Mister B. Gone by Clive Barker
The Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins
This week: 206 pages
Favorite Sentences and/or Passages (in no particular order)
1. "I am living life," I responded wearily. It felt like suddenly every muscle in my body had been stretched to the limit. "I'm still getting up and going to school, aren't I? I'm still doing my homework and eating my vegetables, aren't I? I'm still getting showered, getting dressed, putting on my shoes. . . If I'm still doing all these things, then I'm still living life. But it will never get better. No matter how many prom committees I join, or college brochures I shuffle through or. . . " I looked down at the vials in my hands. "Or how many new perfumes I make. This knot of coldness will always be inside of me. Always." (The Hollow)
2. On his bedroom desk, next to his computer, Sam's last souvenir of the season taunted him: a rock he found on his last day at the beach in Martha's Vineyard. On it someone had scrawled a saying, reminding him of what he assumed was his close friend Julie's philosophy, an attitude Sam hoped to emulate. Sam's hardest working friend, Julie meant more to him than she realized. "Life just is," read the ink on the rock. "Go with it. Grow with it. Live and let live." Yeah, well, easy for the rock to say. The rock wasn't stuck with seven hours of homework. (The Overachievers)
3. Burn this Book. Go on. Quickly, while there's still time. Burn it. Don't look at another word. Did you hear me? Not. One. More. Word. . . . Why are you waiting? It's not that difficult. Just stop reading and burn this book. It's for your own good, believe me. No, I can't explain why. We don't have time for explanations. Every syllable that you let your eyes wander over gets you into more and more trouble. And when I say trouble, I mean things so terrifying your sanity won't hold once you see them, feel them. You'll go mad. Become a living blank, all that you ever were wiped away, because you wouldn't do one simple thing. Burn this book. It doesn't matter if you spent your last dollar buying it. No, and it doesn't matter if it was a gift from somebody you love. Believe me, friend, you should set fire to this book right now, or you'll regret the consequences. (Mister B. Gone)
First of all, I never posted about Mister B. Gone. So let me fill you in.
The premise is rather simple: a demon has been trapped inside the book, and the book essentially serves as his memoir of his life. He will taunt the reader periodically to burn the book, that he will haunt them, even kill them if they don't. A very different kind of book, that will have you tearing through it. Hopefully you won't be burning it. *wink wink*
If you remember from the post about The Hollow, I said that I was struggling with getting through it. The passage above is what helped me keep going, and even managed to bump my rating up to a 7.5/10. The action has even started to pick up a bit. I still have problems with Caspian (romantic love interest) being a little "flat", but we'll see if that changes. My girlfriend has told me to keep reading, that I will like it if I can get through the rough patches. Let us hope that holds true.
The above passage from The Overachievers caught my eye at first for the humor. However, the more I read it, the more I truly understood it. For some students, simply living life and taking things slow is a challenge, and many struggle to actually find time to sit down and relax. From what I have read so far, these kids are not what I expected all. Between a kid whose parents watch his every move, and a girl who can't get into the college of her dreams even with a perfect SAT score, they are nothing like I thought they would be. I highly suggest this book for anybody who has looked at a kid who has three school activities and is in AP class after AP class, and says, "Pfft. What a nerd." For we can never truly understand the workings behind the scenes of their lives.
If you have any suggestions for books I should read, leave me a comment below! Thanks for stopping by!
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