![]() ![]() Maybe the author was just sadly in the "out" crowd as a youth and is expressing her deep-seated desire to be "popular" with a bunch of high school kids. ![]() If people want to hear a story (which in this case, no one would care in real life) they tend to go to the gossip mill instead. Plus, after she meets this totally cool guy who saves her life, Julia goes and blabs to everyone in high school, and becomes instantly popular. Julia Parker might as well be Bella Swan for all anyone cares: neither of them have any personality, both of them are stalked by their "boyfriends" who save their lives multiple times, neither are strong heroines, both are described as perfectly normal and yet they manage to have boys drooling all over them. Now, on to details as to why this sucked so much!įor one thing, the characters are seriously lacking in depth and originality. Generally speaking, a sixteen year old in a life-or-death situation is going to use something a little stronger than "darn!" All of this is not helped by the mediocre writing, where the author uses childish dialogue such as "'You're mine now and I'm gonna do whatever I want with you, and he can't do anything about it!' he cackled." Oh, and dear author: it's okay to use a few naughty words sometimes. Basically, the author took the characters from Twilight (plain chick + vampirey stalker guy who saves her life) and stuck them in a generic vampire hunter romance. ![]() The story is stale and uninteresting, superficial and slow. It's trailing on the end of the vampire trend and introduces nothing new. ![]()
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![]() Selling the shoes from the trunk of his car to start, he and his gang of friends and runners built one of the most successful brands ever. ![]() Ten years later, young and searching, Knight borrowed fifty dollars from his father and launched a company with one simple mission: import high quality running shoes from Japan. Knight made the track team and found that not only could he run fast but also, more importantly, he liked it. It was only when Nike founder Phil Knight got cut from the baseball team as a high school freshman that his mother suggested he try out for track instead. In this young reader’s edition of the New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh” ( Booklist, starred review), opening up about how he went from being a track star at an Oregon high school to the founder of a brand and company that changed everything. “A great story about how an ambition turned into a business…serves as a guide for accomplishing great things.” - VOYA ![]() “An eye-opening look into the story of Knight before his multibillion dollar company.” - School Library Journal ![]() ![]() The Body in the Library: ITV's intepretation of Mark Gaskell is a lot more sympathetic than what's shown in the original novel.At Bertram's Hotel has a band of bored thieves becoming avengers of the Holocaust and a greedy teenager in love with a dashing racing driver becoming a closeted lesbian racked with guilt over persuading her beloved girl to go for a swim in the river (where Elvira ended up not swimming with her), where she caught polio and was left with a paralysed arm.The central murder of the book becomes "a crime born of love." Even Mrs McGillicuddy is given her share of tragedy in the form of unrequited feelings. A minor, happily married character is given a sordid backstory of sexual assault. The prim politician detests his exaggeratedly unattractive wife and bitterly resents his parents' happiness. The shady businessman type also breaks down crying after his disappeared accomplice. The cocky, smug artist of the book publicly announces he's an artistic failure and breaks down crying in front of his father in the film. The lecherous old man who called his wife stupid becomes a grieving widower. 4:50 From Paddington does this to almost every character.Miss Marple herself is equipped with a romance backstory where she cast away a man she loved because he was married and she urged him to uphold his responsibilities. ![]() ![]() ![]() " The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side". ![]() ![]() Michael Swanwick, author of Stations of the Tide “Le Guin understands magic and dragons better than anyone, and her writing only gets better with each new book.” “Le Guin is not only one of the purest stylists writing in English, but the most transcendently truthful of writers.” ![]() narrative power, tautly controlled and responsive prose, an imagination that never loses touch with the reality of things as they are.” “All of Ursula Le Guin’s strengths are abundantly present. draws us into the magical land and its inhabitants’ doings immediately.” award-winning fantasy writer Robin McKinley, Le Guin’s dragons are some of the best in literature.” ![]() Publishers Weekly in a starred review for Tales from Earthsea Le Guin is still at the height of her powers, a superb stylist with a knack for creating characters who are both wise and deeply humane.” award-winning science fiction and fantasy writer Andre Norton It is at the top of any list of fantasy to be cherished.” “Readers will be beguiled by the flawless, poetic prose, the philosophy expressed in thoughtful, potent metaphor, and the consummately imagined world.” Earthsea-fuming with dragons and busy with magic-has replaced Tolkien’s Middle Earth as the chosen land for high, otherworldly adventure.” “Among the looms of fantasy fiction, Ursula K. written in prose as taut and clean as a ship’s sail. “Le Guin, one of modern science fiction’s most acclaimed writers, is also a fantasist of genius. PRAISE FOR THE EARTHSEA NOVELS BY URSULA K. ![]() ![]() The Iberian Moor Catalina de Cardones was one member of Katherine’s entourage, and served her for twenty-six years as Lady of the Bedchamber. Katherine of Aragon arrived at Plymouth in October 1501 with a multinational entourage that included Moors, Muslims and Jews. ![]() The Tudor period was significant for black settlement in England. ![]() Only recently have historians shown an interest in the lives of Africans in Tudor and Stuart England, although, quite rightly, this has now become a major subject of research in its own right. Yet there were Africans here at that time, and they were considered numerous enough in Tudor towns and cities to inspire the phrases “to manie” and “great numbers” in two letters signed by Elizabeth I in July 1596’. As Onyeka pointedly remarked: ‘When we think of Tudor England, we don’t immediately imagine black Africans being part of that society. However, it cannot be denied that our obsession with the Tudors is very white-centred. Historians have always revelled, and continue to do so, in studying this exciting and glamorous period, which saw monumental religious change, political development and cultural growth, and ordinary people worldwide cannot get enough of the Tudors, whether reading about them, watching historical films or visiting Tudor palaces. One often hears of the Tudor period being ‘done to death’. ![]() |