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This trimester after taking best sellers I learned a lot about myself. I learned things about what types of books I like, genres that I enjoy, and other things like how I manage my time. I found that I didn’t give a lot of books a chance after I looked at the cover. My sister suggested that I read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. I found that before I used to judge a lot of book by its cover and title. This book had a bit of tacky cover to it and also the title is really long and not like a lot of other books. From the cover I thought I wasn’t going to like it, but when I read it I loved it. One of the best books I have read. Another thing that I found out about myself is that I do manage my time pretty well. I found that I was able to get things done in time if I just focused. This really helped because this class I didn’t have a lot of homework unless I couldn’t finish a blog in class, so if I was able to finish and manage my time well it helped with my schedule having less homework. Another thing that I found is that hands down romance novels are my favorite genre. I found this out when I read both The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight and The Lucky One. These were two books that I didn’t think that they were going to be as good as they were. I read The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight as my first book this trimester and it was such a good romance novel probably in my top three romance novels. The Lucky One as my film adaptation book and I didn’t read a lot of Nicholas Sparks books, but this one was so good and I absolutely loved it. I also found that I am not in to adrenaline books. For my book three genre study I was put in the adrenaline category. I read The Hunger Games. I liked this book okay, it wasn’t my favorite. The Hunger Games was a very loved book by many readers so if this is one of the best adrenaline books that everyone loves and I just liked it then that shows that I don’t enjoy adrenaline books that much. Although it isn’t my least favorite genre like historical fiction and sci-fi, but it defiantly isn’t my favorite. Another thing I have noticed is that I am a slower reader. I noticed this because in the time you would give us in the lab to read I could only read around 30 pages. I don’t know if it is because I reread a lot of passages to fully comprehend the book, or if I zone out a lot and get distracted when I try and read for long lengths of time. I feel that it is probably a combination of the two and I reread things a lot, but I also get distracted. I really enjoyed this class because we had to do some of the basic English class or reading class requirements like analyzing your book in blog posts and the final projects, but we got to do it with books that we have chosen and that we like to read. I have seen that I like to read a lot more this trimester then last because this trimester I was free to choose any book to read with just a few requirements where as to last trimester they were chosen by the teacher. I have seen a lot of things in this trimester after taking bests sellers and I am really glad I took it.

Final Project Book 3

The Hunger Games was supposed to be a suspenseful action filled romance. The Hunger Games was not only all of that, but much more. The first thing that I loved about the book were the characters that the author Suzanne Collins put into the story. I love how she made them all so different and unique then any other book that I have ever read. I would have never thought to make the people in the Capital have crazy hair and there voices and hair styles are so unique to this book. Also how she describes everyone you can clearly picture how each character is. This is an example of the author describing Effie Trinket, “Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off center since her encounter with Haymitch.” You can completely picture what Effie Trinket looks from just one of her sentences. Another thing that was really good in this book was the plot and general idea for this book. It is not often that you see authors with such creative ideas and can also put them on paper. The idea that there are 12 districts and every year have the annual Hunger Games that they put kids in to kill each other isn’t a very common idea that writers have. It is amazing that she could even think to come up with such a creative plot for this book, it is even better that she could take this idea and manipulate it and put it on paper as well as she did. Suzanne Collins did a very good job not doing a very common plot or the same route that all these other authors are taking when writing their books. She went out of her way and developed a great idea and she did a great job making that idea in to an awesome book. Another thing that was great about The Hunger Games is the writing style that she incorporates into the book. She writes with so much character and so much detail that you feel like you can picture and imagine every single scene. When you read it you feel like you could make a picture book of the book because you were given so much detail for each scene and character. Suzanne Collins has a way of adding so much description and using complex metaphors, or language in the book yet it is so easy to understand and read and your not caught up on every sentence wondering what she means. An example of her writing craft is when she says, “And then I see her, the blood drained from her face, hands clenched in fists at her sides, walking with stiff, small steps toward the stage, passing me, and I see the back of her blouse has become untucked and hangs out over her skirt.” This sentence gives so much detail about Prim walking up and you can imagine everything she is writing because it is written so clearly, but with so much personality and craft. I feel that the quality of this novel is excellent. There are great characters, story line, and everything is up to par. Some strengths of this book was that she was able to make everything so that you could understand it and picture it, her characters were unique the plot was unique, great writing craft. Some weaknesses for this book were that some parts were stretched a little to long when they didn’t need to be and that sometimes things were so broken down it didn’t even make sense anymore. That didn’t happen to often, but it was something that I noticed. I give this book a 4.5 out 5 stars because the characters, plot, writing craft was great and she really did a nice job writing the book, but some parts I didn’t feel the adrenaline because we took too much time on it and also some parts just didn’t make sense when I was reading it. 

Is The Hunger Games a thriler?

The genre that I am reading is adrenaline and thriller. The book that I have chosen to read for this unit is The Hunger Games. I chose this because I think that it is a very popular book and I think that I will really like it because I really like the movies. One of the main authors for adrenaline is an author named Jeff Abbott. Some of the most popular books in the adrenaline genre are Adrenaline by Jeff Abbott, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson. These are just a few of the many loved adrenaline books, a lot of these books are directed and intended for teens. Some characteristics that make a thriller book a thriller are that it has to be a fast paced book, no parts that you are getting bored with, there should be lots of plot twists, there should be suspense when you’re reading it, and the reader should be on the edge of their seat at all times. You should never want to put the book down when you’re reading a thriller because there is so much excitement. These are all characteristics of a good adrenaline or thriller book. Some awards that are given to adrenaline and thriller books are mostly things like best paperback book, best hard cover book, best adrenaline book, etc. I researched more that would be specific to the adrenaline and thriller genre but I couldn’t find any. One of the bestselling books in this genre was The Hunger Games. This was one of the most best-selling books in the thriller and adrenaline genre. From what I have searched about the adrenaline and thriller genre is that my book fits perfectly in this genre. The book that I am reading is The Hunger Games; this is one of the bestselling adrenaline books so it defiantly fits under this genre. I also know its adrenaline because it has a ton of plot twists and I am always at the edge of my seat. I think I picked a great book for this unit and I found that it really fits under this genre. I got a lot of this information from goodreads and amazon.

Blizzard Bag 2

The book I am reading for my genre is, The Hunger Games. The Hunger Games so far is about a girl named Katniss Everdeen, who is a girl who lives in district 12. There are 12 districts and district 12 is a poor district. Her dad died, but she still goes in the forbidden area of the woods to hunt for her family and she always goes there with her friend Gale. Every year they have something called the Hunger Games. And right now they are preparing to go see who is going to get picked for the annual Hunger Games this year. I selected this book because I know that this is a really popular book that I just haven’t been able to read yet. I know that a lot of the people who read it really liked it so I wanted to see what I thought of it. Another thing is that I saw the movies so I wanted to see if I like the book or movie better and see what the same and what is different between the book and movie. I think that I am really going to enjoy all the suspense in the book, and I haven’t seen the movie since it came out so I don’t remember it and I think that’s going to be a good thing. So far I really like the book, it’s a little slow, but I like how they give us a lot of background information on Katniss and then are really jumping right into the book. I can’t wait to keep reading on, and I think I will really enjoy reading, The Hunger Games. 

Me as a reader

I have learned a lot about me as a reader. I always say or think that I hate reading, but I have found that the more then the more I like to read. I do know that if I don’t like the book in the beginning then I defiantly can’t read the whole book. I am mostly drawn to romance novels. Some of my favorite books that I have read are romance novels like, Anna and the French Kiss, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, and The Lucky One. I read all of those this year and they are some of my favorite books that I ever read. Another type of book that I like, but I normally don’t read are books like, The Fault in Our Stars. I read that book for my summer reading project because a lot of people suggested it and it was really good, I enjoyed it. I am drawn to fiction books, I can’t read a lot of non-fiction books. The only non-fiction books I can sometimes read are about a star that I like or something like that. Fiction books, I like ones that I can either relate to, have a really good plot, or I like the people in the book. Over this trimester I wouldn’t say that I have changed a lot as a reader. I still like to read the same genre of books. The only thing that I have noticed is that I read more this trimester and faster. As a reader I have learned that I don’t mind reading as much as I say I do, I like fiction books especially romance novels, and I have learned to like reading a lot more this trimester then I have in the past few trimesters. 

Where the Wild Things Are

The classic children's book, Where the Wild Things Are, transformed into a film, in my opinion was just okay. I personally thought that a lot of the film was not changed in a way for the best. When I say that I mean that I think the movie adaptation was not filmed to the best of its ability. I thought a lot of the scenes that you remember as a child being so normal and not creepy were very creepy in the movie. For example, the part where they are having the good and bad groups and then having a war, I always remember that not being as weird and awkward in that scene. One more scene that was like that was when he bit his mom in the beginning of the movie. That could of not been included in the movie. Another thing that I didn’t like about the movie is how unbelievable fake some of the scenes were, I couldn’t stand that! An example of this is when he is sailing back to his house on the boat and he is just in the middle of nowhere yet he makes it back to his house. I know it’s just a kids movie that is fake and transformed into a movie, but there is no way he knew where he was going and that something that could have been changed to actually make a little bit more sense. Another example of it being so unbelievably fake and unacceptable was when Carol rips Douglas’ wing off. That was so fake and unrealistic it could have been changed to be a lot more ‘real’ you could say. A lot of little parts of the movie really annoyed me for being like that and those are part of the reasons that I didn’t think that Where the Wild Things Are is a good film adaptation. Some things that I did like about the movie were first that it was a lot like the book, so there wasn’t a lot changed and it wasn’t to noticeably different in the movie. I liked that because then you can tell that they really were trying to convert the movie and keep as close as they could to the original book. I think that it is good how they got a lot of the characters to look and resemble the characters in the book, they are all at least similar to how they had them in the book. In my opinion I like the book a lot better then the movie. So, if I were the one deciding if this should have been converted into a movie I defiantly wouldn’t of said yes after watching this film adaptation. 

Blog post #5

The book that I think would make a really good movie is, Anna and the French Kiss. I think this would make a good movie because the story line is easy to follow so there aren’t any flashbacks or anything that would be harder to film and capture. Another reason that this book would be a good to turn into a movie is because it’s not in some made up setting that would be hard to film and create, instead it is in Europe. Europe is a real place, many options of where to film and in which buildings, also many other movies have been filmed there so it’s not like it would be impossible to do. As the producer I think that they would need to cut out some of the book so that it wouldn’t be so long, or they need to shorten scenes. An example where they could shorten up the scenes is how they have breakfast every morning together, they don’t need to show us that every time because we know that from past events and the book. You would have to shorten a lot of the scenes because the book is so long and each scene could be a mile long if you went and added all the details, if we cut some scenes and shorten others then that will make the movie the perfect length. Some actors that I would have play the parts are, for Anna I would have someone kind of like Jennifer Lawrence or someone around the age that she is with the dark hair. Then for St, Clair I would need someone British so I think I would choose someone like Robert Pattinson because he is British and he looks pretty young and could fill this spot. These actors both look pretty young and fit the characteristics of what the cover of the book looks like. I think that if people know what the book cover looks like they will be able to relate these two actors to the movie. I don’t think that a lot of scenes would need to be changed for this movie, but I do think that a lot of them will need to be shortened or cut. One part of the book is that Anna goes to a bunch of theaters and watches movies, but they are all different theaters, so it might be hard to try and get that many theaters for her to watch movies in. A solution to the problem is to cut some of the scenes with the movies that way you wouldn’t have to find as many movie theaters for Anna to watch movies or films in. I think that with the actors that I said earlier, some cuts and shorter scenes, and some of the solutions the book, Anna and the French Kiss, will make an amazing movie!