Alice Bliss By: Laura Harrington is about Alice Bliss’s father being deployed to Iraq and all the emotions that come along with that as well as the emotions of high school, sports, love, and driving. What I really liked most about this book is how Laura Harrington captured the sadness in all the characters, not just Alice.

This book really hits close to home because I am wanting to go into the Navy or Air Force, so being able to see how Alice’s family reacts to their father being deployed makes me really think about how my family will feel when or if I go. One thing that makes this book interesting is all of the characters in it. From Alice to her musically talented best friend, Henry, to her little sister to her mother who is the complete opposite of Alice.

I think my favorite character would have to be Alice’s uncle, her mom’s brother, Uncle Eddie. He’s everything that his sister isn’t – reckless, a waste of intelligence, carefree. He’s the one that can be funny and lighthearted at one moment but then can get serious the next.

Alice Bliss is a great book you should definitely check it out if you like sad, sappy books with heartfelt endings.

Alice Bliss By: Laura Harrington

The Book of Jonas By: Stephen Dau

My One Square Inch of Alaska By: Sharon Short

Fault Line By: C. Desir

Solstice By: P. J. Hoover

Scorched By: Mari Mancusi

Unglued Devotional By: Lysa Terkeurst

Romeo Blue By: Phoebe Stone

Rags & Bones New Twists on Timeless Tales Edited By: Melissa Marr And Tim Pratt

Aquifer By: Jonathan Friesen

Season of Change By: Lisa Williams Kline

Spoils By: Tammar Stein

Proxy By: Alex London

Earth Bound By: Aprilynne Pike

Thousand Words By: Jennifer Brown

Hate List By: Jennifer Brown

Invisibility By: Andrea Cremer and David Levithan

Rush By: Eve Silver

Wild Awake By: Hilary T. Smith

If You Were Here By: Alafair Burke

How To Love By: Katie Cotugno

Sketchy By: Olivia Samms

Elegy A Hereafter Novel By: Tara Hudson

Across a Star – Swept Sea By: Diana Peterfreund

The Elite A Selection Novel By: Kiera Cass

Star Cursed By: Jessica Spotswood

Deception By: C. J. Redwine

Rapture Practice A True Story By: Aaron Hartzler

Trash Can Days By: Teddy Steinkellner

The Tribe: Homeroom Headhunters By: Clay McLeod Chapman

Mae McBride’s father just died saving her best friend’s life, Heidi Foster. Mae now hates Heidi, blaming her for her father’s death. I loved reading this book to be able to have insight into someone going through the process of mourning a loved one. I lost my great-grandmother recently and even though my mourning was different it’s good to read about someone else. (even if it is a character in a book)

I think that every teenager should read this book because it is not just about the death of a loved one it’s also about forgiveness. And I think pretty much every teen has had to forgive a friend at least once in their life already. Jeffrey Blount did an amazing job writing this book and I can’t wait to read the next thing that he comes out with.

Full Disclosure: I received a complementary copy of this book for review purposes. All opinions are 100% mine and honest.

My teacher did let us take pictures throughout the process so I got some really good ones. The skin of the frog was really rubbery and when we cut it, it was like cutting paper. Something really funny is that my group’s frog had a six pack once we cut it open.

Not only did we get to cut it open we had to break its jaw too! But a really cool thing, is that we are dissecting all this week and I’m going to get the chance to learn the anatomy of a cat through dissection. Tomorrow I am going to get to take all the organs out of the frog. I am really excited to get to do that because I want to see what the heart of a frog looks like. I am interested in it because I want to be a heart surgeon so I want to see how different the frogs heart is to a human one.

At the Movies ~ The Croods, 2013 (Photo credit: erjkprunczýk)

The Croods is the new family friendly movie coming out March 22nd in 3D. The Croods is about a cavemen family. The movie is about how this family lives by the motto “New is always bad never NOT be afraid”. But when their whole world changes they are forced to try new things. Along the way they meet Guy (voice of Ryan Reynolds) who is not a caveman and who has all these ideas and inventions, he is more like a nomad. They believe the world is ending, literally caving in, so Guy and the Croods set out to follow the sun. The big problem with Guy is that all of the Croods besides the father Grug (voice of Nicolas Cage) like him and his ideas better. Which causes a big problem when Grug’s rebellious teenage daughter Eep (voice of Emma Stone) falls in love with Guy.

I loved this movie a lot – the animation, the story line, the characters – every thing was amazing about it. Plus, I even cried a little bit so you know it’s a good movie if I cry. This is a great movie for all ages young and old and a great movie to go watch as a family. Check out my other post of my interview from the directors of the movie if you want to know a little bit about the ideas behind the movie.

Go watch The Croods in theaters March 22, 2013!

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“Why the hawk?” I blurt out as she attaches an electrode to my forehead. Pg.12

“Never met a curious Abnegation before,” she says, raising her eyebrows at me. Pg.12

After the interview we went to Barnes & Noble where I got the chance to not only get the three actors’ autographs but I got to meet the amazing Stephenie Meyer and get her autograph as well!

Now for people who don’t know me really well may not know that Stephenie and the Twilight Saga is why I started reading so much. Twilight was the first full novel that I had read all the way through. So meeting her was a major dream come true for me. I got all four of them to sign the inside cover of my Nook since that is where I bought The Host. The funny thing is that Jake and Max started to scroll through my Nook reading list. Since I had my Nook turned on with The Host loaded on the front, Jake almost autographed the screen because he saw the movie picture on it which was becoming habit for him to sign! He just laughed and was like “well you would have had a new Nook by the end of the day”.  Awesome experience, I think yes!

Don’t forget to pre-order your tickets for The Host coming out March 29, 2013.

Watch The Host trailer

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“And before I could piece it all together, the vanguard of the formation stopped in front of my house.” Pg 12

“But just as I started to yell, the front door was knocked off its hinges.”Pg 13

At the Movies ~ The Croods, 2013 (Photo credit: erjkprunczýk)

On Monday I got to interview the creators of the new movie The Croods.

Q. Since Guy calls the Croods cavies what does that make him?

A. Guy is sorta the last chapter of a caveman, a nomad really. He had a line in the book that got cut out where he says “I’m just a man.” If his family were to still be alive they would be living in mud huts instead of caves.

Q. Where did you come up with the names like Grug and Eep?

A. We came up with really funny sounding names, like the sounds that cavemen make. In the beginning Croods started off as the name of a village and then turned out to be the family’s last name.

During the interview I found out a lot of stuff got cut from the movie. For example they created 39 animals but you only see 21 of them in the movie. The movie is a great one to go see with the family. No matter what age you are you will love it.

Don’t forget to pre-order your tickets to be the first ones to see it on March 22 in 3D.