13 Little Blue Envelopes(ending) by: Maureen Johnson

I have just finished 13 Little Blue Envelopes.  As you saw in my last blog post, the main character is Ginny.  She gets a package of letters from her runaway aunt Peg.  The letters lead her on an exciting adventure through Europe.  In each new place the letters take her, she meets lots of new people, and most of them she becomes good friends with.  The first person she meets is Richard, her aunt's old roommate.  Richard thinks he is very manly and is very proud of his job at Harrods (the store for everything you could think of).  The next person she meets is a man named Keith.  He is in a performing arts college, and was sent to New York to present the play he made up, Starbucks:the musical.  Ginny acquires a huge crush on Keith, but feels like she always messes up their romantic moments.  Keith shows up often throughout the book, and Ginny feels like fate means for them to be together.  Another group of interesting people are the Knapps.  The Knapps are a family that let Ginny stay in their hotel for five days because she could not find anywhere to stay.  The Knapp family is unbelievably organized.  Olivia, a girl around Ginny's age, arranges all of her things on her bed in perfect formation every day to make sure that no one uses them.  Every morning the Knapps wake up at 6:30 am, receive a schedule for the day from the parents, get ready, and are out the door by 7:00.  When they go sight-seeing, they are in awe for  10 seconds then run on to the next destination.  Finally Ginny leaves the Knapps and is surprised at how lazy everything else is compared to them.  The last group of people Ginny meets are five people taking a semester from college to go wherever they want to.  They welcome Ginny almost too much, and Ginny and Carrie, the only girl of the bunch, become good friends.  In the end, Ginny finds her aunt's last memories.  I think that this book as a unique and especially good ending, which summarizes all of the crazy things that the letters lead her to do, but realizes that all of the journey was worth it.

13 Little Blue Envelopes by: Maureen Johnson

This book is about a seventeen year old girl named Ginny.  Ginny is almost a perfect girl because she has good grades and is very nice, but she is shy.  Ginny's aunt, Aunt Peg was a good girl too, but right before she was going to go to Mount Holyoke college (on a full scholarship) she decided that she wanted to do something more interesting with her life.  She then ditched Mount Holyoke and transferred to a tiny college in Vermont where she majored in painting and minored in performing arts.  Everyone in her family was very angry with her, and started to think she was crazy.  Ginny knew what everyone thought of her aunt, but she still loved to visit her.  When Ginny went over, she and Aunt Peg would play "today I live in".  They would do activities, go to shops, and eat at restaurants that had something to do with that country.  When she was with Aunt Peg, Ginny felt more interesting and special than she was before.  Then one day Aunt Peg disappeared.  No one was worried, though, because they assumed that Aunt Peg just wanted to go on a little adventure, like she usually did.  Aunt Peg was gone for a very long time, but sent post cards that she was doing well.  Then three months from when the story began, Aunt Peg died.  Ginny missed being with her aunt a lot, but she got on without her.  Then a little blue envelope came from Aunt Peg giving her instructions to pick up a package at their old favorite restaurant and take a plane to Europe.  Ginny followed these instructions without a doubt because she thought that even though Aunt Peg was dead, somehow doing this would connect Ginny with her.  Throughout the book I wondered why Ginny would do this because she knows that her Aunt is dead and she could be getting herself in a lot of danger. The package that Ginny gets at the restaurant contains more little blue envelopes.  In each of the envelopes are instructions with tasks that she has to follow.  Once she has completed a task, she can open the next envelope.  I am on envelope number four.  In envelope number three, Ginny was instructed to give 500 euros to an artist of her choice.  Ginny picks a young performer named Keith.  She was intrigued by his energy in directing Starbucks: The Musical.  She ends up really liking Keith and they even go on a kind-of date.  Ginny thinks that Keith might like her back, but she seems to always mess it up when they are having a romantic moment.  This is a really great book with all kinds of twists and turns.  It has some romance and adventure, which are two genres that I like to read.  I really suggest that you read it!
 

Best Friends For Never

The book Best Friends for Never is the second book in the series the Clique. Massie Block is the most poular girl in OCD middle school. She has everything: nice house, the best clothes, and pretty much everything that she wants. She even has an exclusive group of friends, Alicia, Kristen and Dylan. Her life is perfect except for one thing: Claire Lyons. The Lyons were friends of Massie's ad in college. They are now living in the Block's guesthouse, and Claire is going to Massie's school. Massie's naturally hates this girl and is set out to ruin her life. Claire is desperate to be friends with Massie's though so she plays tricks on Alicia, Kristen and Dylan so they do not want to be friends with Massie's anymore. Finally Massie's finds out what is going on, and her friends realize that Claire was playing with them. Now the girls hate Claire even more, and Massie and Claire are in a constant state of war. They make a bet against each other to prove that one is better than the other. Massie is not allowed to buy any new clothes for the month, and Claire is not allowed to wear the same outfit twice in the month. Shortly after this bet has been settled Massie gets a call from Alicia saying that some girls are starting to think that Massie is not as popular anymore. Massie is furious, and she plots on a way to have people keep thinking that she is the best. She decides that she will throw a totally awesome Halloween party. She doubts that her parent will let her though, unless... she pretends to have Claire as a co-hostess. Now Massie can get what she wants and Claire will stop bugging her. The girls propose the idea together and their parents agree! Massie hires the best party planner, and is throwing the most outrageous Halloween party that OCD middle school has ever seen. The party's theme is When Hell Freezes Over. There will be an ice rink, dance floor, and giant fire pits to roast marshmallows on. Massie and her friends are all being dirty devils together. They are wearing short shorts, ripped tanks, devil tails, and devil horns. Massie think everything is perfect except when Kristen and Dylan start to fight over everything, and Alicia seems to have found a new best friend, Massie feels like their clique is breaking apart. She already is missing her friends and her popularity. The only person she can trust now is Claire. Massie feels like her life is falling apart, and it only gets worse. One day the principle announces that OCD is going uniform. Everyone is so angry, but Massie has an idea. The school should hold a contest to see which students uniform design is the best, and that will be the new uniform. With Kristen, Dylan and Claire's help she makes an amazing uniform. Now all she needs to do is get Alicia to dump her new best friend and everything will be perfect again.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants part 2

      Bridget, Carmen, Lena and Tibby are all best friends, but they had to spend their first summer without each other.  Throughout the summer all of the girls have very interesting and funny stories. Bridget it very athletic and loves to play soccer.  She goes to an eight week soccer camp in Florida. While she is there she gets a huge crush on a coach.  At her camp there is a strict no flirting rule, but Bridget continues to try to get the coach, Eric, to like her.  She does crazy things like swimming in the middle of the night, getting her friends in her cabin to go to a party, and waking up at 4:30 in the morning to do a 5:00 am run with Eric.

     Carmen goes to her dads house for the summer and is welcomed with an unpleasant surprise of finding out that her dad is getting married to a woman with too teenage kids.  Carmen does not like the woman or her kids and is disappointed that they are all blonde.  The woman and her daughter are very mean to Carmen and do not listen to anything she has to say.  Carmen is very angry at her dad and wants to run away.  

     Lena goes to visit her grandparents in a little village in Greece for the summer.  Everyone in the village wants her to go out with a boy named Kostos, but Lena thinks he is annoying.  One day Lena goes swimming in a pond and sees Kostos hiding behind a bush, watching her.  Lena gets really angry because she thinks Kostos was spying on her even though he just happened to be there.  In the end Lena has to decide her true feelings for Kostos.

     Tibby stays at home with her parents and her baby brother and sister. Tibby expects her summer to be really boring because all her friends are gone and all she has to do is work at Wallmans, the Walmart of her town.  One day while she was working at Wallmans a twelve year old girl faints.  Tibby comes with her to the hospital.  She finds out that the girls name is Bailey and that she has leukemia, a type of cancer.  Tibby and Bailey become great friends over the summer, and Tibby realizes she does not have to be with her best friends to have a good time.

     I recently finished The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.  It was a very good book, and you would really like it if you like stories about teenage girls.  I cannot wait to read the second book, The Second Summer of the Sisterhood.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

This book is about four best friends and their first summer apart. The girls names are Lena, Tibby, Bridget and Carmen. They are really sad that they will not be spending their summer together, and on their last night as a group they find a pair of pants that seem to be magical. They look like boring, old fashioned jeans, but they look great on all of the girls even though they all look really different. Lena, Tibby, Bridget and Carmende decide that these magical pants will be the thing that connects them when they are apart over the summer. Lena would get the pants first for two weeks, then Tibby, Bridget and Carmen. All of the girls promised to take care of the pants and follow the rules that they made for the pants. Some of the rules were: "You must never wash the pants." and "Upon our reunion, you must follow the proper procedures for documenting your time in the pants: -On the left leg of the pants, write the most exciting place you have been while wearing the pants. -On the right leg of the pants, write the most important thing that has happened to you while wearing the pants." It is creative how the girls make sure that they do not lose contact with each other over the summer by having the pants be their connection.
Ever since I started this book I could not put it down. It is one of those books where something exciting is happening at all moments. Also, it is like four separate stories in one book and it is fun to see how they all connect at the beginning and end of the book.

Going Bovine Book Review

     Going Bovine is a great and hysterical book.  I love it so much I read it every chance I get.  The main character, Cameron, is a typical high school boy who doesn't really care about anything, not his family, not sports and especially not his twin sister, Jenna (She does not like him either.)!  There are many times so far in the book where Cameron and Jenna have very funny arguments with each other.  One is when the entire family is supposed to go out for pizza together.  Jenna doesn't want to go because she has something to do with her popular group of friends.  Cameron starts to insist that he doesn't have to go if she doesn't.  Eventually the whole family goes to pizza, and it is all the parents can do to keep them from saying some very rude things to one another.  Another time is in the school hallway when Jenna yells at him for punching her boyfriend.  Actually Cameron had only brushed by him while his hands were in fists, but the boyfriend exaggerated a lot.  Jenna's boyfriend does this because he hurt himself while playing football, so he wants to stay cool by being the leader of his group of friends.  He sucks up to teachers and gets "bad" people in trouble.  Jenna's boyfriend is one of the many reasons why Cameron hates her so much.
     Cameron also has a very funny friend at a music store.  The man is the manager and is always trying to get Cameron to buy one of his smooth jazz albums, but Cameron has to refuse because he would probably lose them and feel guilty about it.  Cameron decides to stick with his usual artist who he thinks plays "a mean recorder"!