Mexican Whiteboy

Summary: Danny Lopez goes to his Mexican family's house to be a little more Mexican. He speaks no spanish even thought he is half mexican. His dad disappeared out if no where and went to mexico and Danny feels like he does 't belong anywhere. In his prestigious white community, he is Mexican and with his family in National City, he is white. However, Danny has a great arm for baseball throwing amazing pitches, but chokes when he is needed to shine. He tries to find his way in a foreign place as he struggles through his demons and makes an unlikely friend in another kid in the town who has it rough.


Thoughts: okay. Didn't really like this one for about 80% of the first part of the book. The storymis slow going, and it seems almost cliche with all the problems that come with disfunctional families. The only good part of the book is the last about five chapters. It is a good book I guess but it didn't hold much interest for me. Maybe you will like it.

Rating: 5.2/10

Hunger Games Trilogy

Intro: Series by Suzanne Collins, same author of the Gregor The Overlander series. If you haven't noticed by now, if I read these books a while ago, I typically put them into one entry.

Summary: Okay. There is this girl named Katniss that lives in the twelfth(sp?) district of this thirteen district future life. Actually, the 13th doesn;t exist anymore as it got in a fight with the controller of all the districts: The Capitol. It controls everything that goes on in the other districts and each one has its own niche. One district does farming, one does technoology, etc. The ones that are closer to the capitol get more money are favorable to the Capitol. Katniss is living with her mother and her sister, Primrose, and hunts for food (which is illegal) which her best friend Gale. There is another town boy who is the son of the baker named Peeta. (love his name) Even though this sounds all dandy, every year there is a lottery of one male and one female from each district that gets chosen to be a part of a competition called the Hunger Games. In this competition, it is a fight to the death. Whoever is the last one standing going through the crazy tests the Capitol puts them through, wins and gets rewards for their district. Now, when this lottery is called, Katniss's little sister is called. Katniss takes her place and then Peeta volunteers as well. Now only one can live and they are trained and dolled up to get ready for this. What quickly is apparent, is that the Capitol is corrupt and Katniss will do anything to tear it down, even if it means rebellion.


Thoughts: Absolutely LOVED THIS SERIES. There is plenty of action and a little bit of romance between Peeta and Katniss and of course Gale has to get on that. Personally, I am a Peeta fan all the way. He is just too cute and too good of a guy and Katniss just pisses me off all the time as well as Gale. The book is not for the soft hearted as there is a lot of killing and gross things that happen to people. In fact, I cried through the whole last book, Mockingjay. The people in the Capitol are weird with their crazy hair and plastic surgery gone frickin insane. I highly recommend this book to any person or age.


Rating: 8.7/10

Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune

It is second in series to a spin-off of our favorite Camp Half-Blood books. This time, the point of view is taken from Percy, Frank and Hazel.

Summary:
Rick Riordan continues this new series as Percy is fighting without any memory of his previous life except for a little about Annabeth. As he runs away from monsters, he meets a big Chinese-Canadian kid named Frank and an Afican American girl named Hazel who bring him into their Roman Camp. On his way in, Percy decided to carry an old lady in, which transformed into Juno (Hera to Percy.) Percy is not welcome there, as there is a hatred towards Greeks in the camp. He meets the praetor Reyna, who is sort of, not really, but kinda in a relationship with Jason. (I see problems :) ) Frank is a guy who hasn't been claimed yet and Hazel has a special realtionship with Nico. They all leave to Alaska to help prevent the Alcyoneus from destroying everyone. However of course, Frank has some secret power he isn't aware of and Hazel has done some things in her past that have changed the future forever. Instead of being based in New York, the three travel though land, boat and to Percy's fear, planes. This is all to try to help the Roman Camp stay as a haven for people involved in the demigod world and try to get Percy's memory back.


Thoughts: Okay, fell in love with Percy all over again. Frank, kinda pissed me off in the beginning but then I started to like him. Hazel on the other hand, is just annoying. All she does is mess up and gets all secretive about it cause she thinks no one will like her. However if she said something sooner, a lot of things would be better. Overall I actually really liked this book and I really missed Percy's humor especially when he came in contact with Mars (Ares) and felt hostile towards him even if he couldn't remember. I highly recommend this series and the ending left a huge cliff hanger. Thankfully, it wasn't something to pull out your hair for. Can't wait for the Mark of Athena to come out next fall.

9.1/10

Ranger's Apprentice Series Books 1-10

Series by John Flanagan. As you see, I am reviewing the bulk because each one individually would take too frickin long. So.

Summary:  A young orphan named Will wants to become a warrior like his dad. However, when it is time for the choosing for the group of young orphans, he gets recruited into the strange, unknown life of the rangers. Halt, his grim teacher, instructs Will on the way of the rangers with a lot of lessons. His feud with battle warrior aprentice Horace is tested and eventually disapatted to become best friends as the series goes on. Also, the slight romance with cthe courier apprentice Alyss, keeps him on his toes. The series consists of Will, Horace, and Halt's adventure throughout their lands. They battle Skandians and other types of people in the series while Will tries to be a decent ranger.


Thoughts: Such a good series. Just great. The character's personalities just make you fall in love with them and the side characters actually add to the stories. The main character Will is so likeable it is insane. Will's adventures take him all over the world and he growns from a boy to a man. There is some humor, which is not too much or little, and great action. I would recommend this series to anyone.

Rating: 8.5

Heroes of Olympus: The Lost Hero

New Camp Half Blood Series...plus another camp?

Summary: The story starts off with a kid named Jason waking up on a bus with no recollection who he is with or what is he doing there. A girl named Piper says they are dating and another kid named Leo says they are best friends. Then they get attacked. They get whisked away to Camp Half Blood and it turns out that all three of them are children of the gods. Leo and Piper get claimed but it turns out Jason already was. The problem is, he knows all the gods by their Latin name like Hera=Juno and Zeus=Jupiter. To make things weirder, the second prophecy that was mentioned in the last Camp Half Blood series apparently has to do with then. A big problem however, is that when he meets Annabeth, it turns out that Percy is missing and Jason showed  up in his place. This leads people to believe that there is another camp out that the Percy is a part of and has no memories. So Jason, Piper and Leo go on an adventure to save Hera (Juno) from enemies they didn't see coming.

Thoughts: Soooooo good. I really like this book and it was much longer than the Percy Jackson series. However, this book is told from the three main characters point of view. Some of our favorites from the previous book are back like Thalia (who means a lot to Jason) and Annabeth. There is a good amount of action and the occasional well placed humor. I highly recommend this series and I can't wait to read the next one which comes out Oct. 4, 2011.

Rating: 9.5

Forgive My Fins

Summary: Another book by Tera Lynn Childs, which I did not notice until I was almost done with it. So, this book is about a half mermaid, half human girl named Lily. She lives on land with her Aunt to get a taste of living on the land. Part of the reason is curiosity, but the other part is that she has this huge crush on a guy named Brody. However, getting in the way of her romantic advances is her neighbor Quince. All of a sudden however, Quince decides to help her out. However that backfires, and she is on a mission to fix a big mistake.


Thoughts: Okay. It is a decent book. I have nothing against it. But yet again it is a very cliche book with just a  little mention of the fanatical aspect. There is more reference to her mermaid life than there were referernces in her "oh.my.gods." series with mythology, but it is overall a typical romance book again. It is a great time waster but  the main characters Lily and Brody annoy me. Brody is a tool and Lily is too indesicive(sp?) and stubborn to look past her clouded judgement. The book is a decent read but not a knockout for me. I have read way too many books like this to be moved. Plus, it has the same lind of humor in her other books.


Rating: 7.2

Percy Jackson Series

I am too lazy to write five posts on one series so this will be condensed into one.

Number of books: 5


Summary: Percy Jackson is a teenager living in New York with his mom. Problem is, he keeps getting kicked out of school. He finally finds one where everything is normal and has a great friend named Grover. Everything is going pretty well until one of his teachers turns into a harpy and attacks him. Yup. You heard me. A harpy. Turns out Percy is a demi-god. This means that he is half god and half human. That's awesome. So he goes to a camp to help him train to control his powers and find out who his dad is, which is Poseidon. I am telling you because its not essential to the story line. He meets a girl named Annabeth, who is the daughter of Athena and Grover turns out to be a satyr and his teacher is a centaur. Fun. He battles monsters as the evil Kronos tries to rise to power. He also has to complete all these prophesies, with one being the big one that a kid of the big three (Hades, Zeus and Poseidon) will determine the course of the world.


Thoughts: So. Frickin. GOOOOOOOOOD. Omg omg omg. I absolutely looooove books with greek mythology incorporated into it. Its sooooo good. There is fighting, comedy, little bit of rrrromance and above all, awesome story line. Its an amazing series and I am so happy Rick Riordan is doing another Camp Half Blood series.

Rating: 9.4