Krista Ramsey

Today, after accidentally wasting roughly an hour and a half doing nothing in class, I came across an article that tugged on my heartstrings and instantly I knew, I had to blog about it.

Newlyweds spend first year raising groom's twin sisters by Krista Ramsey is more than just its title. It's also about how these two wonderful, compassionate, people, Ryan Craig and Megan Annis, had put the sisters first instead of themselves and gave the girls love, care, and a home they needed.

I feel that the line, "When they left their old life behind to move into Megan's apartment in Eastgate, they left with nothing but the clothes they were wearing." is the strongest line in the article because the diction in the sentence is simple but the impact it has on the reader is strong. It also uses a cliché that is familiar to all of us, "with nothing but the clothes they were wearing" so we know how serious the situation was for the two little girls. Before the line is registered in the reader's mind, Ramsey elaborated on the girls' previous life, illustrating how terrible the conditions were like how the house was virtually falling down and there were more than a dozen of cats. The line makes it clear that the girls had it rough and it was easy to infer they didn't have many happy memories. It also act as a transition in the article when the author switched to the girls' new life from the girls' old life.

Krista Ramsey's writing style is idiomatic. It sounds very natural and is easy to understand like the line "But before parents claw back the iPhones, experts say the problem may not lie in the technology itself, but the amount of time spent on it, the environment in which it’s used and the activities it’s replacing." from the article Ramsey: For better vision, kids need time outdoors. Sometimes in her articles, she would directly "talk" to the person/audience using second person pronouns like "you", seen in the passage, "If you’re the parents of the bride who put thousands of dollars into an elegant wedding, you might well feel a pang when people arrive in jeans with sunglasses atop their heads. The sight of sports jerseys and sweat pants at a carefully planned memorial service could be hurtful. And as you look down at your fitted blazer and heels in a sea of shorts, T-shirts and nylon jackets at your daughter’s college graduation, you probably wonder why you bothered. Keep bothering." It creates a small connection between them and Ramsey because when Ramsey uses the pronoun "you", she's basically saying I know how you feel and the reader can relate to the article. She also writes like she's telling a story rather than a commentary or a opinion. Her first line in Newlyweds is a good example, "On April 22, 2012, life looked like nothing more than a long, smooth path to happiness for Ryan Craig and Megan Annis."

If I ever get to meet Krista Ramsey, I would like to ask her this:

1. What had gotten you interested in journalism?
2. I noticed that you write a variety of columns and I wonder, how do you choose a story to write about? 
3. What are some advice you can give aspiring writers about writing non-fiction? 

Directions: True or False. If false, change the statement to make it true.

"Reading is boring."

That is my statement.

It's been my statement for roughly a month now. Since the beginning of November to the end of the second trimester, I was on a hiatus. A hiatus from reading and when I had finished a book after four months, I had found myself in an unfortunate predicament.

I cannot read. At least for entertainment anyway. Just look at my status on Goodreads. It'll say "Currently Reading" and there will be a list of books that I'm "currently reading". And I put the quotations there because I am not "currently reading". I'm not "currently reading" anything.

Last year, I can breeze through the Harry Potter series in one day. I loved reading. And I loved showing off how fast I can read. Reading was so fun. But now I feel like I've read all the books in the world.

I was doing okay before; I finished two books.

Maybe I'm just annoyed about the four month-long read and that's why reading bothers me now? I mean, 1Q94 was originally a 1157-page novel translated from Japanese that was split into three books to make it more reader-friendly (WHICH DIDN'T WORK BY THE WAY) and I bought from Barnes and Noble without knowing what it was about. I didn't have any background knowledge on it. I didn't even have an idea. It didn't have a summary on the box set and I was a bit terrified.

But I was also really excited.

This book was fun to read; it had a lot of plot twists and mystery to it and it was fun going up and down the roller coaster. There were some graphic scenes though, many were unnecessary and tmi so I had to skip some pages. Because one: I'm a huge baby. Two: I'm fourteen.

It really amazed me though, because for a really simple story (despite all the outlandish ideas and surreal characters) it was really long. Do you know what it's like reading a 1000+ page novel??? (technically it was three but still!!)

Like what I had said with The Shadow of the Wind, the book had way too many words and not enough meaning.

What does 1Q84 mean to me? Well, it means four months I'll never get back. Perhaps I'm too simple-minded to understand. Maybe I haven't been through enough, haven't experience enough to know the meaning of this book but frankly I do not care.

It was terrifying seeing how close I was to the end when there were still so many questions I needed an answer to.

Perhaps it's too soon for me to start reading again after two books with endings to the likes of excrement.

Have you ever read a book that was really good but then went down the wrong path at the last minute?

WHEN THE ENDING RUINS THE BOOK

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

WHY 

Could've Been Better ?

I had finished The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón some time ago and I have to say, it was a bit disappointing. Especially at the end, I feel that's where it turned to a path I wasn't expecting.

But first, I'll tell you a little bit about the book.

The Shadow of the Wind is a story of a boy, Daniel Sempere, who discovers a mysterious book titled The Shadow of the Wind by a Julian Carax when his father took him to the secret Cemetery of Forgotten Books. When Daniel set out to look for more of the author's books, he makes a shocking discovery: somebody has been hunting down Carax's books and destroying them. In fact Daniel may have one of the last books in existence. As Daniel goes out to search for the rest of the books, he unravels one of Barcelona's deepest secrets. One of murder, madness, and forbidden love.

Based on the summary and some scenes of the book, I had thought the book was going to involve magic especially when the author had written about Jacinta Coronado and her past. There were also a lot of parallels between Daniel and the author Julian Carax. And some parallels between reality and the book such as Laín Coubert, a pseudonym both the Devil (in the fictional book) and another character (in the actual book) use. Unfortunately it didn't involve magic at all, not in the main story and the part about Coronado's past seemed unnecessary.

The atmosphere of the book was very dark and gothic. It had a mysterious air to it so the ending was a bit weird because the mystery wasn't really solved like a mystery. Throughout the book, I mentally raised my hand quite a few times and many were answered. Most of them all at once [hint].

The characters all have the same voice (or the same type of voice) except for Fermin.

The writing was beautiful, don't get me wrong. The man is good with words and he knows to create an atmosphere but I can't say much about his storytelling. A lot of it was repetitive because of the parallels and...

I don't know. This review is all over the place and I don't even have the book with me.

There were a lot of words but not a lot of meaning. Not a lot of substance.

To me, this book is like a beautifully decorated cake. So beautiful, you may not even want to touch it because it's too beautiful to eat. Except when you actually do give it a try, it's bland.

The cake is bland.

But if you are into the angst-filled, forbidden love, really descriptive and wordy, that type of thing, I guess you might enjoy it. I mean I'm into that kind of stuff too but I guess you have to be in a specific mood to enjoy it. And to have that enjoyment last the entire book.

I give this book a 3 out of 5. I like it because the writing was poetic and the atmosphere was dark. I hate it for everything else. This book had potential but it wasted that potential.

I'm sorry I can't talk anymore about this book but The Shadow of the Wind is the type of book where almost everything is a spoiler.