Alice: Madness Returns

Have you ever heard of this game before? I know I hadn't. It is a twist on Alice in Wonderland. In it Alice has lost her family in a tragic fire that consumed her house. Every one thinks that she started the fire as she has always had a curiosity with fire. Since she has no family she is taken to the orphanage. Over time many start to think that she is crazy, so she is sent to the asylum. After being in there for a while she is let go. She has lost her memories. Now on her own she begins to see strange things. People turning into monsters and this white cat she is compelled to follow. Well, one time she follows this cat a little to far and finds herself in Wonderland. Only it is not how she remembers it. Everything is falling apart. It is filled with horrible creatures, and an evil train is the cause of it all. Some one is using this train to destroy Alice's memories. But who? This train is destroying Alice, and if she dies so does Wonderland. She sets off on a journey to stop this
train, to find her past and to save Wonderland. But can she do it in time?

I got this game for Christmas and was immediately mesmerized. It is extremely creepy and sometimes scary. There are new enemies called ruins. There are many kinds of ruins. The one I hate the most? Colossal ruins. They are so big. The worst thing about ruins though? Their creepy faces. They have like baby doll faces with no eyes, sometimes they even cry. I think the worst part of the game I have encountered so far was the asylum. You are taken back there and you have to walk through all these rooms and with every room you walk into it goes to a cut scene. After the cut scene the room is just filled with blood. It's every where. On the ceiling, floors, all over the walls. It is terrible. Now don't get me wrong, this is a very good game. Just very bloody and mature. If you have ever seen the movie: Alice in Wonderland, it is nothing like this game. Yes, you have the same characters, but they are different. Maybe they were part of Alice's team in the movies, but in this game they are against you. Two such characters are the mouse and the hare. In this game they play a small role. When you get to the hatters domain you find him in the rubbish pile. He is missing his arms and legs and it is up to you to find them. As it turns out the mouse has his arms and is using them on this big machine. The same thing is true with the Hare. He has the legs, and is using them as a power source to keep his machine running.

This is an amazing game. I recommend it to all who enjoy a creepy, exciting, all around fun adventure.

Christmas

I have always loved this time of the year. It is the best. You get to spend time with your families. Then, on the morning of Christmas you open your presents from "Santa", and play with them all day long. While my Christmases are usually like that this one was very, very different. My day started off at 5:30 this morning. I woke up and took the braids out of my hair for crimping it. At six my mom was ready for us to open presents, so up the stairs we ran. Although it might have looked like we had more presents than most people, we don't. We just had a normal amount (even though I'm not even sure what normal is). It just looked like more because there are lots of us living here. We started ripping through the wrapping paper and tearing up boxes to find the happy gadgets inside of them and you wouldn't believe all of the exciting things we got.

You know what a bop it is right? Well if you don't I will tell you. It is one of my favorite toys. I grew up with Bop Its. It was all my sisters and I would play with when we were little. We loved it! We probably went through so many of them. So you can only IMAGINE the excitement of my sisters and me when we opened that box. It was probably one of the best things we got.

Another thing that we got is a Henna Tattoo Kit. This definitely brings back memories. Don’t know what a Henna Tattoo is? Well I’m not so sure what it is either but I will try to tell you. I got my first Henna Tattoo in Hawaii on vacation with my family a few years ago. They put this gunk stuff where you want the Tattoo and in the design you want. Mine was a sparrow. I asked to have it put on the inside of my ankle. I was very excited when it was finished. Then I heard the instructions. I had to not let anything touch this “gunk” until it was dry. Then I had to let it dry and fall of by its self (kind of like dry frosting falling off of a cookie). This is kind of what mine looked like. Getting this kit allows me to relive those amazing memories in Hawaii. Plus, my sister is amazing at making these! When they are dry and it is all peeled off it looks light brown. Amazingly these tattoos last up to four weeks. These are great fun and don’t hurt at all! It just feels like putting frosting on your skin, letting it dry, peeling it off, and then it leaves a mark. I would recommend trying these out. They are super cool!

This is not actually what mine was. Just a picture that most resembled it off of deviant art

Although this was only part of my Christmas I will remember these things for the rest of my life. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year to you!

Womens Murder Club: 10th Anniversary

This is my review of the tenth book in James Patterson's amazing series: The Women's Murder Club. I have always loved this series, as I grew up with these books sitting there on my mother’s bookshelf taunting me; and now I get to enjoy them. James Patterson is one of my favorite authors ever. I have read many of his books, mainly the mystery cop ones. I have also read his series about Michael Bennett. That series is also a cop one, but on a different subject, I guess. I the tenth book of the women's murder club series 5 stars out of 5 stars. I hope that you would read it and that you will like it as much as I have!

When I read this book I wanted it to live up to my high expectations. I wanted it to be just like all of the other books in the series. It was just as good.

In this book Lindsay Boxer is finally getting married to Joe Molinari, a deputy director for homeland security, after struggling to keep their relationship together. They were going to go on a honeymoon together, but then Lindsay gets a case. A girl is found in the Street beaten up and missing her baby. Lindsay is placed on the case and soon discovers that this baby isn't only missing, it was sold. As the case unravels the whole woman's murder club gets involved. This girl, Avis Richardson, is lying so that she won't be caught for selling her baby. When she was found on the side of the road she was wearing a neon green plastic rain poncho, naked other than that. She is bleeding badly and if she doesn't get help soon then she will die. This is what leads to Lindsay’s case.

What I liked about this book was how the story fully developed to complete the other books. Except for the cliff hanger at the end, it was very good. I hate it when you are near the end of a book and then you get to the end and it just leaves you hanging. That is the one thing that I didn't like. It made sense the way it ended but it left you with yet another cliffhanger.

This was a very good book and a great addition to the series. James Patterson once again creates a literary master piece with this book. Some quotes I really loved in this were: "I'm not believing in invisible bullets butterfly." I don't know why I liked this quote but I did. It just flows so well and is just really good. Another quote is: "He was very little, but he was taking everything in." This quote is about a little boy, a little boy who when he was born he was sold. This then involved into this big case.

This is a very good book for young adults and I would recommend it to anyone who is into mystery or murder books and loves to see stories unravel before them.

The Help

For honors English this term we entered a contest. A contest called Letters About Literature. It is a contest where you write a letter to an author of your choice about how a certain book they wrote affected you. Although it may not be very well written it is how I felt. This is my letter.

Dear Kathryn Stockett,

Whenever my mom brought home books my family got so excited that we immediately made a list for the order of who gets to read it. Usually I am last on that list to read the book. Even when I am last, I always get super excited when it is my turn. The Help made me extremely anxious for my turn on the list. I have always loved reading the more mature books, and that is exactly what this was. With each family member that it got passed to I kept hearing them say how amazing it was. Well, when it was my turn to read The Help I was hoping that it would live up to my high expectations for this book, and it did. As I got further and further into the book, it threw my high expectations right out the window! It was the most amazing story I had ever read! All of the amazing things that my family said didn't even do this book justice.

The further I got on with the story, the more I began to love and to connect to the characters. The more of the story I read, the more that I began to see Minny as my mother. She is like the "sassy" version of my mother, as she says. The Help changed the way that I looked at the world. It was the first book to ever change my perspective on something. This book has inspired me to be a better person. It has mad e me get more involved in school and in service projects. I loved sitting around in my living room just discussing the wonders of this book. What we thought about this character or that. When I read this book I thought that it was just going to be like all of the other books that I had read. I thought it would have a good plot, but that it wouldn't be carried out very well. I was completely wrong! This is the most world changing book to read. It made me analyze things more carefully. It made me realize all of the things that I have that I take for granted every day, and for helping me realize these things I thank you. I thank you for enriching my life with your amazing story.

I don't often get very emotional with books. It's just a story right? Wrong. This is more than a story to me. This is a great work of literature. This story made me cry my eyes out at the end. I was very emotional, and made me very attached. I didn't want Aibileen to have to leave Mae Mobley, and most of all I didn't want to be on the final pages. I wanted this story, these characters to evolve with me. I wanted their lives to continue on as mine odes. This is a story that I hope to share with my children when I get older. I want your story to inspire others as it has me. I want others to be able to get to know these characters like I have, like family. I think that this is a classic work of literature, and I will never forget it. So for giving that to me I thank you. Thank you for showing me a different perspective, and for allowing me to see that there are stories that are so personal and well written that it make you cry when it ends.

- Signed, (my name)

A bunch of random thoughts all jumbled together

Christmas is almost here! I am so excited; especially because Ashley is coming out to visit. :) It's my oldest sister’s birthday next week. They turn nineteen! It makes them want to sing that song from the prince frog, "I'm nineteen, I'm nineteen my birthday is today...." etc. (I don't know if I got that right, oh well). I seriously can't believe that they are turning nineteen! My older sisters! Gah... It is crazy. I will never get over this. Every year, and next year they turn twenty! Dang it, I'm doing it again aren’t I? Well their birthday just happens to be one week before Christmas, exactly. Their birthday is on the eighteenth.

A little random thought in here, and a little late too. That wind storm like last week was crazy! I'm lucky that my house didn't have any damage and that my family is all OK, but others weren't so lucky. That morning school wasn't canceled. So at 7:45 I got on the bus and headed to school. The whole trip there I saw all kinds of disaster, shingles flying off of roofs, fences falling over, and trash flying through the air. It was crazy, and then as soon as we got to school (there was no power of course) we were told to go to our lockers, and drop everything off except for a book, and then go to the gym. A little while later we went to our first period classes. We ended up staying there for a few hours without power until they officially told us that we could go home. The wind was so strong that doors were breaking; they had to lock them so they wouldn't break anymore. There was this one dude who was trying so hard to get inside, got the door open, and then it shut on him. Ouch huh. The principal had to come get him unstuck. I have no idea who this dude was. When we were sitting in first period in the dark everyone had their cell phones out. I got bored playing with mine, and didn't want to kill the batteries, so I went over to the window. Right outside the window you can see the seminary building. In front of our seminary building is this big tree. When I looked out that window the tree was completely snapped at the trunk. No roots torn up or anything just snapped. Also, when I looked out that window I could see the houses across the street, they weren't just loosing shingles. They were losing huge chunks of their roofs! It's so sad all the damage that was caused that day. All of the pine trees that fell down, among other trees. The property damage, everything. I hope that we never have anything like that happen again! Well back to the happier subject...

The thing I love the most about Christmas, well, mostly Christmas eve, is that me and my sisters all get together and sleep in the rooms in the basement, like a sleep over. I am so glad that I have my family, and I am so glad that my sisters and I are so close. :)