ARGH! (Insert Colorful Swear Words Here)

I have a zillion cool posts, but after fighting with my stupid computer for three hours I am about ready to SCREAM.  So instead of smashing this stupid thing to bits with a sledge hammer I am going to go read a real book!

Hopefully I can get this issue resolved and get out some great posts. Until then HAPPY READING EVERYBODY!

Serum City

Well the curse of the second book strikes again.  Just finished reading Insurgent the second book in the Divergent trilogy and I have to say right up front, it was mostly pointless.  So many of the issues I had with the first book were just made worse by this second one and a lot of what I enjoyed in the first one was completely missing in this book.  Oh well let's get on with this shall we?  As always so many SPOILERS AHEAD!

When we last left our main girl, the Divergent Tris, she was escaping a mind controlled Dauntless slaughter.  Tris along with fellow Divergent, and current eternal love Tobias (also known as Four), his abusive and squirlley father Marcus, her Abnegation turned Erudite turned whatever brother Caleb and a couple of others make it to the Amity compound.  There they are welcome with if not exactly open arms, they are at least fed and clothed and given a bed.  Turns out that Tris is suffering from a bit of post traumatic stress syndrome from killing her friend and watching her parents die, this manifests itself in an inability to use a gun and a bit of a suicidal bent. This of course sets Tobias off in some sort of anger pattern, instead of trying to understand and help his girlfriend, he spends most of his time giving her non-helpful ultimatums about bucking up and getting over it.  Stuff happens and Tris overhears a conversation about some sort of mysterious information that Abnegation was trying to get out to the general public, but along came Janine (the Erudite leader who orchestrated the whole violent overthrow) who decided that the information should not be given out.  After a bit of an altercation, Tris is "punished" by being given a serum that makes her super peaceful and it is

revealed that everybody in Amity (probably unkowingly) eats a bread that is infused with this peaceful serum.  Amity holds a meeting and decides that they depend to much on Erudite to piss them off so they refuse to take sides.  Dauntless/Erudite storm the Amity compound and the group makes a run for it. The group makes it back to the city and find themselves with a group of factionless led by non other then Tobias's mother...yep not dead...though her story is a little sketchy.  She either ran away and abandoned Tobias, or was exiled by Abnegation, or something.  They find out that there is a high percentage of Divergents within the factionless and that they are understandably unhappy with the way things are run.  They leave the factionless and end up with Candor where more serum is given, in the form of a truth serum where everybody has to spill their guts about stuff that has nothing to do with anything in order to partake of the safe haven within Candor.  Tris admits she killed Will (even though she had no choice) and Tobias admits his dad beat him on a regular basis. Tobias is pissed that Tris kept a secret from him, but refuses to own up when Tris calls him out on his own secret keeping.  Tris and Tobias hook up with some of their Dauntless buddies before once again the traitor Dauntless/Erudite once again storm a compound.  This time they only kill random Divergent, everybody else gets a dart that injects a transmitter into their system, once again turning the non-Divergent into potential mindless soldiers.  Somewhere in here Tris decides to turn herself in to Janine for further testing so that Janine will quit killing people.  During her captivity Tris discovers that her brother is a traitor and has always been on Janine's side.  Tobias tries to come to her rescue but it takes an old enemy Peter to actually get them to escape.  Tobias, Tori and some other guy are elected Dauntless leaders after all the other leaders are either killed, captured or turned traitor and decide to ally themselves with the factionless to storm the 

Erudite compound and destroy all of their computers and gathered knowledge in an attempt to stop what ever it is they are trying to do.  Tris agrees to go with Tobias, but secretly makes plans with Marcus and a few others to try and retrieve whatever information it is her parents died for.  More chaos, more angst, more shooting.  Tris ends up in the security portion of Janine's secret lab and runs into another simulation...kind of.  She makes it to the inner sanctum only to find Tori holding Janine at gunpoint.  Tris tries to make Tori understand that they can't kill Janine until they get the info from her computer, but Tori doesn't listen and kills Janine.  Tobias comes in and agrees with Tori that Tris is a traitor (that was a lot of T's in that sentence), but Tris again calls him out on his bull headedness, reminding him that he is the one who said he loved her for her, and that the first time it was tested he bailed.  Tris is taken captaive, but Tobias actually listened and got Caleb to help him get the info they were looking for.  Meanwhile the factionless showed just how dumb everybody else is by getting all of their weapons, meaning to take over.  Before...or during...or after this happens the screens flick on and a video plays, showing images of violence and death and then a women saying something about locking everybody in the city to refind their humanity...but the problem was human nature...but the solution was the Divergents who were the epitome of human nature...and the Divergents should be set loose on the rest of the world to help them.  And that my friends was the end of book two.

As you have probably guessed this was not my favorite book.  So very many issues, so very few answers, but lets start with the good stuff so you know I actually read it with an open mind :-)  I think my favorite parts were any time Christina was on the page, she is by far my favorite character and seems to be the one who has the most realistic head on her shoulders.  She was pissed at Tris when she found out about Will, she eventually forgave Tris, but it took some time and not all at once, when faced with facts she thinks about them and makes her own decisions about things, and she is pretty funny. I loved it when Tris called out Tobias on all his double standard stupidness, especially at the end, I wanted to jump up and cheer.  I also appreciated how Tris was affected by all the death, not only of her loved ones, but the ones that she killed.  It goes so against her upbringing and she has had so little time to adapt to the Dauntless way of life that this seemed an appropriate reaction. Also I love the tree on the cover of this book. See there was a little bit of good stuff.  Now on to my issues.  My biggest issue is the same one I had in the first book, how the heck am I supposed to believe that humans only display one trait.  How am I supposed to believe anything the author says when she contradicts herself on the basic premise of the books.  We are told that Divergent's are

Divergent because they display more then one trait...but we are shown over and over and over confirmed non-Divergent's who regularly display more then one trait.  On that same line of thinking, any transfer would have to be Divergent by definition because they were raised in a different trait, but nobody suspects truth telling Christina of being Divergent...but Tris is because she knows how to be selfless?!  Makes no sense.  Does this mean any time anybody tells the truth that isn't in Candor they are automatically Divergent?   How many times does one have to hold open the door for another person in a faction not belonging to Abnegation before they are hunted down?  How does one distinguish between peace loving Amity and selfless Abnegation as many of the defining features are similar?  The factionless pose another interesting angle to this whole Divergent business as it appears that most of them could be considered Divergent, now I will give the author some credit for saying that there is a high percentage of Dauntless in the factionless.  That leads me to the ending of this book, I was warned that this is not most peoples favorite book, but the bombshell at the end is worth it. I did not think the ending was all that spectacular, I had suspected from the beginning that their was a reason behind the locked fence with nobody knowing what was outside it, so not really a bombshell.  The idea that this little experiment was because humans were too violent...well...we already are.  I thought it was funny that as the images of violence were flashing on the screen all I could think about was that is exactly what was happening inside the city, so no progress there.  I did not get what the experiment was, or what it was supposed to do, I was 

feeling of the nonsensical frustration I got when I was reading The Maze Runner series where the premise was just because and did not serve any real purpose.  The video stated that the Divergent's were supposed to have flexible minds, which to me means the people who were part of the experiment were drugged or something into strict factions (which may be backed up by all the serums that were used in this book) and that when people developed a resistance and became normal then they were ready to...do what I don't know. If the whole reason that the world got uncontrollably violent was human nature...then why do they want people who have proven to be the definition of human nature to be their saviors?  I don't get it.  Ok enough kvetching, I obviously have problems with the premise and a lot of the cool world building and Tris's development that I made the first book readable and almost enjoyable were very much missing in this book. I have heard rumor that the next book is much better...I sure hope so. Please let me know your thoughts in the comments.  I give this book 5 out of 10 serums.

What did you think of this book?  What type of serum do you think we need to use on a regular basis?  What is the deal with second books?  Does anybody know Candor's function in this society?

Falling Into Deja Vu

Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver is a book I have been back and forth about reading for a while now. It falls into the teenage angst category and I usually can only take so much of that, but I had heard a lot of decent reviews on it by some reviewers I trust, and it had the added bonus of being a daily deal cheapo ebook, so on the list it went.  I wanted one last "summer" read before I got into my more broody fall books and in general books about teenage girls fall into my summer reading category so that is how reading it came about.  I am glad I did, it was definitely full of teen angst, and if you have seen the movie Groundhog Day you will have a basic idea of the hook, but I thought the over all book was a good look at how one see's themselves.  Ok here we go, quick convoluted synopsis, as always SPOILERS AHEAD! (Also big kid language and some not so child friendly situations)

Samantha is dead, yep no real mystery or suspense, our main character is dead (not a bad start to a teeny-bopper book right!).  The story is about how she died and what comes after.  After we learn Sam is dead she goes on to tell us how it happened.  I will break up this synopsis the way she does 'cause that will be the most effective.
Day 1-Sam gets ready for Cupid Day, a pre-Valentine ritual day at her highschool where students dressed as some form of Cupid hand out roses with notes attached to them to the students from other students.  It is kind of a popularity contest to see who gets the most roses.  She gets a ride from her loud, beautiful, brash friend Lindsay, who is the ring leader of this group of popular seniors.  Also in the group is Ally, a talented cook with body image issues and Elodie a sweet, fun loving girl.  They arrive at school and steal the last close parking spot, causing another girl to be late (details like this are important to the over all story).  They go to class and Sam cheats on a chem pop quiz, flirts with her math teacher and gets several roses from her friends, including one from her old friend Kent (whom she rarely speaks to anymore as he would put a dent in her popularity) and one from her hot and popular boyfriend.  She meets her friends for lunch and they

viciously tease a girl named Juliette, calling her Psycho and singing rude songs.  Sam's boyfriend Rob meets up with her and reminds her that they are going to have sex for the first time that night after a party at Kent's house.  The girls go to Ally's house and get ready for the party, hitting the vodka pretty hard before they even leave.  At the party Rob (already drunk) paws at Sam, again reminding her of there "special" night later.  Sam and her friends continue to drink until Juliette shows up at the party and calls each of the girls a bitch.  In retaliation the girls push Juliette around and dump their drinks all over her.  Eventually they are ready to go and Rob has had so much to drink he passes out.  Disgusted Sam decides to go home with her friends.  The all pile in the car and go driving into weather that has turned wet and slick.  Sam notices little things about each of her friends, and especially the state of Lindsay who is driving, which is to say she is not sober at all.  All of a sudden a white flash appears and the car goes off the road, slamming into a tree.  There is light, noise and pain and then the sensation of falling.
Day 2- Sam wakes up...to Cupid day.  She is understandably confused and tries to figure out what happened.  She finally decides it is a cross of deja vu and a weird dream and continues with her day.  Since she made them late, they do not get there parking spot and have to park further away from the school making them late.  As the day goes on Sam realizes that she remembers everything that has happened,

except for a few minor changes.  The day pretty much progresses as before ending in the car crash.
Day 3- Sam wakes up again on Cupid day, realizing that she has to find a way to make things happen differently she convinces her friends to stay in that night and have a slumber party instead.  We get to know a bit more about there friendship, and it is actually pretty sweet to see four teenage girls this tight.  Later, after everybody is asleep and Sam if feeling pleased that she has not died in a car crash the phone rings.  It is somebody calling to tell them that Juliette (the girl they have been mercilessly teasing) has shot her self in the head.  Everybody reacts to the news differently.  Ally and Elodie feel guilty about all the teasing, but Lindsay brushes it off, stating it is not there fault, that Juliette made her own choice.  Later Sam goes through old year books and finds out that Juliette and Lindsay used to be best friend.  She goes to sleep and wakes up...
Day 4-Cupid day again, apparently not dying the night before did not change anything and she has to go through the day again.  Angry, tired, sad and frustrated she takes the day to do all kinds of crazy stuff.  Making out with her hot math teacher, cutting classes, pissing off her friends on purpose, feeling trapped by this never ending time loop. She ends up hanging out with people she normally does not hang out with, and learns a lot about how her and her friends actions are effecting others. She also finds herself caring what other people think, even knowing nobody will remember any of this when the day repeats itself. The day ends with Kent putting her to bed at his house and her realizing that she likes him way more then Rob (who is kind of a jerk).  She goes to sleep and wakes up to...
Day 5-This is the day she decides to do something different every day, since she is stuck in the endless cycle anyways.  She makes a list of everything it is possible to do in a day.  This day she decides to stay at home with her little sister Izzy.  We learn a lot of Sams history in this chapter, that she used to be unpopular until Lindsay decided to be friends with her.  She tries to impart as much as she can to Izzy and spends the evening with her parents.  She also runs into Juliette's younger sister and decides to try again to stop Juliette from killing herself.  She ends up at the party, talking with Juliette in the woods by the side of the road.  As hard as she tries she cannot stop Juliette from throwing herself in front of a car zooming down the road.  Turns out the car is Lindsay's and it causes the accident that was supposed to kill Sam, but kills Elodie instead as she was the one in the front seat.  Sam stays at Kent's house as he consoles her as best he can and she finally falls asleep.
Day 6-Sam wakes up and decides to try and fix everything, thinking maybe if she can save Juliette she can save herself and life will finally continue.  She sends Juliette a dozen roses for Cupids day, is nice to Kent, dumps Rob, scrubs off the mean sayings they wrote in the bathroom, just tries to fix everything in general.  She goes to the party and tries to talk to Juliette.  Again she ends up at the edge of the road, trying to convince Juliette that things are going to be better, but it is still in vain.  This time Juliette jumps in front of a semi truck.  Sam drives her friends home (at this point she has learned to stay sober) and takes Lindsey home last, finally learning about how she put the blame on a bed wetting at camp back in the fifth grade on Juliette, nicknaming her Mellow Yellow even though it was Lindsay who wet the bed.  This was the point where Lindsay became popular and Juliette became shunned.  Kent takes Sam home and they kiss.
Day 7-Sam finally realizes what she needs to do to move on.  She treats the day like any other, only making small adjustments from before.  Putting a single nice note on Juliette's rose, dumping Rob, not cheating on her chem test.  Little things, but important.  The biggest thing she does is arrange for other rides for the girls at the party, telling Lindsay that driving drunk will only get people killed.  The girls finally agree and get dropped off at the party.  Kent comes and picks up Sam to take her to the party and she apologizes for being a jerk and kisses him.  She catches up with Juliette, again trying to convince her to not kill her self, again she fails. This time though when Juliette jumps, Sam jumps after her and pushes her out of the way, getting killed herself.  In the epilogue Sam tells us that once you accept your death it isn't bad.

That synopsis does not really sum up what I liked about this book.  There was a great arc to Sam's understanding of her actions and her friends actions, and even the consequences of their inaction's leading up to the point of her death.  It is a pretty brutal look at the current state of teenagers (and humans in general) today.  There is a lot of drinking, smoking, sex, and all around destructive behavior, but unfortunately from some of the calls I have run, this is not an abnormal thing.  This book examines not just the teenagers, but other factors that influence there actions.  Parents and their lack of control or knowledge about there own kids, teachers who have there own questionable motives on occasion, peers, jobs, money, status all of these things go into how a person acts and reacts.  I think one of my favorite parts about this book was how at the start Sam really did not understand how her words and actions affected other people.  The hierarchy of popularity was one she accepted, calling it preparation for the real world of haves and have-nots. Even when she realized that there may be consequences, she still believed that it was not her problem and it was the others that should deal with it.  She comes to realize that popularity is pretty arbitrary and has very little to do with reality and more to do with luck and the willingness to let it be the status quo. She also realizes her earlier assumptions about people, including her own friends was usually completely wrong.  This leads to her trying to "fix" things through out her repeating day, but even this does not always work as she is still working on her own assumptions.  I have to say I love that even after understanding her friends flaws, and knowing that there way of doing things is wrong, at the end the four girls are truly friends, not letting anything, not boys, money, or issues come between them.  It is nice to see (as convoluted as it sometimes is) a story where friendship between females, a fierce loyalty we usually only see in military bro stories take center stage.  This book reminded me about everything I hated in high school (and I actually had it pretty good) and made me very glad that I am no longer dealing with that shit for lack of a better term.  This book was not perfect, it had its cringe-worthy moments and the angst was definitely present, but over all I would recommend this book.  I would especially recommend it to anybody who has to deal with teens, has a teen or pre-teen, or just wants something to think about.  I give it 7 out of 10 Cupid Roses.
How do you feel about books set in high school?  What "group label" did you get stuck with?  Did you ever sneak a book into your textbook like I did?

Opinion Frenzy!

I read a lot of book blogs, being a blogger myself and a lover of books this probably does not come as any surprise. What has surprised me is the number of crazy comments I see on some of these sites.  I have noticed most of the time, when a reviewer does not like a book for any number of reasons, the comment section blows up with scathing comments directed toward the reviewer (I've been lucky and so far have had only civilized commenter's on this site).  I am not talking well thought out arguments or even this is why I liked this particular book, but out and out mean hurtful remarks like "how can you not love this book, you must be dumb"  or "I don't think you even read the book because if you had you would have loved it".  Yes these are actual responses to well written reviews.  I am not talking about any one instance, particular book, or particular blog/review, I have seen this many times and this gets to my issue with comments like these.

I find reading to be much like experiencing any other piece of art, everybody comes to it with from their own viewpoint.  Nobody is going to read a book and experience it the same way.  Maybe the characters really relate to you, maybe the plot brought up unpleasant memories, maybe the style is not something you can get into, maybe it was a perfect book for that particular time in your life, all of these are just a very few of what can influence your feelings toward a book.  Some people read almost all their books with a particular slant, some see things with a feminist view and pick up on elements that may disturb them, but may not bug a different reader, some people read with character development in mind and can't help but phsycoanalyze each and every character to grace the pages, while another person could not care less about the possibility of a third string character who only appears for three pages may have undiagnosed OCD. All this to say again, reading is a very personal experience.  Keeping this in mind, it only makes sense that if one reviews a book it will be with the same viewpoint and slant that the reviewer read the book with...and that is ok.  I do not think it is possible (certainly not for me in any case) to review a book with 100% objectivity, you will always approach a book with your own personal likes, dislikes, and experiences and these will probably come out in your review.  After all in my mind that is what a review is, a persons particular reaction to a book for any number of reason. This is one of the reasons I love reading other peoples book blogs and reviews is to see why other people may or may not have liked a book I have just read.  I do not go to these sites to necessarily have my opinion changed, but rather to hopefully join a discussion on various aspects of the book and to get other viewpoints that I may not have considered before, this is also why I personally write my ramblings, so I can talk and discuss books!

Now we get to commenter's (I include myself in this group as well, because I frequently comment on blogs and reviews).  I will say the majority of the time commenter's are awesome, we as a group usually gather at these blogs to have a lively, civilised, often hilarious discussion on books and all things related.  Sometimes it gets bad, really really bad and these are most often the times when an author does not like a particular book. Most of the blogs I frequent are well written, that is one of the reasons I enjoy them.  The reviews are well thought out and explained, most of the time they are balanced, with even books that are disliked having some element the reviewer can try and compliment, and the author is never attacked on a personal level.  When the verdict is negative, the reviewers usually set out what they did not like and why in a complete and mature way.  That is when sh*t hits the fan.  Commenter's start throwing out insults and all caps yelling about what an idiot the reviewer must be, and how his mother is a hamster and his father smelt of elderberries.  None of this is conducive to discussion any more than you can talk to a person while they are screaming and throwing things.  I have no problem with people disagreeing with reviews, in fact I rather like it when a person disagrees with me...provided they tell me why in a mostly adult manner, I like when people agree with me, but for different reasons, I like it when people agree with part of my thinking, but not all of it.  The goal of reviewers is not to make everybody see it from their viewpoint and nothing else, but rather show their own personal reaction to a book, and invite you to join a discussion. When a commenter feels the need to freak out because somebodies opinion does not match their own, it makes me think the commentator does not actually know what he/she is talking about, I feel they are not mature enough to be part of a conversation, and that they missed the point of a review, and don't even get me started on authors who can not stand to see bad reviews of their books, I understand that (hopefully) each book is a little piece of the author, and the criticism is hard to take, but if you allow honest and open feedback, you will probably get more readers than you will if you go off on a commenting diatribe on how the reviewer obviously did not "get" your work, and that they are just out to ruin you (hm this may actually be a topic for another post).

Ah that was a long diatribe of a post...oh well it's my blog so I'm gonna make it a little longer.  When you are commenting, whether you are a reader, blogger, author or just a passer-by please remember to keep it civil.  You will win more people to your side.  I read a comment from an author on a review site that had duel reviews of his book, one of the reviewers loved it, and the other one did not like it very much.  Both reviews were well written and thought had obviously been put into what was being said, the author in his comments said he enjoyed the fact that his book produced two different reactions, and that he was glad both reviews were up...even the negative review.  This made me completely fall in love with this author (here are the reviews).  Please remember not everybody is going to love the book you love, you are going to hate books others can't put down, and the reasons for these will always be different from person to person.  Happy reading and happy discussion everybody!

What do you think about "mean" commentators?  Do agree that is impossible to write a book review objectively?  What do you think the responsibility of the reviewer is?  What is the responsibility of the commentators?