Deadline by Chris Crutcher

Deadline by Chris Crutcher Review

            Let me start out with this: Deadline is about a kid with a terminal illness.  It can only end in one way so if you don’t want to cry, don’t bother picking it up. 

Ben Wolf is diagnosed with a very aggressive blood disease at the beginning of his senior year of high school.  He opts not to tell his family about his problem so that he can have his final year, and I mean final, as “normal” as possible.  Wolf joins football so that he can experience being a hero.  He causes problems in his history class with the teacher every day in the class.  And he finally gets the courage to ask out the girl of his dreams.  All the while, Ben is holding onto the deep secret of his slowly ending time line.

Throughout the book, Ben learns of many other people’s secrets, including one that involves him in a major way.  He tries to juggle everything in his life; his crazy mother, struggling father, football star brother, girlfriend, town drunk, and of course, his terminal illness.

I really enjoyed reading this book.  It was well done and very interesting.  It offered a new point of view on life.  If I had only a year to live, I wouldn’t even bother going to school.  I would travel the world and experience everything that I could.   To think that this kid, who only had a year to live, decided to live it out in school, baffles me.  He lived his life to the fullest and never left his small town of Trout, Idaho.  This was the first book that I’ve read by Chris Crutcher.  I am going to continue reading his books and I suggest that you do the same.

As for the book, I give Deadline by Chris Crutcher four and a half stars out of five (even though I balled like a baby at the end).

A View On Twilight

            Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

So I read this book recently that everyone’s been talking about for the past few years.  Twilight by Stephanie Meyer was, in my opinion, a pretty good book.  If you look to the right on this screen, you can see that one of my favorite series is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, so maybe that means my views on Twilight are a little biased (judging by the whole Harry Potter vs. Twilight quarrels).  However, I’ll put all that aside and focus on how well I thought the book was done. 

Twilight is about an angsty teenage girl named Bella whose father babies her too much falling for a sparkly skinned vampire named Edward who looks seventeenish but is, in fact, a crap load older than that.  They fall madly in love but their love is “forbidden,” taking a Romeo and Juliet turn, to Edward.  Edward feels that, because he’s a vampire, he has no soul and therefore cannot love Bella and be with her.  Plus, it’d just be weird for her to be growing older constantly while he stays the same age.  Even with these problems, Bella reaches out to Edward and the story progresses with other members of Edward’s “family” are introduced, including Bella’s new best friend, Alice.

            Edward’s family really warms to Bella.  However, other vampires come into play and start targeting Edward Cullen and his family.

I liked Twilight.  It was a pretty interesting book.  If you have time to spare, you should definitely pick up a copy to read.   Stephanie Meyer is a pretty good author and there’s a good chance that I would pick up a copy of other she’s written or will write.  As for Twilight in particular, I give the book three and a half out of five stars.

An Introduciton...

            Ever have trouble finding a good book to read?  Visit my blog when you have problems with this.  I’ll give you excellent ideas for books to read and review the books so you know if you’ll like them.  You can also see how others (being me since it’s my blog) enjoyed a book.  Don’t worry, I’ll try not to put spoilers in my post and if I do, I will give you fair warning.  I’ll be writing for New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html).  I'll be writing my opinion on the book and may include other's views on the book from people in my English 101 class.  Hopefully, my followers will find my blog helpful!!