Uglies by Scott Westerfield

Uglies
Tally Youngblood is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait for the operation that turns everyone from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to party. But new friend Shay would rather hoverboard to "the Smoke" and be free. Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The "Special Circumstances" authority Dr Cable offers Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.







I read this series when it was first published, way before the Hunger Games came out, and I found the Hunger Games to be a much interesting story. This is a dystopian book series, but I did not like the writing one bit. The idea for the story is interesting, I'm just not crazy about Westerfields writing. Westerfield's writing was too bland and kept me wanting to put the book down not even eager to get to the next chapter. I didn't feel a connection to the book nor to the characters. It's not that bad of a book.

Advice to Writers: Donald Hall

T.S. Eliot's Advice to a Young Writer

Then it was four o'clock, or nearly; it was time for Eliot to conclude our interview, and take tea with his colleagues. He stood up, slowly enough to give me time to stand upright before he did, granting me the face of knowing when to leave. When this tall, pale, dark-suited figure struggled successfully to its feet, and I had leapt to mine, we lingered a moment in the doorway, while I sputtered ponderous thanks, and he nodded smiling to acknowledge them. Then Eliot appeared to search for the right phrase with which to send me off. He looked at me in the eyes, and set off into a slow, meandering sentence. "Let me see, said T. S. Eliot, "forty years ago I went from Harvard to Oxford. Now you are going from Harvard to Oxford. What advice can I give you?" He paused delicately, shrewdly, while I waited with greed for the words which I would repeat for the rest of my life, the advice from elder to younger, setting me on the road of emulation. When he had ticked off the comedian's exact milli­seconds of pause, he said, "Have you any long underwear?"

-DONALD HALL


This is mostly saying "Don't settle for anything less." If you are querying an agent, don't settle for just any agent. I do have some writer friends who just wanted to have an agent, but their agent wasn't really good. So now they are having to find a new agent. This goes to the point of querying agents who you don't want to work with, and don't just settle. If you are a young writer, keep writing.

Advice to Writers: John Updike

You Are Full of Your Material

You are full of your material—your family, your friends, your region of the country, your generation—when it is fresh and seems urgently worth communicating to readers. No amount of learned skills can substitute for the feeling of having a lot to say, of bringing news. Memories, impressions, and emotions from your first 20 years on earth are most writers’ main material; little that comes afterward is quite so rich and resonant. By the age of 40, you have probably mined the purest veins of this precious lode; after that, continued creativity is a matter of sifting the leavings.

-JOHN UPDIKE

This is every true. Many authors are full of material, it's just a matter of writing it. I find myself filled with so many storylines I don't even know which one to begin with. I even find myself writing 3 projects at once. Sometimes the things that happen to us in our lives do make a good story. It's just a matter of writing it into something people can relate to.

My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged...until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.






The story plot is simple. Brian and Kate, two loving parents of a son and daughter, discover that their two year old daughter has leukemia. Since no one in the family was a match for her they have a baby made with the same DNA so that that way Anna could donate to her sister everything she needed. When it comes to Anna having to donate to her sister a kidney, that's when Anna sues for medical emancipation from her parents. 

This book was assigned for summer reading. I was skeptical to read it at first, but I read it, and I absolutely love the book. It's so heart wrenching, the plot is just so addicting I could not put it down. Reading this book it made me realize I take my sister for granted, and that a person does not really value their family until it's too late. I highly recommend this book.