More memeage.(Caroline, because she knows that Heather thinks it's cute to cover up her posts with posts that have the SAME TITLE to confuse her.)

We have been Memed. Again. This time by Aislinn Ai of that trio of malicious relatives. Different Meme this time. Either way, though, we're never going to escape this vicious cycle of memes. We should change our name. We are no longer Plenty of Paper. We are now known as "Plenty of Cyber Surveys".
Here are the rules for the Mutating Meme.
-Copy and paste the questions, then fill in your answers. Post this on your blog, livejournal, etc. There’s a catch, though. You have to change/add a question from the meme you were tagged with.
- Post the rules.
-Link to the person who tagged you.
-Tag 3 people, by commenting on their blog.
-Link back to the original (http://maelstrommedeia.blogspot.com/2008/03/mutating-meme.html) to see how much it has mutated.
And so, for the questions:

1) If you could change your name, what would you change it to?
I would change my last name to Swan, so that I could have adventures.
2) What is your least favorite food?
Hard tacos... *flinches in disgust*
3) Are there any songs that get stuck in your head really easily? How do you get them out?
Yes. There are. Love Song. The one that says, "I'm not going to write you a love song." Several times. Which is dumb, because the song is a love song. So obviously you have written this person a love song, so HE WINS. And Caroline loses, because she hates that song and is forced to sing it at a really loud volume to make it go away, which doesn't work. For songs I actually like, I usually write the lyrics down.
4.) If you could be (or are) a mythical creature, what would it be (or what are you)?
You caught me. I'm actually a shadowhunter. That's why I've been to New York twice in the span of three months. I was kicking ass in Cassandra Clare's fictional universe. I am the fourth to the love square in City of Ashes; Jace has fallen madly in love with me. It's really difficult, trying to fight off his persistant advances, especially with those golden and luminous eyes of his.
5.) What do colors taste like?
Skittles, obviously... Taste the rainbow, anyone?
6.) Name three (or more if you like) fawesome words.
Wonderaculous, a word that I coined myself and that Heather has no legal rights to. I'm thinking of getting a patent. Blurbing. Abyss. I also think that fawesome is a pretty fawesome word. Any word made up by Scott Westerfeld rocks, in my book.
7) What kind of toothpaste do you use?
Crest Whitening Expressions Vanilla Mint.

I tag http://thepageflipper.blogspot.com, theravenousreaderreviews.blogspot.com, and The Story Siren.

<3 Caroline

We have been MEMED!! (except this time it's Heather)

Well, Caroline has basically covered this part in the post below, but I have some additional memers to add to the list. We've been memed by Ambeen/the Ravenous Reader, the lovely Maelstroms (yes, you're still lovely), the Story Siren, and just like any others who read her meme Chelsea/the Page Flipper. Thanks for meming us guys! Now, down to business. The rules:


The Rules For The Meme:
1. You link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.



Random, Unsystematic of Heather:


1. Two days ago, me, Caroline, and one of our friends bowled with a completely random stranger. Some guy named Joe who was one of the most amazing bowlers I've ever met. Now, when I say we bowled with a stranger, I mean that we were out of money for games and Courtney walked up to a guy setting up his game to bowl by himself and asked him if she and her friends could join his game. And for some odd reason, he agreed. And we bowled. He got 180, none of us breached 70. Wow.
2. Me and one of my friends, Lorena, have this thing about Daniel Radcliffe. We both think he's ugly and appears gay on occasion, but we always talk about him. We tell stories, watch videos, and read interviews surrounded around Dan (that's how he likes to be referred to...weird isnt it? I would much rather Daniel.)
3. I absolutely hate mayonnaise, but there's one instance in which I will eat it. And that is: a bananamayo sandwich. I know that sounds disgusting, but for some odd reason, it's delicious. Everyone in my family eats them.
4. I'm really bad about checking my mail. Mail of any sort, actually. I'm waiting on a book to get here and I've already checked the mail three times today and it's only 3:00. I also compulsively check my email, facebook messages, myspace messages, and Ning (DFTBA) messages. I have to have contact with the rest of the world or I completely fall apart.
5. When I buy the books in a series, they have to look the same. Meaning that if the first one I buy is paperback the rest have to be paperback. The same with hardcover. I actually have the entire Series of Unfortunate Events book collection, but 5 of them are paperback and the rest hardcover (the paperbacks were donated and I couldn't just say no). Whenever I get enough money, I'm going to replace the paperbacks with my own hardcover books. I'm also waiting for Perfect by Sara Shepard to come out in paperback just because the first two are paperback. And it's making me mad this waiting.
6. This may seem kind of redundant, but it's another fact about book serieses (what is the plural of series????). When I put a series on my book shelf, I don't put them left to right (i. e. Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone being on the far left and Deathly Hallows on the far right). I put them right to left. I figure that, if you turn a book around so the spine is facing out, the order of the pages goes right to left. Therefore the books should go right to left to continue the flow. Also, if you took the books off the shelf and stacked them one on top of the other you'd want the first book on the top. And, in order for the first book to be on top and to be able to read the titles and have the books right-side-up, they would have to be stacked the same way they are ordered when put on the shelf right to left. Maybe I'm confusing you right now, maybe not. To make things simpler, my 6th fact is that I place a book series on my bookshelf in an order of right to left.

Okay, so that's it really. Oh yeah! I tag...hmmm....who do I tag?? How about...I don't know. Every one has been tagged already. But I think I tag the 3 Evil Cousins!

Read Caroline's Six below!

♥Heather, your neighborhood Book Reviewer! (like Spiderman! Yay!)

We have been MEMED!!!

I've done something like this before, but there were eight random things instead of six. Anyway. We were memed by Ambeen/The Ravenous Reader. We were later memed by the lovely Maelstroms, who lied to us and said that we were being memed as never memed before, when in fact, this was the same meme that we had recieved the previous day. Here are the MEME rules:


The Rules For The Meme:
1. You link back to the person who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.
5. Let the tagged people know by leaving a comment on their blogs.



Okay, so:


The Random Six of Caroline-
1. I get the most ridiculously insane, loud, hilarious hiccups. They've been compared to many animal sounds. Most common simile associated with me is: Caroline's hiccups are like a dying parrot/frog/small Paris Hilton dog.
2. I can't write in pencil. It drives me absolutely insane. I have not written a word in pencil since mid-January, and the words written in pencil leading up to then were only written in pencil because my Algebra teacher refused to grade things that were written in pen and since I have already told you that I am no math genius, my grade could not take the hit. Anyway, I only write in pen now. Or marker. Or Sharpie. Because, yes, I would rather have my pages run through, wasting large amounts of paper, than simply write it down in pencil.
3. Throughout elementary school, I was only ever reprimanded for reading. I used to get in trouble for reading a lot. I still do, actually, except for now I also get reprimanded for my hiccups and occasionally for being too chatty or a smart-ass.
4. I'm not really a picky eater, but the foods that I hate most passionately seem to be the ones that everyone else loves. Two examples: bacon and tacos.
5. I am a NERDFIGHTER! I will not FTBA!!
6. I couldn't think of a six, so I asked Courtney, because she has been one of my best friends since second grade, so if anyone has a bunch of random information about me on hand, it would probably be her. Courtney says, among other things, that I wear a lot of purple. I do like purple, but I don't feel that I wear a particularily large amount of it. Her other random fact is that I like to give advice, which I am good at. This random fact is actually really, really, really funny coming out of Courtney's mouth, because she asks me for advice a lot, but she never actually takes it. Like, if you offered her a choice between death by spontanious combustion or doing something that I suggested, she would be dust by now.

Look out for Heather's random six, which will make it's appearence... eventually... I think.

It would appear that all of our contacts have already been tagged, so if you are reading this and have not been tagged, consider this your tag.

An Abundance of Katherines-John Green

Let it be said, dear reader, that I am not fond of math.

Perhaps I should have let Heather write the first review, for this one, because she does, actually, enjoy math. I mean, she doesn't do it for fun, or anything, but it is up there on her list of favorite school subjects. Also, she has a much larger mental capacity for math. (Heather is the smart one, in case you had wondered.) Anyway, it might have been wise to allow Heather to review first, so that my own review could be short and non-descript, because this book includes a lot of math. An abundance, you might say.

Maybe, though, it's better that I write it, so that you'll know: even though I despise equations and formulas and got a C for two quarters of Algebra II, I adored this book. Even- no- especially the math parts.

Colin Singleton has been dumped nineteen times, each time being by a girl named Katherine. (Some part of this statement is actually a lie, but it's what Colin tells us.) The abundance of Katherines dated by Colin is no coincidence, by the way. He hasn't just fallen for nineteen girls who happened to be named Katherine. Girls named Katherine just happen to be Colin's type.

You might think that after being dumped eighteen other times by Katherines, Colin would have learned to expect the break-up, maybe accept with good humor, even. The end of Colin's relationship with Katherine XIX, however, is not expected. K-19 had broken Colin's heart like no
Katherine has ever broken it before. He doesn't cry. He does, however, throw up.

Colin's best friend Hassan, an overweight and Judge Judy obsessed but delightful Muslim boy, has seen the phenomenon of the Colin/Katherine break up many-a-time, and proposes a ROAD TRIP to ease Colin's suffering.

They end up in Gutshot, Tennessee; there they meet Lindsey Lee Wells and her mother, Hollis, who offers Colin and Hassan a position of employment interviewing older residents about Gutshot's major employer- a factory that produces tampon strings.

Despite many very interesting distractions, including the lovely Lindsey, Colin remains totally heartbroken over Katherine XIX. To understand what follows, you must know this- Colin is a prodigy. Or was, anyway, until he became a teenager. He's not a genius- he's very adament about that- but he is very, very, very intelligent. So instead of wallowing around in more self-pity, our little ex-prodigy has his very own Eureka moment.

Colin develops a formula. A formula to calculate relationships, or more specifically, how they will end. Will he dump her, or (more likely) will she dump him? And- here's what we're all really wondering- how long will it last?

Now, despite all of my intense math hatred, I was pretty darn fascinated, at this point. When I thought about it, it made perfect sense, why Colin would turn to a formula after a break up. When I do come across the are person who actually likes math, I usually ask why, just because the idea of liking math, frankly, baffles me.

And here is their answer: Math is dependable, and numbers, if nothing else in life, are always black and white.

So why not apply them to life's most huge and frustrating gray area?

This book is amusing, amazing, and abundant with awesome. When picking up An Abundance of Katherines, reader, be prepared for: anagrams, footnotes, foreign languages(Colin is quite good at eleven), the history of 'fug', dingleberries, a cast of hilarious and wonderful characters, more quirk than I've seen since the cancellation of Gilmore Girls, and another brilliant novel by John Green.

I have two little tiny complaints, though.

The first isn't so much a complaint as a... comparison. I love a book that makes me laugh, but what I really love is something that makes me cry. I realize that this is masochistic and all that, but it's just how I am. Now, this doesn't take anything away from the wonderful philisophical comedy that is An Abundance of Katherine's- all it means is that I liked Looking for Alaska better. Because it broke my heart in every way possible. But I also liked this book for making my crack up incesscantly and supplying me with an endless supply of useless information.

My only real complaint would be(take one guess...) the ending.

The book with an ending that completely satisfies me shall win a prize. A place in a frame, a shiny medal, etc. This particular ending was just... so... happy. Like, wierdly happy, considering that it didn't really fit the situation. I don't know. It could have been better. But this is still a wonderaculous book, and I highly reccomend reading it.

Just, piece of advice? Don't read it when distracted by personal matters. Trust me.
Katherine's get four cups of coffee.

Wondering why the amazing man who wrote this could have possibly been dumped 53 times,

trying to anagram,
dying for Paper Towns,
fugtastically yours,

Caroline

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I, as much as I hate to do this, concur. With almost everything. I liked Looking for Alaska better too, I like a book that makes me cry, and I love the hilarity of An Abundance of Katherines.

The footnotes in this book were particularly great. Except the ones about math. As Caroline has said, I do like math. I am good at it. But the footnotes were a little confusing. The Appendix, however, made perfect sense to me. The footnotes, I guess, were too short (except the one about the first 99 digits of pi). But all other footnotes were informative as well as funny.

The only problem I had with the book, was the ending, as well. Like Caroline said, it was weirdly happy. It was an incomplete happiness. You don't know everything. You don't know where this is going. There are so many things that could go wrong in the next second, but right now, everything is peaceful. Not even exactly happy. Just kind of peaceful. I would rather someone die (not in this book, because that wouldn't fit the plot at all, but in most cases I prefer upset over peaceful).

Other than that, no issues. Katherines is great.

John Green is a genious. He is no prodigy. He isn't very very very intelligent. He's a genius.

That being said, I give this book 4 out of five cups of coffee(I'm hoping to find a book I hate soon so that I can stop giving such high ratings)

wishing that she could make up complicated equations like that, likewise wondering about being dumped 53 times, trying very hard to work the anagrams out, failing miserably

DFTBA,

♥Heather

(excited about I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone, a novel by Stephanie Kuehnert. It comes out July 2008)

Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment by James Patterson

When I first picked up Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment, I literally squealed in delight. I had been dying to get my hands on this elusive book. But after the first moment of sheer joy, I became...well, not skeptical, but...disturbed. This is one of those blurb books. One of those highly recommended, #1 bestseller types. And I've found, in my years of reading books, that those little, pocket-sized (Actually, not really pocket-sized. I don't know why they call them that, they can't fit in my pockets...I'll call it compact) novels with the raised, shiny titles and the blurbs all over their front and back cover tend to fall just a tad short of my expectations.

Don't get me wrong, I usually like them, sometimes lurve them, but never really love them. Especially the ones with the bad, cheesy, pun-filled blurbs on the front. The cheesy pun of today is: "Buckle up. This is a ride that starts fast and gets faster." --CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER

But this, this is one very huge, 134-chaptered (plus and epilogue) and 413-paged (with extras at the end) exception to that particular rule of thumb. I find that CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER is right. This ride does start fast and get faster.

The first book in the Maximum Ride series tells the story of six unforgettable, unique kids living together with no parents, no homes, no families. They are their families. Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel are running and fighting for their lives.

Their one advantage? They can fly. They have wings.

Being chased by Erasers and facing being put back in a cage--a place no child should ever be--is not easy when you have no idea what you're doing, what you're facing, who you can trust. They don't know where they came from, so how should they know where to go? The one place they won't go is back to the School (not if Max can help it).

But their perilous journey becomes more difficult and confusing as they develop new powers and learn new secrets.

I don't think a single book has pulled me in harder with the first sentence, the first word than Maximum Ride did. And, by sentence five, I knew it would be one of my favorite books forever.

There is definitely a reason that, in the book alone, there are 31 positive book reviews, and that it was #1 on the New York Times bestseller list for twelve straight weeks. James Patterson describes the story of Max and her friends--her family-- with fantastic imagery, compelling suspense, insane action (like a video game or movie except...better) and outstanding dialogue. I fell in love with each and all of these believable characters from the start. The plot is realistic enough to be believable, but fantastical enough to force it into a state of unique where it can never be touched. There could be billions of spin-offs of this series, and they would never come close to even .0000000001% of this novel's pure perfection. Patterson's writing is excellence.

I give this book 10 out of 5 delectable cups of coffee (I would, in fact, give it more if I didn't think that would be overdoing it and I think get the picture with just the 10)

trying to keep herself from reading the excerpt from the next book in the series until she has her hands on it, falling (ok, I fell at his first mention) for a certain blog-writing, angel-like, made of awesome guy,

♥Heather

Nineteen Minutes-Jodie Piccoult (Caroline returns to her nice girl self.)

About a month ago, I was on a school trip. A couple of my friends and I were in a room together, so after we were reprimanded for our rowdiness, and after I had sufficiently injured myself jumping on the bed, and after Courtney had tricked our guy friends into thinking that someone had left alcohol in our room, we started to read. I was reading Pretty Little Devils, a book about murder and a high school clique. Allison was reading Nineteen Minutes. Because of the nature of my book, I was doing a lot of exaggerated gasping, and sometimes nervous around-the-room-glancing (hotel rooms creep me out). Allison, however, kept saying, "Aww."

Courtney, who had nothing to read, had been locked in a very loud silence. She was waiting for us to acknowledge the fact that she wasn't speaking and felt left out because she wasn't reading either. We were too caught up in the books, and plus didn't want to give her the satisfaction. But finally, after about the sixtieth "Aww", she asks. And Allison gets the huge sad/scary eyes that she likes to do in pictures a lot, and says, "Well, I know that he's a murderer, and he shot all these people, and he bombed this guy's car... but he's so cute!"

At the time, I was seriously baffled as to how a school shooter could possibly be cute, and doubted that it was anything except for Allison's tendency to believe that anything male at least has cute potential. It certainly sparked my interest, though, so when I finally got the book, I finally got... it.

Peter Houghton, disputably the main character of Nineteen Minutes, is a killer. Peter has been pushed, threatened, abused, called a fag and homo constantly since the sixth grade. He's been bullied at school by his own brother. He's been knocked to the ground for talking to another guy's girlfriend in a purely friendly way. He's lost his only best friend to the popular crowd. He's had a private email sent to the girl he likes(who is also the best friend and the other guy's girlfriend) spammed out to the entire school. And after seventeen years of this, Peter Houghton has had enough.

Peter walks into school on March 6th with four guns and a car bomb. He has enough ammunition to kill 198 people. He does kill 10, and wounds another 19, all in the course of nineteen minutes. In nineteen minutes, ten lives are over. Hundreds are altered forever. One of those altered lives belongs to Josie Cormier.

Josie, who was the the girl Peter loved; the other guy's girlfriend. The other guy, Matt Roysten, was killed in the shooting. He was the only victim shot twice: once in the stomach, one in the head. Josie, as you'll recall, was also Peter's best friend.

This is where the cute comes in. The book is not organized into chapters; it is organized into time periods. So lots of flashback. Hundred page sections of flashback. One of the flashbacks takes place twelve years before the shooting, when Josie and Peter were in kindergarden, and when Peter's Spiderman lunch box was stolen everyday and thrown out of the bus. There are many other tale's of Peter's struggles with bullying, even at such a young age, and I see now what Allison meant.

Peter Houghton is not cute in the way that I would usually call a book character cute. He's not sexy-cute, or crush-cute. He's lost puppy cute. Sweet little kid cute. Baby cousin cute. Peter Houghton is just so... sad.

Throughout the book, you get to know him as a child, as a younger teenager, and you forget that he is a murderer. You remember that Peter is a human being who went through school without being treated as one. You begin to see Peter as someone who wasn't evil or terrible or corrupt- he was someone who finally took a stand.

This is where Piccoult is trying to take you with this novel- and it's a scary place. A place no one wants to go. No one wants to think about school shootings, much less sympathise with the shooter. We see things in the news about these people and we shudder. How horrible, we think. What a monster.

The issue of judgement is one of the many things that the author addresses beautifully in this novel, without preaching in the slightest, and while effectively giving you every side of the story. You get to choose your own opinion in this novel- nothing is forced on you.

Some other things I love about the book: the cast of characters was completely brilliant, rich, and wonderful. Each character was unique and beautiful and flawed, and I found myself hating and loving and sympathising with each of the six perspectives that the book offered. I stepped into the heart, mind, and soul of each character and loved it, even if it was a disturbing place to be.
The plot in the book was excellent, and the climax- oh, God, the climax.

I also fell in love with Jodi Piccoult's style. Her emotion is heartwrenching, her voice is unique and perfectly adapted to each character. Her language is insanely gorgeous but never overdone. The entire thing was very realistic, which is one of the things that makes it so scary.
I've been vaguely uneasy walking down empty hallways, sitting in unlocked classrooms. The book was just... nervewracking, which was one of the things that I loved also. I like books that scare me.

The only complaint I had was the ending: for all of the emotion in the book, I think that it was kind of a disappointment. Everything was accepted a bit too calmly, which I wasn't crazy about.
All in all, though, this book scared me to death and made me think. It broke my heart and made me smile. And above all, it made me want to read more Jodie Piccoult.

Four and a half cups for this one, just because I hated the ending.

Caroline

Birthday Best Wishes!

Sorry to all our frequent readers that there hasn't been a review lately. There will be soon, I promise. Most likely it will be on Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz, but there is a slight possibility of it being on An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. Either way, look out for those two reviews coming soon.

But for today, all we have for you is a little bit of Birthday Best Wishes! (you probably gathered that from the title). We'd like to give a huge, ginormous, 819-paged Happy Birthday to one of our favorite authors, Libba Bray!

I meant to get this posted sooner, but had play practice so, Happy Birthday Libba Bray! (even though not many people will actually read this today, unless of course you are in a different time zone, which Libba is not, she's in the same time zone as me and apparently treating herself to a spa day, but I'm getting off topic).

If you'd like to give her her Birthday Best Wishes! yourself, got to her LJ at http://www.libba-bray.livejournal.com

And I'm kind of doing an in-post survey here. Who has read Libba Bray's books? The 'Gemma Doyle Trilogy' (ugh I hate that title! It's just so awful and doesn't fit the series well enough even though it is a whole lot shorter than the rambling 'A Great and Terrible Beauty Trilogy' That there is a mouthful)?

And of those, or of the ones currently reading Libba's awesome skills in the literarea (new word! dibs!), are you really really looking forward to Going Bovine, her work in progress? I know I am.

Well, thanks for holding out this long and finishing reading my babblings. Birthday Best Wishes! to you Libba! And all others out there who's birthday it is!

staring at The Sweet Far Thing and debating rereading it again,
♥Heather

It's not your space!

It's mine.

I've just created a myspace for the blog, so please, check it out at http://profile.myspace.com/plentyofpaperreviews

comment or add me or whatever!

Thanks!

♥Heather