Currently

This week I read The Search by Nora Roberts, for a weekly total of 488 pages. That makes my semester total 2027 pages.

1. "She doesn't like me to put her down outside. Especially when... other d-o-g-s are around."
This quote just makes me laugh to think of how much people love to coddle their dogs. This lady in particular has brought her dog to training school because she is so aggressive, yet the owner is completely oblivious to why she would act in such a way. DUH! She's a dog, not a child. She is perfectly capable of standing on her own four legs.

2. "He strode to the window, slapped the palm of his hand against the sparkling glass. 'Leave it,' he ordered, pointing to the smudged print he left behind." Simon, the boyfriend, gets so angry that his live-in girlfriend Fiona is cleaning his house. In order to make a point that he cannot be trained, he makes this print on the window and makes sure that she does not clean it off.

3. "I have the name and number of the vet who's covering for Mai, I have your number -- hotel, cell, Mai's cell, Sylvia's cell. So does James. We have everything. In triplicate. Between us, I think we can handle anything short of a nuclear holocaust or alien invasion."
This is the part of Simon's personality that I love the most. He makes everything into sarcasm, and that is exactly what uptight Fiona needs. She doesn't even have any kids, just three dogs who run her life, and she has done months of planning for one 3 day spa vacation with her friends.

TMI

Staying up until midnight, I finally finished The Search by Nora Roberts. As the serial killer drew closer, I was expecting some big shindig of a showdown between the victim and her killer. I didn't get what I expected and that greatly disappointed me. Usually in a scary movie, the best part is the confrontation at the end where the victim is in disarray and the predator is pausing to chat before he finishes her off. However, almost all movies end with the victim alive, which makes it pretty predictable.
I've decided not to do this book for my book talk solely because there is so much sexual content, my rating has changed to R. If I was the author, I wouldn't have chosen to add all of that unneeded information, but apparently Nora Roberts thinks it adds to the story line. It just makes me feel uncomfortable to read so I normally try to just skip over it.
I will probably give Nora Roberts another try in the future because I really liked the story line and the topics that it talked about. I just hope I can find one that isn't R status.

Searching

I was hunting through the library for another Francine Rivers book, and I turned around and saw shelf after shelf of Nora Roberts books. I had heard of her books before, but never tried one. Interested, I picked a few up and looked at them and decided why not branch out and try some random new author? She's won numerous awards, so hopefully she doesn't disappoint. I decided on the book, "The Search" because it's cover looked the most intriguing and foreboding of mystery because it has a dog barely visible through the fog. Everyone knows that you actually do judge a book by its cover. Whoever came up with the saying "don't judge a book by its cover" was obviously not an inventive person and his cover sucked, so he wanted people to read his book anyway. Sorry sucker, I wouldn't read it.

I've gotten into a good chunk of it, and i've decided that the title "The Search" really umbrellas 3 different searches that are intermixed into one completely awesome novel. First, there is a woman who trains dogs to find missing people in the woods, and really any weather or nature related element. You grow to love the dogs and their successful missions. Another search involves a convicted serial killer who has passed on his secrets of the trade to another prospect, who has been released, and is following in his master's footsteps for one reason and one reason only. To correct his most deeply upsetting mistake. And this mistake? Letting his thirteenth victim escape. So obviously, the search is out to find this woman and finish off what his master couldn't. A third search is the search for love. Now, I would have to give this book a PG-13 rating. There are quite a few moments of sexual content, that really the reader could go on without reading, but apparently Roberts feels the need to include them. However, despite the random spurts of romance, the reader grows to love and feel compassion for the two lonely souls and their unexpected need for each other.

I'm thinking about doing this book for my book talk. I had thought about doing a book called "Au Pairs" by Melissa De LaCruz, but I don't think the Jersey Shore meets New York genre would make that good of an impression on our class.

More later as I get farther into the book

Currently

This week I finished Redeeming Love by Francine Rivers. I recommend this book to anyone who loves to watch a change inside a person's heart. My weekly total was 375 and my semester total is 1539 pages.

1) "My job description was twofold: 1) Save lives and 2) Take lives. Not necessarily in that order."

This sentence from Joker One just makes me think of things I can’t comprehend myself doing. Killing other people as job.

2) "Wasn't that the point of the book? For women to realize, we are just two people. Not that much separates us. Not nearly as much as i'd thought."

I love this line from the Help. Finally, she makes the statement that skin color does not change what goes on inside a person.

3) "We called him 'The Ghost'."

I really like the simplicity of this sentence and the fact that I can identify with how she feels when her father isn’t home very often.

Honorable Mentions

In Pride of Cincinnati's Summer of Love, the guard's vibrant, chaotic sound, complimentary choreography, and explosive, passionate expression create a scene of colorful eccentricity. -The World is Ours

In the album art for United Paper People‘s Kisschasy, the foreboding colors, overwhelming space, and perilous actions reflect a sense of destructive loneliness and irrational wonder. -Intrusion of the Soul

The painting's gritty texture, balanced use of space, selective use of colour, and dark tone leave the viewer a sense of depressing realization leading to a climactic finish. -JimmehFTW-

My favorite was the one done by Bookworm Days. I loved the right side of the claim the most and I think her gymnastics cool to observe. " During her routine, Shawn Johnson displays powerful tumbling, gracefully swift dance, intense expression, and representative attire; which sets forth a confidently energetic, yet cheerful routine. "

Love Will Keep Us Together?

As i've gotten further and further into Francine Rivers's novel Redeeming Love, I have gotten further sucked into the story line. I feel the character's presence and actions as if I was watching it all unfold in front of me, a quality of a well-written novel. The main character, Sarah, or Angel, or Mara, or anything else that she is called by her "customers" thinks she has absolutely no purpose in the world but to give men what they want. She was introduced to prostitution early on, like when she was 8 years old, and she heard her father tell her mother that he left because he didn't want her. He doesn't understand why her mother couldn't have just gotten rid of her. And even when she is 8, her father's mind hasn't changed about her. From there, she is sold into a brothel by a "family" member and when she tries to get out, she is just forced back. No one, except people in her hometown, know what her true name is. While the whole circumstance of this book is depressing, the part that really gets to the reader, well to me at least, is the fact that she doesn't think she deserves more. She thinks that love is a joke, and her father, and all the men that have said they love her during their brief 30 minutes with her, have allowed her to make this assumption.

While I think that prostitution is wrong and demeaning to a woman's self confidence and self worth, this girl, Sarah, has never known any different. She never got a choice to choose a better life for herself. She truly believes that she was made to sell her body. And she's not living the luxurious life by any means! This lady, the Dutchess, is in charge of her and takes 100% of the money while Sarah is locked up in a tall tower. If she tries to fight back, the hunchman, Magowen, beats her near to death.

However, one man sees Sarah in a completely different light. He thinks she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen and he wants nothing more than to marry her and make her fall in love with him, for real. Sex isn't his motive, which he makes clear to her almost every single day. Lead by God in all of his ways and thoughts, this man is dedicated to helping her love and respect herself.

I know how I hope this book will end, with her changing her idea about herself, and loving this man back, and them having children together who she loves more than anything in the world. But in this book, Sarah is just so damaged and concrete in her beliefs that this truly seems impossible. Her only hope, and I strongly believe this as well, is that God will transform her heart and make her into a person she will be happy to be!

If I were this man, that feels God leading him to do this, I don't know if I would have the courage. To chase and dedicate my life for a woman who is respected by no one? Who is so broken and only knows how to please someone one way? Who tries so hard to make him like her, but can never truly be happy herself? I'm frustrated for him just reading about all of it! Why God would have anyone suffer through all of this I have no idea, I truly don't. I guess it is just a result of the free will he gave people, and unfortunately, her mother and people she has been handed off to over the years have greatly abused the privilege! Heck i'm only halfway done and so eager to finish, if only I didn't have to read the Grapes of Wrath for novels :( Its awful people, don't read it if you don't have to.

Individual Response to A SAND CASTLE!

I chose to evaluate the
Shape : arched, curved, hollow, church-like, sloped

Color : vibrant, enhancing, scattered

Design: stacked, open, majestic, consistent

My overall claim:

The hollow, church-like presentation of the sandcastle highlights the convincing superiority over typical sand creations.