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For those of you who desire the short, sweet version, Nightlight is a parody of Twilight. The basic storyline is similar enough to mock Twilight, yet different enough to be its own work of fiction. Belle Goose moves from Pheonix to Switchblade, Oregon to live with her father Jim, a window wiper. Belle has an obsession with dating a vampire. At her new school, she meets Edwart Mullen, a super-hot (yet fictitious) computer nerd with such a lack of social skills, one could argue he has negative social skills. After noticing a few events, such as Edwart leaving his lunch untouched, Belle realizes Edwart is a vampire. Clearly, this girl is a master of the scientific method.

I would say more in my quick summary, but I don't want to spoil the book! It's a very short read. Therefore, the summary is also short. Ironically, my summary for the 400 something page Twilight is about the same length... Quality beats quantity, which is why I recommend Nightlight over Twilight. Nightlight is hilarious! The book is like a Mel Brooks' movie. It's totally cheesy, it's a bit stupid at times, but overall, it is amazing! Some parts will make you laugh out loud (which you can shorten to "lol" if you wish). Other parts will seem a bit over-the-top and stupid. However, the length of the book makes the stupid parts less annoying.

There's not a whole lot to review in regards to this book. It's a parody. Is it funny? Yes. Therefore, it is a success. I recommend reading it, for kicks and giggles.

Four humorous daggers out of five.






Yours vampirically,
Gabriel Gethin

Kate Malone is one of those over-achievers; every school has one. Not only is she a straight-A student with especially outstanding grades in math and science, she also happens to be a long distance-running track superstar. She is a minister's daughter. She is dating Mitchell "Mitch" Pangborn III, who is got accepted Early Decision into Harvard. She is the unwilling caretaker of her family, between the death of her mother and the religious duties of her father, Kate is left with most of the house chores. On top of all this, she is a master of avoiding emotions. However, her emotional avoidance skills get put to the test after a series of cataclysmic events turn her life upside-down.

The storyline is pretty good. No complaints about the seriousness of the aforementioned cataclysmic events, they are really quite life changing. The story is easy to relate to, especially for high school students. All high school seniors share a good degree of nervousness over college acceptance. Also, the characters are pretty unique, yet stereotypical. Sound contradicting? It is. Kate Malone, for example, is a classic example of the overachiever student everyone knows will go to some Ivy League school and invent some radical new piece of technology. However, she is not so simple. Sure, she is smart, but she only applies to one school, MIT. Anderson is a master of creating believable, yet unique characters with refreshing amounts of wit. She also develops her characters, and their relationships with one another, beautifully.

Another aspect of Anderson's writing I simply love is her mastery of changing points of view. Not from first person to third person, but changing the way people see the world around them. As the characters' view of one another and the surrounding world change, so also do the reader's. The reader follows the characters' journey as if he/she were a part of it.

The story is set in the same community as Speak, which is pretty exciting if you've read Speak. If you haven't read Speak, what are you waiting for? I gave it five out of five daggers! That's more than enough to convince you to read it. Anyways, there's a great moment in Catalyst where Kate Malone refers to Melinda from Speak, got to love it.

If you've read this far, congratulations. You have patience. Some call it a virtue. As a reward, you get to hear my negative criticism for Catalyst. First things first, it's not as good as Speak. Speak was more humorous, more emotional, and (from a certain angle) more believable. Catalyst wasn't far-fetched. However, the way the events snowball and cause this sort of domino effect makes the story seem less likely to ever happen to a real life person (however, I'm sure someone is going to get lucky). Also, I felt much sorrier for Melinda than for Kate.

Nevertheless, Catalyst was most certainly enjoyable.

4 potentially painful daggers, out of the potentially more painful 5.

On her way home from school, Sophie Amundsen finds two notes in her mailbox. On each note is written a simple, yet infinitely profound question. "Who are you?" and "Where does the world come from?" These questions are the humble beginnings of Sophie's very own basic course in Philosophy being taught by a mysterious nameless philosopher. As Sophie progresses through the History of Western Philosophy, strange things begin to happen. Sophie gets letters intended for Hilde, a girl with the same birthday as Sophie. To unravel the mystery behind the letters, and the other strange events which occur, Sophie must use philosophy. However, the inevitable truth is unfathomable until it is finally revealed.

Sophie's World is a thrill ride. There is no other way to fully describe Sophie's World in such simple terms. Right from the beginning, the reader begins to ask themselves the same questions being faced by Sophie. Who are you? and Where does the world come from? are just the beginning. Sophie's anonymous teacher takes her from the Pre-Socratic natural philosophers, through the famous Greek trio of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, up to Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Hegel, Kant, Marx, even Darwin and Freud. These are just to name a few. The wealth of knowledge in this book makes Bill Gates look poor.

The most remarkable thing about this book? It pulls you in. It fascinates you. It makes you hunger and thirst for more. You cannot put it down. Ever heard of food for thought? Well this is a feast, only not just a feast. It induces a kind of intellectual high too. It's like flying. The mind is opened up to such a multitude of things. You're left feeling weightless, capable of anything. You feel all this, right from the beginning. Right from chapter one until you close the book, the intensity rises, the fascination grows. About two-thirds into the book, the most dramatic twist I have ever seen in any piece of literature occurs. From then until the end, the puzzle pieces begin to fit together into a big picture. It is impossible to summarize the twist, or its effect on the already mounting tension. Simply put, it is mind-blowing, earth-shattering, and totally wicked!

I give Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder 5 out of 5 daggers.






It is quite possibly the best book I've ever read.

Yours in wonder and awe,
Gabriel Gethin


P.S. I apologize in advance for sounding like a screaming schoolgirl in the front row of a Jonas Brothers concert for the majority of my review. The fact of the matter is, this book is just fantastic. I loved it. Therefore, it is impossible to separate emotion from my own personal reading experience.

Spoiler Warning: If you have not read all 7 Harry Potter books, read at your own risk. (I may be an evil cousin, but no one should be robbed the experience of reading the Harry Potter series.) However, if you haven't read them by now, shame on you. Stop reading this review and go read the bloody series!

We've all heard such timeless (Disney) classics as Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, and Snow White. These are our beloved childhood bedtime stories, our fairy tales. Well, Wizards and Witches have classic fairy tales too! Five of which can be found in the Wizarding classic The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Just like Muggle fairy tales, each of the five stories deals with a different theme and teaches a lesson. However, as a Muggle, it may be difficult to truly grasp all of the lessons taught by Beedle the Bard. To help us better understand these magical tales, Albus Dumbledore has kindly given extensive commentary on each tale. (The commentary was published without Dumbledore's consent. It was found among his other belongings after his dead.)

Anyone who has read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is at least vaguely familiar with this book of tales. Hermione receives a copy, from Dumbledore if I am not mistaken. Well, Rowling decided to publish a copy of Beedle's tales for Muggle enjoyment. All the sales go to the Children's High Level Group, a charity that provides support to children in need. The children tend to be poor, disabled, or from ethnic minorities. If you want to support a lovely charity AND get a little light-hearted reading on the side, or vice versa, this is definitely the book for you.

If you are still not convinced that this book is worth the buy, here is my criticism of the book (which happens to be mostly good).

The tales themselves are nothing special. They're mostly just cute. The stories are imaginative, but they're nothing like the books. The books are very long, detailed, and everything mentioned seems to have some significance before the series ends (which is one of the reasons I love Rowling's writing so much). These tales are short. There's no time for that kind of no-loose-ends writing. However, Rowling makes up for it by adding Dumbledore's commentary. His words are thoughtful, witty, and all around awesome! Not only does he add insight into the theme and lesson of each story. He also rambles on about little side notes (from letters between himself and Lucius Malfoy to his criticism of Madam Bloxam's revised version of Beedle's "The Wizard and the Hopping Pot"), both of which were quite humorous to say the least. Dumbledore will keep you alternating between the thinker pose (hand stroking the chin) and simply laughing uncontrollably and a variation of a giggle fit.

All in all, I thoroughly enjoyed Beedle's tales. The book is a very quick read, which was rather disappointing to me, but it's still a great little book.

I give The Tales of Beedle the Bard a respectable 3.5 daggers out of 5.







Yours without magic,
Gabriel Gethin

Melinda is entering Merryweather High School with no friends, no voice, and seemingly no hope. During an end-of-the-summer party, she called the cops. Now, all her old friends won't talk to her and all the people she doesn't know hate her blindly. Since Melinda feels that her parents wouldn't understand, the safest place to be is inside her head. Melinda at first finds a sort of comfort isolated within herself, but it doesn't last. Lurking in the depths of her own mind is a demon. A memory, of the party, which she dare not remember. A thought which she dare not say. Slowly, it eats away at her, threatening to swallow her from within. Slowly suffocating, Melinda is faced with a choice. To speak, or to surrender to the spectre that haunts her thoughts.

What makes Speak such an original work of art is its dynamic mood. At the beginning of the novel, Melinda has clearly been through something major. She also has no friends. This combination has given Melinda a depressed, cynical, and sarcastic view on high school and life in general. What makes this a good thing is the fact that Melinda presents high school in a refreshingly candid, satirical way. My personal favorite example of this is her "The First Ten Lies They Tell You In High School" list. I choose not to give them all away but among them is, "No smoking is allowed on school grounds" and my personal favorite, "These will be the years you look back fondly." This book will make you laugh, unless of course you have no sense of humor at all, which would be a shame since the comedy in this book makes really good points on high school sociology.

Dynamic means characterized by constant change, activity, or progress. So clearly, the book is not just a long satirical attack on high school. There are others moods involved. The opposite mood stems from Melinda's own subconscious. There is conflict within her. She is trying, vainly, to suppress a thought, a memory, in her mind. Doing so arguably drives her insane. She experiences agonizingly acute anxiety, dangerously deep depression, and stifling self-silence. As the book progresses, the emotions Melinda feels become more potent. In the end, the book becomes very very intense so be warned. This book is not a fairy tale filled with rainbows after storms and kisses after poison-apple-based "death."

Bottom line (figuratively, not literally): Speak is powerful. Speak is intense. Speak is witty. Speak is dynamic. Speak is a good book. It is well-rounded and it relates well to teenagers. I advise reading it at least once just for the experience of it. Even if you're not a depressed person, it's good to see the world through Melinda's eyes because there are a lot of people who see the world a similar way.

I give Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson a (relatively) unheard of 5 out of 5 stars.







Acerbically yours,
Gabriel Gethin

Young Mazzy is living with her mother while her dad is on a week long business trip. Everything is fine... except that Dad left about a month ago and Mom never gets out of bed. Mazzy thinks she can handle it. She takes care of her mom and people bring them food too, but when the government gets involved, Mazzy is forced to talk to her dad. Mazzy knows everything is fine, but when the government disagrees, everything is not fine.