The Maze Runner

The Maze Runner

James Dashner

374 Pages

"You get lazy, you get sad. Start givin' up. Plain and simple."

Thomas wakes up in an elevator-type box. He doesn't know who he is, where he comes from, where he's going. But he knows his name. Thomas. As in... Edison. When the elevator-box finally stops moving, he is pulled out by the hands of Alby and Newt, the leaders of what is called the Glade. He quickly learns of the many jobs that the boys take care of, the Maze that surrounds the Glade, and that everyone hopes is their passage home, and the terrors known as Grievers that come out only when the doors to the Maze close safely at night, but at times venture out into the Maze during the day, terrifying the Runners. Even before Thomas understands what a Runner is, he feels that it is his destiny to become one. When, just a day after Thomas' arrival, the very first girl shows up in the Glade, the Gladers know that life as they have come to know it will never be the same again. After that, Thomas makes history by being the first boy to ever survive a night in the Glade. And when the sun disappears from the sky and the Doors stop closing the Maze at night, a promise of one dead boy a day, Thomas knows he must figure out the key to getting home, before they all suffer from the hands of the Grievers... and the Creators.

I was very, very excited to read this book. Overall, it was a very quick read, without much challenge, but every now and then it's good to read a book like that. This next part is kind of a spoiler, so beware. I totally called the 'code' for the Maze. When I very first read the part about the Runners making Maps at the end of every day, I knew that they had to just stack the Maps on top of each other. I didn't know exactly how, or exactly what it would reveal, but I knew that it was how they would find their clues. The end of the book was all nice and hopeful, but then there's the epilogue. And it justcrushed all my hopers for a happy ending because it just gave a complete 180 from the original ending, and it kind of broke my heart. I didn't actually know that they were making a movie out of this book, but while talking with a friend about it she mentioned their strange casting, so I am now super excited to see the movie, and also to read the other three books that go along with this one.

Pages this Semester: 8338

"Even if it's a dumb story, telling it changes other people just the slightest bit, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change. And that infinitesimal change ripples outward- ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter- maybe less than a lot, but always more than none."

So... That's it. Just over 8000 pages. I definitely didn't read all of the books on my list for this semester, but I read a lot of them, and I read a few really good books that weren't on the list. So many books, not nearly enough time. And... that's the Story of my Life.

The Book Thief

The Book Thief
Markus Zusak

552 Pages

"Don't make me happy. Don't fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this. Look at my bruises. Look at this graze. Do you see the graze inside me? Do you see it growing before your very eyes, eroding me? I don't want to hope for anything anymore. I don't want to pray that Max is alive and safe. Or Alex Steiner.
Because the world does not deserve them."

Nazi Germany. Death is very busy. The first time he meets Liesel Meminger is when her brother dies. Standing beside his freshly dug grave, Liesel rescues a small black book, The Grave Digger's Handbook from the snow, her first act of thievery. Her mother drops her off with her new foster parents, and though Liesel sends her many letters, she never hears from her mother again. Liesel grows to love her foster parents, especially as her papa teaches her to read. As a Young Nazi, Liesel attends a march, and rescues a book from burning flames. Soon after, her family takes in a Jew, tempting fate by hiding him in their basement. Liesel joins her best friend Rudy in brilliant stealing sprees, and officially becomes the Book Thief when she takes books from the mayor's library. Her life has been tough, but it only gets worse from there.

This book was just absolutely amazing. I had heard so many raves about this book, I had to read it. Being told from the point of view of Death was absolutely genius on the part of Zusak. It brings the whole situation that Liesel was going through into perspective, instead of just her immediate feelings. I loved the foreshadowing, the stuff put in there that was even more than foreshadowing. I would say it was "spoiling" the story, but it wasn't. It actually made me even more anxious to get to the end, and even more devastated when it did actually reach the end. I cannot wait to go see the movie.

Pages this Semester: 7964

"It's the story of my life... And time is frozen."

-One Direction

Shiver

Shiver

Maggie Stiefvater

390 Pages

"For once in my life,
I was here
and nowhere else."

When Grace was a very young girl, she was attacked by the wolves. She didn't fight, but for some reason the wolf with the yellow eyes stepped in, saving her. After that, even when she couldn't remember the attack, she felt a connection to that wolf, watching at the window for it every winter. 

Sam was a wolf, but he was also a boy. When the air became cold, he would turn. Even though he didn't know who the girl was when he was wolf, he stared at her from the cover of the trees.

After the wolves attacked a popular high school boy, seemingly having killed him, a group of angry men set out to kill the wolves. Grace steps in, not wanting the wolf she considered hers to be killed. When her wolf is shot, he changes into a boy, making her crush on the wolf into a tangible thing. The two fall quickly in love, and fight to find a way to keep Sam from returning to his wolf form forever.

I was actually very disappointed in this book. Maybe I built it up too much in my mind, but it ended up being a lot less amazing than I had imagined it would. It is mostly just an "Oh, I love you, don't leave me" kind of thing, which honestly kind of annoys me in a lot of books. I think the subplot with Sam's pack members might have saved it a little, but overall it wasn't a great story, and I probably won't read its sequel.

Pages this Semester: 7412

"Hard to accept the end of a story 

that won the villain against heroes."

-Toba Beta

The Dead Zone

The Dead Zone

Stephen King

428 Pages

"Because things like this you can only say once. And you either get it wrong or you get it right, it's the end either way, because it's too hard to ever try to say again."

When Johnny Smith was a young boy he fell and hit his head hard ice skating. He shook it off, though, not really giving it another thought. When he was older, spending his days as a teacher, he began seeing a coworker, Sarah. They went to a carnival, and Johnny played one of those con games, where you bet your money on a wheel. He couldn't explain it, he could just feel which number the wheel would land on, and he beat the con man out of hundreds of dollars. On his way home, John's taxi was hit by a teenage driver, and he spent five years in a coma.

In the beginning, this novel seemed to jump around a lot. It followed the lives of three different people that seemingly had no connection to each other. But, as it went on, it made a lot more sense. I think the mystery of the different characters definitely made the novel, and although I didn't like it initially, the story wouldn't have been nearly as good if King had been more straightforward. It wasn't my favorite novel of his, but I definitely liked it a lot.

Pages this Semester: 6750

"love, no one cares about the stories they're not in. we'll fade out to whispers..."
-Matt Nathanson

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

Will Grayson Will Grayson

John Green and David Levithan

310 Pages

"i never hoped for everything to get better- only for one thing to get better. and it never did. so eventually i gave up. i give up every single day."

Will Grayson lives by the rules: shut up and don't care too much. His best friend is the gay giant, Tiny. Other Will Grayson is a depressed boy, living with his mom in an old house and secretly online dating a boy he's never met, Isaac. I guess you could call it fate that brought the two of them together. Other Will Grayson was supposed to be meeting Isaac, but it turned out that Isaac was just a cruel trick by his no-longer-friend Maura, and Will Grayson was hanging out while his friends enjoyed an over 21 concert. Will introduces Will to Tiny, and Will finally has the courage to come out to his friends and mom. Tiny discovers that love should be more than himself, through writing, directing, and starring in his own play. And Will discovers that, despite shitting up and not caring, he still has emotions, he's still falling apart a little.

Oh. My. Gosh. Two of my most favorite authors ever, collabbed on one single novel... I just.. The feels! (Totally kidding, though, I don't talk like that.) This was just one amazing novel. The contrasting views of the characters, but the parallels portrayed in their views, gave it so much meaning. I want to just list a bunch more quotes now, but I won't... I really really really want John Green and David Levithan to collab again, because they were able to write so well together, and I would read it in a heartbeat.

Pages this Semester: 6322

"Do not lose hope- what you seek will be found. Trust ghosts. Trust those that you have helped to help you in their turn. Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story."
-Neil Gaiman

Paper Towns

Paper Towns

John Green

305 Pages

"... at some point, you gotta stop looking up at the sky, or one of these days you'll look back down and see that you floated away, too."

Quentin thinks he had been given a miracle, living next to Margo Roth Spiegelman. After they discover a body together, Q feels a bond between him and Margo, but soon after, a window closes between them. It stays shut until the last month of their senior year, when Margo enlists Quentin's help in a possibly law-breaking scheme. After the night is over, Quentin feels like everything will be different between them, but when he gets to school the next day, Margo has mysteriously disappeared. He goes on a journey to find where Margo has gone off too, and discovers that he doesn't know who the girl is behind the window.

Despite the fact that this was way different from John Green's two best novels (in my opinion), The Fault in our Stars and Looking for Alaska, I thought this was a really great novel. There was so much depth to it, and I think the mirror-versus-window theory is applicable to anyone's life, even my own. I also liked the many quotes John Green included from other authors, like Emily Dickinson's "Forever is made up of nows."  The end was great, because it was happy, but also it wasn't, because that's life, you know?

Pages this Semester: 5923

"But how could you live and have no story to tell?"
-Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks

Doctor Who: Prisoner of the Daleks

Trevor Baxendale

249 Pages

"It's not how you feel that matters. It's what you do despite how you feel."

The Doctor shows up on this planet, gets curious (dang that curiosity) and begins to look around, very quickly becoming locked in a cell. He fears he will be trapped there forever, but a team of Dalek hunters show up after just over three days and free him. After an attack by the Daleks, resulting in the death of one of the party of hunters, the Doctor slowly pieces together what he can gather of the Daleks plan to take over the universe. He, along with the band of misfit hunters, put aside their differences, working together to save the world from the evil that is the Dalek.

Overall, I really did like the story line. It was really fast paced, a lot of action, with just a hint of romance that you can't see until it just sneaks up on you. I was quite disappointed, however, with the lack of humor from the Doctor. That really is his charm, you know, and without it the novel was just missing something. There were a few moments where I was like 'yeah, there's my Doctor', but not nearly enough. The story did do a better job of communicating the terror of the Daleks, though, than the show ever has.

Pages this Semester: 5566

"Awful story, of course, but those are the ones that last the longest."
-Stephen King