Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald

This was a book based on a true story about a young woman growing up in Pakistan, and how hard of a life she had. For her 25th birthday, her parents bought her a one way ticket to America (after getting her Visa approved), and figured this was the chance of a lifetime for her to finally become a U.S. citizen. Tammy was her name, and her sister also got a one way ticket when she was Tammy's age and married a man within 90 days which automatically made her a U.S. citizen. Once Tammy moved to America, she realized how different the cultures were, and some things she would never dream of doing back in Pakistan, were things Americans didnt think twice about. Tammy's sister enrolled her in a class of foreign students, and that is where she met her first and only friends in America. Tammy and her family had one thing on their mind, she had to marry within 90 days or her visa would expire and she would be forced to return to Pakistan, where she would never get this opportunity again. Her sister and brother-in-law set her up with several religious Pakistanian men, but not one did a thing for her. There was a man, Kerk, who would talk to her everyday on her way to her class, and day after day they secretly fell more and more in love. It was 2 days before her visa would expire, and Kerk finally popped the question, aware of her situation, and she got to stay in America, forever!

Travels by Michael Crichton

So I haven’t gotten that far into this book (a little less than two-thirds), but it is a very easy read and I’m pretty sure that if I have the time I could finish it in three days. This book is basically an autobiography of Michael Crichton, the creator of Jurassic Park. It chronicles his journey from being a med school student to being the writer/director that he is now. Crichton is an exceptional writer and knows how to keep the reader interested, using interesting facts and humor, which is why I like this book. In the very first sentence, Crichton surprises you when he says, “It is not easy to cut through a human head with a hacksaw.” Weird right?
Even though the book is titled “Travels”, I haven’t actually gotten to that part of his life yet. All that I’ve read about so far involves his life as a med school student at Harvard and his life after graduation. During his time at Harvard, he periodically wrote little screenplays and novels (one of them about the Harvard medical school). He began to lose focus on med school and wanted to pursue a career in writing. However, he was too far in his studies to quit, so he finished med school and moved to Hollywood. Throughout his life, he meets many strange characters and gets involved in silly situations. I don’t want to give any of these away, so you’ll just have to read them to find out. However, I will say that those situations get a little crazy when he moves into his Hollywood apartment. I really enjoy this book so far and I recommend it to everyone.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon

This book is a comedy and drama that takes place in England. It is about a young 15 year old boy, Christopher Boone, who has autism and lives with his father. He begins writing a story after he finds out the local neighborhood dog was killed. He starts investigating the dog's death and as he goes about it his investigation takes a wrong turn. In the beginning of the story, Christopher's mother is supposedly dead, as told by his father. As he looks for clues about the dog's death, Christopher finds letters from his mother. He begins to read them and his father catches him one day. They argue and in the night, Christopher leaves to live with his mother.
Christopher learns that his father killed the dog when he found out his mother was cheating on him with the dog's owner. The story continues and things eventually go back to normal and Christopher ends up going back home. This story is a great one and it kept me on my toes the whole time. I would definitely recommend this book to all audiences.

The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler

This book that I recently started is about a middle-aged travel writer Macon Leary who is on the brink of disaster, finds himself alone and miserable. Called The Accidental Tourist, this book centers on the difficulties of family relationships. This writer named Macon Leary, is the main character who has had a troubled life. Not only had his son died from a freakish shot in a fast-food restaurant, but also his wife, Sarah, has left him. As a career, Macon writes guidebooks for travelers going to anywhere across the country. And lucky for him he gets to travel to these neat places to find and write reviews of hotel rooms, restaurants and scenery. From finding the restaurants that serve the best American food or seeing what hotel is not only cheap, but also livable. He also had an encounter with the dog veterinarian who was acting pretty flirting towards Macon as he was actually trying to hurry and drop off his dog to head to the airport. So maybe some fireworks may go off between them when he comes back for his dog. It also seems like he definitely has feelings for his wife, Sarah who has maybe moved on. Her and Macon had a quite long conversation over the phone the other day. Sarah made the call to see if he was home to pick up some of her things, but the conversation lead into something more. Macon was trying to see how she was doing without him, and see how she was doing with the whole separation thing. But the conversation quickly turned into an argument. Especially, after he was telling her just how filthy everything is now around his apartment, and how filthy the place as become. I can’t wait to read the rest!

Peace Like a River by Leif Enger

This book is really good! At times it can be a little bit slow moving. There are parts where I got kind of bored, but overall I really thought that it was an intriguing book that was different than any book I have read before.

This book is written from the point of view of a young boy named Reuben Land. Reuben has an older brother, Davy, and a younger sister, Swede. Reuben's father, Jeremiah, is a man of God and always puts his trust in God first. Throughout Reuben's life, he has realized that miracles often seem to occur while Jeremiah is around. During one such event, Reuben believed that he saw Jeremiah walking on nothing but air.

Davy and Jeremiah are forced to confront two boys that are Davy's age who attempted to molest Davy's girlfriend and kidnapped Swede. Eventually, the two boys break into the Land's house in the middle of the night, where Davy shoots and kills both boys. Davy is brought into jail and then court, but soon escapes from both places and goes missing. Because of this, Jeremiah is devastated and the Land family soon decides to go looking for Davy.

Meanwhile, there is police investigator on Davy's trail who also follows the Land family in attempts to locate Davy. As the Land family travels across the country, Swede writes a story with characters that represent certain characters in her actual life. Swede struggles with writing this story, as it seems she does not want to end the story the wrong way, for fear of her family, and Davy's story ending the wrong way.

As time goes on, Reuben is forced to choose between his loyalty to his brother and to what would be thought of as the right thing to do. Reuben is confronted with new people, new ideas, and lots of fear as he faces some of the hardest decisions he has ever encountered. As the story concludes, Reuben is forced to mature through certain events and eventually he begins to understand things about his brother and the life he has chosen that he could not see before.

This book shows a unique view on differentiating between right and wrong and keeps you entertained along the way. It is definitely a book I would recommend for an compelling read.

Jumper by Steven Gould

This is one of my favorite books! Now, I read this at the end of the last school year, but recently when I found out it was going to be a motion picture in January (i think), I just had to read it again!

What makes a good book great, in my opinion, is that it makes you not only change your emotions inside, but that there is so much that you have to express it! This how this book made me feel; I was jumping out of my seat, so excited, smile on my face, telling people how great this book is. Now, that might've just been me...

This book is about a boy Davy who finds out at a young age that he has the gift of teleportation. However, he discovers this when he was in a state of helplessness. His father, drunk and agressive, was about once again beat his son (just because he didn't mow the lawn..), but all of a sudden he found himself in his local library. Scared, he didn't really understand what happened, but all he knew was that he wasn't going to go back home. He ran away, hoping to go to New York, a place his family once enjoyed visiting together. Unfortunately, one of the truckers he hitched a ride with, hundreds of miles away from home, stopped at a truck stop with other truckers and was almost raped until he again found himself in his hometown library.

The library acts as his haven, Davy's safe hideout. Davy was an avid reader; it kept him not focused on his present problems. I found this quite interesting because as he was getting lost in his world of books, I was getting lost in this one.

Davy finally finds his way to New York and has trouble getting work because of many reasons including he was underage at the time and he had no type of identification or social security number. So he comes up with a brilliant plan to rob a bank! He can only transport places he's been, so he had to go to a bank and look inside a vault. I don't want to give away much, but I can say he was successful!

There are so many funny parts in the book, where Davy finds ways to mess with people by teleporting a person to the other side of the globe and events similar to that one.

Now, I don't think I really justified how good this book is, and I've never really been good at that, but I do think that most of you would enjoy this well-written book!
I'm also in the middle of the sequel, Reflex, which is also very entertaining.


-stephanie

The Cellar of Horror "The story of Gary Heidnik" by Ken Englade

First of all this book is crazy! Right away the story begins by placing you with Gary's first victim. You follow the women's intense, disgusting, and terrifying ordeal throughout the entire book. But the author does break up the story by giving you background information about Gary, like what his childhood was like, and why he was the man he was.

I found it very interesting that he only kidnapped, mentally challenged black women. For part of his life, he lived with his mother and black step-father. So that's just what he considered himself. But he was indeed a White man. Anyways, he picks up these women, some of them were friends of his, others prostitutes, and he would take them back to his place. That's where things got crazy! Let's put it this way; he kidnapped women in hopes of having them start his own little community in the basement. They would have his children and they would live happily ever after together. However, his treatment towards the girls, prevented his ultimate goal. The women were beaten, tortured, raped on a daily basis, and chained naked in his basement. He wanted to leave behind children in this world, but according to Ken Englade, "rape, toruture and cannibilism was his legacy." I don't want to spoil anything for you, so if you're interested in reading this book, I promise you will not be disappointed.


F.Y.I.
One of his girlfriends names was Jewel. I thought that was funny. =]