Clever...

Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Oh, man! This is my first. No context, no plot whatsoever but still a better love story than Twilight. hahahah xD IT WAS THERE, I HAD TO DO IT! Team Jacob! LOL..But still, Oh My God. You connect with the character in so many levels. And do we get a name? No! And that's the most interesting part. And I don't want to search anymore than I already have but I understand that this is fiction, even thought the authr has written a couple of books based on real facts. But even so..THIS IS SO REAL! And, yeah, it was publishe quite a while ago but it is still our modern reality. Apply it to the 21st century and BANG! you have it, right here in those 213 pgs!
Everytime I went to the bookstore I would be drag by it everytime I saw it on the bookshelf. And one day I had extra cash and bought it. And, you know what? i do not regret it. While reading it I decided to keep it and when I have children (IF something like that ever happens to me) or my sisters' and brother's children are old enough I will give it to them so they will see that drugs are not fun, at all.
Maybe it's a stupid idea but what better way than this way! I'll even give it to my little sisters when they come to age. And I am sure it will still be a very real reality (if you know what I mean) for many many years to come. It is sad, but the world has come to this. It is our responsability to try to it to not go unchanged.
A couple of weeks ago I read a phrase that call my anttention very much, "Instead of trying to make a better world for the children, try to make better children for the world." And I can't agree more, generation after generation is getting worse than the previous one. Even Socrates knew about it in his time. We are losing focus people. Let's try because there is something worst than failing and it's not trying at all. :)
It is a toughy, and very confusing because, while it was written as I teenager writing a diary, it does not explain every single detail. Soemwhere in the middle you will read a name and you will be wondering who is that one or how come it was in one place and now it's in another. Don't expect a full story,character interaction or something like any other book you've read before. It is not. And try not to read it on a sick day. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about. :)



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Giveaway!!! :D

Ok....I just have to do this real quick!
I have a major physics exam tomorrow & I'm right here..deciding what book to review next and not studying! And look what I found! :) I have not entered a Giveaway in such a long time...I live out of the States, and as You know, most of the giveaways are for Canada or USA readers,only. Yes, I know, it is sad for us that have to manage with poorly stock bookstores, no access to a credit card (no internet shopping) and the lack of our culture of the joy of reading. So..this is just a one more try..not the last but definitely I'm reluctant to enter too many of these giveaways.....but it is ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS!!!! St. Clair for goodnessakes! <3

 Catching Books Blog

I do not know how long it will be up..but for everybody looking forward to winning.. A Big Almighty GOOD LUCK! :)

Comment if this happens to you in a regularly basis! =) Thank you, beautiful! =)

P.S. Make sure to say some bookloving things to the lovely blogger doing this giveaway! =D

A reading worth a day...

Forgotten by Cat Patrick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I can't believe I finished this in ONE day..is not like I haven't done that before but I didn't expect this to grab me and nail me to my phone until there were no more words left. And man, was it a roller coaster. This is the first time that that expressions REALLY means that very same thing..UPS and DOWNS and LOOPS and just MINDBLOWNED-NESS.... F word is in order. Hands down one of the best plots I have read in a while.



Let me explain all those funny looking words for you. You see, we meet London Lane, a high school girl, very normal looking, with a mom and and absent dad, not that that may call to a Surprise expression. BUT, she does not have a memory. Not like mine or yours or like anybody else's. She remembers forward, she knows the future but not the past. Once she lives one of her memories BANG! she forgets it, it doesn't exist for her anymore. So, in order to have a normal life or an attempt for one she relies on her daily notes and reminders, so she doesn't depend that much on her mom or her best friend, aka, her only friend. Lets just say she is not very popular in her higschool, in fact you may call her the Freak of the class, even though she tries to make notes about every single detail she thinks she'll need, she is bound to make mistakes just like everyone else. So she sometimes seem very forgetful or just plain distracted to not recall very simple things. That is just how it is, she can't do anything about it except form theories to why she has that condition. And her best one so far has being the fact that her dad left her after her parent's divorce without so much as a glance back. I know, ok, is that the great plot you were talking about up there? Well, that is just the start.

So before I continue, please stop, and go read the book and come back afterwards because herE it is : SPOILERS ALERT*



It started the day he started at school. Without knowing, London just met her true love, a handsome boy named Luke, that as cute as he is, hides the key for all the twists and turns this book has in store for you. First, London starts having this dream, a nightmare really, a funeral, Luke's maybe, or a child, hers? Who knows but the images there,the people she finds surrounding her are her long lost father and, surely, that old lady is her grandma. But what to do? Now, she finds some pictures of her dad along with some birthday cards for her form her dad. Secrets. Secrets she wants to take out to the light but her relationship with her mom, once a very open one, is starting to shutdown. She is lying to her anyway. (Very immature of her, didn't quite understand that part myself) And to top it all, once she has managed to start dating Luke, no matter how the first date went (she no remebering any of it and me wishing that a real guy was just like Luke), her best friend Jaimie starts to date Mr. Rice (yep, a teacher. A married teacher.) and does not want to know how that will end up, because you know, London knows, but she does not want to hear any of it, and after fighting her notes, London tells her anyway and that is the end of their firendship,at least for a while, because, again, London knows. That is a terrible thing, knowing how stuff will be but not being able to remember afterwards. Kind of sucky sometimes. But as the story keeps going, it helps when you find out that your boyfriend for 4 months has been lying to you, knowing everything about you. Quite handy, all you do is erase it form you notes, and Voila! it's done. No more Luke. But he is a fighter, people! He will not take no for an answer so he makes her see that the brake up is a mistake and over something so trivial as a "You lie to me. I lie to you." fight. Again, i didn't quite get it myself, but I try to put myself in London's shoes. She can't trust in just anybody. But well, who would've guess, that fight will teach Luke a lesson and he is just as happy to know that because, it is London! And that's the part were the first unexpected twist came, LUKE KNOWS! He knew all along, since they were 11 years old. That story is just so cute. I just love it when the male character hides a secret crush on the female character. But, unlike other novels,you didn't expect it at all! I surely did not see that one coming!

The second twist happens when London realizes that her nightmare, her memory (keep in mind she only remembers the future) is that, a memory, of the past. The funerl was something that happened, before. She lived that and somehow is able to remember it. And the loop in that twist is that is her little brother's funeral. Jonas' funeral. And from this everything goes rather smoothly. London reconciles with Jaimie. Her mom and London herself start to have hope about the possibility that Jonas might be alive. Her relationship with Luke morfs, because now she can remember him, from her future, something that had bever happened before.

And the final twist is that she remembers the day everything went downhill for her family. The day Jonas was kidnapped. She letting the strange lady come in the car, taking Jonas away. Her dad rushing behind them, ending up in a crash. She dying and brought back to life, leaving her with a major fault. Her unique memory. Followed buy the divorce and him, disappearing.

And, well, once you think of it, everything is plot convenient (in a way) but man that I'm glad that you find that one out just after you finish it. You have expectations but they might be fulfilled in a way you never expected. I know mine were. And I cannot escape the feeling that this is just so 50 first Dates but backwards. From the girl's point of view but the guy just the same. He not taking advantage of her memory problem and all that. Just loved it. It was a reading worth the day it took me to read it. Try it. I give it a mighty big Thumbs-Up for a week-end read. If you feel like it. ;)



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"TO DIE WILL BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE"

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


The World War II...a time in the world's history marked by murder, despair, regrets and ,why not, adventure. Yep, I had a pair to say the word "ADVENTURE" and if in your little mind you think I mean about the fun,laughter and good times such a thing as an adventure brings to someone's life you, friend, are wrong..adventure is not always a good thing, or let's rephrase it, an entirely good thing. All those who took their time and review their possibilities of survival and knew they wouldn't make it unless they face a time of dangerous adventure, dark adventure...an adventure they didn't knew how would it end or if it would end at all. And most of them, died during that adventure but they did with the taste of freedom in their whole bodies. That's the main reason I decided to use the word "adventure". I just can't help it, I always wanted to live in that time just to know the feeling of being in an adventure no matter how dangerous it might be. I know I will never know, wishing will be the only feeling I will ever sense on that matter. The World War II brought a lot consequences, some of them good, like the UN, some of them very bad, like the deaths of millions of innocent people..but consequences in the end, consequiences of human actions, brought upon ourselves by our own stupidity. I may live in the 21st century but I can't help but feel the need to awknowledge those whose lives where marked by a time of darkness and death. There is not other better or more fantastical place than a war zone, where true heroes are out there, shown to the world to see.

Is it terrible for me to think of a war as magical? I do not know the answer but I do love the concept better than a made-believe land or world.

If you are still with me, after that overdramatic introduction, I want to invite you to read the book that brought all that thinking to my little brain. It is a historical fiction but the best historical fiction you can possibly think of, the time? WORLD WAR II..( a big DUH! is in order)...the place? FRANCE (my favorite place in the whole world, the country I will live in about 10 years, mark my words!). To be more accurate it is July 1942, the last time many jewish family saw the sun in freedom and in life during the occupied France. The last time Sara Starzynski ever knew how a family was suppose to be.



But the Vel D'Hiv Roundup didn't only affect those french jew who lived through it but also many years since then, the story of it all touched the journalist Julia Jarmond's life. After finding out that her new home was the home of a jew family of the unspeakable Vel D'Hiv roundup and getting to write about that day for the 60th anniversary, she decided to look up for that family and without knowing, started an adventure of her own, that would change everything.



Julia will become obsess with Sarah's life, she will do anything to know what happened to her after that day that she lose everything. With flashback chapters, the reader will be able to follow the adventure Sarah went through to be able to escape and return to Paris to save her little brother that was hiding when the police came for them that morning but after an unsurprising end to that adventure, Sarah will be an enigma both to the reader and Julia.



I couldn't help but cry in so many chapters that it is difficult for me to point them out and it will also be a Ginormous spoiler for you, friend. And you have to understand that I read this last december, after over a year of search. I wanted to read this so badly since '10 that I would always look for it in bookstores and such. I know there is a movie, here is the link to the trailer : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzDZ9e3mG... ... I haven't seen it yet. I needed to read the book first, a matter of choice. I do not know how faithfull it is to the book but the trailer looks good and can't wait to watch it.



The end..oh the End! It made me feel butterflies. If you get what I did at the end please TELL ME! because I think I was the only one to realize what I realized. Warning: it is an ending that is not an ending. It suggests so many things that I couldn't believe Tatiana de Rosnay left it there but so glad a the same time.

5 stars are not enough. I knew since the beginning that it was a fiction but it felt so real since the beginning! Please! PICK THIS BOOK UP! A must-read, indeed! =)



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A little hole in one's spirit.

The Beginning of After by Jennifer Castle

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Here we go... My official first review of the year. Yep. This is the first. No judging.



Ok...what did I like about this one? For starters the thing that called my attention fisrt was the cover, obviously. It's my kind of cover, bright colors but not that bright; a person is in it but when you really look at her you know there are a million things going through her mind. Not really looking at anything, and you know that, not because you can see that part of the set, no, but because you just know. You've being there. If not, where have you been?! You should be doing your time of day dreaming. Is healthy and helps you with stress. Do not hold that to me, I'm just saying. And well, continuing with the issue at hand, I liked it, as simple as that. I just have the most weird taste, I know, but it's who I am. Can't help it.

Then I read the little overview that comes with books..and just for the record, publishers should think twice before deciding on an overview, sometimes it just makes it too easy for one to make a whole plot out of those few words, it may differ from the actual story but, not that I'm bragging, I have come real close at guessing. Although, many authors still manage to prove me wrong and twist everything and blow my mind.

So friend, if you are still reading, bare with me, I will get to review the book at some point. Promise.



Ok, so if you go some reviews back, you will notice that I don't like the use of spoilers, in fact I avoid them at all costs, and that is exactly what I will try to do with this one because the story really deserves for you to go fresh, clear, unguided ( is that even a word?) because it is another I-lost-my-whole-family story and , Yes! you guess correctly, it has a I'm-dealing-with-grief teeanger, a girl to be exact. 16 years old, Laurel Meisner is living her "after".

But before I continue, keep reading. It may have a looooooot of similar elements to a lot of other novels you've probably read before but this has a twist, that not even I expected to be there. I'll explain further ahead, Just Keep Reading.



Laurel, straight A's student, perfectly normal teenager never realized of what she had until that night that everything was lost. Her mom,her dad and even her little 13 year old brother passed away so suddenly that she didn't even had time to blink. One moment they were the next there were not. And just like that her life changed forever.

But, life being how it is, didn't let Laurel grief by herself. Next door neighbor, David Kaufman, lost somebody too in the very same accident that took Laurel's family to that unknown place you go when you've come to the end of your life. But, as the story evolves from Laurel being dumbstruck by the whole thing, David dropping out of school, she hooking up with some guy, he driving all over the country, and a lot of other situations that make both Laurel and David to face their lives without their love ones, you realize they manage their pain in very different ways.

So, stop it, do not start making ideas, David is mentioned at the very start of the book and you will, like I did, start thinking: "Laurel and David have this secret love for each other that, unfortunely, came to light after the accident and will end up together, happily ever after.The End." NO! Not at all..wich part, I'm not telling, but I can assure you, David plays a VERY VERY different part than what you expect it.



And so on, the story is just that, Laurel dealing with her new life, trying to fill up the whole she suddenly had in the middle of her spirit. David's comings and goings. David's dog, I can't bealive I'm saying it, but this time the pet actually played an important part! And, well,the start of their new improved relationship.

If I continue I'm bound to use the Spoiler alert and I'm not going to fall for that one. But I actually hope you get the whole "The Beginning of After" thing beacuse it took me the whole book, to the very last sentence,to get it. And if you feel like reading it in one sitting, prepare some ice tea, snacks and very strong tissues..you will cry, guaranteed. ;)



If you've already read it, please leave a comment and share this review. THANKS! MUCHAS GRACIAS! MERCI BEAUCOUP!

P.S. Have you told your mom, dad, sister(s)/brother(s) that you love her/him/them today?

P.P.S. That color looks great on you! =)





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