Caught (Missing) by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Awesome)

Sorry that I haven't been posting a lot.  I'll try to get back to posting on Fridays, but right now I'm so behind that I sort of dread thinking about it.  Since I last posted, I've read The Kill Order, The Rise of Nine, Unwholly, and this book.  Anyway, Caught is the fifth book in the Missing Series.  They need to be read in order: Missing, Sent, Sabotaged, Torn, and finally Caught. They are all amazing, so you should go read the first one at least.

The cover:

 

I don't think that I could easily explain the cover.  They rode on trains for a little while, I guess, so there's the train and maybe Jonah racing to catch up?  Whatever the point, it works.  And the title, Caught.  Well, let's just say that it makes sense in more than one way.

Time stops in the 21st century, and Jonah and Katherine are sent back in time because Albert Einstein is thinking about the wrong things and could mess up time forever.  The Einsteins have a missing child, Lieserl,  who is dying of scarlet fever.  The biggest problem, however, is that Mileva, Einstein's wife, knows that Jonah and Katherine are there.  How can they save time when it's as if everything is working against them?

I would recommend you to read this.  Not only once, but twice because it's that good.  I wish I could just talk abut the ending, but that would be a major spoiler.  It's so so so amazing!

I love this book and hope that you will read it.  I'll post again later.

P.S. Sorry this post's a bit choppy.  The "o" key on this computer only works when you stab it, so I've had to rewrite a bunch of words.

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Great)

Here's an interesting book.  I was about a second away from returning it to the library because I didn't think I would ever get around to even reading the first sentence.  Then, of course, I felt bad.  Next thing I know, it's 1 o'clock in the morning.  So, don't give it a bad rep. because of whatever. 

Anyway, here's the cover:

                       

 

I'm not a big fan of either of the covers, so I thought I'd show both.  Just so that you'd have options.  The left is self explanatory, but I'll point out that on the right, it says "Happily Never After..." under the title.  I think it changes the whole idea of the cover.

The book is about what happened to Cinderella (Cinders-Ella) after she goes to live with Prince Charming for her happily ever after. The castle is not what she was expecting, full of strict regulations, stiff people, and even the prince isn't as perfect as he had always seemed. Even, Jed, one of her teachers, is easier to talk to than Charming. Ella soon discovers, however, that escaping the castle will be more dangerous than first appears.

This is definitely a chick book, and I wouldn't recommend it to any guys.  But, any girl who is in the mood for a light, yet kind of fast-paced, read will not be disappointed. 

It's definitely something I would recommend.  And I hope you give it a shot.

As a side note: As I mentioned somewhere above, I got my book from the library, and I was about halfway through the book when I saw a bite mark on a page in my book. A human bite mark!  I thought it was worth mentioning, if only to make you wonder why. 

Anyways, I'll probably post mid next week instead of Friday since I'm so late with this post.  Who really knows when I'll finish my next book, so until then comment or whatever else you want to do.

Special thanks to everyone who has commented so far.  I really appreciate it.





Author Visits (Rick Riordan and Margaret Peterson Haddix)

In October, when the Son of Neptune came out, I was about an hour away from one of the seven tour stops.  I was, of course, really excited about this and was able to convince my mom to take me.  Rick Riordan arrived on a "chariot" pulled by black horses.  It was supposed to have something to do with Hades.

I had been thinking of a question to ask him for weeks.  I wanted something unique.  We stood in line forever!  I was number 202.  That was apparantly really good; I think there were about 800 of us. 

I got up there and he signed my book.

You can't really see my face or my purple t-shirt, but still an amazing picture!!!  Here's what I asked (not paraphrased at all).

Q: In the Kane Chronicles, when you said that Manhattan had its own problems, did you mean the Greeks and Romans?

A: *nodding his head* Yes, and you'll see what I mean in book three. 

It doesn't sound nearly as exciting when you write it, so picture one of your favorite authors basically telling you, "Wow.  How observant! My third book will be completely amazing, and you know that for a fact before everybody else does."  As you can see, he even signed the person behind me's book while still talking to me! 

Personally, I was so happy about the whole thing that I almost started crying while picking up sauce at the Taco Bell on the way home.  Here's his signiture in case you're curious.  I think I have crazy eyes but I can't help it because I'm not photogentic at all.

***

Now I'm going to talk about Margaret Peterson Haddix.  She came to my school about two weeks ago.  Somehow, I managed to eat lunch with her, along with six other middle schoolers.  That was pretty exciting, too. 

However, this time I had no questions at all.  I made up some on the fly, but they weren't very exciting.  Some of the other kids had some good questions, though, so I'll list some of those, slightly paraphrased.

Q: Who is Jonah?

A:  That's a surprise, but you'll find out in the seventh book (the last one).

Q: What's your favorite book that you wrote?

A: I won't say because that would be like favoring children.

Q: How did you come up with the idea for the Shadow Children sereis?

A: My family was debating about whether or not to have a third child.  We considered over population, and I said that if it was such a problem, there would be a law against third children.  The idea just popped into my head.

Q: How did you get the idea for the Missing series?

A: I got disoriented when I woke up when our plane was landing, and I couldn't remember who I was for a moment.  I started thinking what would happen if a bunch of kids were disoriented in a plane and no one could tell them who they were.  The idea moved on to babies.

Sorry, but those are some of the only ones that I remember enough to write about.  Someone asked how much she wrote a day, and I remember that she answered with an insanely large numbers of hours, but I don't think non-exact answers are really helpful.

For all of you who have no idea what she looks like, here.



I have a picture with her, but I really don't want to look through my email to find it.  I'll try to do another screen shot of her signature; it's a bit neater than Rick Riordan's.

I hope that was at least a  little interesting for you.  It sure took forever to write.  Probably, because I was trying to take the screen shot via skype. 

Hope you all have a very nice weekend.

PS. Mrs. Haddix told us when all of the rest of her book in the Missing series come out.  You can see it in my Coming Soon page.  (There will be seven.)

PPS.  My books aren't actually yellow.  They are all white, put my lighting's awful.



Double Identity by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Alright)

I read Double Identity and frankly, I wasn't crazy about it. Anyway, here's the cover:

The cover is pretty explanatory once you've read it, so I won't get into that. I'll do my description before I tell you about my review of it.

Bethany has a nice, cushy life until one day when her dad drops here off with a mysterious relative and then vanishes. She needs to unravel the truth of her past. There's only one thing she has to go by. A name. Elizabeth.

Before I go any farther, I want to say that I really like the author of this book, Margaret Peterson Haddix.  I particually like the Missing Series and The Shadow Children Series.  

Personally, I was very, very bored when I was reading it.  Bethany just sat around moping all the time!  Then there was a tiny exciting part, near the end, but when I was reading it, I just couldn't get very into it because I hate the character of Bethany so much.  Now, it wasn't all bad by any means. I wouldn't go as far as to advise you not to read it if you have it laying around. But, I wouldn't suggest buying it. It had a couple of all right parts, there was a plot twist (that's good in my opinion), and not everyone would hate Bethany as much as I did; I'm sure that some of you would like it if you read it, but let it be known that I warned you.

Sorry that I haven't really posted very much recently. I'm really behind on books, but i just haven't had any time! I'll try to do some more reviews whenever I can. 

Hope you all have/ had a good spring break!