What I read this summer

Welcome back, Tologs!  I have a feeling most of you were VERY busy this summer, but I hope that some of you got to do some fun, lazy, undemanding, beach reading.  I read a lot, including some of the books that you might have been reading for school (like Ragtime, The Incorporation of America, Refuge, Nickel and Dimed, and Justice).  But I also read a few things that were NOT for school.  You can see some of the books (and whether I liked them) below.  What did you read?  Let us know (and whether you loved, liked, or hated it) and we'll post it here on the blog!

PS - Here's how I assign stars.

One star is a total dud.

Two stars is readable but NOT good.

Three stars I liked just fine.

Four stars I liked a LOT.

Five stars I LOVED!

So, three start is a pretty good book.

Tolog Review: Looking for Alaska

Looking for Alaska
by John Green

reviewed by Camille Trevor, class of 2015

Looking for Alaska, by John Green, is widely considered an unmistakably bestseller and one of his best works. The story is based on teenager Miles Halter and his experiences in transferring to Culver Creek, a boarding school. He transfers from public to boarding school in order to escape his home life of having no friends and receiving little attention. The first part of the book, “Before,” is solely based on his involvement with several characters in Culver Creek, including Alaska. His life as a Culver Creek student is dramatically impacted by Alaska because he falls in love with her secretly. The first section is separated by the number of days “before” what happens, which creates a great mystery for the reader to unravel. In addition, the second part of the book, “After,” picks up the pace of the story and consists of more consequential affairs. Because the novel is divided in terms of time and a specific event, it is highly unpredictable and suspenseful.

Although this book is seen as an extraordinary success, I find it to be adequate. The story is good, but the overall emotional depth seems insufficient. My main concern is that the story seems choppy in terms of plot and character development. The last part of the book encompasses thought-provoking ideas of life, including suffering, death, afterlife, and purpose on earth. Moreover, the first half does not contain half of the concepts displayed in the second half, which makes it seem dry in comparison. Regardless of these issues, the story does portray an excellent ongoing subject of friendship throughout the entirety of it. The significant occurrence between “Before” and “After” brings the characters together in times of hardship and pain. Furthermore, this story demonstrates the enigma of unanswerable questions, including an escape from the “labyrinth of suffering.” I enjoyed reading these reflective topics because there is no right or wrong answer. Finishing this book leaves you questioning for more because it is all interpretation. You decide what to believe. You decide the characters’ fate. The control shifts from the author to the reader, which leaves countless possibilities.If you like anything by John Green, you'll love this book! If you liked Paper Towns, you'll love this!

Looking for a Good Book?

King Dork by Frank Portman

As John Green, New York Times bestselling author of The Fault in Our Stars said, “King Dork will rock your world.” The cult favorite from Frank Portman, aka Dr. Frank of the Mr. T. Experience, is a book like no other. Music plays a huge part in the book, which features hilarious original lyrics throughout.

When Tom Henderson finds his deceased father’s copy of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, his world is turned upside down. Suddenly high school gets more complicated: Tom (aka King Dork) is in the middle of at least half a dozen mysteries involving dead people, naked people, fake people, a secret code, girls, and rock and roll. As he goes through sophomore year, he finds clues that may very well solve the puzzle of his father’s death and—oddly—reveal the secret to attracting semi-hot girls (the secret might be being in a band, if he can find a drummer who can count to four.

A brilliant story told in first person, King Dork includes a glossary and a bandography, which readers will find helpful and hilarious.

Where the Truth Lies by Jessica Warman

On the surface, Emily Meckler leads the perfect life. She has three best friends, two loving parents, and the ideal setup at the Connecticut prep school where her father is the headmaster. Then the enigmatic Del Sugar enters her life, and Emily is immediately swept away-but her passionate relationship with Del is just the first of many things that aren't quite what they seem in Emily's life. As the lies she's been told start to unravel, Emily must set out to discover the truth, a journey that will lead her to question everything she thought she knew.

Almost a Woman by Esmerelda Santiago

Following the enchanting story recounted in When I Was Puerto Rican of the author’s emergence from the barrios of Brooklyn to the prestigious Performing Arts High School in Manhattan, Esmeralda Santiago delivers the tale of her young adulthood, where she continually strives to find a balance between becoming American and staying Puerto Rican. While translating for her mother Mami at the welfare office in the morning, starring as Cleopatra at New York’s prestigious Performing Arts High School in the afternoons, and dancing salsa all night, she begins to defy her mother’s protective rules, only to find that independence brings new dangers and dilemmas.

Forbidden Fruit by Betty DeRamus

Forbidden Fruit is a collection of fascinating, largely untold tales of ordinary men and women who faced mobs, bloodhounds, bounty hunters, and bullets to be together — and defy a system that categorized blacks not only as servants, but as property.

Here you'll meet, among other extraordinary characters, a fugitive slave from Virginia who spends seventeen years searching for his wife. A Georgia slave couple that sails for England with federal troops trailing behind. A white woman who falls in love with her deceased husband's slave. A young slave girl who is delivered to her fiancé inside a wooden chest.

Acclaimed journalist Betty DeRamus gleaned these anecdotes from descendants of runaway slave couples, unpublished memoirs, Civil War records, census data, magazines, and dozens of previously untapped sources. This is a book about people pursuing love and achievement in a time of hate and severely limited opportunities. Though not all of the stories in Forbidden Fruit end in triumph, they all celebrate hope, passion, courage, and triumph of the human spirit.

Zombies vs. Unicorns edited by Holly Black

It’s a question as old as time itself: Which is better, the zombie or the unicorn? This all-original, tongue-in-cheek anthology edited by Holly Black (Team Unicorn) and Justine Larbalestier (Team Zombie), makes strong arguments for both sides in the form of spectacular short stories. Contributors include bestselling authors Cassandra Clare, Libba Bray, Maureen Johnson, Meg Cabot, Scott Westerfeld, and Margo Lanagan.

Discover how unicorns use their powers for evil, why zombies aren’t always the enemy, and much more in this creative, laugh-out-loud collection that will have everyone asking: Team Zombie or Team Unicorn?

This Boy’s Life by Tobias Wolff

This unforgettable memoir, by one of our most gifted writers, introduces us to the young Toby Wolff, by turns tough and vulnerable, crafty and bumbling, and ultimately winning. Separated by divorce from his father and brother, Toby and his mother are constantly on the move, yet they develop an extraordinarily close, almost telepathic relationship. As Toby fights for identity and self-respect against the unrelenting hostility of a new stepfather, his experiences are at once poignant and comical, and Wolff does a masterful job of re-creating the frustrations and cruelties of adolescence. His various schemes - running away to Alaska, forging checks, and stealing cars - lead eventually to an act of outrageous self-invention that releases him into a new world of possibility.

172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

It's been decades since anyone set foot on the moon. Now three ordinary teenagers, the winners of NASA's unprecedented, worldwide lottery, are about to become the first young people in space--and change their lives forever. Mia, from Norway, hopes this will be her punk band's ticket to fame and fortune. Midori believes it's her way out of her restrained life in Japan. Antoine, from France, just wants to get as far away from his ex-girlfriend as possible.

It's the opportunity of a lifetime, but little do the teenagers know that something sinister is waiting for them on the desolate surface of the moon. And in the black vacuum of space... no one is coming to save them.

In this chilling adventure set in the most brutal landscape known to man, highly acclaimed Norwegian novelist Johan Harstad creates a vivid and frightening world of possibilities we can only hope never come true.

The Story of My Life by Helen Keller

When she was 19 months old, Helen Keller (1880-1968) suffered a severe illness that left her blind and deaf. Not long after, she also became mute. Her tenacious struggle to overcome these handicaps-with the help of her inspired teacher, Anne Sullivan-is one of the great stories of human courage and dedication. In this classic autobiography, first published in 1903, Miss Keller recounts the first 22 years of her life, including the magical moment at the water pump when, recognizing the connection between the word "water" and the cold liquid flowing over her hand, she realized that objects had names. Subsequent experiences were equally noteworthy: her  joy at eventually learning to speak, her friendships with Oliver Wendell Holmes, Edward Everett Hale and other notables, her education at Radcliffe (from which she graduated cum laude), and-underlying all-her extraordinary relationship with Miss Sullivan, who showed a remarkable genius for communicating with her eager and quick-to-learn pupil. These and many other aspects of Helen Keller's life are presented here in clear, straightforward prose full of wonderful descriptions and imagery that would do credit to a sighted writer. Completely devoid of self-pity, yet full of love and compassion for others, this deeply moving memoir offers an unforgettable portrait of one of the outstanding women of the twentieth century.

Wake by Lisa McMann

Not all dreams are sweet.

For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.

She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control.

Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant....

Hunger of Memory: the education of Richard Rodriguez by Richard Rodriguez

Hunger of Memory is the story of Mexican-American Richard Rodriguez, who begins his schooling in Sacramento, California, knowing just 50 words of English, and concludes his university studies in the stately quiet of the reading room of the British Museum.

Here is the poignant journey of a “minority student” who pays the cost of his social assimilation and academic success with a painful alienation — from his past, his parents, his culture — and so describes the high price of “making it” in middle-class America.

Provocative in its positions on affirmative action and bilingual education, Hunger of Memory is a powerful political statement, a profound study of the importance of language ... and the moving, intimate portrait of a boy struggling to become a man.

The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan

In 1949 four Chinese women-drawn together by the shadow of their past-begin meeting in San Francisco to play mah jong, invest in stocks, eat dim sum, and "say" stories. They call their gathering the Joy Luck Club. Nearly forty years later, one of the members has died, and her daughter has come to take her place, only to learn of her mother's lifelong wish-and the tragic way in which it has come true. The revelation of this secret unleashes an urgent need among the women to reach back and remember... In this extraordinary first work of fiction, Amy Tan writes about what is lost-over the years, between generations, among friends-and what is saved.

In 1949, four Chinese women begin meeting in San Francisco for fun. Nearly 40 years later, their daughters continue to meet as the Joy Luck Club. Their stories ultimately display the double happiness that can be found in being both Chinese and American.

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Living in peaceful Shady Vale, Shea Ohmsford knew little of the troubles that plagued the rest of the world. Then the giant, forbidding Allanon revaled that the supposedly dead Warlock Lord was plotting to destory the world. The sole weapon against this Power of Darkness was the Sword of Shannara, which could only be used by a true heir of Shannara—Shea being the last of the bloodline, upon whom all hope rested. Soon a Skull Bearer, dread minion of Evil, flew into the Vale, seeking to destroy Shea. To save the Vale, Shea fled, drawing the Skull Bearer after him....

Long ago, the wars of the ancient Evil had ruined the world and forced mankind to compete with many other races--gnomes, trolls, dwarfs, and elves. But in peaceful Shady Vale, half-elfin Shea Ohmsford knew little of such troubles. Then came the giant, forbidding Allanon, possessed of strange Druidic powers, to reveal that the Warlock Lord was plotting to destroy the world.

The Long Walk by Stephen King

On the first day of May, 100 teenage boys meet for a race known as "The Long Walk". If you break the rules, you get three warnings. If you exceed your limit, what happens is absolutely terrifying...

The Art of Fielding by Chris Harbach

"[The Art of Fielding] is not only a wonderful baseball novel--it zooms immediately into the pantheon of classics, alongside The Natural by Bernard Malamud and The Southpaw by Mark Harris--but it's also a magical, melancholy story about friendship and the coming of age that marks the debut of an immensely talented writer...Mr. Harbach has the rare abilities to write with earnest, deeply felt emotion without ever veering into sentimentality, and to create quirky, vulnerable and fully imagined characters who instantly take up residence in our hearts and minds. He also manages to re-work the well-worn, much-allegorized subject of baseball and make us see it afresh, taking tired tropes about the game (as a metaphor for life's dreams, disappointments and hopes of redemption) and interjecting them with new energy. In doing so he has written a novel that is every bit as entertaining as it is affecting....You don't need to be a baseball fan to fall under this novel's spell, but THE ART OF FIELDING possesses all the pleasures that an aficionado cherishes in a great, classic game: odd and strangely satisfying symmetries, unforeseen swerves of fortune, and intimations of the delicate balance between individual will and destiny that play out on the field." (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times)

Salt to Summit: A Vagabond Journey from Death Valley to Mount Whitney by Daniel Arnold

From the depths of Death Valley, Daniel Arnold set out to reach Mount Whitney in a way no road or trail could take him. Anything manmade or designed to make travel easy was out. With a backpack full of water bottles, and the remotest corners of desert before him, he began his toughest test yet of physical and mental endurance.

Badwater Basin sits 282 feet below sea level in Death Valley, the lowest and hottest place in the Western Hemisphere. Mount Whitney rises 14,505 feet above sea level, the highest point in the contiguous United States. Arnold spent seventeen days traveling a roundabout route from one to the other, traversing salt flats, scaling dunes, and sinking into slot canyons. Aside from bighorn sheep and a phantom mountain lion, his only companions were ghosts of the dreamers and misfits who first dared into this unknown territory. 

Typical American by Gish Jen

From the beloved author of Mona in the Promised Land and The Love Wife comes this comic masterpiece, an insightful novel of immigrants experiencing the triumphs and trials of American life.

Gish Jen reinvents the American immigrant story through the Chang family, who first come to the United States with no intention of staying. When the Communists assume control of China in 1949, though, Ralph Chang, his sister Theresa, and his wife Helen, find themselves in a crisis. At first, they cling to their old-world ideas of themselves.  But as they begin to dream the American dream of self-invention, they move poignantly and ironically from people who disparage all that is “typical American” to people who might be seen as typically American themselves. With droll humor and a deep empathy for her characters, Gish Jen creates here a superbly engrossing story that resonates with wit and wisdom even as it challenges the reader to reconsider what a typical American might be today.

Lipstick Jihad by Azadeh Moaveni

As far back as she can remember, Azadeh Moaveni has felt at odds with her tangled identity as an Iranian-American. In suburban America, Azadeh lived in two worlds. At home, she was the daughter of the Iranian exile community, serving tea, clinging to tradition, and dreaming of Tehran. Outside, she was a California girl who practiced yoga and listened to Madonna. For years, she ignored the tense standoff between her two cultures. But college magnified the clash between Iran and America, and after graduating, she moved to Iran as a journalist. This is the story of her search for identity, between two cultures cleaved apart by a violent history. It is also the story of Iran, a restive land lost in the twilight of its revolution.
Moaveni's homecoming falls in the heady days of the country's reform movement, when young people demonstrated in the streets and shouted for the Islamic regime to end. In these tumultuous times, she struggles to build a life in a dark country, wholly unlike the luminous, saffron and turquoise-tinted Iran of her imagination.

Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell

Sarah Vowell exposes the glorious conundrums of American history and culture with wit, probity, and an irreverent sense of humor. With Assassination Vacation, she takes us on a road trip like no other — a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage.

From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism. We learn about the jinx that was Robert Todd Lincoln (present at the assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and McKinley) and witness the politicking that went into the making of the Lincoln Memorial. The resulting narrative is much more than an entertaining and informative travelogue — it is the disturbing and fascinating story of how American death has been manipulated by popular culture, including literature, architecture, sculpture, and — the author's favorite — historical tourism. Though the themes of loss and violence are explored and we make detours to see how the Republican Party became the Republican Party, there are all kinds of lighter diversions along the way into the lives of the three presidents and their assassins, including mummies, show tunes, mean-spirited totem poles, and a nineteenth-century biblical sex cult.

Old School by Tobias Wolff

The protagonist of Tobias Wolff’s shrewdly—and at times devastatingly—observed first novel is a boy at an elite prep school in 1960. He is an outsider who has learned to mimic the negligent manner of his more privileged classmates. Like many of them, he wants more than anything on earth to become a writer. But to do that he must first learn to tell the truth about himself.

The agency of revelation is the school literary contest, whose winner will be awarded an audience with the most legendary writer of his time. As the fever of competition infects the boy and his classmates, fraying alliances, exposing weaknesses, Old School explores the ensuing deceptions and betrayals with an unblinking eye and a bottomless store of empathy. The result is further evidence that Wolff is an authentic American master.

Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson--the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent--brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed into one of the world's largest growth industries.

Clever, insightful, often hilarious, The Mother Tongue is an engaging jaunt through the quirks and byways of the world's most important--and baffling--of languages. Readers will learn why island, freight, and colonel are spelled in such unphonetic ways; why four has a u in it but forty does not; why Noah Webster was a liar, a cheat, and a plagiarist; and other fascinating facts about our mother tongue.

The Beet Queen by Louise Erdrich

On a spring morning in 1932, young Karl and Mary Adare arrive by boxcar in Argus, North Dakota. After being orphaned in a most peculiar way, they seek refuge in the butcher shop of their aunt Fritzie and her husband, Pete; ordinary Mary, who will cause a miracle, and seductive Karl, who lacks his sister's gift for survival, embark upon an exhilarating life-journey crowded with colorful, unforgettable characters and marked by the extraordinary magic of natural events.

The bestselling, award-winning author of The Painted Drum, Louise Erdrich dazzles in this vibrant and heartfelt tale of abandonment and sexual obsession, jealousy and unstinting love that explores with empathy, humor, and power the eternal mystery of the human condition.

When Broken Glass Floats by Chanrithy Him

Chanrithy Him felt compelled to tell of surviving life under the Khmer Rouge in a way "worthy of the suffering which I endured as a child."

In the Cambodian proverb, "when broken glass floats" is the time when evil triumphs over good. That time began in 1975, when the Khmer Rouge took power in Cambodia and the Him family began their trek through the hell of the "killing fields." In a mesmerizing story, Him vividly recounts a Cambodia where rudimentary labor camps are the norm and technology, such as cars and electricity, no longer exists. Death becomes a companion at the camps, along with illness. Yet through the terror, Chanrithy's family remains loyal to one another despite the Khmer Rouge's demand of loyalty only to itself. Moments of inexpressible sacrifice and love lead them to bring what little food they have to the others, even at the risk of their own lives. In 1979, "broken glass" finally sinks. From a family of twelve, only five of the Him children survive. Sponsored by an uncle in Oregon, they begin their new lives in a land that promises welcome to those starved for freedom.

The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed. In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge.

The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence. Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding. The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken.

NurtureShock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman

One of the most influential books about children ever published, NurtureShock offers a revolutionary new perspective on children that upends a library's worth of conventional wisdom. With impeccable storytelling and razor-sharp analysis, the authors demonstrate that many of modern society's strategies for nurturing children are in fact backfiring--because key twists in the science have been overlooked. Nothing like a parenting manual, NurtureShock gets to the core of how we grow, learn and live.

Released in hardcover in September 2009, NurtureShock remained on the New York Times best seller list for three months, and was one of Amazon's best selling books for 2009. The book has become a worldwide phenomenon with editions published around the world - in fifteen languages, to date. In addition to Bronson and Merryman's writings on praise -- first made famous in New York magazine -- there are nine more equally groundbreaking chapters. Among the topics covered: Why the most brutal person in a child's life is often a sibling, and how a single aspect of their preschool-aged play can determine their relationship as adults. When is it too soon - or too late - to teach a child about race? Children in diverse schools are less likely to have a cross-racial friendship, not more - so is school diversity backfiring? Millions of families are fighting to get their kids into private schools and advanced programs as early as possible. But schools are missing the best kids, 73% of the time - the new neuroscience explains why. Why are kids - even those from the best of homes - still aggressive and cruel? The answer is found in a rethinking of parental conflict, discipline, television's unexpected influence, and social dominance. Parents are desperate to jump-start infants' language skills. Recently, scientists have discovered a series of natural techniques that are astonishing in their efficacy - it's not baby videos, sign language, or even the richness of language exposure. It's nothing you've heard before.

Eleanor Rushing by Patty Friedmann

 New Orleans Times-Picayune

A zany, disturbing novel set amid the splendors and excesses of New Orleans Eleanor Rushing is a first-person narrative tour de force. While Eleanor is blessed with acute powers of observation and the ability to remember everything, her recollections and impressions are nevertheless often at odds with those of the people around her. As her "relationship" with a local married Methodist minister spins out of control, the loquacious and endearing Eleanor manages to charm us completely. Even as we begin to realize that surviving a childhood marred by tragedy has exacted a terrible toll, we can't help being her willing and faithful admirers.

With the exception of Eleanor Rushing and The Art of Fielding, all plot summaries from www.bn.com.

plot summaries from www.bn.com

Miss Peregrine II: Hollow City

Hold on to your hats.  Ransom Riggs has written another Miss Peregrine book.  It sounds as terrifying as the first, and you can read an excerpt here. Here's more about it from Publishers' Weekly:

Ransom Riggs Returns to Miss Peregrine's Home with 'Hollow City'

By Sally Lodge | 

Nov 14, 2013

The eccentric, often downright creepy, inhabitants of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children return in Hollow City: The Second Novel of Miss Peregrine’s Children, due January 14 from Quirk Books. In the follow-up, Ransom Riggs takes his cast – led by Jacob Portman, whose present-day search for his late grandfather’s childhood residence led him to the group home in book one – to war-torn London in 1940. There they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, who’s trapped in the body of a bird and locked in a cage. As was the first book, Hollow Citywas inspired by vintage photos that the Los Angeles-based author discovered at antique shops and flea markets and in private collections.

Teen and adult readers clearly took a shine to the peculiar residents of Miss Peregrine’s Home, who include a girl who hovers above the ground and sisters who communicate without speaking. Having found a broad crossover audience, the 2011 novel has spent more than 90 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has reached total sales of 1.5 million copies across Quirk’s hardcover, paperback, and e-book editions. Foreign rights to the book have been sold to 34 countries. In addition, the novel spawned Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel, adapted and illustrated by Cassandra Jean, which Hachette Book Group’s Yen Press published last month with an announced 50,000-copy first printing.

Not surprisingly, Quirk has high expectations for Hollow City. The publisher has a 500,000 first printing on order for the novel, which it will support with three different book trailers to be revealed online prior to pub date, extensive online advertising, and a 12-city author tour.

Riggs said that, though he didn’t know when he wrote Miss Peregrine’s Home that he’d have a chance to write a second book, he did leave threads dangling in the first – just in case. “Actually, I left them dangling all over the place,” he said. “And it was great to be able to pick them up and use some of the delicious tidbits I found. I’m probably misquoting Chekhov’s dramatic adage saying if there’s a gun hanging on the wall, you’d better make it fire by the third chapter. I felt like there were a lot of guns still there for me to fire.”

Photo Tahereh Mafi

Ransom Riggs.

The author was please to revisit and expand his peculiar children’s world, which in Miss Peregrine’s Home is confined to a remote Welsh island. “I was impatient to explore further,” he explained. “I felt I’d set up the framework of this universe, but it was just the tip of the iceberg. Even before I began writing book two, I made story bibles and maps to figure out who all the other peculiar people of the world were and how my characters would interact with them. It was great to bring the characters out into the larger world. In book one, I took Jacob out of his comfort zone and tested his character. InHollow City, I’m taking all the characters out of the lives they’ve been secure in for years and plunging them into the unknown. That’s how you really get to know them.”

Bringing Photos and Plot Together

Riggs added to his collection of vintage photos in preparation for writing the sequel. “I already had way too many, but then I got way too many more,” he said. “Partly because I love collecting photos, and partly because I was hungry for more images of this world. There are a lot of landscapes and really strange locations that made it intoHollow City because of photos I found.”

This time around, he explained, the photos played a somewhat different role in his creation of the book: “The photos helped shape the story, but it already had its own direction and so much momentum that the photos had to play second fiddle to the narrative more than in the first book.”

Quirk publisher Jason Rekulak gives equal credit to the visuals and text for the success of Riggs’s debut novel. “The photos are killer, and I knew when I first saw them that each one begged a story, yet they seemed like they belonged together as part of a collection,” he said. “And it certainly helps that Ransom is a really good writer and delivered an interesting story that goes in so many directions. I think readers liked what I liked, that the novel doesn’t follow a formula of any particular genre.”

“

I felt I'd set up the framework of this universe, but it was just the tip of the iceberg.

”

Given the track record of Miss Peregrine’s Home, Rekulak said, he’s not surprised that “accounts are taking big numbers” ofHollow City, and he anticipates the novel will live up to fans’ expectations. “It’s a more ambitious book and the photos are equally strange, evocative, and cool,” he said. “The success of Ransom’s first book put a lot of pressure on him, since he felt an obligation to fans. He didn’t want to crank out a gratuitous sequel, and he probably wrote 100,000 words that didn’t even make it into the second book. He wanted to get it right.”

Riggs, who is currently writing a third installment, agrees that he took a circuitous route deciding what direction to take in Hollow City. “I had a strong idea that could have gone almost anywhere, so I explored every possible avenue before deciding on one,” he explained. “I think I wrote about three separate books in the writing of Hollow City.” Will any of that unused material find its way into the third book? “I suppose bits and pieces of it might,” he said. “It might turn out to be a bit like DVD extras.”

Riggs’s characters will also get the chance to flaunt their peculiarity on the silver screen. 20th Century Fox bought film rights to the book, and Jane Goldman, screenwriter of X-Men: First Class, came on board to pen the screenplay. Riggs said he’s had “some peeks” at the script and has offered occasional advice. “The studio has asked me questions about things like how the time-travel aspect of the novel works, and about the rules of the book’s universe,” he said. “That’s very comforting, because I know they’re paying attention to details.”

Asked if he expects to be invited onto the set after filming begins next year, the author is quick to respond: “I certainly hope so. I plan to make my presence known – and, of course, bother them a lot!”

Tolog Reviews: Grave Mercy

Grave Mercy
by R.L. LaFevers
reviewed by Ashely Wells, class of 2015

In short, this book is an amazing story about assassin nuns. In more a more detailed summary, this is the story of a girl named Ismae. Ismae is raised by a secret convent that carries out the work of the patron god of death. Through the story, She is sent on a mission that compromises everything she knows about the order and everything she believes in. It's a strong story that's more historical than fantasy. But be warned, this is a fairly long book. if you like medieval and fantasy books or just medieval books, this is your kind of story.

Tolog Review: The Ashleys

The Ashleys
by Melissa de la Cruz
reviewed by Alyssa Noriega, class of 2015

The Ashleys details the problem of cliques in an all girl’s school, and is very much based off of real world issues that girls in every type of school or grade can face from other girls around them. The main character, Lauren, is the stereotypical girl with low self-esteem who was an outcast until she spent a lot of money to change her physical appearance in order to fit in with the popular group of girls known as “The Ashleys.” However, Lauren has a dark side because her intentions were not just to be able to become friends with these girls, but to be able to infiltrate and destroy their clique. Lauren represents the bullied girl who was marginalized to the point that she developed a hatred toward the Ashleys, which fueled her desire to take them down. The marginalization she experiences from these girls goes back to Kindergarten when they forced her to eat mud. Lauren is successful by transforming herself to be more like them and in the process learns that not all of the Ashleys are happy so she uses them against each other to get what she wants. Her attempts to get back at the girls are representative of the fact that she felt so bad about herself because of them that she took it out on them. This shows how she may have transformed superficially, but she is no better on the inside than the other girls are. The book shows how vicious girls can be toward one another and how desperate the need to be accepted can become that some girls will go to any length to try to achieve. The Ashleys makes one think about how actions can have major negative effects on others’ lives years down the line, and that it can lead to unexpected consequences like a hatred that cannot be stopped. The moral of the story is to treat others the way one expects to be treated and that sometimes revenge is not so sweet. The Ashleys would mainly appeal to teenage girls since the main character is a teenage girl who is dealing with the social problems that any teenage girl could encounter. The book is a good reference to any girl who struggles with self-esteem issues because it allows them to identify with the main character. If you liked the movie "Mean Girls," then you'll love this book!

Tolog Review: Gone with the Wind

Gone with the Wind
by Margaret Mitchell
reviewed by Monica Collins, class of 2017

In the early 1860’s, the American South was very different from what it is like now. Set in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, this story examines the teen and young adult years of the fictional character Scarlett O’Hara, the belle of the county. At the beginning of the story, Scarlet is a young, up and becoming 16 year old who is mainly concerned with the whereabouts of the boys in the county and the latest barbeques and balls. Finding a husband was all that really mattered to her. But then her life is turned upside down when the Civil War hits, and her husband of two weeks is killed in combat, leaving her alone with their unborn child with no money. The Civil War changes all aspects of life in the South. With all the slaves freed, there are no field hands to harvest crops and tend to fields, causing the southern economy to go down the drain. Many once rich families at the start of the story are now forced to deal with now painfully realistic burden of poverty and hunger. Over the course of the story, the war changes every aspect of Scarlet’s life, degrading her from the carefree belle of the county who lives in a beautiful mansion, to a cold, hard, war torn mother who loses almost everything near and dear to her including all her wealth. But this book is not purely history. This story also follows Scarlett’s love life as she deals with her “true love”, Ashley Wilkes, her many husbands, and the man who just can’t get enough of her, Rhett Butler. This story gives a different perspective on history through the eyes on the ignorant white slave owner. Over all, I found this book to be very interesting and hard to put down. It gave me a new perspective of the Civil war and the economy of the South.

Tolog Revew: The Fault In Our Stars

The Fault in Our Stars

by John Green
reviewed by Olivia Amestoy, class of 2015

I'm sure countless girls have written about this book, and I don't doubt my review will be extremely similar to theirs. John Green eloquently writes a love story based on realism and well just life. There's no simple way to explain this book and give it justice. The story is relatable, real and wonderful. Green writes about how our lives are based on the opportunities we are presented with: both the ones we take and the ones we miss. The story isn't just a love story, it is about two people who struggle with their love and their lives, trying or not trying to make their marks in the world. I am writing this review after my second time reading it and I can confidently say that the book gives me a new meaning and perspective on life every time I have read it. So read it, you won't regret it. The quote "the world is not a wish granting factory" and "the existence of broccoli does not effect the taste or chocolate" are very interesting concepts and are talking about throughout the book. The book talks about suffering and making our marks, which are things humans have been pondering and struggling to answer since the beginning of time and always will, well into the future. Green does a great job of depicting Hazel as a relatable teenager, who thinks and feels the similarly as other teenage girls, with additional struggles from her cancer, which made me feel terrible for my complaints. Also, Hazel has a friend Kaitlyn, from her school days, who represents a lot of the "basic" girls I feel that I too have encountered and seeing Hazel chose being "friendless" over being fake friends with someone I find heroic and admirable. The story means a lot to me because I can easily relate to a lot of Hazel's emotional struggles and Green does a great job of reeling the reader in. In comedy, it is known that the funniest jokes are the ones where you see yourself in the joke, and in the same way, the best characters and stories are the ones that the reader sees themselves in or feels the same way. TFIOS also talks about how Hazel loves another book, where she relates to the girl very well. Green, through Hazel's obsession with the book and at the beginning of his novel, makes it apparent to the readers that fictional stories are made up and we should not idealize the characters. As much as I love the book, there are still some parts I disagree with. Overall, the book is thought provoking and amazing.

Tolog Reviews: Sweethearts

Sweethearts
by Sara Zarr
reviewed by Tiffany Tong, class of 2015

Sweetheart is about a girl, Jennifer, who once had a very hard time getting liked by her classmates during elementary school. She was chubby and not as pretty so everyone made fun of her. She only had one friend who accepted her and loved her for who she is, Cameron Quick. However, one day Cameron disappears and leaves Jenna to thinking that he died. Later on, her mom remarries and Jennifer becomes Jenna changing her identity to the popular and skinny Jenna. After high school was almost over, during her senior year, Jenna sees a transfer student that looks a lot like Cameron and finds out that it is really him. He came to look for her then they became really close again. All of Jenna’s friends did not understand why they were always together since they did not know the chubby and unpopular Jenna that got picked on in elementary school. Later on, Cameron told Jenna the reason why he left was because her mother left his father since he was an abusive drunk. They were not allowed to tell anyone because they were scared that his father would come looking for them. Jennifer resented her mother for not telling him the truth and letting her believe that Cameron died. Jenna finds out towards the end that Cameron left his brothers and sisters with his mom while his dad came back to live with them meaning that he will have to leave soon to take care of his siblings. After coming home with a fever one night, Jennifer whispers that she loves him to Cameron and he is gone the next day. If you liked A Story of a Girl by Sarah Zarr, you'll love this book!