After

I don’t know why, but I actually enjoyed After. Although it wasn’t enough for me to run to the book as soon as I got home, it was enjoyable enough. When I read it during the free periods that I had during school, I was constantly intrigued, reading at least 50 pages per sitting. After captured the confusion and distress of Devon amazingly, and I was totally feeling everything that Devon was feeling, there! Seriously. Only a few flaws were screaming in my face. And my face is so delicate, you see.

The names were SO STUPID. Devon Davenport. Come on. No one likes a name with alliteration. And Dom? DOM!? What person would call them DOM? Really, now. It’s a weird name that isn’t pretty, like a weird name like Sapphire or something. Actually, no, I don’t really like that name, either. And the worst part? DR BACON. Who the heck would have the last name Bacon? I would totally think that if your surname is Bacon then you’re the awesomest person like, ever, but in a book? No way. That’s weird. I get witty last names, but not random last names. My vision- Amy Efaw, at the kitchen table, nomming on her bacon. “Hey, I’ll name the doctor Dr Bacon! What a splendid idea!” Is that a cruel joke? Bacon is yummy goodness in a crispy strip, not a doctor. Just saying.

Capitalization of certain words was a little weird. It bothered me. I get that Efaw was trying to emphasis on the words, but it was just… meh. That’s a good word. I really don’t like that writing technique unless it’s a proper noun. I’ve used it, I admit. But it was in a completely different way- it was a group. I didn’t like it, either, but I lack creativity in names. I’m probably naming my child Reginald, whether it’s a girl or a boy. Or like, Naomi. Anyways. I like it when it’s an actual proper noun, not just That Night. :\ I feel completely hypocritical here, but it’s just so frigging annoying at times.

But on the other hand…

The characters were so real. As I said before, Efaw really portrayed Devon’s desperation and confusion well. I could really feel all the conflicting emotions even though Devon is just a character. Also, Karma was a really unique yet believable character. I know people that cut, and Karma was just another one of them- confused and hurt with conflicting emotions all raging in her head. It’s all really just a different way of expressing it.

The use of poetry was really amazing. Emotion was all jumbled up into those half page pieces, wrapped together by words. I really loved all the poems, and though I used to love poetry, it usually doesn’t affect me as much as writing does.

After was the exception.

Devon finally “freeing herself” was, I must admit, corny, but it showed character growth. At first, she was lying to herself about what was happening: pregnancy, jail, the lawsuit, but in the end, Devon really knew what was happening and I, for one, was surprised. I thought it would end like any other YA novel: she’s home free and meets her new, better, and sexier Prince Charming! Uh, no thanks! I want that to happen to me, not them. Not to be selfish or anything. But it’s so cliché. And I already got T-Swizzles. Thanks, though.

So yeah. I would recommend to any girl (or guy… o_o) who is a fan of YA. After is a book I soon will not forget. Or however it goes.

My rating: 4 stars

The Bell Jar

So this post took a while for me to dig up from the recesses of my mind drawer in my room, but I've found it. I've really found it. The Bell Jar, a classic coming of age novel, was a recent read for Jenn here.

What can I say? I was pretty surprised.

Not pleasantly, though.

I was pretty excited when I started reading this- oh boy, insanity and suicide!

Not really. But I was still excited. However, in the end, I had some mixed feelings about this novel.

While The Bell Jar had an amazing voice (in writing terms, of course. No, it just started talking out loud- yeah, that’s what happe...more 

The Bell Jar, a classic coming of age novel, was a recent read for Jenn here.

What can I say? I was pretty surprised.

Not pleasantly, though.

I was pretty excited when I started reading this- oh boy, insanity and suicide!

Not really. But I was still excited. However, in the end, I had some mixed feelings about this novel.

While The Bell Jar had an amazing voice (in writing terms, of course. No, it just started talking out loud- yeah, that’s what happened) and amazing characters and metaphors, I just… didn’t feel that extra something, the special something that appears in some other books that I love.

It was a good book, but I’ll start with the cons so this review finishes on a good note.

It was immensely confusing. Sylvia Plath put a little bit too many flashbacks in there, making the reader (aka moi) confused as to whether things were happening just then. A present tense narrative could’ve helped, but I don’t think that it would have captured Esther’s struggle as well.

It was a bit slow for my taste. It never seemed to really get any further, while it actually did. But I found it hard to get through, like I was a tomato and trying to get through Jell-O.

That’s right.

Tomatoes are inanimate.

Sex always bothers me. Sure, I can have a non-awkward conversation about the topic-

HAH.

Who am I kidding?

Sex is NOT the easiest subject to write about or read about, and yet authors back then used it ever so lightly. Life isn’t like this, authors:

Person 1: Hey, I had sex last night.

Person 2: So did I!

Person 1: What a small world.

Okay. That’s a really bad example. I don’t even think that’s a bad example. It’s more like a bad roleplay. Like It’s a Small World meets Jersey Shore. *shudders*

It’s a seriously recurring theme in adult and young adult (seriously, aren’t they called young adult for a reason? Does every other teenager go out and have sex on Friday nights or is that just in books and TV shows?)

It’s disgusting, dirty, and cliché. Can’t we just have one book without sex? Look at Harry Potter and Percy Jackson and Hunger Games, teaching abstinence everywhere. When Harry was having that urge, he just talked about Ginny’s nice skin and hair, no problem!

Anyways, the Bell Jar did not make me very happy in the area of coverage. And just when I started to have hope- the first adult book I had ever read without sex! Oh, boy oh boy!

Okay, now onto the good things.

Sylvia Plath put some amazing metaphors in this. The fig tree, the bell jar- and they all fit perfectly, unlike jeans I try on. Curse you for not taking short people into account. -.- anyways, this was also part of Sylvia Plath amazingly epicsauce writing style, which was so... I don't know. Lyrical? Flowing? Puncturing? It doesn't matter, but just the way Plath wrote was beautiful in its own way. So kudos to you.

Would I recommend this book?

Certainly.

Would I skip over the sex parts?

Um… YES.

So go on, rip those pages out and read, my friend!

My rating: 4 stars

Angel

Yay, another book! I actually recently finished After and still have yet to review The Bell Jar (or more, type it up). But here's Angel. :D

{Before reading review}

No.
 
I will NOT let myself get excited for these books, ever again.
Okay, this is completely stupid. Angel? The frigging six year old that betrayed them like a bajillion times? (So, maybe it was about 6, but whatever; I've never been able to count.)

Really, James Patterson? Are you seriously going to let Angel, a mastermind six year old that can F*CKING KILL THE REST OF THE FLOCK JOIN THE FLOCK AGAIN?

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?

Ugh. All this series has done is gone downhill, and I have not been happy with it, at all. Nothing that the flock does makes sense anymore. Hell, FANG was:

"Oh, Fang, I wuff you!"

"I wuff you, too, Max!"

"Let's make out!"

"No, I have to go. Go make out with Dylan."

"But I don't like Dylan! FANNNNG!"

Oh, yeah, and Angel betrays them. Again.

I don't think the book can get any more meaningless, but I'm not counting on it.

I mean, why couldn't James Patterson just stop after he wrote the third book? Everyone loved the first part of the Maximum Ride series; but there are only few who really love it now.

And yet, this series is so addicting. I hate it now, but it's SO ADDICTING THAT I JUST HAVE TO READ THE NEXT BOOK.

Meh.

{After reading review}

I was wrong. So wrong.

Angel was a lot better than I expected it to be. No joke. I expected terrible crapola but instead, I received puppies and unicorns.

Not really. But I still got happiness.

I was completely intrigued. I didn’t want to put it down, and if I hadn’t had a volleyball tournament today and Daylight Savings ending yesterday, I would’ve finished it in a matter of hours.

Unfortunately, Jenn here still needed her WTF stickies.

On the bright side, Jenn only needed 11. 11! And like four of them were examples of the same thing.

Is this amazing?

Screw yes, it is!

But just so you guys are left on a happy note, I’ll say the cons first, most of which relate to Angel. Of course.

Minor spoilers

Max is always on Angel’s side. She thinks that Angel deserves a second chance, blah blah blah blah blah. Dude, the girl tried to take over the flock! She’s betrayed you over and over and over again! And you just go, “Aw, she’s so cute. Let’s forgive her again so she can just hurt us more or whatever.” In the end, Angel sorta saves them, but hey, whatever. The little freak gets what she deserves.

Angel acts like a little know-it-all. She’s a little too perfect right now. She knows Max, she comforts her, and another thing: her vocabulary is like, huge. For a seven year old. Dude, when I was seven, I was running around the playground pretending I was a Powerpuff girl. And writing short stories. But that doesn’t really count, because they were about unicorns named Ruby. (No, I’m not kidding. I’ll upload the manuscript if you want.) And did I mention that her vocabulary is HUGE? She talks like Max. And Max talks sort of normally, though I have been noticing that she’s been eating thesauruses in her free time.

They’re not fugitives anymore. That seriously bothered me. Max has a cell phone and everything, and I’m thinking, “What? What happened to ‘Let’s not bother anyone in case we really need to and stay under the radar instead of shaking a tambourine and going “Come on! Watch us do stuff!” Whoopee!’” (That’s a lot of quotation marks. But you get the point.) I seriously miss that. Maybe it’s nostalgia, but I don’t like the new “LET’S SAVE THE WORLD AND PRANCE IN FLOWERS!” thing. And Fang’s blog is just a part of that. I questioned this, but never too much when I read the first few books: A BLOG? REALLY? WHAT. THE. HECK.

Bye-bye old villains and global-freaking-warming, hello Doomsday Group.

‘Nuff said.

Dylan. Again: ‘Nuff said.

(Because you know Fang is sexier.)

PROS

The Flock is still hilarious as ever. Max, however broken and idiotic she is, is still her old, sarcastic self, Iggy is so hot as awesome as ever, and Total is still his epic self. So things really haven’t changed that much. :D

The Doomsday Group is a lot better than the other villains. Seriously. These people want the human race to die! Kaboom, all that stuff! It’s better than people killing Max Ride and her gang. Because really, that just gets boring after a while. The end was completely thrilling with all of the intense action and roundhouse kicking and Chuck Norris training videos and intensity and roundhouse kicking and action and I feel like I’m repeating myself. I’m not gonna spoil it too much, so I’m just gonna say that it. Was. Awesome.

The love triangle isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Max is indecisive, but Fang has run away with Maya!

NOT MAYA!

And so the screaming continues.

Did I mention that I love this?

Angel finally isn’t being a butthead. She’s basically sacrificed herself so she could save the whole freaking world. That’s gotta count for something, right?

Right?

And so has Gazzy. But he lives, so that’s not as much awesomeness. But he’s still epicsauce, I have to tell you that.

And some other notes:

-The DG was like CESSNAB from Going Bovine.

-This was a bit similar to SWOES. Not that that’s bad or anything.

-Max/Maya was totally Fringe. Just saying.

(OMG, PETER JUST HAD SEX WITH FAUXLIVIA)

-James Patterson is… weird. It’s nothing wrong with the book- definitely not with the book. It’s scary. He portrays a teenage girl almost… well, perfectly. And no offense, but he’s a lot older than Max and yet he shows her feelings about Fang and Dylan really, really realistically. In the way that it’s not realistic, but like a girl. If you know what I mean. O_o It’s creepy. Creepy, I tell you.

-So what IS Max's hair color?

-WHY DIDN’T IGGY AND GAZZY BLOW ANYTHING UP?

Spoilers over

So in the end, did I love the book?

Sorta.

Did I hate it?

No way, Jose. (Or whatever your name is.)

I liked it- that’s definitely true. And I would definitely recommend it; just skip the fourth, fifth, and sixth book.

Happy reading!

My rating: 3 stars