Siren- Letter to Author

Dear Tricia Rayburn,

I really love your book siren! It's suspenseful and unpredictable. I was just looking online and I saw that you wrote two other books for this series which makes me so excited! I can't wait to read them after I'm finished with Siren. I loved how you made the disappearances personal to the characters and not just people who were washing up on shore smiling. I also think it's really cool that you wrote about Siren's because I feel so many authors now write about things like Vampires, Wear wolves, and other well known creatures. Where as, reading your book was the first time I ever heard of Sirens. I would definitely recommend your books to anyone looking for a good read. 

Siren-Best thing

Siren is such a great book. After Vanessa's sister goes missing, Simon and her begin research because they believe her death off of a cliff was no accident. It starts with all of the men washing up on shore dead; however, that isn't what is making them research so much. The thing making their hair stick up on the back of their necks is the fact that each one is smiling from ear to ear. Simon and Vanessa are becoming suspicious of some of the girls they hang out with. 

After doing lots and lots of research, they figure out that there are creatures in the ocean called sirens. They have silver eyes and are women who sing to men and lead them to their death into the water. That's why I love this book. Not because there are weird creatures that kill people, that would be creepy if that was the reason. I like it because it's unlike so many popular, typical books and most people don't know about the supposed creatures Sirens. 

Siren-Fear of Everything

    

I just started a new book called Siren; the author of Siren is Tricia Rayburn. I chose this book because I saw it on my sister’s bookshelf and the cover had me intrigued. Vanessa (the main character), has an irrational fear of just about anything you could imagine. As a seventeen year old girl she is still afraid of the dark and every night her sister helps her fall asleep with small talk and questions. A few things Justine might say are, "Did you see that cute dress Erin Klein wore today?", or "It's so bright in here," "I can see everything-my backpack, my blue glitter bracelet, our goldfish in his bowl. What can you see, Vanessa?”

So far in this book, Vanessa and Justine Sands go on their traditional summer vacation to Winter Harbor, Maine. This ends up as time spent with the Carmichael boys. Two years before this summer, Justine found a cliff called Chione Cliffs. Ever since Justine found them, the Carmichael boys (Simon and Caleb), and the Sands girls (Justine and Vanessa) go to the cliffs to hang out and dive during their summers together. However, Vanessa's fear of Oceans has not been helpful when it envying her older sister Justine, she opts out of cliff diving and stays at the top of the cliff, wishing she could be fearless.

There was one paragraph that particularly made me understand Vanessa's jealousy for her sister. "'Backflips!'" Justine exclaimed. 'No,' Simon said. 'No way.' I couldn't help but smile. This was exactly what I loved-and envied-most about Justine. While I still slept with a nightlight, couldn't read Stephen King, and was physically incapable of making a perfectly safe cliff dive, Justine lived for the same blood-pumping rush I tried my hardest to avoid. Here we were, minutes away from being drenched and fried, and she wanted to guarantee her shot at electrocution by jumping into a whirlpool-backward."(Rayburn 8). I feel as though throughout the book, Vanessa will become more fearless, she obviously wants to be. Now all she has to do is convince herself she can do anything Justine can-without fear.

 

 

Until I met you- Review/Summary

I just finished reading Until I met You and I loved it! I would recommend it to any girl looking for a great book to read. Out of a 5 star rating I would rate this book a 5. 

At the beginning of Until I met You, Jessalyn moves to a new town after her father tragically passes. She was bullied in the town she used to live in. People would make fun of her for being shy and make up rumors about her. Jessalyn and her Mom move to Avondale to have a new start. She begins her senior year at a new school with one friend she met over the summer named Olivia, over the year she becomes friends with two guys named Cason and Evan. Evan and Olivia start dating which brings Cason and Jessalyn closer as friends. 

Later in this book Jessalyn and Cason are at a New Years festival when Cason kisses Jessalyn. She is really confused at first but they end up dating a few weeks later after talking. Cason and Jessalyn talk about their pasts, one thing they talk about is breaking Jessalyn out of her shell. He helps her by bringing her to his families restaurants to do karaoke. 

Hopefully you like this review/summary along with some spoilers of Until I met You, and I hope you look into reading it.

Until I Met you- Dynamic Characters

     I am about 2/3 of the way finished with Until I Met You and some of the main characters have changed dramatically. In this blog I am going to talk about the main Dynamic Character.

     One of the HUGE characters that has changed is Jessalyn. Jessalyn (as I have mentioned before) starts off as a really shy Character, when she is around other people her face turns red, and she stumbles and stutters with her words. One night, Cason has Jessalyn tag along with him for a walk to the grocery store. While Cason is around the store looking for his necessities, Jessalyn has a guy at the front trying to flirt with her. He talks to her for about 30 seconds and after he says, "Hey, are you new around here? I don't think I've ever seen you before." She bolts out of the store and hides behind one of the walls until Cason comes out. Cason comes out minutes later laughing about what happened and Jessalyn tells him that it isn't funny at all and this starts her story about her past and problems with being shy. Weeks later Cason texts Jessalyn, telling her that he has a great way to break her out of her shell. Cason drives her to a restaurant with karaoke and they sing together. This is the first step to help her break out of her shell and become more comfortable around other people, from then, to where I am now, Jessalyn has become more and more confident.

Until I Met You- The best thing about it...

When it comes to good books for me I like something that's realistic and unpredictable. So many stories I feel are predictable and that takes all of the fun out of it-this is why I sometimes have a hard time reading or finding a book I really like. For example, in Divergent the whole time I was reading I could kind of tell what would happen after each thing.

In my current book: Until I Met You, everything is surprising. For example, Jessalyn goes over to her mom's new friend's house and her daughter ends up being one of her somewhat new friends from school. Until I Met you is also realistic because it isn't like some chick flick where the girl falls in love with the bad guy. Jessalyn gives him a hard time and makes him earn her trust in order to figure out whether or not he's good or bad.

Although Cason is known as the "Bad Boy", Jessalyn has not seen any behavior to prove the rumors true. I feel like people just make assumptions about people and believe everything they hear. With Jessalyn not listening to those rumors, it puts a little twist on how the story flows.

Predictions- Until I Met you

    I recently started reading Until I Met You and it is a REALLY good book! The main character's name is Jessalyn, Jessalyn is a super shy girl who's Dad passes away unexpectedly, after his passing, Jessalyn and her Mom move to California to get away from all of the memories from their loved one. Jessalyn starts a new school and she gets really nervous because she was bullied at her old school for being shy. 

    On the first day of her new school, the first day of Jessalyn's senior year, she meets a girl named Olivia. She also runs into a guy who is supposedly the bad boy of the school, his name is Cason. Cason and Jessalyn's moms happen to teach together and they have dinner together. 

    Later in this book I'm predicting that Jessalyn and Cason get together. Jessalyn seems to get annoyed by him but I think she is just trying not the like the "bad boy". She does say though that she doesn't like rumors if she doesn't know they are true, and as of right now Cason hasn't done anything to make her think those rumors are true.