The Juliet Club-Suzanne Harper

Italy . . . Shakespeare . . . but no romance?
Kate Sanderson inherited her good sense from her mother, a disciplined law professor, and her admiration for the Bard from her father, a passionate Shakespeare scholar. When she gets dumped, out of the blue, for the Practically Perfect Ashley Lawson, she vows never to fall in love again. From now on she will control her own destiny, and every decision she makes will be highly reasoned and rational. She thinks Shakespeare would have approved.
So when she is accepted to a summer Shakespeare symposium in Verona, Italy, Kate sees it as the ideal way to get over her heartbreak once and for all. She'll lose herself in her studies, explore ancient architecture, and eat plenty of pasta and gelato. (Plus, she'll be getting college credit for it—another goal accomplished!) But can even completely logical Kate resist the romance of living in a beautiful villa in the city where those star-crossed lovers Romeo and Juliet met and died for each other? Especially when the other Shakespeare Scholars—in particular Giacomo, with his tousled brown hair, expressive dark eyes, and charming ways—try hard to break her protective shell?

So I bought this book basically on a whim, but it turns out that I really loved it. The main character was accepted to a Shakespeare Seminar so that was what intrigued me the most about why she was going to Verona, Italy. The author uses wonderful descriptions of the city and all the sights that the main character saw there. By the end of the book, it felt like you had just visited Italy too. She also uses mulitple points of view among all the characters in the story, and I really liked how that turned out because they were all very interesting. So this is a really great novel if you love Shakespeare. I wasn't quite satisfied with the ending, but authors do that to you I suppose. This is a book where I hope there is a sequel. I highly recommend this book.

New Moon-Stephenie Meyer

Seriously, who even needs a summary? I'm sure you all know what this book is about by now. Though you should be warned that there are major Twilight series spoilers to come. And also...

***Please consider before reading this post***

I have nothing against this series. In fact, I love this series. If you're a huge Twilight fan, don't take anything in this post personally. While I may have some strong opinions about some of the characters, it does not influence my opinion of the book, and I still like it very much regardless.

Okay, so I'll get started now. What can I say about New Moon? It used to the only book in the Twilight series that I had only read once. I also thought that it was my least favorite. That's the main reason that I kept putting off rereading it. But I gave in about a week ago.

So there were things that I liked and hated about this book. The first time I read this, I absolutely hated and despised Jacob Black. I, like most everyone else, just wanted Edward to come back. But I had this opinion before I read Eclipse, which was when I realized I didn't like Edward as much as I thought I did. Anyway, I was always constantly annoyed with Jacob and wished that he would just go away. Even through my second time, I still found myself wishing that at some parts. But I approached him with more of an open mind this time. I figured, what was it that I hated so much about Jacob Black? (just in New Moon, don't get me started about Eclipse.) Seriously, what did I dislike about him so much? He was a kind, caring friend towards Bella. He was the one who got her out of her huge pit of depression after Edward left. From the outside, he seems like an awesome guy. Then I realized the only reason I didn't like him was because he threatened Bella's relationship with Edward. And then like I said before, I realized after I read Eclipse that I didn't like Edward as much as I thought I did. So through my second reading of New Moon, Jacob didn't annoy me half as much as he did before. So that was an improvement I noticed while reading it again. So even though I was still relieved when Alice came back and the plot started to pick up again (and reach my favorite part when they go to Italy), I still appreciated that part of the book more when Bella hangs out with the werewolves.

Still remember that this is my opinion on the characters in New Moon. My Eclipse one (that will be interesting) won't come until later.

So like I said, it was better the second time when I had an open mind. Even though my favorite part was still the Volturi in Italy. That part was just awesome. So I enjoyed it, and it went by a lot quicker than it did the first time.

So some Eclipse thoughts will be coming soon. This is all just in preparation for Breaking Dawn on Aug. 2, which I am excited for. I think that it has the potential to be the best in the entire series, so that's what I'm looking forward to.

I added a playlist!

I've been thinking about doing it for a while. Not many songs on there right now, but I'll probably add more later. So for now, enjoy!

Don't expect any new book reviews for a while. Right now I'm rereading a book (that you've all probably read), and will giving my thoughts on it, even though I've read it before. Should be fun.

Have a great week!

Leanna

Some Narnia News

Will Poulter has been cast as Eustace Scrubb in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader! He's fourteen, so he'll be two years older than Georgie Henley and two years younger than Skander Keynes. He's okay, except I wasn't expecting him to be so... small. Though I guess he'll fit the part perfectly. This just raises my hope that maybe Dawn Treader will be better than Prince Caspian was. I can only hope. ;)

Pretty Face-Mary Hogan

Hayley wishes she could love living in Santa Monica, blocks from the beach, where every day—and everybody—is beautiful and sunny. But she just doesn't fit in with all the blond, superskinny Southern California girls who have their plastic surgeons on speed dial. Hayley is smart and witty and has such a pretty . . . face. Translation: Don't even think about putting on a bikini, much less dating superhot Drew Wyler. A bikini will never be flattering, and Drew will never think of her as more than a friend.
Just when Hayley feels doomed to live her life in the fat lane, her parents decide to send her to Italy for the summer—not for school, not for fat camp, just for fun. It's there, under the Italian sun, that Hayley's vision of herself starts to change. She's curvy, not fat. Pizza isn't evil. And life is so much more than one-size-fits-all. Who knows? Once Hayley sees herself in a new light, maybe the girl with the pretty face will finally find true amore.

The main reason that I wanted to read this book was because the main character went to Italy. It was a fast read, and I read the whole thing in one day. They describe a lot of the Italian scenery and about all the sites and buildings there, so I enjoyed that. It was the typical story about a young girl going off on her own for the first time, meeting a guy, etc. So in all, it was a pretty good read. Check it out if you want some light summer reading.

I went to the library

Okay, first off, I don't go to the library much. I used to go all the time, probably every other day, when I was a kid. But I stopped going because I realized I didn't like the books there. I started to prefer new books from the bookstore, plus I found out that the bookstore has a way better selection. So I probably didn't set foot in the library again for years.
Yesterday, I went there with my sister and I was surprised...they actually had books! We went to the Teen section (which only consists of three bookcases, but whatever) and they actually had books I recognized. Even new ones. I think that I was under the impression for years that they didn't have a good selection of anything, and that there would be nothing I would know there. But there were. Many of them that just barely came out. I was so excited, my sister was kind of like, " Duh, what were you expecting?" And also surprisingly, most of them were in good condition ( I don't think many people go in the teen section much.)
So libraries have books. Who would have thought?

English Goose Girl

I bought the English The Goose Girl while I was in England! Sadly, I haven't been able to get a picture of my actual book, but this is what the cover looks like. The Enna Burning and River Secrets books were the same except for the background on EB was red and on RS it was blue. I wish I could have gotten them all! I have to say looking in the bookstores was one of the parts I enjoyed most, because it was interesting to see the different covers to all the books that you know about. The YA section in most of them were limited to about two shelves so it was kind of sad. But I was really glad to see that they had a lot of Shannon Hale books!