Firstly – Happy New Year, everyone! I hope your New Year’s Eve was both as eventful and wonderful as mine. And I hope that you’ve made a very important resolution: to read more! Admit it, you have some time before you hit the hay or with your morning coffee or while taking the bus around campus to pick up a novel and dig right into it. I find I learn more BIG lessons from books I’ve read for pleasure than my overpriced textbooks;  maybe the next book you pick up will teach you something important. So there is my plea and hopefully you’ll get some great recommendations from me over the next year!

Moving on….

I’ve had my eye on both of Markus Zusak’s books (Messenger and “The Book Thief“) for a while now, as they are super popular teen books. Now that I’ve got a ton of free time on my hands, I finally picked up “I Am The Messenger.” The book is the story of Ed Kennedy, a 19 year old cab driver who is basically going nowhere. His life revolves around his dog, the doorman and his 3 friends, Audrey, Marv and Ritchie. One day, Ed finds himself stopping a bank robbery and shortly after he starts to receive strange messages. His first message arrives on an ace of diamonds (yes, like from a deck of cards) with 3 addresses and times. Ed visits these locations and soon realizes that he must assist the occupants in some way, whether it being simply keeping them company or saving them from abuse (I won’t give away too much!). Once he completes those three tasks, another card arrives for him, sending him on another adventure. Then another. With every card, the tasks gets more difficult and Ed must decipher the message to determine his three targets. Along the way, Ed realizes lots of important lessons and eventually becomes more than a dead-end cab driver – he becomes a message. Read More »

When I first saw “Going Bovine” on Amazon.com, to be honest, I was a bit scared of the cover. A creepy cow carrying an equally creepy garden gnome? Needless to say, along with feeling frightened, I was also intrigued.

“Going Bovine” tells the story of Cameron Smith, a 16-year-old loner and somewhat loser at his high school. Cameron starts seeing visions one day of fire giants and other things that clearly aren’t there. His parents think he is “disturbed” and bring him to a therapist, but when that doesn’t work they finally cave and go to the doctor’s office. Cameron is diagnosed with Creutzfeld-Jakob disease. For the majority of you going “huh,” it is also known as Mad Cow Disease.  A terminal illness.

Cameron is immediately admitted to the hospital, where his hallucinations continue, including visits from a punky angel named Dulcie.

One of Cameron’s classmates, a little person named Gonzo is also admitted to the hospital and placed in the same room as Cameron. Shortly after this, Dulcie comes to Cameron and tells him that he must go on a roadtrip to find someone named Dr. X. He has created a time machine and is the one who brought the fire giants and all of Cameron’s hallucinations back to Earth. Dulcie tells Cameron that Dr. X also has the cure for his disease and that when they find him, he will be saved.

Cameron convinces Gonzo to go on this roadtrip and they embark on a journey of a lifetime. Along the way, they pick up Balder, a Norse god in the form of a yard gnome; 3 rowdy college students going to the YA!TV party house; a group of evil Snow Globe makers; a band named after physics principles; and a trumpet-playing hero. Read More »