Book Review Senior Exam

            The book I read for my book 3 is Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins. This is the second book in the Hex Hall trilogy. It’s a demon heroine fantasy series. It has a lot of battles, romance, and even betrayal. Demonglass is a mix of different genres in that it is speculative fiction and the sub-genre for that is fantasy, but it also has realistic elements such as the setting which takes place in London, England and other parts of the United Kingdom. It has many elements of other genres besides fantasy that it is like a fruit salad.
The Eye is an organization that wants to wipe out all of Prodigium because they believe that Prodigium are unholy and abominations of the angels that defied God. The attack destroyed council headquarters and now the council is at Thorne Abbey which is where Sophie’s great-grandmother, Alice was turned into a demon. Thorne Abbey is the birth place of Sophie’s powers.

            The language that is used in the book is so very colloquial that even a sixth-grader could understand the book even with its mature contents and some old English language used by Sophie’s father, James Atherton. He talks as if he were still living Victorian England when he says “curiouser and curiouser” (Hawkins 209). His use of Victorian English is to help the book have a connection to its setting, London since he grew up in England and of course has the British accent and upbringing and not to mention he is a few hundred years old. This is when Sophie and James are looking at the Grimoire in James’ office. They are trying to learn about the possession ritual that someone has been using to turn teenage Prodigium into Demons. They learn that the possession ritual is actually missing from the Grimoire. No one else knows they have the Grimoire because James put a glamour on the book case that held the dark and evil book.

            The book Demonglass has a very strong and engaging plot that keeps you on edge and makes your keep wondering what will happen next! The plot is basically summarized in this one quote that Sophie says, “…by the end of the last semester, I’d watched my great-grandmother kill my best frenemy, and the boy I loved had pulled a knife on me” (Hawkins 2). This basically summarizes the first book in the Hex Hall trilogy, Hex Hall. The second book which is also what I read for my book three, Demonglass is also pretty much the same plot, but with a new twist of who really is evil and who isn’t. Can Sophie and her friends find the demon raising culprit in time or will they be too late and a demon army will rise? That is the question for the second book in the Hex Hall Series, Demon Glass. Sophie meets many new people such as the Prodigium Council. She learns of how the Council is now at Thorne Abbey due to an attack on them from L'Ochio de dio or The Eye for short.

            The novel, Demonglass, has much more strengths than weaknesses. Some strengths the novel has are it’s very engaging plot that keeps the reader on edge with its plot twists and mythical nature, the colloquial language used in the book, and relatable situations that Sophie is put through as deciding about what to do about friends and family which are all problems that teenagers face today. Demonglass has one weakness, it can get slow at times and very fast at times, and it does not have a constant pace.

            Demonglass is such a well written novel that it deserves 5 stars! It is one of the best books that I have ever read and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes demons, witches, and warlocks. It could one day become a classical like Shakespeare in the near future. Well Done Rachel, well done!

Book 1 Project: Insurgent Virtual Reality Game

What we are offering here is an opportunity for you to go into the world of Insurgent by interacting and playing as Tris, Tobias, Jeanine, Christina, Peter, Caleb, Johanna, Tori, max, Eric, and Evelyn. You will first register for a username and make your profile and biography so that other players can add you as friends and keep in contact with you. You will wear a virtual reality helmet and wear special virtual reality gloves that will help you see through the eyes of the character you choose. You will be able to freely choose what you want to do as your character! You will have the choice to change the outcome of the second book, Insurgent, just by one choice you make which will decide who lives or dies such as changing Tris’ feelings of guilt of killing Will by never choosing to kill Will, but help him break free from the simulation from the first book, Divergent because of how guilty Tris feels for killing Will when Tobias says, “Grief is not as heavy as guilt, but it takes more away from you.” (Roth)  This shows how much guilt has an effect on Tris and her life currently. That one choice that Tris made about killing Will and getting to the Dauntless headquarters in Divergent, changed Tris’ path forever! She lost her close friend Christina, since Will and Christina were dating and in order to survive, Tris had to kill Will in order to get to Dauntless headquarters to shut down the simulation that Jeanine had everyone under through the simulation serum. 

You will discover the truth behind Erudite’s war on the other factions through Jeanine and her perspective. You will be able to learn why Jeanine did what she did as you play as Jeanine and learn about the whole reason why she went as far as controlling the factions just to hide the truth even though you will learn through Tris that “The truth has a way of changing people's plans.” (Roth) Jeanine wasn't always a control freak who wanted to do anything just to control the divergent or the other factions, she was a true Erudite who pursued knowledge and the advancement of her faction, but one truth changed her and made her wage war on the other factions with the help of a select traitorous Dauntless.

You will learn about when Caleb started helping Jeanine as you play Jeanine and/or play Caleb. Caleb who chose Erudite has always been an Erudite at heart even when he was still in Abnegation, you could find all the books stacked in his room, between desks, chairs, under the bed, and everywhere else you can think of to hide books, he seemed like the perfect Abnegation child, but he only hid his true nature and confined it to his room. You will get clues as to what made him betray Tris and his whole family when he says, “We should think of our family. But…But we must also think of ourselves.” (Roth) This quote from Insurgent gives clues to Caleb’s selfishness. He was the key to a lock being Tris. He knew Tris’ secrets and told Jeanine and is responsible for his parents’ death.

This virtual reality game will help you get in touch with your favorite character’s thoughts and personality in a perspective from the character and give you the opportunity to change the story as if you were the character yourself and had to make quick decisions that would change everything! As you play, more and more people ranging from young kids from age 12 to 18 will start playing and as more and more people play, the more real the book will become and will ultimately lead to a better understanding of the book because you lived through it! As more people start playing, they will want to know what happened in the actual book, so they can experiment around with changing the storyline and this way book sales will go up and the game become more challenging as you fight each other as you are on different factions. Every month Veronica Roth will play as herself in the game and you can meet her in the daring and fearless compound of the Dauntless where you can ask her questions and invite her on quests or even ask for her guidance on what you could do next that she might do if she were your character!

What is a book?

A book is a gateway to another world. A world that is created by an author to share his or her ideas and thoughts with the rest of the world. The gateway from the book takes the reader to a brand new dimension where he or she goes on an adventure of discovery. The reader discovers the murderer in a mystery novel, fights alongside with the protagonist in a fantasy novel, and see how the budding romance of two teenagers turns out through all their trials and obstacles and finally realizes how if only life were like that, but alas it’s not and that is a why we need books to help us live stories and moments like a romance story.

I agree that it doesn’t matter what medium a story is in because all we, the readers, care about is the story and how the protagonist will overcome his or her obstacles. I don’t believe that just because a book has a certain smell or feel to it that it’s any different that an E-book because at the end of the day, all that matters is the story itself, not its medium. I do agree that authors need books because books give them more profit because of how expensive they are, but that is the sole reason why people are now leaning towards E-books because for one: it’s easier to take around with you, where ever you go and second: you can just get a book with a click of a button and not have to go drive to the book store to get it which is a hassle and it costs a lot of money now a days for gas, so getting E-books is better, faster, and more easy than going to a book store to buy a book that you might read once or twice and never touch again.

Why I Read

I read because it lets me explore new worlds and places that I can't go to or discover without reading. Reading is a way to get away from reality because reality isn't always joyful or fun to be in, so you want to escape and books are a great escape for the mind because reading takes you to world and lives of your favorite characters! It’s an epidemic! A good kind of epidemic because reading is good for us and helps us be better speakers by increasing our vocabulary. Reading is the best way to spend leisure time during a black out because with no electricity, there are no electronics and to avoid being bored, I pick up a book and start reading to leave my troubles behind and go on an adventure!

When I was in Elementary School, I would go the library every day during the summer and check out 20-30 books at once! I love reading so much that I read over 500 books during the summer before 6^th grade! Reading has been a way for me to learn about new places and the sole reason I knew how to get around Chicago when my family and I first went for spring break! Because of my prior knowledge of Chicago from reading a realistic fiction book, I was able to guide my family to the right places and we didn’t really need direction because I knew where I was going in Chicago.