Ahsilet

I am very over-protective of my books. Though I loan my books out, I worry about how the person is treating my books. Two years ago I let someone borrow my Katie Price book and she brought it back with a bent cover. I was pissed off. I have lent my Twilight book out twice and the cover is all bent up. I have promised myself to not loan out anymore books.

Yes, Marley & Me. Not Marley (who is the less mentioned character in the book) & Me, my wife, kids, and our feelings about everything but Marley, except only when my wife is suffering from PPD and decides to kick him out and beat him and our sadness for when he passes away at the end of the book.

I read Marley & Me last year and I hated it. I thought I was going to read a cute book about an owner's experience with his canine companion. Instead, I got an autobiography of the author that used his dog as an excuse to write a book about himself.

1. I am an American literature major. 2. I do not believe in marriage. 3. I've lived in Illinois almost all of my life, but I was born in North Carolina. 4. I am a major Girls Aloud fan. 5. My favorite TV show is Dirty Jobs.

Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer Though I don't want any book banned or censored, I still don't like young girls reading it. Especially in their most vunerable years of life. Honeymoon in Purdah: An Iranian Journey by Alison Wearing This book is suppose to break down stereotypes of Iran and to see it in a different light, but if anything, it makes me want to stay as far away from Iran as possible. This is the worst travel memoir every. The descriptions are over-descripted and the book is just dry and BORING. Marley & Me by John Gorgan

My list TBR consist of: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain (for class) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (for class) Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison (for class) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Catch-22 by Joseph Heller The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

I just started to Eclipse today. Though this series and quite enjoyable (and the first series I've ever read), it's things about the book that turns me off. I am a woman who doesn't believe in marriage and doesn't want children for the simple fact of not wanting to be tied down to anything or anybody. I believe that women should be independent, and able to think freely without a man helping them through anything in life along the way. So, I guess this is why I have issues with this series. Here you have Bella, a girl from age 16-19, that is lost in love, weak, and emotional. Things that women have been conditioned to and keeps the opposite sex looking down on ours. Bella's mind is on Edward 24/7. She abandons her friends for him, falls into a deep depression for him, and even almost lose her life many times over him. This is another female that loses herself to a guy. I am very disappointed in Stephenie, being a female herself, would make Bella this way. This series is being read by young girls all over the world, and the last thing they need is to be introduced to another weak female that loses her identity to a guy. I am surprised other females don't find this to be a problem.

Is To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee and My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult extremely big hits in the UK or something? I have read To Kill A Mockingbird, and though it is a great book, there are other books that are really raw that hits on race, class, and morality. I have also read My Sister's Keeper and it is a very forgettable book. It reminded me of a book you would buy at a grocery store. I will be kinda disappointed at the must reads for 2009 if To Kill A Mockingbird and My Sister's Keeper end up on the list again.

Why it is consider a classic because it was a book before it's time. Books like this weren't published all the time. It is a dated book now. Back then, things were still very conservative. You have a guy like Holden, cursing like a sailor, reflecting on things like drinking under age and sex (though he was still a virgin). People thought their kids were perfect little angels and the last thing they needed was for their children to get their hands on a book like Catcher In The Rye and have them exposed to a character like Holden, though behind their parents back they were a Holden, or other characters you came across in the book. The book is also a very different writing style and seen through a different perspective. This isn't Jodi Picoult or Stephenie Meyers here, who make their teenage characters somewhat unrealistic. Holden is raw, we all had a little piece of Holden in us when we were teenagers. We didn't want to tell the whole story, though we rumbled on with the stories we told for ages. We shyed away from the crush we wanted attention from. Our attention fully wasn't on school, and many of use cared less about it, we dealt with depression, sexuality, etc. But during the rough time of being a teenager, we wanted nothing more than to hang on to innocence, even if it was a little piece of it, though that it something we can't hold on to. Sorry for my rambling, but this why Catcher In The Rye might be considered a classic and overrated. It's a book that takes awhile for the reader to appreciate.

1. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros If you shift your attention away from breaking away from enviromental conditioning, you'll see that the surrounding women have their own little story that is not being told. In a way, the book deals with the life of women in general. Women being tied down by children and marriage, or being sexualized, and unable to really think for themselves. Showing in a way how women are second class citizens. Though these are Latino characters, this is something that all women deal with all over the world, and here you have Esperanza breaking away from this. And though you assume she does, look how at many women suffer from being stuck in that "traditional" woman role, for one to escape this enviroment and be a future inspiration to women of the same neighborhoods. 2. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck Exposes society not only during that time, but it only shows how society hasn't changed and never will when it comes to class and what you have and don't have, and how a family struggles to survive not because of not having, but with being faced with prejuidice. 3. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger A different writing style and perspective that some readers aren't use to. This will get them out of their comfort zone. 4. Chronicles of a Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 5. The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy This is great book that touches on class, caste, and identity.

I refuse to read Sci Fi, Fantasy, books written is certain time period, Westerns (cowboy type stuff). Scarlet Letter, War & Peace, and Anna Karenina are three books I own right now that I am refusing to read. Scarlet Letter seems boring, and I hate what Leo Tolstoy does with character.

I never get sad when I reach the end of a book because I usually start thinking of what I want to read next. When I reach the end of the book I am exhausted with it and want to finish it. I haven't come across a book yet where I am so connected with it that I don't want to finish it.

Only nuclear war aftermath book I've ever read is Hiroshima by John Hersey, which I am reading now. It is pretty good considering I never read a book like this before. It is very detailed in describing how the bomb affected the people.

I almost cried at the end of Chronicle of a Death Foretold when the death of Santiago was described in detail.

I read Catcher In The Rye last week and I really enjoyed it. The writing style got old after awhile, but I had to keep in mind that this was a 16 year old describing his past few days after being kicked out of Pensey, and his feelings towards certain people and situations. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out Holden. It wasn't until I finished the book that I realized he just a teenager trying to hold on to innocence, and that everything would seem "phonie" to him because he hasn't grew into an adult state of mind yet.

Only Tolstoy book I've read is Hadji Murad. I need to re-read it because I didn't get a full grip of the book the first time around. I have Anna Karenina and War & Peace, but have read neither. What I didn't like about Hadji Murad is how Tolstoy treated characters. He would bring some characters in just to only take them out of the book a few pages later.

Lady Gaga - The Fame The Saturdays - Chasing Lights Sugababes - Change

Just finished The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. It wasn't what I expected at all. Good book, but it wasn't much to it. Anyone could have wrote about a boy's adventure that lacked a whole lotta detail, and thrown some positive "keep your head up and go for you dream" messages in the middle of it.

I have enjoyed the autobiographies by Katie (Jordan) Price and Jodie Marsh.

I read this book over this summer and really enjoyed it. I haven't read many war novels, but this is the best one I've read to date. I don't have much to say about it though. It was just a good book.

My copy of the book arrived Thursday. I'll try my best to read it over Christmas break. I am new to vampire novels.

Only book I've read more than once is Jacob Have I Loved by Katherine Paterson.