111. "Pretty in Pink" by Rachel Maude by Meg Cabot 223 pages
I am actually really liking the Princess Diaries series. It seems pretty true to a 15 year old's point of view. Not much happens in each book, but they are fun to read. Thanks for the suggestion, A!112. "Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey 227 pages
This is the first Dave Ramsey book I have read. I felt like I already knew everything that he was talking about because my parents taught me all of the exact same things growing up. I don't really like his view on credit cards. I know they are a dangerous temptation for many people, but I don't think they are completely bad like he does. I have always paid off my credit cards (all two of them) in full each month and I don't buy things just because I have them (ask T - I go back and forth on buying something that is $2 because I think we might not actually need it). Overall, I think it was a pretty good book, especially if you don't know where to start with money. T and I both read it and I like knowing that we are on the same page about money.113. "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey 281 pages
This was... interesting. As you probably know, it takes place in a mental institution in the 1960's. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was real, which I think was kinda the point. There were some underdog type story lines that I really enjoyed. There were some things that just seemed so savage that I wondered if it was really like that in a mental institution in the 60's. I liked it, and I liked the ending, but I don't think I will read it again because the subject matter is just so depressing / disturbing. 114. "Princess in the Spotlight" by Meg Cabot 223 pages
115. "Schooled" by Gordon Korman 208 pages
Meh. It's about a kid raised on a combine who has to go live in the suburbs and how he adjusts to today's world. There were some funny parts.116. "Just One Wish" by Janette Rallison 264 pages
Totally unrealistic story about a teenage girl who tries to fulfill her sick brother's wish of meeting a famous TV star. But it was still a fun read.117. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot 328 pages
I liked this one. It's a non-fiction. Henrietta Lacks was a black woman who died of cervical cancer in the 1950's. Her canerous cells were taken without her knowledge or consent. These cells (named HeLa cells) were amazing - some of the first cells to grow extremely well in a lab. The rest is taken from amazon.com's summary "HeLa cells were building block for countless breakthroughs, beginning with the cure for polio. Meanwhile, Henrietta's family continued to live in poverty and frequently poor health, and their discovery decades later of her unknowing contribution--and her cells' strange survival--left them full of pride, anger, and suspicion. For a decade, Skloot doggedly but compassionately gathered the threads of these stories, slowly gaining the trust of the family while helping them learn the truth about Henrietta, and with their aid she tells a rich and haunting story that asks the questions, Who owns our bodies? And who carries our memories?"It was shocking to hear about the conditions the Lackses and other poor black families lived in (then and now). It's also incredible how far science has come in 50 years. This book is a lot of science and a lot of ethics and a lot of troubled past and for me that made it a pretty entertaining book, but I could see how some people wouldn't like it. I think Skloot did a good job of not trying to make Henrietta's family look like saints, but accurately portraying them as they were. Some really wanted to know what happened to their mother (Henrietta) and some just wanted to get any money they could out of it. I didn't care for the ending, but it is pretty obvious that real life doesn't wrap up as neatly as fiction.
118. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel 319 pages
Ugh. I hated this book. I would have stopped reading 20 pages in, but it was for book club so I read the whole thing. It is supposed to be this deep meaningful book about religion and life and existentialism, but mostly I found it to be boring and full of crap. It's the type of trendy book that everyone is like, "Oh, I read it and loved it, there's so much symbolism." but really no one gets it or likes it. It's about a boy who gets shipwrecked on a tiny boat with a tiger and the way he survives. Mostly I found myself wishing the tiger would just hurry up and eat the boy because the boy was so unlikeable. Not much happens for entire book. Sometimes a book with no action can still be good. This is not the case for "Life of Pi." Don't waste your time.
I can't remember if I read "One Flew..." or if I saw the movie! I liked it. I felt bad that I never read "Life of Pi," but since your review I am over that.
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