"The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love at First Sight" by Jennifer E. Smith

**Slight Spoilers!**

I thought the book The Statistical Probability of Falling in Love at First Sight was a cute book. It had enough emotions and development that it was realistic and that you could relate to the characters, but I wouldn't call it my favorite book.

First of all, it was only set over a day, which is okay, I guess, but it just made the book go by faster for me. It's not like it had timeline issues, but it was just really a quick read for me.

It was a fairly straightforward book too, and didn't have a lot of deep symbols, and didn't deal with issues that are hard to wrap my mind around. I did like that Smith did include issues in the book, like Hadley dealing with her parent's divorce and her father's remarriage, and Oliver's issues with his parents. It wasn't just a random love story with no point.

I predicted almost of all that was going to happen, but was slightly surprised at her losing Oliver after she arrived at Heathrow, which was nice. I mean, obviously, they end up together at the end, or else why would they be kissing on the cover (besides the little airport make-out)? I recommend this to people who want a quick, cute read about true love. Sarah Dessen fans??

Essay: Child Soliders, Perpetrators of Victims?

“As the nature of armed conflict has changed in recent years, the practice of using children--defined under international law as those under age 18--as soldiers has become far more common and widespread. As many as 300,000 child 17 and under now serve worldwide as combatants,” says P.W. Singer in his book Children at War. The use of child soldiers has become more and more frequent in recent years. Often working for rebel groups in developing countries, child soldiers can be girls, boys, fighters, messenger. Child soldiers is a topic that is very controversial. These are still, as stated, children, but they kill people, a lot of the time innocent people. Some people may argue that child soldiers are perpetrators in their crimes. But I believe that child soldiers are victims. 

Many child soldiers are taken advantage of in conflicts situations. In the article, “Armed & Underaged” by Jeffrey Gettleman, he says, “Few adults want to have anything to do with these rebel commanders, so manipulating and abducting children becomes the best way to sustain their organized banditry.” Many children are in fact kidnapped, or as Ishmael Beah says in his interview with Katie Couric on CBS, “forcefully recruited” into the military or as a soldier in their organization. They don’t even have a choice in the matter. It’s comply or be killed. Many children are even given drugs so they follow commands and don’t object to orders. Their addiction slowly grows so they depend on drugs as well. “It is less an army than a drugged-out street gang with military grade weapons,” says Jeffrey Gettleman in “Armed and Underaged”. Even worse, some children are even sold by their own parents into these situations.

For those child soldiers where their decision to join a military group was voluntary, it was most likely out of survival. According to the United Nations on their “Special Concern” website page, child soldiers are most likely to be children who are from “impoverished and marginalized backgrounds, or separated from their families.” Ishmael Beah attempted to go to the military for help, and was forced to be recruited. Many other children may have just seen the opportunity for survival and taken it. These children have very few options, and turn to the life that they don’t necessarily want to participate in. There are very few resources in the countries where conditions like this are occurring, and the chance you’ll be saved by a charity right away is slim.

Children don’t want to kill either. As I said above, children do this for survival, not out of enjoyment. Jeffrey Gettleman says in “Armed & Underaged”, “‘Child soldiers are ideal,’ a military commander from Chad told Human Rights Watch. ‘They don’t complain, they don’t expect to be paid--and when you tell them to kill, they kill.’” Children don’t have an incentive besides to live to join these armies. Children are often traumatized when they first have to kill. P.W. Singer says in Children at War, “‘They trained us to fight,’ the boy continues. ‘The first time I killed someone, I got so sick, I thought I was going to die. But I got better...’” The children may be desensitized to the violence after a while, but it doesn’t mean they ever wanted to kill. Children are even traumatized for other reasons than the horrible killing, coming out of their time serving as child soldiers with drug addiction or trauma from rape or sexual abuse. 

Child soldiers are victims, through and through. They are taken advantage of and abused when they’re in situations where they need help, and when they’re not, they become child soldiers to survive, no because they want to, or because they enjoy killing. Children are being left as orphans, then join the very causes that killed their families. Kids are being convinced to become suicide bombers for terrorist organizations without knowing anything about why they’re doing it. There are so many charities and programs, like the military-run detainment facility “Camp Iguana”, trying to help these boys and girls, but they can’t help every child, which is sad. Some ex-child soldiers, even after war, just wandering to find more work as soldiers. It’s the only thing they know how to do. Until renegade, selfish groups that use innocent children for their dirty work is stopped, this will still be a problem. I think it might always be a problem. There are always people who have skewed versions of what is acceptable. These people might not even necessarily want to do this, they might just think it’s needed. But it’s not, and it should never be.

"The Faults in Our Stars" by John Green

**Spoilers!!**

I recently finished The Faults in Our Stars by John Green. This book is about Hazel Grace, a sixteen-year old cancer patient who knows she might not live until her next birthday. She meets the charismatic, attractive Augustus Waters at a cancer support group, and her life is changed forever.

I really loved this book. I loved the narration style and the characters voices, and the ending especially. It was really touching and sad, but really hopeful too.I though it was following Hazel's character that she wouldn't be blubbering over Gus for weeks. She would be sad, but strong and now that he was in terrible pain before, and he wasn't anymore. But she also knew that he would much rather be alive than dead.

I thought a symbol for life in the book was Mr. Van Houten. He was what Hazel was looking forwards to, and thought that he was the best thing that ever happened to her. She ended up seeing that he was often terrible and not fair. For example, Hazel thought he would be smart and kind and a wise, good person. Just by reading his books, she assumed this about him. In reality, he was a kind of crazy messed up old man who didn't know how to handle grief.

This is corresponding with the moment in life Hazel found out she had cancer. She, as a child, was looking forward to life and all it had, but she soon realized that life isn't fair, and most of the time tragic.  Following Hazel's attitude towards cancer, she doesn't give up on or to Mr. Van Houten, she stand up to him, and just does what makes her happy. She doesn't pretend as if it doesn't hurt her that Van Houten ended up being annoying and sad, but she knows that she can't change him.

Van Houten represents the main events of Hazel's life in one three-day trip. At the end of the book, after Augustus dies, Van Houten shows that he (or life) is disappointing for reasons, and that it can always redeem itself. The near-redemption of Van Houten is representing Hazel meeting Augustus.

Again, this book is amazing. Really, just amazing, and it's just so... AMAZING. I recommend to fans of books like 13 Reasons Why and definitely any other John Green books. Also, just saying, I was right with my prediction from the last post.

Update: "The Faults in Our Stars" by John Green

**Kind of Spoilers...**

I love The Faults in Our Stars so far. The characters are unique and strong, realistic and lovable. I've liked all of John Green that I have read so far, and I realized something while reading Faults in Our Stars (hereby referred to as Faults). Green uses the same basic theme and building blocks for all his stories. It sure works too, as Paper Towns and Looking for Alaska are big hits.

The "John Green format" is as follows:

1) The Quirky Characters-- the main characters of his books are usually ironic and cynical, kind at heart and down to earth, who have a lower social status. Their counterparts and free-spirited, quirky dreamers who don't care about what others think, who are popular or attractive. The chemistry between these two is so hot you could be physically be burned by them. And guess what- they fall in love!

2) The Adventure- there is always a manic adventure in Green's stories, usually, a search for someone. In Looking for Alaska, it was not necessarily a person, but the journey part still applies. This is maybe the bulk of the story, and often the most fast-paced part of the story.

3) The Loss- there is always a loss or disappointment at the end of Green's stories. It makes the story possibly even more quirky, veering away from the "happily ever after" story. It happened (kind of) in Looking for Alaska, and definitely in Paper Towns.

Don't get me wrong, I write this all out of pure admiration and love, because John Green is really talented young adult writer, and I love his stories. It works, and big enough change in characters and situations can still make the story fresh. It makes for a great read.

The format above is what leads me to believe that there will be a tragedy at the end of Faults. The whole story rotates around patients of cancer, and loss is a normal thing in their lives. They always know they're living on the edge of death and life. Because of Hazel, the main character's, situation, I believe that she will die at the end. Or, possibly, Augustus' cancer will return. This is a morbid theory, but I think it to be true.

One thing in Faults that bothers me so far is the way the characters deal with the tragedy in their lives. This is a really sensitive subject, and I have no experience in terminal illness, so I don't have any evidence. But I think that even though Hazel has been struggling with cancer for a couple years, I don't think she would be so oblivious of it. It changes you life forever, I know that much, and the way Green handles it, with wit and humor, though it makes for a good story, I don't think it accurately shows the pain and horrible things these people have to go through every day so they can survive. But I don't really know. I suppose it's different for everyone, but someone with as bad of a case as Hazel, I think that even in the beginning of the book, where she is for the most part stable, she would have a harder time handling it.

I really can't wait to finish this book, and I love the smart wit that Green sticks every where... Can't wait until they go to Amsterdam!

"The Fox Inhertitance" by Mary E. Pearson

**Spoilers!!**

Today I finished The Fox Inheritance, by Mary E. Pearson, a sequel to The Adoration of Jenna Fox. The book is set 260 years in the future from where The Adoration of Jenna Fox was set. This was one of the factors that originally made me intrigued by the book. The new book came with a new panel of characters, and a new setting set even further in the future than the original. Sadly, I was really only disappointed by the book. I liked that the book did use new characters, and those who had experienced all of what Jenna Fox hadn't. It was almost a, "What if..." story. I did like the new setting and words and  whole new culture introduced. It made it more interesting to read the book.

The setting also was one of the down falls however. I don't really know how far in the future the original book was set, but they clearly didn't have any of the Bots, Non-pacts, cloning or the Network that they have in the first book. Pearson just kind of glides over this, and thought it's explained to Locke, you stay guessing (in a bad way) a lot of the time because of the generality of all the descriptions.

The story was really predictable. That was one of the things that I loved about The Adoration of Jenna Fox, it was new and fresh and dealt with issues in a new way. This book, while still dealing with issues like survivors guilt, teenage angst, and biotechnology, puts a lot of this stuff to the side, and when the author does bring this up, it's the same note that Locke hits over and over again. The plot was really easy to figure out. I kept guessing with Jenna Fox, and it had an air of mystery around it. With The Fox Inheritance, I pretty much knew from the beginning: Kara is now crazy, Locke is in love with Jenna, and Kara will end up killing herself. Whilst speaking of the death scene, I can't begin to tell you how painfully shallow it was. It was basically Kara saying the same things we had already figured out, and then pulling Dr. Gatsbro off a cliff. I mean, it was sad, but Locke barely reacted, and they all went on with their lives like nothing happened.

I found myself almost skipping through pages in the "epic traveling adventure" part of the book, where Locke is trying to get from Boston to California. It's just not epic, action or emotion packed enough to be added in as an "epic traveling adventure" sequence.

The characters felt so transparent to what they were in the first book. Jenna barely responded to Locke returning, and when she did, it was only one huge blast of crying then it was over. Wouldn't she have more questions? Even if she is extremely old now, and has experience with loss, she would still try to defend herself, wouldn't she?

Overall, it was an okay book, not living up to the first book however. I'll still read the second book, just so I finish off the story line. Speaking of finishing series, I have to get to reading all the "Time Quintet's" spin-offs... Arm of the Starfish, House of Lotus, Meet the Austins... etc.

"The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson

**Spoilers! Small Spoiler for the Fox Inheritance**

I just finished The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E Pearson. The book was about how Jenna Fox, a teenage girl who just woke up from a year long coma after a terrible accident, tries to find the mystery surrounding her "old" life, the tense and strange activities of her family, and why exactly so suddenly she moved away from the only life she ever knew. Exactly how much happened to Jenna so she could survive from the critical condition she was in at the hospital?

I loved this book! It was full of mystery, and had a lot of amazing story telling and world building in it too. That's one of my favorite things about books or TV shows, imagining the world the characters live in and trying to establish a whole history for it. The futuristic world Jenna Fox lives in is really interesting too, as Pearson incorporates modern issue now and evolves them, not just making up random issues. She also completely immerses you into the world, not trying to tell readers what happened, but show them, and let them draw their own conclusions.

One thing I didn't like about this book was the ending. Sure, it was a good ending to the story itself, but I feel like that the epilogue was kind of just written off. It's a pet peeve of mine when a story has a non-suspenseful ending, or just a ending that kind of ends on a flat note. It's okay if the ending it happy, but I want it to make sense with the characters. It kind of just skipped to "Now it's 260 years later!!" Maybe if it was longer, or I don't know, less Jenna just talking directly to the reader and talking about how her and Ethan marry, have kids, and her life story, and more her implying all these things as Pearson did so well before, would have made me happier.

I do know that this is a series, and I am already reading the second book, The Fox Inheritance. It hasn't lived up to the first book yet, but I do like Locke as a character, and like Kara as a parallel to Locke. Kind of spoiling the second book, but I'm pretty sure that's in the blurb.

All in all, this was a pretty great book, and recommend it to the fans of books like Hunger Games, Wither, and The Uglies trilogy.

Update: "The Adoration of Jenna Fox" by Mary E. Pearson

**Spoilers!**

I'm currently reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson. Unfortunately, I was not correct with my clone theory. It makes me a little sad, but the alternative I guess, though not as much as a plot twist as Jenna being a clone, makes more sense.

I noticed I was partly right though. Jenna's whole body is basically a clone of herself, and her brain and body has been changed to be more perfect, like how someone could change a clone to perfection.

The conflict that this presents to Jenna is really interesting, and I love watching Jenna grow. Though personally, I don't see anything wrong with her, Jenna first found herself disgusting, and can't trust her own body. Finally, when she comes to accept this and when she was in a state where she could just live her life safely and legally from then on, she lets Allys discover her secret. I know, it's not like Jenna told Allys, but she knew she couldn't hide it, and didn't do anything about it. I don't really understand why Jenna did this. I think it was the fact that Jenna knew that she had to move on from the "perfect" world if she wanted to move on with her life. She couldn't live under her mother and father forever, because they would treat her like a piece of fine art, just put her away and admire her. They wouldn't want her to be used in real life.

I also think Allys, though having a point in her argument against significant biological enhancement, is angry about her own situation. Allys believe that it's unfair that some people should have more than she does. She needed more than limbs, but she couldn't get them, and is dying because of it. She doesn't think anyone should have more than what she did. I do agree that one person, like Jenna, shouldn't be enhanced, and that death should be expected almost as much as life. People can't avoid death forever, and Allys knows that. What Jenna's parents did was wrong, sure, but I think if someone's life is in the balance, and you can pretty much restore them to normal by giving them organs they need, you shouldn't need to consider how many "points" they have to do it.

Allys knew she was dying, and I do believe that she believed what she thought, but I think Allys shouldn't have told her parents that Jenna was illegal just to make her life harder, and that her view points were clouded by her anger towards her own disease and the way it was handled.

Update: "The Adoration of Jenna Fox", by Mary E. Pearson

**Slight Spoilers!**

I'm currently reading The Adoration of Jenna Fox by Mary E. Pearson. So far, I love this book. It's very detail oriented and poetic. It's sci-fi, but has the emotional levels of the realistic fiction book. I love the almost child-like view of the world by Jenna too. It makes the book more and more interesting to read with a character who has a blank slate, and is literally developing before your eyes.

One thing I find really intriguing is the mystery surrounding Jenna Fox's past. Her family refuses to tell her anything, she abruptly relocated right after the accident, was seemingly in a medically induced coma most of her coma, and was awakened at a specific time. This makes the book another level to me, because besides having an interesting premise and being futuristic, it has mystery.

One theory I have about the secrecy about Jenna's past is that the Jenna Fox who is narrating the story is a clone saved at last minute after the accident. The original Jenna is dead, and her brain has been put into the new cloned Jenna (to keep personality), being sustained by using BioGel.

The first thing that led me to this is that on page 31 of the book, Jenna's mother starts to talk about miracles. She says as speaking to her mother, Lily, "Stop! You of all people should understand. If it wasn't for invitro, I wouldn't be here. You always called me your miracle. Why can't I have one too? When do you get to decide when the miracles end?" Though I'm not sure what "invitro" is, I think we can assume it's some technological or medical breakthrough for saving lives in the future, as it saved Jenna's mother's, Claire's, life. Lily continues to say that Jenna is "Not natural." Now why would a grandmother say this about her granddaughter unless she thought she was altered in some way that made her radically different from everyone else? Like cloning.

Also, Lily often talks about how she accepts when she will die around Jenna, something she never says around her daughter, Claire, meaning that she thought Claire should accept losses, possibly of Jenna. At first, I just interpreted this as Jenna losing so much as her life, and not remembering anything, and the random ominous conversation because Lily was kind of random, but as I read on, I saw more and more odd evidence, leaving me to the cloning conclusion.

For instance, the present-day Jenna doesn't have a scar, as she saw in the video of her as a ten year old. A large and obvious scar would at least be slightly visible only ten years later. If a cloned body was made of Jenna, without all her injuries, the scar wouldn't be present. Another reason why I think this is that none of Jenna's friends have tried to contact her. This shows that in the very least, her Claire and Lily, almost abducted Jenna away from her old life in Boston, cutting all connections. Even if this explanation was true, this would raise more questions. If her friends believed her to be dead, then they wouldn't try to find her, or talk to her, right?

Also, when Allys is talking about the control of the school, she leads to the "Federal Science Ethics Board." Through the conversation, she clearly states human cloning was attempted and succeeded. She also expresses her disstress over how far human preservation will go, and how it at one point just becomes too unnatural, which shows some people share a view with Lily. The thing that interested me most was that human brains are the most taboo and expensive organ to be transplanted.

Allys says that "Only biodigital enhancement up to forty-nine percent is allowed to restore some lost function and that's it." This would explain why Jenna lost much of her personality, and all of her memories. On how her family got the permission to take the brain from old-Jenna's body, her father invented BioGel. Lily stated that Jenna's family was "filthy rich", which would probably cover the brain, and be enough to pay to get Jenna cloned and her brain to be put "on ice", so to speak, with BioGel. Who knows, Jenna could even be experimental, which would explain the man at the church spying and photographing her when she was with Ethan.

All this compiled just make me more and more confident that Jenna is some sort of clone. This book makes me excited to read it, and I can't wait to finish it and see what really happened, and see if I got it right.

"Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson

**Spoilers!!**

I recently finished Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson. Wintergirls tells the story of Lia, a girl whose best friend recently just died. Lia struggles with dealing with the sudden and strange absence in her life, while having to deal with her own problems.

I thought this book was beautiful, and very poetic. It was a lot like Speak, also by Laurie Halse Anderson, but also completely different. This was almost the complete opposite of Speak in writing style, as Speak was mostly in the future, never looking back, straight forwards. Wintergirls led the reader through Lia's whole mind before we can get to her real problems and guilt. Halse Anderson's style still shines through. In some ways, I enjoyed this book more than Speak, for many reasons.

I thought the word wintergirls by itself was amazing. It wrapped up the book in a tight little ribbon. I was really confused about the title at first, but pretty soon I understood way too well.

This book is morbid, and sad, and hopeful, and scary. It broke my heart when Elijah left Lia by herself in the hotel room. He knew what had happened there. He knew she was on the edge of death. He knew she was seeing things, and she lied to him about being "okay." I imagined what it would be like if Lia went with Elijah, because Cassie wouldn't haunt her. I realized that she would probably have gotten better. But Elijah did the right thing. Lia loved her family too much to leave them behind, and she might not have gotten better it she was out on the road, not being able to come to terms with Cassie's death.

Another thing I liked was the strong character voice in the book. In the beginning, Lia shows no remorse. No regret. She wants to be skinny. Halse Anderson doesn't write it from a person free from eating disorders, she writes like she had one. Lia's character never gives herself some slack, or even thinks about stopping while she's at her worst, in the middle of the book.

I really loved this book so much, and recommend it to fans of Speak and 13 Reasons Why. I hope the next book I read lives up to Wintergirls.

Update: "Wintergirls" by Laurie Halse Anderson

I think so far Wintergirls is a really great book. Like Speak, it deals with really current and modern issues tactfully, but is still truthful, and doesn't sugar-coat them.

One thing I find interesting is the contrast in the eating disorders of Lia and Cassie. Lia doesn't eat at all, and Cassie goes through the cycle of binging and purging. I would think that these two types of eating disorders would depend on the type of person, and that Lia would be grossed out by Cassie. She seems like a neater, secretive person, and her self-infliction shows she's very internal and secretive.

Cassie, on the other hand, seemed more like a wild girl in her character in general, and ate a lot, especially around Lia.

Just their personalities alone shouldn't be really that compatible, but they were still sisters in eating disorder. I don't think they met because of their disorders, but it made them closer. Another thing I'm asking every word I read of this book is how could best friends let each other go through that?

I mean, the drama girl that screamed at Lia before the wake was right in a way. Lia didn't try to help. Of course, the drama girl didn't know that Lia was Cassie's weight loss partner, but didn't they both know it was wrong and unhealthy what they were doing? I mean, Lia is trying to hard in the book to lie about getting better, but she's already incredibly thin for her age. I don't think she's short either, so for her height, she's skinnier than a lot of models.

I think the use of the crossing out words is really effective as well, because it shows that Lia does want to be normal, her subconscious just can't convince her 'skinny side' of it. It delivers emotional lines without the compromising, "I think...", which in my opinion, always brought me out of the scene in the book.

I can't wait to finish Wintergirls really, even though I've barely given time to read it. I really want to see if Halse Anderson is coming out with any other realistic fiction books, or has previously.