Style Saturday (February 25): Silence and Reading

Style Saturday is a meme hosted by me where each week I present a prompt about reading style and explain my answer. Feel free to join in with your answer in the comments or leave a link to your Style Saturday on your blog.

Do you have a suggestion for Style Saturday? Let me know! (Seriously folks, my list of ideas is shrinking otherwise Style Saturday may be done for a while.)

This week: Silence and Reading

Are you the type of person who needs silence when you read?

Or can you read while there’s lot of noise around you?

How To Make (Easy) Butterbeer

With yesterday’s news of J.K. Rowling’s new book, it’s hard for a Harry Potter fan not to celebrate. Even though the book isn’t Harry Potter related, let’s break out the butterbeer to celebrate anyway.

Book Review: “Extras”

Cover via Amazon

“Extras (Uglies #4)” by Scott Westerfeld

Genre: Young Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, Dystopia

Source: Bought

Other books: Uglies, Pretties, Specials, Extras (You’re here!)

Summary from Goodreads:

Fame

It’s a few years after rebel Tally Youngblood took down the uglies/pretties/specials regime. Without those strict roles and rules, the world is in a complete cultural renaissance. “Tech-heads” flaunt their latest gadgets, “kickers” spread gossip and trends, and “surge monkeys” are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. And it’s all monitored on a bazillion different cameras. The world is like a gigantic game of “American Idol.” Whoever is getting the most buzz gets the most votes. Popularity rules.

As if being fifteen doesn’t suck enough, Aya Fuse’s rank of 451,369 is so low, she’s a total nobody. An extra. But Aya doesn’t care; she just wants to lie low with her drone, Moggle. And maybe kick a good story for herself.

Then Aya meets a clique of girls who pull crazy tricks, yet are deeply secretive of it. Aya wants desperately to kick their story, to show everyone how intensely cool the Sly Girls are. But doing so would propel her out of extra-land and into the world of fame, celebrity…and extreme danger. A world she’s not prepared for.

Don’t Read While You’re Alone…

I go back and forth with scary stories. I hate the ones that are in your face about being scary. That gets boring. I love the slow build of a really good story. You know the ones that make you uncomfortable to be alone. You continually check to make sure the curtains are drawn and the doors are locked. The type of story that could really happen and that makes the terror so much worse. Those are the good ones.

I stumbled across these interconnected stories the other day and needed to share them with you guys. If you have the time, definitely check them out. They’re worth your time. (They’re in the order you should read them in)

Footsteps
Balloons
Boxes
Maps
Screens
Friends

Seriously, don’t read while you’re home alone and especially don’t read these at night. I still get shivers thinking about the stories.

Discussion: Happy Endings

And they lived happily ever after.

That idea engrained into our minds from a very early age. Many (if not all) of the stories we are read as children all end happily. [But then again do you really want to upset a small child by ending a story badly?] Generally this trend of happy endings follows readers as they grow. Of course, the definition of happy ending depends on the genre and type of book. The basic idea is the same: everything turns out okay in the end (the boy gets the girl or vice versa, the kid saves his/her parents, the team saves the world from destruction, etc). I’ve got questions for you to think about: are happy endings a good thing? Should we continue to have them in books?