspend my doubts about her for the time being. 

The Host was good.

While the books deal with the rather trite metaphysical battle between Light and Dark, Cooper’s look at it varies somewhat from the likes of Harry Potter vs Voldemort, Good vs Evil.  For Cooper, the Light is as hard a master as the Dark, and there is no imminent reward for joining the Light.  The two sides can never ultimately triumph over each other, and the war between them costs lives, property, and time.

Cooper’s novels focus on four characters: three siblings, Barney, Jane, and Simon, and Will Stanton, the last of the Old Ones, an ageless branch of people destined to battle the dark.  Barney, Jane, and Simon are mortals drawn into the battle by their own curiosity and a family friend, Merriman Lyon, who is of the same kind as Will.  (They call him “Merry” for short, so say “Merry Lyon” five times fast and see what you come up with.)

The Dark has…well…dark characters on its side, from the sinister Rider to the ancient power of the Brenin Llywd.  However, these characters never inspire the utter hatred of their readers, for their humanness reacts with their agelessness to inspire a confusing sort of feeling, both of disgust and pity.  Doomed to be creatures of the Dark, yet full of a passion for their destiny, both the enemy and the protagonists are caught in the swirling winds of fate.

Cooper’s writing style can drag on a bit.  The books are older, written in the 1970’s, and take place in England.  Cooper enjoys description, especially of battles and such, which can be tiresome when all the reader wants is a swift battle, not a three page description of the lightning and the flood.  She does tend to drag some points across the page, but the real beauty of her words comes in the fleeting expressions of her characters: a look of longing on Merriman’s face, the confusion between being a normal boy and an Old One for Will, the innocence of the children.  Through this, Cooper makes her characters alive and living, even those who have no age.

If you couldn’t guess the wordplay behind Merriman’s name, “Merry Lyon” sounds like “Merlin” if you say it right.

To my shock, I enjoyed it.  The Hobbit is a prequel to The Lord of the Rings books, and focuses on Bilbo Baggins, who turns out to be Frodo’s uncle, I think.  I’ve never read any other books by Tolkien, so I was able to enjoy The Hobbit without any taints from the other books or movies.  Frankly, I was always a bit disdainful of The Lord of the Rings, but now I am considering reading them.

Tolkien’s writing style is droll and rather stuffy, like an English professor who thinks himself quite funny, and who sometimes is.  The descriptions of Bilbo are charming; for example, the constant reminder that all Bilbo wants to do is sit by his fire in his cozy armchair and have a glass of tea.

The adventure in the book is not especially exciting, nor are the action sequences breathtaking and exhilarating.  Bilbo prefers to sit out the adventures, so the reader is compelled to sit them out with him.  I really didn’t mind this.  Many of my classmates complain to me about how boring this book is, and one of my friends has remarked that it has a sonorous effect on her.  While it is true that The Hobbit is not an action-packed novel like, for instance, Jurassic Park is, the real compelling part of the book, for me, is in the character descriptions.

Tolkien paints each character with such vivid colors that I could easily imagine any of the characters, from Fili and Kili to Beorn and Gandalf.  The characters easily propel the story along (though propel is not quite the word I want to use…I am imagining a book propped along a zipline that moves rather slowly through thick branches but is still enjoyable because of the funny monkeys that keep throwing mangoes at the zipline rider) through the many adventures of Bilbo and Company.

Of course, all Bilbo really wants is a cup of tea.

I’ve never read a Dessen book before, but I plan to now, after reading this book.  It is sufficiently inspiring, sweet, and engulfing enough to make it a perfect summer read.  Halley, the heroine, is relatable and sometimes annoying, but I recently realized that authors make their heroines frustrating on purpose, to keep us reading.  Dessen does this very well.  Throughout the book, I would figuratively hold my breath and hope that Halley would get a grip and wake up from her ideal-boy dream.  Scarlett, Halley’s best friend, is a wonderful character.  She is strong, brave, and completely down-to-earth, and I only wish she made more appearances in the book than she does.

The back cover claims that the story is about Scarlett, but really, it is about Halley, and her journey to find herself in the midst of her friend’s struggles.  Scarlett’s drama is a catalyst for Halley’s self-doubts and self-exploration.  Scarlett is the plot, but Halley is the story.

The story is not complicated, and the characters are simple but still complex.  Their feelings aren’t measured in drawn-out melodramatics, but in quiet statements and actions. 

If I had to give Someone Like You a personality, it would be this: quiet, complicated, and true.  All in all, it makes for an enjoyable read.

   The major component of an interesting book is an interesting hook.  Synesthesia is the perfect combination of medical truth and imaginative superpowers.  It makes Mia both relatable and distant, a character who is nice to read about, but who you really wouldn’t want to meet in real life.                 
   Mia’s cat is named Mango.  Although his appearances in the book are limited, he has a more important role than just being a name for the title.  He represents connections to Mia: connections to the spirit world of the dead, connections to the real world from her colors, connections to the earth and nature.                 

   One huge fault of this book, though this commonly happens in most novels, is that it is predictable.  On one hand, predictability is nice because it provides comfort to the reader.  On the other hand, it gets boring. 

   Another problem I have with it is that Mia, about halfway through the book, really begins to get on my nerves.  Lots of heroines do that, but rarely do I find myself actually frustrated with them.  I’m usually pretty patient with heroines, but Mia was pushing my limit.  Her rapture with herself drove me batty.               

A Mango-Shaped Space may be a little young for most of the people who will be reading this, but I encourage you to read it anyway.  There’s nothing like picking up a book written for people a few years younger than you to reconnect with simple prose and easy reading.  A Mango-Shaped Space is a good pre-sleep book.  It is easy to follow and easy to understand.                 

   And who couldn’t use a little simplicity in their life?

            The social climber mentioned in the title is named Mimi.  She lives in Texas, where “cotton-candy pink is always the new black.”  She is transferring to Baldwin, a hip school in New York City where there are no grades and the classes are a joke.  Her parents are “separated.”  Her “out-of-it, omnitrusting father” moved away from his wife, who filled up his absence with Maurice and his daughter Myrtle.

              When Mimi arrives at Baldwin, she makes a bet with her estranged friend Sam (who is a guy, therefore, big surprise what’s going to go on there) that she can befriend the most popular girls in school: Nona, Lily, Pia, Jess, and Vivian.  These girls make the words “druggie,” “addict,” and “emo” seem tame.  Lucky for Mimi, her chance arrives when Nona is sent to rehab after passing out in class due to a drug overdose.  Of course, she befriends the girls and in no time is one of the in-crowd.

            All right, time for me to rant a bit.  All throughout the book, there are homophobic slurs, rejections of intelligence, and promotions for drugs and alcohol.  Stereotypes run rampant in here, and every single one points at the group it is stereotyping in a negative way.  The only people who may be considered perfect, based on this book, are the popular girls, the Coolies, who spend their mornings smoking pot and their lunch breaks downing vodka.

           I am not a book-burner, nor am I a censorer.  If you want to read the book, go ahead.  I’m not going to stop you.  I’m not going to point fingers at you and tell you that this book will turn you into a drug addict.  Books don’t do that.  People do that.  (Just like reading The Golden Compass does not make you an atheist.)

            All I’m saying is that I don’t like the book.  That’s all.

Imagine my surprise when, a week after I grabbed a thick, nondescript brown book off the shelf, I was captivated by The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.  Poignant yet funny, the book is set in Nazi Germany, and focuses on a young orphan named Liesel, who is someone of special interest to the narrator, Death.

My curiosity was piqued at the first page, when Death introduces itself and the story it is about to tell.  Zusak writes in simple prose that nevertheless conveys a beautiful picture that is both easy to read and easy to understand (to see another example of this, refer to the other amazing book by him that I have read, I am the Messenger).

The characters in this book are absolutely charming.  Liesel, the heroine, is tough, determined, and defiant of restraints put on her by society and others.  Rudy, her best friend, is a scrappy young fellow who, throughout the whole book, chases the one thing that Liesel refuses to give him: a kiss.  Liesel’s foster mother, Rosa, is described as “the woman with the iron fist” with a mouth to match.  Hans, Liesel’s foster father, is a quiet accordion-player with a soft heart and a silver face.

I read this book on vacation: at breakfast, on the beach, at the pool, before I went to sleep.  Its story reverberated with me even after I put it away and moved on to an old favorite, Jane Eyre.  Stories, like this one, that give you characters that make you tear up (even if I’ve never cried over a book—NEVER!) inside, are the kind of stories that are lacking in the Teen section of my local library.  And that’s a shame, because with a book like this, once you open it, you can never truly close it, because the story stays with you.

Forever.