Book Challenge 1

1. Best book I read last year
 Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys. by Viv Albertine
An autobiography on her life!  It's sometimes so brutally honest, that even i am wondering how she could be so open about things.  But then i'm grateful, because it was like she really let us in.  It also really reminds you that any person you see as a celebrity, icon, or idol, is still so human like the rest of us.  And it makes you wonder that such people that so many fans feel they have a strong connection with, have things about themselves that they feel insecure about and may never give you the chance of knowing.  It's also gives some insight into how things really were in certain places at certain times that has made some great history in culture. 

2. A book you've read more than three times
The Magic Porridge Pot
This one:

I read this when i was around 6 or 7, and i still have the book even though it's falling apart and the cover is kept seperately.  I'm super sentimental about it.  I enjoyed the story and would think about it a lot.  However, i spent most of my time just looking at the illustrations.  I would imagine what i would have done, and what i would do if i was in the books world!  Not surprisingly, I also really love porridge.  My Nana would sometimes make porridge for us that i imagined would taste like the porridge in the book.  Except for the added sugar of course.  Even as a 15 year old when i had to stay over at Nana's a lot, i still went off into the books world in my head while i was eating breakfast.

3. Your favourite series
Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren DeStefano
I got into this with thanks to a high school assignment.  I'm so glad i didn't settle on easy options that the teacher gave us, and that i took my time literally scanning nearly every book that the librarians picked out for us instead.  I put nearly every book, because I found Wither towards the end of the pile, and i made my decision almost immediately.  I think i did okay on the assignment, but i continued to follow the author after it.

Book Challenge 2

I nearly forgot about my blog again.
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4.  Favourite book of your favourite series
In the Chemical Garden Trilogy, by Lauren DeStefano, my favourite chapters would have to be those that are set in the 'twisted' carnival in book two - Fever.  Reading it made me feel like I was in a hazy dreamy nightmare.  To me it was a sad, grotesque, and superficially beautiful place.

5.  A book that makes you happy
 ummm, every book i've ever read.

6. A book that makes you sad.
There's two, and they can't compete.
The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien
This book actually has me quite happy at the start.  Then I'm either scared or laughing through most of it.  It is considered a 'children's book', and it is so much simpler compared to the LOTR trilogy, but I feel so strongly about the end!  The battle at the end is so dramatic, and what happens to Bilbo and the rest of the company is quite heartbreaking.  My heart actually broke.  The farewell to me was so upsetting.  In the pages describing Bilbo's journey back, I couldn't help but feel depressed.  I knew from the start he was going to return and not be the same person again (like when anyone travels to a completely different place for the first time and has life-changing experiences), but I didn't expect to get such a strong sense of it by reading the hobbit. Of course I became happy again when Frodo etc was mentioned and the first few pages of FOTR was included.

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell
When such an emotionally powerful book is read to you when you're ten, over weeks with a class of close friends and the best teacher ever, and that teacher cries as she reads certain dialogue, it's a book that will stick with you for life.  I read it myself five years later and loved it even more.  It's a beautiful book that I would recommend to everyone.