TITLE:  The Wood

AUTHOR:  Chelsea Bobulski 

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DESCRIPTION:

"When Winter’s dad goes missing during his nightly patrol of the wood, it falls to her to patrol the time portals and protect the travelers who slip through them. Winter can't help but think there's more to her dad's disappearance than she's being told.

She soon finds a young man traveling in the wood named Henry who knows more than he should. He believes if they can work together to find his missing parents, they could discover the truth about Winter’s dad.

The wood is poisoned, changing into something sinister—torturing travelers lost in it. Winter must put her trust in Henry in order to find the truth and those they’ve lost."

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REVIEW:

An entertaining, original YA novel.  Beautiful writing.

I'm not going to lie, I struggled to get through this one. I don't really have a problem with unreliable or unlikable narrators but when they whine all throughout and are constantly seeing everything through their self serving pity-me glasses, that's where I tend to draw the line.

I've LOVED books with a narratives from villains, from characters I didn't like one bit. I wish this could have been the case here but it just wasn't. The plot could have at least helped the story along but honestly I found it to also be lacking.

To me it was kinda like everything was rather one dimensional, the characters, the plot, and the mystery. The synopsis offered things I don't think the story ever delivered on. The big reveal at the end felt somehow predictable and easy, which was WEIRD because the one thing I can think of that I guess you could say is positive is that I didn't figure it out till right before.

But once it was revealed it felt like OF COURSE and only because no one should guess that for any other reason than it would seem the least likely and you were just supposed to accept it in the end for nothing more than because sometimes people are just evil or crazy or whatever. It felt very simplified.

Give me a breadcrumb or two along the way. I love to be surprised don't get me wrong, but it cheapens it to me when you did nothing along the way to give even miniscule clues or make it understandable how you got there or why things ended this way until literally right before, and even that is shakey at best. Maybe the fact that I'm reading such an emotionally complex grand series as well right now didn't help.

This just felt incredibly immature and unsatisfying to me. If major teen angst is your bag, or maybe you want to dip a toe in a light mystery, you might enjoy this one. To be honest I felt like the Scooby-Doo gang solved more indepth cases, but to each his own.

I received an arc of this book from Sourcebooks Fire via Netgalley and this is my honest review.

by Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi

Non-fiction

Written by two black women about their experiences attending a mostly white, privileged university.

It starts with a list of names of women and their accomplishments, who are the women they interviewed for the book to portray experience beyond just the two authors. The authors then explain a little about their respective backgrounds and how they came to be accepted in a Cambridge university.

The intent of the book is to shed light on the experience of what it's like to be a black woman in a traditionally white male setting. They include people who identify as non-binary, which made me wonder, why not black males? Surely they would share many of the experiences of racism and cultural division? This is actually addressed later in the book.

I chose to read this book because although I grew up in a multi-cultural city and have always had friends of whatever race they happen to be, including mixed, I know enough to know that I can never really know their experience. Reading their stories is as close as I can get to understanding.

This book is brilliantly written in that it relates those experiences without the sort of anger often expressed around racism. The authors let you get inside their heads and see through their eyes in a sort of memoir style, opening up their emotions for the readers in a way I found very brave.

The irony is that what made me feel a separation from these women wasn't race, but their ability to get into a top university. I appreciated how hard they must have worked to get those top grades that made it possible. Suddenly my own school career looks like a wasted opportunity. The stress of dealing with university pressure sounded like a nightmare, but add to it that they felt out of place and had no choice but to continually define themselves by their race and feelings of impostor syndrome.

It was interesting to read why they felt compelled to participate in activism and why they sought out others of their race for a support system, even when they didn't always like the individuals. It explained why in school I noticed that people I was friendly with in classes spent their break times among other black groups rather than mixing in more.

I think this book would be a real benefit to any young black girl in school with aspirations to go to a good university as it encourages them to see that it can be accomplished and where the pitfalls can be found, but I also think the book is useful to anyone of any age or race for the perspective it brings.

The difference this season could be their new 24 million pound striker from Tottenham Hotspur, Robbie Keane. If a batter hits a ball and runs to the edge of the pitch, his team scores.

The Indian cricket league has fired the imagination of people all over the world. For sport in relation to football and golf has become with them at par. This is no doubt due to the cricket league; cricket has come to be the power house of the sport so far as finance is concerned.

Carlo Ancelotti basically went back to the 4 4 3 system that was successful. With Dider Drogba scoring 29 goals this season in the premier league . Frank Lampard contributed is routine 20 plus goals. Between both of these players 50 goals have been scored by Chelsea. Both of these players handled more that the complete number of goals scored by Portsmouth. Under Ancelotti, 7 goal thrashings have been handed out by Chelsea to Stoke City, Sunderland and Aston Villa. And in their final game of the season 2009/2010 they went one better. Chelsea have managed to score 103 goals in the 38 league matches. This is a premier league record.

For advancing all the way and winning the name FC Barcelona took about EUR110 million to home. Manchester United - the team in the finals - took about EUR65 million to home. Does Champions premier league fixtures participation gives lots of cash to a club but it also gives prestige to it and makes it easier to attract top footballers.

Teams finishing in the 3 places are demoted into the Football League Championship. There are no'play offs' to see who goes down unless points are drawn by the bottom two. The play off match is played at a neutral place.

It provides you with the information and clear view on premier league table tables. You can get more detailed information, such as P: Games Played, W: Wins, D: Draws, L: Losses, GS: Goals Scored, GA: Goals Against Goal Difference Points.

It is great athleticism, a cross between violent full-on contact, and chess. Yes, you get gamers seeking to officials, but rarely with injuries. The game is played with men, and non triers are found out pretty quickly in an environment which is unforgiving than football.

Question is will it be 3 straight this term? Are United going back to the times of dominance of the domestic league. Can we? Or will any of the other big 4 members have a say. Or possibly a dark horse.

Placing the bet comes next, When all these strategies and systems have been combined to satisfy you. It is time to start praying. Since anything could happen in a game, the world of soccer is extremely unpredictable. This is why strategies were formulated as a way to cut out the risk of dropping in league.

It is actually a UK based football league for English clubs. Yes, nobody can forget these moments. A couple of months ago, I featured a match against Oxford United from 1984.

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