Logan Lerman's Smirk and My Library of Greek Mythology Books.

Hellooooooo!!!!
It was a very long week for me. I'm holding out until Winter Break.
58 days.
I have two months.
-.-

Anyway, onto the BOOK HAUL!!!!!!
This week it's Greek mythology reference books that every middle school kid should read.
(Just a warning: I have too many Greek mythology books.)

Exhibit A:

(And I'm pretty sure I have more than those.)

Best Short, Straightforward book:

The Mythology Handbook

Year of Publishing: 2009
Publishing House: Candlewick press
Genre: Informational, Greek Mythology
Age: Children's/Middle Grade
Short/Long Read: VERY Short Read (I read this in a day.)
Rating Out Of Five: **** (Four Stars)

This book gives you straightforward information about the gods, monsters, and heroes in the Greek mythology world. It also has stickers in the back and a guide to the language of Ancient Greek, with extra copies of it so you and your friend can pass notes to each other in Ancient Greek during Social Studies. (Teachers, you thought you got us with note passing...just wait until I use this!!!)This doesn't go into deep descriptions of everything, but it is a book of accurate stories for someone who just wants to dip a toe in the sea of Greek mythology.

Best Comedy books:

Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes

By Rick Riordan

Year of Publishing: Greek Gods-2015 Greek Heroes-2015
Publishing House: Disney Hyperion
Genre: Informational, Greek Mythology, Comedy
Age: Children's Middle Grade
Short/Long Read: In between. I can read these within a week and a half, but you can most definitely stretch out reading these books.
Rating Out Of Five: *** (Three Stars)

These books are great because, ya know, IT'S PERCY JACKSON.

So WHY NOT read it?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Maybe because it's inaccurate???

I know, I know. How can something that's fake be inaccurate? Well, the way Rick Riordan messed up is that his stories don't always match up with all the other stories that have been told in other books about Greek Mythology. So, these books (along with the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series and the Heroes Of Olympus series) aren't the best reference books.

However, the content is hilarious and the pictures (Yes, there are pictures!!! XD) are amazing.

Best Accurate Storytelling book:

Treasury of Greek Mythology

By Donna Jo Napoli

Year of Publishing: 2011
Publishing House: National Geographic Society
Genre: Informational, Greek Mythology
Age: Children's/Middle Grade
Short/Long Read: In between.
Rating Out Of Five: **** (Four Stars)

This book was very accurate (as it is National Geographic) and the pictures were pretty good. It tells the stories of the gods, heroes, and monsters in depth. It's not as much fun as Percy Jackson's Greek Gods and Percy Jackson's Greek Heroes, but it is a really good book for someone who wants to dive head first into Greek mythology and wants to learn something new about it.

Other great Greek mythology books you absolutely MUST read:

Mythlopedia: Oh My Gods!

This is a straightforward, yet comedic take on the Greek gods.

Olympians

By George O'Connor

I've read Hera and Athena. This is a series of graphic novels that explain the life of a certain Greek god. These are great books!!! My cousin gave this to me as a gift after she met the author and he signed Hera and Athena.

My cousin is super cool.

D'aulaires' Book Of Greek Myths

This book tells stories about the gods, minor gods, mythological creatures, and mortal descendants of Zeus. This is a great book that I eventually ended up having to read for school, so this book has knowledge of Greek mythology that is useful to have in your back pocket. (This book was also the first mythology book I ever read, and it was the start of my fascination with it.)

Well, that's it for this week. Not a lot of news for you guys from me, but how have y'all been? Thanks for sticking with me through my random hiatuses and rants.

:)

Have a great week!

:)

(Yes, you!)

THE BEAST MAN

The person that sits next to me in Science saw me reading this book and thought that the title was "The Beast Man." And not like beast as in monster, but as in being really good at something like:

"YOU'RE A BEAST, MAN!!!!!"

But it was a Monday. We were all tired.

As am I right now, writing this post. Yes, I know it's been a while. I'm drowning in homework and I'm lacking sleep...

-.-

But I'm here!!!!!!

That's what matters right???

Anyway, here is the book I was talking about:

The Best Man by Richard Peck

The Best Man Summary

Year of Publishing: 2016

Publishing House: Penguin Random House

Genre: Realistic Fiction, Comedy

Age: Children's Middle Grade

Short/Long Read: Short Read (I read this in less than a week.)

Rating Out Of Five: **** (Four Stars)

I LOVED THIS BOOK!!!!!!!

This is basically the journey of a kid through his life up to sixth grade, including two weddings.

And it's hilarious.

Exhibit A:

"'You saved my butt.' I still tell her.

'Actually, I didn't,' Lynnette says. 'Your six year old butt is still on YouTube'"

Favorite quote from the book by far.

This book is funny, sentimental (I mean, there are two weddings in it, how could it not be?), it captures the odd people that you are most likely to find when you go to Elementary/Middle School, and it gives you all the warm and fuzzies. I absolutely love all the characters, especially Mr.McLeod and Uncle Paul.

Side note:

Do you pronounce McLeod like Mc-Cloud or Mc-Lee-owed? I think it's the latter, but my mom says different.

All name pronunciations aside, you're probably wondering why it didn't get five stars:

• There were a lot of reused lines that I sometimes didn't understand. Ex: "[Insert character name here] was there." And this wasn't location. I'm pretty sure that that means you have your stuff together, but I'm not 100% positive. I like one or two reused lines every now and then, but over that is too much, and this book used too much.
• There were gaps in the story. There were parts of the book where it said "I don't remember [specific detail]." I guess Richard Peck was trying to keep things realistic with memory. I mean, the amount of events recalled from when the main character was five/six is already remarkable, and I assume that Mr.Peck was trying to make the character more like an actual person. But when you're writing a book that tells someone's life story, I want all the details. Saying that your character doesn't remember a part of the story looks sloppy and makes you look like you just don't want to give the effort to fill in those blanks.

And that's all my complaints about the book.

But if you're looking for a quick, light-hearted book after reading a heavy book (*COUGH* BLOOD OF OLYMPUS *COUGH*), this is the way to go.

So here's some news and fun stuff:

• I tried a new format this week because I have the attention span of a ferret (that's what my band teacher always says about herself...I've kind of adopted that quote...) and I'm sure there are people like me out there. XD I'm 100% positive there are. And it's a lot easier to write, and I'm making sure I don't miss anything. Do you like it more? Which format should I use? Really long/story telling format or straightforward one??? Please comment and let me know. :)
• That short film I mentioned in my review of Frankenstein, yeah, it's getting pretty close to filming!!!!!!! WOOT WOOT!!!! I'll give you guys more details about it soon.

Anyway, that's about it!

Have a great week!!!!

:)

The Fangirling Handbook

Guess what?????
I skipped blogging last week. (I'M SORRY!!!!)
And I'm running out of books.
Again.
Yeah, you heard me.
Again.

Yep.

But there is a quick read that just came out that I read....

School For Good And Evil: The Ever Never Handbook

By Soman Chainani

As a preface, I love Soman Chainani's books. I would read anything he wrote. I love Soman Chainani too. (Especially since he's going on tour and coming to where I live for the FIRST TIME:)

XD

So now that I've said that I love an author, I think you guys know what I'm about to do...........

**

Two Stars
And mine you, this rating is probably so low because of all the expectations I had for the book. It was still an enjoyable read.

The Three Days Of Fandom With The Ever Never Handbook (throwback to Attack of the Fangirl):

(On the first day of fandom I said to myself...)

When I hear it's coming out:

When I get the book:

When I actually start reading it:

It wasn't as good as I had hoped.

I'm a very visual person, so I thought this was going to be a fun fun fun book because there are a lot of pictures.

BUT NO.

IT WASN'T FUN.

Yeah, all the pictures were pretty...

But the content wasn't as good as the pictures.

It was....

....

....

....

DRY.

*gasps*

Yes, boxes hold stuff and...the book was dry.

Never have I known Soman Chainani's books to be boring. I mean, when you can start a whole entire non-canon fanfic off the concept of the books, it's probably not dry. (Shout out to my SGE RP buddies XD)

But this book was really hard to read, even though it was a quick read. There wasn't any juicy content, the whole book was basically a long laundry list of what it's like to be at the School For Good And Evil post SGE Trilogy.

Which, could have been fun, but when I say laundry list, I mean your boring Great Aunt's laundry list that says, "Fold underwear and use Downy softener beads instead of the normal liquid softener." (which work great, actually).

This was the whole entire book.

And we were promised details about Tedros and Agatha's future (there would have been a spoiler there, but I decided to spare you. You're welcome.), but all we got was a one page invitation to something that I will not reveal and it doesn't even have any information about it.

And the only reason it didn't get one star was because of the pretty pictures, which wasn't even done by Soman, it was Michael Blank. Thank goodness for Mr. Blank, because I do not want this book to join The Friendship Doll on the one star book list...

Honestly, this book would be better off as a picture book...

(That was unusually harsh.)

*hides behind tree*

LOVE YA, SOMAN!!!!

That's all for this week.

:)

Hey guys, guess what??????

I POSTED ON MY SECOND BLOG, THE AWESOME MIX OF MY LIFE!!!!

Check out that post here.

I'm going to try to keep up with that, and I think I'm going to post on that blog around the same time I post on this one, which is Sundays/Mondays.

Sorry, I had to do that.

Anyway...

Have a great week!!!

:)

Frankenstein's Monster, my tender, oozing blossom, you're looking fabulous today.

I have four words for you:
Mary Shelley is evil.

She's so evil that she got her own blog post!!!

*internal crying*

You don't understand until you've read this book.

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Frankenstein Goodreads Summary

****

Four Stars

If you haven't read this book. you're either straight-up crazy or you're under thirteen. Because, disclosure, this book is a little descriptive (but in all the good ways). But Frankenstein is obviously a classic. I don't know a person who hasn't heard of it.

Yet, most people who have heard of Frankenstein actually haven't read it. Which is weird because it's a really good book. Most people have read the movie, but the movie is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. The story line isn't even the same. The movie for Frankenstein is like the movie for Percy Jackson. That's how off it is.

I read this while my sister was reading it for school and while also on a road trip, so my mom, sis, and I went through the story together. I encourage this, or else you will be suffering by yourself and then you'll have to explain the whole book to your friend just to complain about it.

It's happened to me before. It's not fun. You look like this to the rest of the world:

But all the feels are packed into this book. I know I say that a lot lately, but this book was really emotional. Mary Shelley does a really good job of expressing Victor Frankenstein's feelings, even though it is sort of through another person's POV.

(Emotion was especially expressed when Victor Frankenstein was terrified because Frankenstein's Monster was pulling a Roz throughout the whole entire book:)

But who was telling the story was kind of confusing though. The book isn't told through Victor Frankenstein's POV but rather the person who found Frankenstein while exploring. After finding Victor, the person who found him listens to Frankenstein's story, which takes up most of the story. And then, within Victor Frankenstein telling a story, Frankenstein's monster tells a story as well.

The only other confusing thing that brought this book down to four stars was that there were a lot of flashbacks. So many that you kind of get confused as to where you are in the story and what is going on.

Also, a lot of people die. I had a list of favorite characters, and all of them die. You get attached to this one character, and then BOOM. Gone. Before you know it, you're left crying in your room about that one character that actually cared about.

Then you start predicting deaths like you're freaking psychic or something AND THEN IT ACTUALLY HAPPENS.

And then, out of the blue, your least favorite character becomes your favorite character because THERE IS SIMPLY NO ONE LEFT.

That's right people. Frankenstein's monster became my favorite character. 

I know, Mike. I know.

But Mary Shelley's word choice and descriptiveness makes up for it, for the most part.

You think the movies based off the book well represent how Frankenstein's monster looked? You're wrong. Mary Shelley describes Frankenstein in such a horrific way that any picture or movie can't do it justice. And there were also times when things got so gross and scary that I had to stop reading and clear my mind. That's one of the reasons I really liked this book. You can imagine everything perfectly, and you can feel the emotion of almost all of the characters.

It's awful and awesome all at the same time. You're just reading it innocently... 

And then the feels hit you... And you're suffering but loving it all at the same time...

That's the whole book. So if you decide to read it, good luck. And if you're not, WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE?

:)

Anyway that's all for this week. 

I'm sorry if I don't respond to comments right away or if I accidentally skip a week. I've been super busy lately. School has fully started up again, and homework has too.

:(

But I'm also writing a short film right now!!!! I can tell you guys a bit about it later when it gets off the ground maybe, but I will most definitely let you guys know when it's released onto the Internet.

Have a great week and Labor Day!!!

( I get to sleep in tomorrow!!!!! Now if you'd excuse me, I'd like to go catch up on some Z's I lost last month.)

Hello, My Name Is Inigo Montoya. We have 4,000 Pageviews. Prepare to Celebrate.

I was looking at my Blogger page today and I realized:

WE HAVE 4,000 PAGEVIEWS!!!!

I KID YOU NOT!!!!

Honestly, I don't know how I missed this looking at my Blogger page before, but I'm happy.

PLUS:

THIS BLOG IS TWO YEARS OLD PEOPLE!!! The first post (reviewing Fablehaven) was from May of 2014!!!!

/^o^\

The B.O.B. is two years old omg!!

But a big thanks to everyone who still reads these posts...You're the reason I came back to The B.O.B.!

I digress. I do actually have a book review for you guys today.

As you wish.

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton

The Outsiders Goodreads Summary

(The reason I keep on doing Goodreads Summaries is either that I don't have time or I can't do the book justice by writing a summary. This time it's both.)

*****

Five Stars

I had absolutely no complaints about this book except for two things:

• We had to annotate it for school. (Which isn't S.E. Hinton's fault...) BUT IT WAS A LOT OF ANNOTATING. I ANNOTATED THE POOP OUT OF THIS BOOK. This was all the stuff we had to annotate for:

And I know you probably can't read my handwriting (it's much better now, but I was writing that in a hurry), but it was a lot of things to annotate for. Especially for middle school.

• The other thing: ALL THE FEELS. MY LANGUAGE ARTS CLASS SOBBED READING THIS BOOK. ALL OF US.

So many deaths...

Me when my favorite character died:

My friends trying to comfort me:

IT WASN'T FAIR! THEY ALL DIED!!!!!!!

Shush and let me be sad, Grandpa.

This book made me want to be in the 50's, but at the same time not want to be. 

I was very, very torn.

Bad Parts of the 50's and the bad parts of life in this book:

• Segregation.
• So many deaths in this city...
• The Greasers and Socs (pronounced soh-sh, not sock.) are completely separated.
• Greasers are more like gangsters instead of this cute guy from Miss Atomic Bomb by The Killers:

Good Parts:

• Some darn good movies were made in the 50's (Singing In The Rain, Lady and the Tramp, Sleeping Beauty, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, How To Marry A Millionaire, Cinderella, the list goes on.)
• Fashion in the 50's was probably my favorite. (I might do a blog post on how to be a Soc and greaser for Halloween, since it is just around the corner.)
• Petticoats are SOOOO COOL. (Again with the fashion.)

But this book kind of brought everything to life, especially since most of the characters were based off real people. (I read that in the introduction, the one part of the book I did not have to annotate.) That's probably my favorite aspect of the book. 

I mean, it got so real and so relatable that our school started using The Outsiders vocab.

Beating someone up was no longer "getting in a fight" it was "getting jumped".

We started labeling the cliques in school as Socs or Greasers.

It got so real that year.

But probably the most fun thing about reading this book was that after we read the book at school, WE GOT TO DRESS UP AS SOCS OR GREASERS.

I was a Soc. Obviously. Petticoats, y'all. (I do recommend Amazon for petticoats and dresses.)

This was a super fun read in the end, and any kid in middle school should read this book, honestly.

They most definitely won't be emotionally damaged by the end of this book. 

Yeah, I was being sarcastic. This book is very depressing.

I lie when I say that some books are great and happy. They aren't.

But overall, still a great book. Read it. Now.

Thanks again for sticking with me for these two years, and have a great week!

:)

Cameron Frye, This Post's For You.

I got legit no sleep this week. Ugh.
This is going to be a short post this week, since today I'm changing my bedtime to 9:00 instead of 12:00.
EFFORTS!!!!!!!
Anyway, let's get to it.

Variant by Robison Wells

Variant Goodreads Summary

****

Four Stars

This was actually a book my school assigned for us to read. When I first heard that they were making us read ANOTHER book that year, I wasn't exactly excited. (Throw back to my two flop posts...They were both school books.) And then I read it.....

This was probably my favorite book my Language Arts teachers made me read. The Outsiders came in second and Lupita Manana in third.This book was action packed and perfectly captured what school is like.

By the way, Maxfield Academy is a prison.

(I hope there aren't any teachers reading this.....)

You know you're counting down the days until Winter Break.

Anyway, I had no idea where this book was going to go... I liked that for the most part.

It kept me on my toes, especially since WE COULD ONLY READ A COUPLE CHAPTERS AT A TIME.

My seventh grade Language Arts teacher, you killed EVERYONE in that class with suspense. EVERYONE.

As much as I did like this book though, there was a downside as to where the book was going to go. There was this one part of the book where I was kind of confused, and it sounded like Robison Wells had pulled a scenario out of a hat and decided to run with it. That sounds fun, actually. 

I did like almost all of the characters....except for Benson....Who is the main character. He just always talked about escaping Maxfield. EVEN WHEN HE WAS KISSING SOMEONE.

OMG BENSON NO. JUST NO.

This was the way I felt throughout the book about Benson:

Although Benson was not my favorite, Becky, Lily, and Curtis were.

Curtis was the best.

That's because he is, Grace. He definitely is.

And character development was great in this book. You would be like, this person kind of sucks. And then you were like, I actually like this person.

So overall, a pretty good read.
(Also, I met Robison Wells and he most definitely is a RIGHTEOUS DUDE.) 

Anyway, that's all I've got for you this week.

Excuse me while I dance away so I can go sleep...

Have a great week guys!

:)