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Book Review: What If It's Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera | When a Meet-Cute at the Post Office is Misdelivered

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Albertalli and Silvera's  What If It's Us  showcases the love story of two boys Arthur and Ben and their many dates and adventures located in New York. An enthusiastic and nerdy Georgia-native, Arthur is head over heels over the bustle of the city and its many attractions, particularly Broadway's musicals and this new guy Ben. Although Yale-bound Arthur was initially focused on gaining experience from his internship at his mother's law firm, he cannot help but become entranced by the Ben from the post office.  Cutest boy ever. Maybe it's the hair or the freckles or the pinkness of his cheeks. And I say this as someone who's never noticed another person's cheeks in my life. But his cheeks are worth noticing. So, that's our first description of Ben, a boy from Puerto-Rican descent who is grieving his recent break up with his ex Hudson. Left with a box of gifts and previous stuff from this relationship, Ben visits the post office to deliver and finally remo

Book Review: The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan || Three Perspectives, Two-Faced Gods, and One Bad Enemy

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Jason has a problem.  He doesn’t remember anything before waking up on a school bus holding hands with a girl. Apparently she’s his girlfriend Piper, his best friend is a kid named Leo, and they’re all students in the Wilderness School, a boarding school for “bad kids.” What he did to end up here, Jason has no idea―except that everything seems very wrong. Piper has a secret.  Her father has been missing for three days, and her vivid nightmares reveal that he’s in terrible danger. Now her boyfriend doesn’t recognize her, and when a freak storm and strange creatures attack during a school field trip, she, Jason, and Leo are whisked away to someplace called Camp Half-Blood. What is going on? Leo has a way with tools.  His new cabin at Camp Half-Blood is filled with them. Seriously, the place beats Wilderness School hands down, with its weapons training, monsters, and fine-looking girls. What’s troubling is the curse everyone keeps talking about, and that a camper’s gone missing. Weirdest

12 Questions with Lil' Bro Reviewing The Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan | Another Success or a Boring Quest?

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Hello, and back again! Long time no write, but I also didn't read that many books while I was completing my Bachelor's. Now, as a graduate (woohoo!) and a new adult (wah!), I thought it was the perfect to revamp the blog - especially when my brother read more than me. This blog should really be his by now, then! 😎 Anyway, it's no secret that I am a fan of Rick Riordan's written conquests of "Percy Jackson and friends". Stories of the great Greek Olympians and Roman Gods have been told via spoken and written word for eons, so it's only right that I interrogate my brother based on the interesting renditions of these classic tales! I read The Hidden Oracle and The Dark Prophecy , or respectively Books 1 and 2 of The Trials of Apollo series, four or five years ago. I have yet to read the third book, The Burning Maze , which brings me great tears when I look at my (newly and) gloriously organized shelf. School was... difficult...in my time management departme

MCAT Diaries: Psychology Day 1

Studying for the MCAT can be a terrifying experience if one looms over the reading material and hours of practice, but with efficient reading and studying, the preparation can be less scary. I will be summarizing the material from my Blueprint books to prepare for my test. Join me for the journey! _______________________________________ Much of modern medicine heavily relies on the research of doctors and teams of techs and participants. All of research has led to multiple discoveries in various areas of science, and each of these has independent, or X, and dependent, or Y, variables. ·         X is a manipulated variable that is expected to change Y in some way. X is the vertical axis on a graph. ·         As stated, prior, Y is expected to change with the manipulation of the X variable. If the effect of Y increases or decreases from the manipulation of X, then a cause-and-effect relationship can be inferred. Once you can display a relationship between X and Y, one must be able

ARC Review: Phantom Wheel by Tracy Deebs

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Being recruited by the CIA to join a top-secret intelligence program should be the opportunity of a lifetime. For Issa, it's a shot at creating a new and better life for herself and her siblings. For clever con artist Harper, it's a chance to bury the secrets of her troubled past and make sure that those secrets  stay  buried. But for Owen--honor student, star quarterback, and computer-hacking genius--it sounds like a trap. He's right.  Owen discovers that instead of auditioning for the CIA, they've all been tricked by a multibillion-dollar tech company into creating the ultimate computer virus. It's called Phantom Wheel, and it's capable of hacking anyone on Earth, anywhere, at any time. And thanks to six teenagers, it's virtually unstoppable.  Horrified by what they've done, the hackers must team up to stop the virus before the world descends into chaos. But working together is easier said than done, especially as the lines start to blur between tea

Book Review: Tiger vs. Nightmare | A Heartwarming Friendship That Includes Punching the Nightmares Away

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Tiger is a very lucky kid: she has a monster living under her bed. Every night, Tiger and Monster play games until it’s time for lights out. Of course, Monster would never try to scare Tiger—that’s not what best friends do. But Monster needs to scare someone…it’s a monster, after all. So while Tiger sleeps, Monster scares all of her nightmares away. Thanks to her friend, Tiger has nothing but good dreams. But waiting in the darkness is a nightmare so big and mean that Monster can’t fight it alone. Only teamwork and a lot of bravery can chase this nightmare away. In this charming graphic novel for young readers, cartoonist Emily Tetri proves that unlikely best friends can be an unbeatable team, even against  the scariest monsters. Discussion: 5/5 stars Everyone experiences nightmares throughout one's life. Even when you are little, you can have a nightmare that causes you to wake up with cold sweats and screaming bloody murder. I have always endured nightmares about college

Book Review: Dear Evan Hansen by Val Emmich | A Story of a Boy Who's Not Having The Best Day

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When a letter that was never meant to be seen by anyone draws high school senior Evan Hansen into a family's grief over the loss of their son, he is given the chance of a lifetime: to belong. He just has to stick to a lie he never meant to tell, that the notoriously troubled Connor Murphy was his secret best friend. Suddenly, Evan isn't invisible anymore--even to the girl of his dreams. And Connor Murphy's parents, with their beautiful home on the other side of town, have taken him in like he was their own, desperate to know more about their enigmatic son from his closest friend. As Evan gets pulled deeper into their swirl of anger, regret, and confusion, he knows that what he's doing can't be right, but if he's helping people, how wrong can it be? No longer tangled in his once-incapacitating anxiety, this new Evan has a purpose. And a website. He's confident. He's a viral phenomenon. Every day is amazing. Until everything is in danger of unraveling and