The Shooting Star Blog

This is Quintus, and I haven't been able to finish any books for this cycle. Currently I'm reading "The Golden Compass", the first book in a trilogy called His Dark Materials  by Philip Pullman. For me, at least, the book is a bit of a slow read. I'm still only on the 3rd chapter. Nevertheless, I will provide a summary of what has hap pened in this book so far. *Note: This will contain mild spoilers. Read at your discretion.* The story begins with a girl named Lyra sneaking around inside Jordan College, which is a fictional college within the University of Oxford in England. Accompanying her is her  dæmon Pantalaimon, a being with human intelligence that can shapeshift into any animal based on the owner's needs. Lyra enters the retiring room and hides as the Master and Butler come in bringing a bottle of alcohol, and the Butler leaves as the Master poisons it for Lord Asriel, Lyra's uncle to drink. The Master leaves, and Lord Asriel comes in later. Before

  The books are cooking; the best cookbooks in my kitchen:  I personally love to cook and bake. It's kind of all I do. If someone is sick, cookies. If someone dies, cookies. Birthday gift, cookies. Literally my solution to everything. I used to bake dinners for my family once or twice a week, but since the Uni homework load hates family bonding time I haven't been pulling weight… but I have experience at least! Anyway, here are the best cookbooks, whether you've been baking your whole life or can barely make toast.  The Joy of Cooking: This cookbook is HUGE. And I mean HUGE. From family dinners to gourmet meals, The Joy of Cooking has it in its 1,200 pages. The instructions are easy to follow, and it has a format that makes sense (It puts the ingredients down as they come in the recipe, so you don't have to flip back and forth.) It's a staple in my kitchen, but here are some of my favorite dishes: Creme Brulee- A set custard with caramelized sugar on top. I us

They Do It with Mirrors is a murder mystery book taking place in the 19th century, written by Agatha Christie. It’s about an old lady, named Miss Marple, who is visiting one of her friends. They start talking about the friend’s sister from their childhood named Carrie Louise. The friend warns her that the house that Carrie Louise lives at is unsettling, and she could tell that things were off when she visited. Miss Marple decides to travel there and investigate. Things seem to be a bit off after a day or two. Suddenly, one of Carrie Louise’s relatives, Christian Gulbrandsen, gets murdered shortly after arrival. The story takes place in a Victorian mansion, where there is a branch for delinquent boys that are taken care of. This was the reason most of the people living in the mansion were described as going crazy. With another attempted murder plot happening, and the suspects constantly changing, I felt like this got a bit too confusing and boring for me. This was a book in a series abo

  For the past few weeks, I've been slowly making my way through Rebecca Behrens' The Disaster Days . I was recommended this book over the summer by someone, but I procrastinated on reading it until now. Oops.  First, let's begin with a quick little summary of this book. The Disaster Days,  set on Pelling Island (a quiet little island near Seattle) is a YA novel telling the story of Hannah, a 13 year old girl tasked with babysitting her neighbors' kids, Zoe and Oscar. Everything was business as usual until a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck the area, cutting off power, phone signal, clean water, ferry service to and between Seattle, and a whole bunch of other problems. I'll start off with the positives of this book. The Disaster Days  does an excellent job of drawing parallels between the book's setting and the danger of an actual earthquake in the Seattle region. In real life, the Cascadia subduction zone (located in the Pacific Northwest) has a 37% chance of ex

  The “Hatful of Hollow” was the first album The Smiths had ever created in 1984. The Smiths are a British band with the following members Morissy, Johnny Mar, Andy Rourke, and Mike Joyce. “Hatful of Hollow” comprises of 15 songs. In this review, I will be talking about “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”, “Back to the Old House”, and “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”. The album got high reviews, all being 4 stars or 5 stars.  “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want”. “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” is a song about a morning for good fortune and better experiences. The narrator talks about how his life so far has been rough and unhappy. He says lines like “Good times for a change” and “See the luck I’ve had could make a good man bad.” Our narrator wants one good thing to happen in his life but he knows that it will be the first and last good thing to happen to him seeing as how his life has played out so far.   “Back to the Old House” “Back to the Old

          Hello! This is Quintus, and I decided for my first blog post, I'd write about my favorite author of all time. Most know Tolkien for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, which is perfectly reasonable, since these classic books are absolutely amazing. Here, though, I'd like to share with you the real reason I love Tolkien.            For most of his adulthood, Tolkien (1892 - 1973) taught English language and literature at the University of Leeds and Oxford respectively. He specialized in Old and Middle English. In private, Tolkien wrote an elaborate series of fantasy tales, which were usually dark and sad, set in a world he created. Eventually, this series of tales became The Silmarillion. He created a few stories for his children, which were lighter and funnier, most notably The Hobbit, which he ended up publishing in 1937. It was so popular that the publisher asked for a sequel, which Tolkien provided in The Lord of the Rings 17 years later.            To

  Before I start, I want to say that I do not speak for people with disabilities, or individuals with anxiety and psychosis. While I will touch on these topics because I think they are important to fully understand why I dislike the book, I don't have the environmental context to fully understand the experience of people with disabilities. If I say anything out of place, please let me know so I can step down and be better! David Arnold’s Mosquitoland tells the story of 16-year-old Mary Iris Malone (Mim), a young woman who runs away from her father and stepmother after finding out her biological mother is sick and dying in Cleveland. During her trip from the “wastelands of Mississippi” back to her homeland of Ohio, she meets a gaggle of exciting characters, including Beck, a photographer, and Walt, a homeless boy with Down Syndrome.  Just in case some people aren't familiar with this term, I want to first establish the trope of the “manic pixie dream girl.” The “manic pixie