Off The Shelf

Having bought my ticket at the beginning of October, I was anxiously anticipating the release of Catching Fire until last Friday. A group of friends and I went to the local theater this year, instead of AMC - not only was it cheaper, but completely stress free (meaning no long lines, no sprinting to get good seats). All members from the cast of The Hunger Games returned for Catching Fire, but some great additions were also made: Sam Claflin (as Finnick Odair), Phillip Seymour Hoffman (as Plutarch Heavensbee), Jena Malone (as Johanna Mason). Francis Lawrence, the new director of the film, I felt did a great job in keeping things consistent with the first film. For example, the Capitol looks relatively the same as it did in The Hunger Games , along with the village and woods in District 12. Note: at this point in the post, I would like to discuss some of the differences between the movie and the book, so please, stop reading now if you have not read  Catching F...

{Standing in front of the Library of Columbia University}   On Monday, I attended Columbia University's Scholastic Fall Press Conference with other staff members of our school's yearbook, newspaper, and literary arts magazine. Although the day started off by sitting in two hours of traffic, the rest of the day was extremely worthwhile.   Attendees were able to tour the campus (which is absolutely beautiful, I might add) and go to several workshops instructed by notable professors and speakers.   Workshops I attended: Nuts and Bolts for Magazines - learn about all of the essential tools needed to create a cohesive and readable literary magazine Writing Song Lyrics/Poetry (Inspiration and Craft) - discover how to search for inspiration for your writing in everyday life "Journalism Students are Destined to be Poor" and Other Stupid Lies, Debunked - learn about what jobs are available for writers and commun...

Divergent Veronica Roth 487 pages “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another.”    In a futuristic, dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each valuing a different human characteristic: Dauntless (the brave), Candor (the honest), Erudite (the intelligent), Amity (the peaceful), and Abnegation (the selfless). Upon turning sixteen years old, each teenager must choose the faction to which they belong. For Beatrice Prior, this will mean choosing between her family and the chance to discover who she really is. Tris Prior (as she later renames herself) is a dynamic female character who possess all of the stereotypical characteristics of a weak individual - blonde, petite and pale-skinned - but as readers will come to learn, she is quite the opposite. Her strength not only increases from the physical initiation she must under go in the faction she chooses, but also from the emotional encounters that...

I think I should start out by saying, Hello. I can't believe it has been so long since I have posted anything here! When I last posted, I announced the new look I gave Off The Shelf, and I was feeling very mopey about the summer coming to a close. Now, almost two months later, I am feeling mopey about being a high school student, and I feel the need to announce what I have been up too. 1. Just because I haven't posted any new book reviews, doesn't mean I have not been reading. I've actually been reading quite a lot! While trying to understand the epic poetry in The Odyssey and the Old English text of Beowulf, I've been obsessed with Veronica Roth's Divergent series. (review to be coming shortly...I promise!) Now there is only  one more week until Allegiant! If you don't mind, I think I will skip reviewing The Odyssey and Beowulf , as I don't think I have it in me to dwell on those stories anymore than I have too... 2. I got a new camera! I ...

As you can see from opening the page, Off The Shelf has gotten a bit of a re-design! I have been trying to make some changes to the site for some time now, but the Blogger Template was being quite temperamental. I was unable to make small changes (font color, text size, etc.) in the template I had previously been using. In that case, I decided it might be time to try something totally different. Upon scrolling down, you will notice all of the regular features of this blog can still be found where they had been. The sidebar on the right is still filled with lists of my favorite authors, book suggestions and links to other great book blogs. I'm not sure I am totally in love with it yet, so the look might be a little different the next time you visit. (For those of you that view my blog via email, make sure to visit the actual webpage to see the changes!) What do you think? Let me know in the comments... In order to make my book reviews more helpful and direct, I have decided...

 {The sun sets at the closure of another month} Things in the literary world have been very, very busy lately - with everything from new publications to leaked pseudonyms and discoveries made about chocolate. The following are a collection of the most popular headlines buzzing around the Internet at the moment.   To start, have you been reading what you should this summer? With only a month left to go, you might want to check out The Huffington Post, as they have revealed the  7 Must-Reads of Summer .   There are only 10 more days until the highly-anticipated fourth and final installment of Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It series is released on August 13th! Have you pre-ordered The Shade of the Moon yet? You can do so  here , here  and here!   The biggest hype in the book world currently is most certainly the surprise that  J.K Rowling can write a crime novel...who knew? In April, Rowling wrote The Cuckoo's Calling u...

Life: An Exploded Diagram Mal Peet 385 pages At this point I need to take you on a short detour. I'm very much a cause-and-effect sort of a fellow. I'm fascinated by the way things fit together (and come to pieces). And if we were to take what eventually happened to Frankie and me and drew something like a flowchart of how it came about, one of its arrows would lead us into the darkness of a Caribbean night. Clem Ackroyd, the son of a war veteran and a careful bookkeeper, is a working-class boy hoping to one day scrape together the funds to go to art school. Frankie Mortimer is the daughter of a wealthy land owner, living in an inherited estate. Soon, in Norfolk, England, the two will embark on a relationship that must be kept a secret, and if found out, their world could be blown apart. Little do they know, that John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khruschev are about to do just that, as the event later known in history books as the Cuban Missile Crisis begins to unfold. Life: A...