Book List Challenge

1.  The Fault in our Stars by John Green
This is one of my all time favorite books that I've read and it's also one of the more recent novels that I've explored as well.  This book is one of my favorites because of how it connected me, opened me up to, or showed me what some of the actual struggles are of someone with cancer or practically any other severe illness.  I guess I never completely understood what it was actually like to go through something like that, but this book seemed to give a pretty good example.  In my opinion, it was pretty cool to actually have a sense of the thoughts and feelings of a victim of cancer.  Another interesting piece of the story was seeing how someone with a huge problem like cancer can in fact have a love life, like in the book, and be like any other normal child besides the illness.

2.  Wonder by Rj Palacio

Somewhat like The Fault in our Stars, I liked Wonder because it showed me the point of view of someone with something like a facial disorder.  It was interesting to explore the life of a kid very different from others living in a normal setting or atmosphere.  I guess this is a lot like what I just wrote about the first book, but Wonder influenced me in a similar way by showing me the life of a special kid.  I thought it was a great story about a kid and his struggles.

3.  Unstoppable by Tim Green

Unstoppable is certainly a book that belongs on this list and that isn't just any football or sports book.  I loved this book because of how I could relate to it.  Football was probably the main topic throughout the entire novel and I really enjoy playing and watching football.  Cancer was another large topic in the story as well and I've known many relatives, neighbors, and friends who have suffered through cancer.  This book was also very interesting because of how it changed, switched, or even molded all kinds of topics together into one story.  Like football, cancer, academics, friendships, and family life.  It all fit together into a great book though.

4.  A Separate Peace by John Knowles 

This book, written by John Knowles about the friendship of two teenage boys.  I loved reading this book because of how much it reminded me of my friends and I.  It was almost like I could pick out a person from my life for every character's personality in the book.  I also liked the book because of how deeply it entered the main character, Gene's thoughts about the things he's done and about what's happened in his life or with his friend Phineas.  It was interesting to put myself in his shoes or put my friends in one of the other character's shoes.  I felt like I could connect to some of the characters' feelings and/or emotions.

5.  The Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

The Divergent Series could possibly be my absolute favorite series written.  Not only is it a great and exciting fictional story, but it has a lot of meaning in it also.  For example, the community in the story is run or organized in four factions or groups of people.  There's a lot of judging and assumptions of people in the book based on these factions.  So it kind of reminded me of realistic unfairness and discrimination in the real world like judging people based on their race or religion.  That's how this series impacted me.

6.  A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

I strongly recommend this series for anyone who is looking for a descriptive and interesting series.  I think that the greatest trait about this series, is its detail.  It has the most detailed and descriptive writing that I've ever seen.  It describes everything so much, that if you opened up the book to a random page, you'd be bored out of your mind.  I love these books so much because of how you can seriously picture what's going on in the story.  Sometimes, the big words can trip you up though.  I just used context clues, and the dictionary to help me out.  So what made me have to put these books on this list, is the way it challenged me and made me think.  I can't stress enough how much you have to read these books. 

7.  The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins 

The Hunger Games Series is a third series on my book list that is definitely worth reading.  Kind of like Divergent, I really like this series because of how they give a real life problem or something related to a problem now in real life and turn it into an interesting story.  For example, in Divergent, it gave an example of discrimination, in The Hunger Games, I feel like they relate to unfairness, oppression to poor people, or fascism.  It's also a story filled with loyalty, friendship, and relationships too.

8.  The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 

I read this book in 5th grade with my teacher, Mr. Saracini, and as soon as I started it, I loved it.  I really liked it because of how it introduced me to a topic of the past, the Holocaust.  Even though I have no idea what it was like during The Holocaust, I was still quite interested in it and its background.  So reading a story about a boy living back then, his efforts to stop the Holocaust, and what it was like, was really cool.  We also had to blog about this book while we were reading it.

9.  The Watsons go to Birmingham by Christopher Paul Curtis

For a second, I thought I was running out of books.  Until this one hit my mind.  Like The Book Thief, I liked this book because of how it explained or exemplified an event from the past.  The bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church was an awful and devastating event, and the book explained why and what happened very well.  They told about one particular family going to visit relatives in Birmingham right before the bombing.  What happens?  Well I guess you'll just have to read to find out.  It was really interesting to learn about something like this that had happened before I was born.

10.  The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton

I recommend reading this book and watching the movie too.  But only watch the movie after you've read the book.  Or the book won't be as good.  I liked reading this book so much because of how it gives a great example of friendship.  It's an amazing story about a boy and his relationship with his friends.  Not fake friends, or, "Oh I'll talk to you every once and a while" friends, but true, loyal friends.  I have a lot of friends that I hang out with at school, or that I talk to.  But I can only think of a very few kids I would do what the characters in the book did for each other for and who would do the same for me.