The Son of Neptune

  In this blog entry, I am going to write about a book I read earlier this school year,  The Son of Neptune.  The Son of Neptune is the second book in the Lost Heroes series.  The book's main protagonist is Percy Jackson who was the main protaganist of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  In the beginning of the book, Percy goes to Camp Jupiter, a roman equivalent of Camp Halfblood in the previous books, after fighting the Gorgan sisters and having amnesia.  At Camp Jupiter, Percy meets Frank Zhang and Hazel Levesque.  Frank is a son of Mars, and Hazel is the daughter of Pluto.  After joining the camp, Percy joins the Fifth cohort which is unlucky due to the loss of a golden eagle statue.  At Camp Jupiter, they are then given a quest to free Thantos, the guardian of the doors of death.  Through out the book,  Rick Riordan, the book's author, does a great job at developing his characters and making them very connectable.  The new world that is introduced ties in well with his previous books and develops the protagonist in The Lost Hero even more.  The book's first person narration with multiple narrators makes the book very suspenseful and a great page turner.  I do wish the book used more advanced vocabulary.  Overall,  I loved this book and can not wait for the next book in the Lost Hero series, The Mark of Athena.

Gone

This week I am going to write about a book I read earlier but did not get a chance to write about called Gone.  In Gone the book follows Sam Template, the protagonist of the series, when every single person over 15 disappears from Pedro Beach.  Around a 25 mile radius of the town's nuclear power plant there is a wall, that appears to be made out of energy, that kids call the F.A.Y. Z., fallout alley youth zone.  Within the F.A.Y.Z. some children begin to develop odd powers and animals appear to mutate.  Also, when ever a child turns 15, he disappears.  At the start of the book, Sam and his friends, Astrid and Quinn, look for a way out of the F.A.Y.Z.  At the same time Cain, the main antagonist and a stutent at the nearby boarding school, Coates Academy, atempts to control Pedro Beach.  Gone has a very suspensful plot.  Throughout the book the author creates great charecters that develop throughout the other three books in the series.  One of the issues I have with this series is that throughout the rest of the series the author introduces new characters who he doesn't develop a back story for.  Another issue I have with this  book is that the writing is not very descriptive and parts of the book seem rushed.  Despite its flaws, Gone and its sequals  have a great and suspenseful plot and a  few great characters, which help it make a great read.

Wonderstruck

I recently read Wonderstruck and it was a great read.  It is written and illustrated by the author of The Invention of Hugo Cabaret.  Wonderstruck is written in a similar format part picture part words but in Wonderstruck there are two different narratives; one told in words, one told in images.  In the narative told in words the protagonist is Ben.  He lives in Gunflint Lake, Minnesota with his mother until she dies.  After going through his mother's items he discovers clues to the whereabouts of his father which lead him to running away and going to New York city in search of his father.  Ben is nearly deaf after being struck by lightning.  In the other narrative the protagonist is a deaf girl living in Hoboken fifty years before the other narrative takes place.  The deaf girl runs away from her home to New York city.  The format in Wonderstruck was good but the pictures could't show many details and I preferred the text much more.  The writing is very descriptive; the characters weren't developed enough and many secondary characters have no background information.  I wish the book was longer and I wished a larger percent of it was written instead of pictures however the desecrate style of writing and images are suspenseful.  Overall, despite its flaws, Wonderstruck was a great book.

Inheritance

I recently read Inheritance the final book in The Inheritance Cycle.  The series revolves around Eragon and his dragon, Saphira.  The books take place in a fictional world called Alagaësia.  In Alagaësia there are five main races: Urgals, Humans, Elves, Dwarfs, and Dragons.  The elves and the dragons had a long bloody war and in order to make peace they created the dragon riders; many of the dragons' eggs would only hatch when exposed to their rider and once they hatched the dragon and its rider would be able to telepathically communicate.  The humans joined the treaty between the elves and dragons and for hundreds of years, the riders governed over the dragon riders.  Then a corrupt human dragon rider named Galbatorix and several other rebel dragon riders slew every other dragon rider and destroyed every dragon egg except for three eggs.  A hundred years later a human, Eragon, discovers a dragon egg in the woods and it hatched for him.  Eragon and Saphira, his dragon, help a rebellion fight Galbatorix and the empire he had created over the last century.  The series is very well written and very descriptive and the author does a great job at creating Alagaësia.  Parts of the series are very fast paced while others are very slow and unnecessary.  Over the series, the author develops great characters and in Inheritance the author does a great job at finishing the series.  Overall, The Inheritance Cycle was a great read and I wish there were more books in it.

The Outcasts

Recently, I read a book called The Outcasts. I discovered this book because it is by the same author of one of my favorite series Ranger's Apprentice. The Outcasts takes place in the same universe as Ranger's Aprentice and revolves around a 16 year old kid named Hal. Hal lives in a nation called Skandia, which resemble medieval Scandinavia. One of the Skandian traditions is when a boy turns 16 he competes in the Brotherbands to prepare him for military service. Boys are tested in fighting, races, and sailing. Hal is not the most athletic kid but is a great inventor. Hal is put into a brotherband team with other outcasts like him and together they compete in the Brotherbands. I loved the writing in this book; it was very descriptive and developed great charecters. I also like how it took place in a farmiliar setting. The book has a great plot and is very suspenseful however, parts of it are slow. In the ending, the author did not resolve all the issues in the book and it is very open ended. This is fine as long as the author writes a sequel; I hope he does. The plot of the book is very similar to Ranger's Apprentice books and is predictable. I love how this book has a large collection of supporting characters who are also developed throughout the book.  Overall, I thought The Outcasts was a great book and I'm excited for a sequel.

You Have to Stop This

So far I love this book.  It is the fifth and final book in the Secret series.  The secret series is about three middle school students, Cass, Max-Earnest, and Yo-Yoji, who are members of Terces Society which was created to protect the secret to eternal life from the Midnight Suns which are dedicated to discovering the secret and using it for their vain purposes.  In the beginning of the book, Cass, Max-Earnest, and Yo-Yoji's class visits a museum exhibit on mummies.  The mummy that their class sees is the mummy of the Egyptian scribe who wrote the secret originally.  As they view the mummy the mummy's finger comes off.  They are blamed for it and have to work at the museum to make up for the damage they caused.  After the museum closes they try to break in and examine the mummy some more.  They find the mummy stolen and their chance at discovering the secret gone.  I love the writing in the Secret series.  Throughout the books the author Pseudonymous Bosch creates a great setting with great characters.  The book is very descriptive, suspenseful, and at times funny.  Anybody who loves a great fiction or mystery book will love You Have to Stop This.  I also love how in some characters the author talks about him/her self, the author uses a pseudonym, and by the end of the series the author develops himself/herself as a character.  I also loved the titles of the books; they are very humorous yet they hint at some details about the book.  Overall I loved reading the Secret series and You have to Stop This.

Goliath

This book is great so far.  It is the third book in the Levathina series which is an alternative version of World War I.  Instead of the war being between the Central Powers and the Allied Powers it is between the Darwanist and the Clankers.  The Darwanist geneticaly mutate animals for different purposes, in this book, the person who invented genetic mutations was Charles Darwin.  The Clankers use advance machinery.  The story is told through the perspective of the two protangonists, Aleck the prince of Austria-Hungry and Deryn Sharp who pretends to be a man to join the British Airforce.  The assasination of Aleck's parents started the Great War.  The world believes the assasination was caused by Serbians, but in actuality they were assassinated by Germans to create an excuse to start a war.  Aleck has to flee his palace with several trusted servants until he reaches Switzerland.  There he finds the Levathian, a genticaly mutated flying hydrogen producing whale.  He and his servants help repair the Levathian and end up joining the ship's crew. On the ship, Aleck meets Deryn and they develop a close friendship.  I love the writing in Goliath and it is very descriptive and suspenseful.  The characters are very developed and interesting.  I love the world Scott Westerfeld, the author of Levathian series, created.  It is a fasinating world.  I hope the series has more books.  Overall, I enjoyed reading this greatly written book.