Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Set in the future, this book is about unwanted kids who are "unwound". Once a child hits a certain age, if they are an orphan, a troublemaker, or even for religious reasons, they can be sent to a harvest camp and be unwound. This means that they are harvested for their body parts....killed, to those who read the book, but the society believes that they are still living, just in many many pieces in different people. The story follows three different teens who are trying to escape from being unwound. One girl is a ward of the state and they are making room in the state home; another is born to religous parents who's religion has them sacrifice one of their children; and the last is a boy who has been labeled a trouble maker.

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I love dystopian books and was glad that I was able to get into this one. I have tried to read a couple other YA dytopian books and couldn't manage to finish them. The book definitely raises ethical questions. Obviously with so many teens being unwound, there's no longer a wait on organ donor lists, so it's interesting to see what the different characters think of things like this.

Good start to 2010's reading.

First in a series challenge

I'm into several different series', but there are more on my wish list, so I thought I'd give this one a try. You can find it here:
http://theroyalreviews.blogspot.com/2009/12/1st-in-series-challenge.html

Books Read / Name of Series

1. Shop Till You Drop by Elaine Viets
2. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
3. The Shunning (The Heritage of Lancaster County #1) by Beverly Lewis
4. The Shop on Blossom Street by Debbie Macomber
5. Killer Mousse (Della Cooks Mystery) by Melinda Wells
6. The Tea Rose: A Novel by Jennifer Donnelly
7. A is for Alibi by Sue Grafton

Thriller & Suspense Book Challenge

Got me another one to join in on! This one is to read 12 suspense/thriller books. It can be found here: http://www.bookchickcity.com/2009/05/thriller-suspense-challenge-2010_01.html

Books read:

1. Promise Not to Tell by Jennifer McMahon
2. The Laughing Corpse by Laurell K. Hamilton
3. Harvest by Tess Gerritsen
4. The Surgeon by Tess Gerritsen
5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
6. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
7. A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
8. Intensity by Dean Koontz
9. Dark Prophecy: A Level 26 Thriller Featuring Steve Dark by Anthony E. Zuiker
10. Caught by Harlan Coben
11.
12.

Young Adult Book Challenge

Time to start some book challenges for 2010. This one is for a young adult challenge.

CHALLENGE:

Read 12 Young Adult novels in 2010.

Books read:

1. Unwind by Neal Shusterman
2. Witch & Wizard by James Patterson
3. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
4. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
5. All Hallows' Eve: 13 Stories by Vivian Vande Velde
6. The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (Twilight Saga) by Stephenie Meyer
7. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
8. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
9.
10.
11.
12.

Where to find this challenge:

http://j-kaye-book-blog.blogspot.com/2009/11/new-reading-challenge-2010-young-adult.html

Keeping Busy & Staying Cool

Not a whole lot going on here other than trying to stay busy and cool. It's been running a bit above 100 the last few days but last week was pushing 110 with the heat indexes running around 115-117. Now, I like the humidity because I breathe so much better and my skin isn't nearly as dry and there's no static electricity....but BOY does it make you sweat. LOL! We went and got a clothes line to save on the electric bill (boy was it high) and just taking a load down, I'll come in with a forehead covered in sweat. Any amount of time outside results in back sweat. Yum! LOL! But hey, this is way better than New Mexico, so I'm dealing.

The kids have their last swim lesson tomorrow. It's amazing at what they've learned in 6 short lessons. The money was definitely well spent. They've got to build up their stamina, though. Jacob gets tired pretty quick. But they're excited that they can go in the deeper water now. I need to take them to the pool on base where they've got a slide, but they charge here and I'm kinda like, eh. I don't really feel like paying just for a slide.

Chris is almost done with his school and then the real pain begins. Maybe if we're lucky he'll get a few days off after school is done, but I'm not counting on it. Speaking of school, I am enrolled for 2 of the last 6 classes that I need. I'll be taking Adolescent Psychology and Geography of Terrorism. Should be interesting. Darn books took a chunk out of the pocket book, though. I hate that about school. Is it really necessary to charge over $100 for a BOOK?

We've got some friends coming down for Chris' graduation, so we're looking forward to that. Should be a fun time. Other than that, nothing really going on. Going to be getting Sea World passes here soon, so I'm sure we'll try and hit the water park up quite a bit before the summer is over. There's about 6 weeks of summer vacation for the kids left....hope I survive. LOL!

Our 4th Weekend

Well, Chris got lucky and had a 4 day weekend this weekend and we stayed busy for most of it. On Friday we spent a good part of the day buying stuff for the BBQ we had on the 4th. Got lots of chicken, burgers and dogs for the grill and stuff for all the sides I ended up making. We sat down Friday night and watched Journey to the Center of the Earth with the kids. It was pretty cute, but would have been awesome in 3D.

Saturday we got up and did the last bit of cleaning and starting in on the cooking. I made a 7-layer dip, homemade macaroni & cheese, baked beans, and a fruit salad. Chris ended up making the ham & cream cheese rolls. LOL! So people came over and we did the whole BBQ thing...had lots of yummy stuff brought...blondies, potatoes, lumpia. So lots of good eats. We watched the fireworks shot from Seaworld in our backyard. We weren't really impressed with them, though.

Sunday we ended up going out and getting a clothes line for the backyard. I had bought one of the retractable kind and it turned out that the wire in it was pretty weak and you can't hang anything too heavy on it. So we got one of the umbrella ones. Had some left over burgers and sausages for dinner. Then we watched Live Free or Die Hard. It was pretty good. I liked the idea of the whole cyber stuff they had in it.

Yesterday was a lazy day for me. I did end up doing some laundry, but that was about it. Got a scrapbook layout done in the afternoon, too, which was an accomplishment. Chris met with some of his classmates to work on their lessons for today, so he was gone most of the day. Had more leftovers (chicken) last night. LOL! I was up late playing on the stupid computer, so I'm draggin a bit this morning.

Sea World

We decided to go to Sea World this Saturday. It was hotter than hot, but we had a blast! And when I say hot, I mean hot. LOL! The high was 106, so the heat index was at least 110. I sweat in places I didn't know I had. LOL!

When we got there, we got a locker because we brought our swim stuff in case we made it over to the water park. Then we headed over to the dolphins. They were so cute! We got there just in time, it was about 10 minutes from feeding time. So we stood in line to get some fish to feed them. Syd fed them, but Jacob didn't want too. Me and Chris fed them as well and I got to pet a couple of them. THAT was way cool...they're so soft and gentle. After that, we headed over to an indoor building and seen the fish and sharks. We grabbed some cash for the smaller vendors and ventured on into the park. We came upon one of the stadiums and it was like 15 minutes before a show, so we decided to watch it and get out of the sun some. We'd only been there like 2 hours, but the sun was already bearing down. The show that we seen was called Viva! and was an acrobat/water/animal show. It was really neat.

After the show, we went and got in line for some expensive food. LOL! It was 30 bucks to feed all of us and all we got was some chicken tenders, pizza, fries & drinks. The good thing was that the portions were large, so we got most of our money's worth. But it was so hot out that we couldn't finish it all for fear of getting sick later. So after eating we headed over to the water raft ride. We probably stood in line there for a good 45 minutes. But the ride was refreshing...we looked like we'd jumped in a pool when we got off the ride. LOL! The only thing that sucked was that I was wearing denim jeans, so they were heavy with as wet as they were. So from there, since we were already wet, we went over to the log flume ride. We stood in line there for an hour! Chris actually set the timer on his watch. LOL! It was ok, but the kids really enjoyed it.

By then it was pretty late in the day, so we kinda figured we wouldn't be headed to the water park since we knew we wanted to see the Shamu show. We went and got the kids some ice cream and chilled out in the arcade for a bit before it was time for the next show. So we walked around a bit more and then went to the sealion show. It was really cute. It was a caper type show about missing fish. The end had a walrus, who was so cute! But the darn batteries in my camera died during the show so I didn't get any pictures of him. After that we walked around and looked at the other sealions, but didn't stay long because it was SO hot.

We killed time by letting the kids stand on the splash deck of the really huge water ride. They got soaked all over again. LOL! So we headed on over to the Shamu stadium so we could get some decent seats for the show. It was a good thing we went when we did because the stadium was already half packed and it was about half an hour before the show. The Shamu show was awesome! It was Shamu Rocks Texas, so there was some good music during the show.

After the show we had thought about one more show, but Sydney's feet started hurting from being wet and in her tennis shoes for so long, so we settled for the show that was in the theater right next to us. We figured that at least she could take her shoes and socks off and her feet could dry out some. Well, this was a pirate show that didn't involve any animals. And lets just say that it's one that we won't be going to next time. LOL! It wasn't that good at all! But it helped Syd's feet to air out and she didn't hobble back to the lockers where she got her flip flops. So we learned that if we're going to ride the water rides that we need some sort of walking sandals instead of tennis shoes.

It was about 8 when we finally left and we were all exhausted. We got home and snacked some and ended up ordering a pizza at 9:30 at night! LOL! We will probably get the annual passes that they do there. Mostly because we know some family want to go when they come out and you get several discounts around the park with the passes, too, so it only takes like 2 trips for the pass to pay for itself.