YA Explosion!

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I did a brief search of how popular YA Literature has gotten in recent years just to kind of check out some of the things we've been talking about in class. And it's so true! Young Adult Literature has exploded recently! And not just in the young adult age range. People of many different age groups are buying these books. I thought this picture summarized the data fairly nicely. I wonder if this trend will continue or if it's near its peak. I guess we'll have to wait and see!

International Happy Day

This week we celebrated an international day of happiness. This seemed very fitting for the book I'm reading as my biography, autobiography, and memoir, Growing Up Duggar. I've seen their show a few times and thought it would be an interesting take on their lives growing up in a huge family. This book does tell how they grew up and the values that their parents raised them with, but it also reads sort of like a self-help book. This book explains the challenges they've faced in their lives and how people who are experiencing similar challenges could overcome them. The book is filled with personal stories from the four oldest Duggar girls, Jana, Jill, Jessa, and and Jinger. There are also pictures throughout to help get a sense for their lives before the cameras came. Overall the girls seem very happy and optimistic about different aspects of life. They reach out to others with their optimism and help pull people up with their own stories of triumph and support with Scripture. Because each girl is very religious, it shows through in the book. I actually found it in a "Christian Parenting" section. Overall the book so far seems very positive and uplifting to me.


These are the four oldest Duggar girls who wrote the book. (from left to right) Jill, Jana, Jinger, and Jessa.

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Book Review

This week I decided to write my book review. I wrote it on the book I read for my Product #2 because I liked it so much! I used Goodreads.com to do this and it was really easy. After making a free account, I was able to both rate the book and then write a review. This site would also be a great place to keep a "books to read" list because you can search thousands of books and add them to your list. Here's the link to my review.


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Isn't This Twilight?

In honor of Maggie Stiefvater coming to Bridgewater College, this week I'm reading Shiver. I have really enjoyed this book so far, although I can't seem to get the connection to Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Being a typical teenage girl, I did read the Twilight series in middle school. There seems to be a very similar story line going on in Shiver. I have not read the whole book, so if there is a dramatic change or shift later in the book, then maybe I'm jumping the gun; however, so far the books seem to be similar. While Grace doesn't seem as hopeless as Bella, there is still a similar "forbidden fruit" aspect to the books. Both girls have fallen in love with someone that they aren't supposed to. Someone of the supernatural variety. A vampire for Bella and a werewolf for Grace. The two authors have fairly different writing styles though. Meyer only followed Bella in much of the series, eventually shifting to following different characters in the last book of the series. Stiefvater so far has shifted between Grace and Sam, the werewolf. There are many differences between these series; however, so far the similarities seems to be pretty apparent. I enjoyed the Twilight series very much and am really enjoying Shiver so far. I think that if someone liked Meyer, then Stiefvater would be a similar author to explore.




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"Shelfie"

 

These are the books I currently have lined up on my desk. I'm not currently reading any of these books but they're books I'm either going to get to this semester or hope to get to over the summer. While most of them are books I have to read for Young Adult Literature, a few are one my personal reading list. The John Green books Will Grayson, Will Grayson and An Abundance of Katherines would be on that list. I really like John Green so I've been slowly working through his books over breaks when I have time to read for pleasure.