the Goose Girl

To me, this one is a winner, with a slow start. It starts out sounding like a fairy tale. Ani, princess of Kildonry, learns about the the gifts of speech from her aunt: people speech, animal speech, and (possibly legend of) nature speech. Then her aunt teaches her how to speak birds' languages. The fairy tale part ends when the queen disinherits her after her father's death, and is sent of to Bayern to marry the prince of Bayern. Then, on the way, her guards turn against her, led by Celia, her lady in waiting, who decided to try to pretend to be her and marry the prince instead, and have her guards kill Ani. What will Ani's fate be? (dun dun dun duuuuun)

 I liked how it mixed a fairy tale with an adventure. It makes it really interesting. The author did a good job writing it so I could picture it. Since I sort of think in pictures this is good for me. I do want to read more of Shannon Hale's book. The next book is about a different character from this story, Enna. Ani will probably show up in it because they were friends.

My Rotten Life

Science is dangerous...Very,very dangerous...

This is why scientists use rats instead of people to test weird experimental medicines, because nobody deserves to die for a lab test, and mice don’t count. However, this doesn't apply in the case of Nathan Abercombie, who was soaked with an experimental test mixture called ‘HURT-B-GONE’, and the next thing he knows he’s been turned into a half-zombie who doesn't digest his food and is always at risk of having his limbs fall off. There are pros and cons to being a zombie, he soon discovers. The Pros include the fact that he doesn't need to sleep, meaning he can stay up all night doing whatever he wants, and he doesn't need to eat. The cons include how horribly gross it is, the fact that he might lose his limbs, and what the Doctor might say. Even with those pros, Nathan doesn't want to be a zombie. How will he find a cure?

The plot is good--it’s really interesting. The situations he got into were weird, funny and exciting. For example, when he gets soaked with the mixture it is exciting because you are wondering what would happen next--he thinks Hurt-be-gone will help his hurt feelings and injuries; it works on his injuries because that part of him is dead, but he can still have his feeling hurt. 

 What was interesting about the main character was how he was a lot like me. He seems to make the same choices I might make. He doesn’t seem like he has very many friends; he has a couple of really good friends--that’s like me. One think I really liked was how he found the cure--it involved lots of science and science is really interesting to me. He has to do lots crazy stuff to get the ingredients for the formula like diving into an aquarium and grabbing some fish scales. The cure is a piece of goo that he sticks on a band aid and puts on his foot.

His school is the most important setting because it is where most of everything happens. His school sounds actually a lot like mine, in the way it is run.

★★★★☆
“Very Good”
Not the best book I’ve ever read, but still, It’s a very good book.
I would recommend this book to someone who likes science, humor and doesn’t get grossed out!  There are a lot of gross-out parts in here, for example when he discovers he isn’t digesting his food and he has to be hung upside down from gymnastics equipment while his waffles from breakfast fall out of his mouth. It was kind of fun but if you’re really sensitive to gross stuff then it’s not the book for you.