Beez: If I stay 

Gayle Forman

The critically acclaimed, bestselling novel from Gayle Forman, author of Where She Went, Just One Day, and the forthcoming Just One Year. 

Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel. I open my eyes wide now. I sit up as much as I can. And I listen. Stay, he says.

Everybody has to make choices. Some might break you. For seventeen-year-old Mia, surrounded by a wonderful family, friends and a gorgeous boyfriend decisions might seem tough, but they're all about a future full of music and love, a future that's brimming with hope. 

But life can change in an instant. 

A cold February morning ...a snowy road ...and suddenly all of Mia's choices are gone. Except one. As alone as she'll ever be, Mia must make the most difficult choice of all. 

Gripping, heartrending and ultimately life-affirming, If I Stay will make you appreciate all that you have, all that you've lost - and all that might be.

This book is brilliantly written. From the beginning I loved Mia and her family and her connection to music. I loved the music part esp. And Adam. Adam is the utmost perfect boyfriend. 

Mia's family is the family everybody wants. The perfect family. Everybody's happy. Parents love each other. Siblings don't hate each other. In fact Mia loves Teddy(her cute monkey little bro). 
This story is a heart breaking story. What happens in this book is so unfair. Of all families. This book is also like a path of realization for Mia. There are flashbacks and she its hard to believe all of its been snatched away. I for one refused to believe what happened to Teddy. I was madly hoping that he was alright. I'd read the lines about him over and over but I didn't want to believe it. That cannot happen to Teddy. Anyway I had no choice in the end. But its true that not everything you wish were true is necessarily true. This book also teaches us to appreciate what we have; the people we love and of course the people who love us. You never realize what you have before its taken away.

I have to say I have a the hugest character crush on Adam from the book. My heart melts out to him. He is so sweet and so amazing. When I found out that where she went was Adam's POV I flipped. And on ll the dates that Mia recollects I was lying at his feet in a gooey puddle. One of the best part I thought was when Mia asks him which me do you like, he gives the perfect reply. Kinda like Cricket Bell in Lola and the boy next door and unlike Max from Lola and the boy next door. And Adam's and Mia's first date is soo adorably cute I just wanted to kiss him. My heart literally broke into two when he asks Mia to stay.
Stay.

 Another thing I loved in this book was the music. It adds soo much more character to the book. I think the book would be incomplete without it. Mia is nothing if not for music. The way she related to it is beautiful. I also makes her human. And the part that all her family is into rock and pop music and she happens to like classical is amusing. I loved the music in this book. It helps you connect to this book.

I just realized this book was soo much like the serial The secret life of the american teenager. Mia is just like Amy- both are good girls, musicians who play less popular instruments, and have come across a life changing decision. Also my mind discovered that if you try to rearrange the letters from Mia to Ami it sounds exactly like Amy! And vice versa.
Adam is quite like Ben. He loves Mia soo much. And he'd do anything for her. I could feel Adams pain when he said its ok if Mia decides not to stay with Adam any more cause it would hurt loads. I thought Mia would stay forever with Adam. But I found out otherwise from the summary of Where she went. 
There's no Ricky or any other guy. 
And of course there's no teenage pregnancy but there's the accident which is a huge thing. She's facing the same problems as Amy just in a different way. 

This story can be said as cliche and like every other book but what makes it different is that it has a powerful story and it really connects with you. Especially the music. Its not just the normal but it has everything. It has pain, reminiscing, beautiful family moments, normal problems and amazing characters. The idea behind the story might be very common but the style of writing make this book spectacular. 

There are a lot of sad moments in this book. That's the main focus of this book. Losing whats close to your heart. And making the decision. Stay or not to stay?
The ending is heartbreaking. It probably will reduce you to tears. But i think she made the right decision. After all life is hard, what matters is that you do the right thing or at least try to.
That being said i'm not really a doer of the right thing. I'm more in favor of the more fun thing.
Call me crazy but i'm having a lot of fun ;)

4.75. The only reason it lost .25 is the common plot, and I feel terrible for even taking that much.

Lots of love and strawberry, lemon and black pepper popsicles!
Beez.

Beez: Looking for Alaska 

John Green

First drink, first prank, first friend, first girl, last words! A poignant and moving crossover novel about making friends and growing up from American author, John Green. Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words — and tired of his safe, boring and rather lonely life at home. He leaves for boarding school filled with cautious optimism, to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps. Looking for Alaska brilliantly chronicles the indelible impact one life can have on another.

This is going to be a hard book to write a review on. I have wanted to read a John Green novel so bad. His covers, the titles and all the buzz going on about his books was so hard to resist. But I wanted to read it as in a book book. So I waited patiently and Lo Di Da I was rewarded. (Pshh! Beez and Patience? Puhleaz)

I want to start by saying Hats off to you John Green. Beautiful writing. Captured my heart. If I were to list all my favorite lines from this book, I think I'd just have to copy paste the whole book. It was that amazing. The lines, they leave a imprint on your mind. This book is going to be with me for a long time probably forever.One thing is clear; I am going to read all of John Green books.

Confession time.

I didn't really fall in love with this book at the starting. I liked it. And I wanted to read it. But it wasn't exactly gripping and breath taking. I liked it and I was interested but that yearning wasn't there. At the end of Before it started getting all the more amazing and at After I was hawk eyed.

This book is in two parts, Before and After. There's some day before and some days after. I thought tat was a brilliant idea. It also leaves you hungry to know before what??

Another thing I thought fantastic about this book was Mile's addiction to last words. I can totally see why he likes them so much. There's such a mystery behind those words. I especially loved all the last words mentioned in these books. 

"I go to seek a great perhaps."

Before this book the only great persons last words i remembered was Steve Jobs,

"Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!"

I think I'm going to be obsessed about last words for a long time after this book.

One of my favorite characters is 'the colonel'. He is Miles room mate who's real name is Chip. He a great friend. He's also very funny. He drinks Ambrosia to dull his pain. Ambrosia as in milk with vodka which tastes very sour, unlike in Percy Jackson where it happens to be a sweet yummy drink that cures injuries. The colonel has many depths. He's a great guy. Especially his pranks and bizarre thoughts and ideas. The football game part was soo funny. I nearly fell of my chair when I read that he'd been thrown out of 37 games before. And since I was in the middle of class that certainly was bad timing. 

Alaska.

Thats her name. I just love it. And she chose it. How cool is that? I want to chose my name. Though if i had i would have chosen a very lame one that i would have grown to hate lots more because i would have been at fault. I hope you know that Beez is not my real name, how much ever i want it to be. Right. Alaska. 

Alaska is best described as a force of life. 

She's crazy, wonderful, moody, shocking, colorful, mind boggling and so many other words. She's one of those characters you can never be successful in describing. She's always going to be mysterious. Its no question why Miles falls for her. Alaska is soo full of life and spontaneous and has a million ideas and theories. She's that person who you'll always be in awe of. 

Alaska has many depths. At first she is that beautiful breath taking girl who is reckless and smokes and drinks. But as you get to know her you discover many layers to her. The story of how her mom dies is heart breaking. She's not perfect in any way but she is vibrant and different. 

I had a feeling that she was always with odds at herself.She blamed her self for certain things. I think she was confused. She didn't really know what she wanted.

I couldn't believer her when she was making out with Miles. she had a boyfriend and she got Miles a girl friend. And 'to be continued' was just so unfair to Miles. 

I love Alaska but i certainly wouldn't want to be her.

Now to the protagonist, Miles aka Pudge. Miles is skinny and that's why Colonel names him Pudge. Personally i think Pudge sounds like plump and that the opposite of Miles. Pudge is a great guy. He's a real nice friend and he is obsessed with last words of people. He moves to the boarding school to find his Great Perhaps. He has a certain depth to him. He is intelligent, deep thinker and has a physiological brain. He falls for Alaska very soon and it isn't hard to see. He loves her unconditionally though most of her is in his head. Sometimes i feel sorry for Pudge. He falls for this drop dead gorgeous girl who has a boy friend who leads him on every time but never actually does anything except for a few kisses on the last day! 

Miles is a complex guy. I could understand why he was fascinated with Alaska. Though maybe if he had been more of  man and grown some ball and kissed her before things could have been different for him. 

He definitely needs to grow some balls.

I liked all the other character especially Lara who still likes Pudge after he pukes on her. She is just so sweet. I even like that weird almost dead religious studies teacher who gives those confusing questions who's answers make you run around in circles. 

I loved the book. 

My advive is you have to read it. While you do that, John Green here i come.

4.75; cant wait to read his other books!

Lots of love and buffriedoes(inside joke: requires reading)

Beez.

Raven: Carrie

A novel by Stephen King

Publication Date: April 5th, 1974

Pages: 290

Targeted Audience: 16+

Summary: Stephen King's legendary debut, about a teenage outcast and the revenge she enacts on her classmates.

 
Carrie White may have been unfashionable and unpopular, but she had a gift. Carrie could make things move by concentrating on them. A candle would fall. A door would lock. This was her power and her sin. Then, an act of kindness, as spontaneous as the vicious taunts of her classmates, offered Carrie a chance to be a normal and go to her senior prom. But another act--of ferocious cruelty--turned her gift into a weapon of horror and destruction that her classmates would never forget.

I hadn't really planned on reading this book. Yes, lots of people love Stephen King and his horror books, but I had given up on horror books a long time ago. The one horror book that I had read didn't faze me a bit. I had even tried reading it at midnight, but nada. But this book? I tried my best to avoid reading it at night but after the end of the book I had nightmares. 

Anyways, Carrie White is a bullied girl in Chamberlain. She has a good fashion sense and like every other girl she wants to be popular but it isn't possible because of her domineering ultra-religious mother, who makes up stuff about the things she does not like and goes around saying that it's written in the bible.

The story begins with Carrie getting her periods in front of the girls in the locker room. She is bombarded with sanitary pads and tampons by girls screaming her to "plug it up!" however, no one knows that it's her first time. She obviously knows about it but at the moment when she was being ridiculed like this she couldn't really think about what was happening. Just like this moment, there are many other moments where you have to think deep. It's kind of like poetry. The lines have been written but it's our job to figure out what it really means. 

The characters are well expressed. These kind of characters make me want to think more about them. Even after the book was over, I kept thinking about them like they were real people. About what made them who they were and how their life would have been so different if they hadn't done the pig blood thing. 

I absolutely love the ending. There is so much destruction that I was momentarily reminded of my favorite book-character-arsonist Jesse from My sister's keeper. But except for the fire there was no other similarity. 

For this book to be really horrifying you need to have a great imagination and a silent surrounding. The imagination to actually feel the horror and the silence... so that you can be freaked out by the slightest noise. 

Carrie is my first Stephen King book and I was kind of shocked when I realized that he had written this book waaaay before I was born!! Heck it is even before my mom was born!! And my dad must have been in elementary school. I can't imagine my dad in elementary, I wonder if he was a bully then... and I imagine that my mom was a flower in paradise if she wasn't born then. Hehehehe! Me so immature XD.

Back to the point. It is a great book. Maybe you will be scared and maybe you might not but that is no reason to not read an amazing book like this. I rate it a 4!

Stephen King Quote: True sorrow is as rare as true love.

Lots of Love & Pasta

Raven (Who will be smacked by her mom of she is found blogging)