Writing Center and Reading/Working Log

My visit to the writing center was very comfortable and I communicated nicely with my helper, while working on my literary analysis rough draft. She helped me figure out how I can go through my paper to find mistakes. By reading it out loud instead of in my head, my mind won’t skip over the details. I found and fixed a lot of typos by doing this, as well as improved sentence fluency. By doing this I also found things that were extraneous or out of order that would have made my paper really confusing to read.

My writing fellow also helped me decide whether or not to include several analogies I had written into my essay. I believe I ended up taking most of them out because they were slightly distracting. Most of them only made sense in my head and when I typed them up they seemed really far stretched. She helped discuss the few insecurities I had about things in my paper and either reassured me or helped me improve them. I wasn’t too sure about having my paper follow the plot, but I knew that in order for me to explain my thesis I would have to. When I asked her, she agreed with me and gave me reasons why it would be okay. I walked out of my visit at the writing center, more confident in what I had written so far and sure about what I still needed to work on.

Reading/Working Log

Rereading and annotating LOTF- 1 hour

Reading focus journal- 45 mins

Reading Focus Project- 35 mins

WHAP Textbook- 25 mins

I Thought He Was a Ventriloquist...

Prompt: The next time you're in a public place such as a coffeehouse, park, or a store observe the people around you. Pick a person, couple, or a group and imagine what their lives might be like.
        While riding in the car on the way to dance, I saw a man walking on the side of the road. He was holding a large blue bag over his shoulder that had the words ‘Little Anne’ on the side in big white letters. He looked like he was walking towards his car and he seemed to be having a long day. Automatically I thought he was some sort of ventriloquist. He probably wasn’t a very successful one if he was coming from a performance in an orthodontist’s office.

        His main act, ‘Little Anne’, wasn’t much of a hit for the audience of thirteen year olds and mothers, in the waiting room of his uncle’s orthodontist office. He is working two different jobs, both earning him minimum wage. It is enough to pay to rent on his apartment but it wasn’t enough to keep his girlfriend around. He is thinking about moving in with his mom and quitting one of his jobs. After I wrote this I looked up ‘Little Anne’ on the internet, and it turns out I was way off. Little Anne is a CPR practice doll and he was probably an instructor.

Reading Log

Siege and Storm, over 2 hours, finished

Lord of the Flies, over 2 hours, finished

 



Short Short Story: Free Post

Shrill and disturbing, loud as a siren. Penetrates my body and shimmies down my spine. A sound from so deep inside of me it is foreign. The sound echoes across the lot, bouncing off the concrete walls of distant buildings. Birds from nearby trees launch up in a torrent of fluttering wings into the hazy night sky, full of the artificial light of the city. The sound is still exploding out of me, tearing out of my throat like I’ve been swallowing swords. When it feels as if I’m going to pass out from the lack of breathing, my scream finally starts to fade. I feel weak so I let myself slump to the ground leaning against a nearby car. Only now do I feel the full pain of the wound in my side. The strength I thought I had drains out of me as the last echoes of the mingled scream and gunshot subside.

Sorry if this is disturbing for anyone, I wrote it a little while ago for a free post but decided to write something else. I couldn't think of anything to write, so I thought I might just use this.

 

Reading Log

Lord of the Flies 2 hours and 15 mins

Siege and Storm 20 mins 

Captivating Conversations – Blog Prompt

Prompt: Come up with a question to ask several people, list their responses, and talk about your favorite response.

I have thought about this question a lot, even though it may be simple and dull sounding. What makes a good conversation starter? I forgot about it for a little while but I was inspired by probably one of the most spontaneous people I know. Prepare yourselves some of these might get a little bit boring but bear with me because the last one practically put me in tears when I was asked this.

1. Brother #1 says ‘an insult’

2. Brother #2 says ‘Would you kill baby Hitler?’

3. Dad says telling an amusing story along the lines of Roman admiral performing a pre-battle ceremony… sacred chickens aren’t hungry…’if they will not eat then let them drink’… throwing them into the sea… losing the battle because he killed the sacred chickens. And mentioning that we are distantly related to the idiot who killed the sacred chickens.

4. Mom says she can’t think of anything quite as interesting as my father’s response. But she usually starts with ‘how are your kids doing?’ or something like that.

5. Last but not least, my dance teacher says ‘what would it be like if I could only move my head in sharp abrupt movements?’

                 The last one I definitely my favorite because it was so out of the ordinary and actually led to an extremely interesting conversation.

                What do you think about these responses? What do you think is the best conversation starter?

What It Would Be Like If It Were Us

Eleanor screams in the distance.  She is standing on the beach, eyes wide open gaping at the disaster before her. Cody, Bailey S., Nicole, and Devin stumble out of the forest their clothes burned and pulled at by the trees. The sound of a small explosion booms from the plane, the engines still roaring back to life every minute or so. Madison, John, and Sienna are already standing behind me. John is running in circles panicking sputtering a million words a minute at 100% volume. Smoke is billowing up from the forest, meaning the trees have caught fire. The obvious doubt in everyone’s face says that everybody probably didn’t make it. But just as the last engine explodes sending the fires reaching up towards the night sky, the rest of our class trudges out of the trees. Bailey L., Emelia, Alex, Sophie, AC, Jacob, and Harper, all carrying or dragging each other to the safety of the beach. They gather together in a chaotic cluster by the waves.

 “What are we gonna do?” shrieked several people in desperate voices.

Sienna says with a grave voice, “Did you see anyone else? Are we the only ones?”

Out of breath, Jacob and Baily are only able to nod their heads.

John stops his screaming long enough to say, “How is it possible that everyone on the plane died, except for our English class?”

Deserted Island Simulation

               On Thursday, when we did our deserted island simulation, we did it vey calmly and well organized. We got our priorities straight and established a system of working (sort of). I think that if we were in a real life situation, it is likely that we wouldn’t have been able to stay so calm. But I think that in some variation of what happened, we would have been able to collect ourselves and ultimately survive pretty well.

                I think we would have been able to have a well-rounded group of people with useful survival skills. There are some pretty smart people in our class, as well as some pretty athletic people, with that I think we would have the organization and resourcefulness to maintain a steady food supply and working force. We will certainly run into plenty of problems while stranded on an island. For example, since we are all still teenagers some of us are still growing, especially since we are accompanied by a bunch of 1^st graders, we are going to need a lot of food and eventually new clothes. There will be plenty of injuries and if we’ve got a shelter of some sort that will eventually break and need fixing. Overall, our class would probably be fine if we got stranded on an island.

Reading Log

Literary Analysis 2 hours 30 mins

Siege and Storm 20 mins

LOTF about 1 hour

Writing Center Thursday 3^rd block

Free Post: The Speech Song

                I was listening to the radio in the car on the way to dance on Wednesday, and a strange song came on the radio that really caught my attention. Its called Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen. The title is a little bit misleading but it kind of makes sense once you hear the song. The song is basically an advice speech with a beat, but I liked the advice so much that I actually bought the song. I can't say everyone will appreciate it, but I highly recommend going on YouTube and listening to it.
Link: http://youtu.be/xfq_A8nXMsQ

Reading Log

Reading Log

Siege and Storm 1 hour

Peer marks 35 minutes

Literary Analysis 30 minutes

 

Not Bragging, I'm Just Excited

           As some of you might know, I've been dancing a lot lately. Most of the people who dance at my studio don't come to class as often so I've been improving quickly. Every year my company performs The Nutcracker and a while back I auditioned for it. Now this is the part I'm excited about. Because I've been improving so much, I get to do six different roles.
           I was casted as Snow, Flower, Angel Couple, Doll, and understudy for Chinese and Marzipan. Fourteen year olds usually only get to do Snow because its our first year in the company. Not only that, but the role of Doll has never in the history of my company been done by a fourteen year old. Most of the time the oldest company members do Doll (a.k.a. my mom and other people out of college). I'm really excited about performing this year and all of y'all should come see it!

Short Stories for Literary Analysis

Reading Response

The three short stories that I annotated were Roman Fever, Sucker, and The Sniper. Sucker was probably the story I read the most easily and it was pretty interesting. The conflicts between characters were things that I can apply to my own life, maybe not as extreme as how it was in the story, but enough so that I can empathize. The Sniper was also a great story but I mostly read it because it was short. There wasn’t much deep meaning in this story and I didn’t relate much to the main character so this story overall didn’t completely catch my interest.

The story I’m considering the most for my literary analysis is Roman Fever. It was a really long short story that seemed boring at first but when I really started paying attention to it I noticed that it was 3^rd person omniscient, instead of what I originally thought. Also I noticed that the whole story was kind of building up to the two main characters’ big dispute at the end, driven by one of the characters long lasting jealousy. Roman Fever is most likely going to be the story I end up using in my literary analysis.

Reading Log

Sucker 45 mins 10/25/13

The Sniper 30 mins 10/26/13

Roman Fever 1 hour 10/27/13

Prodigy 45 mins finished 10/22/13

 

Personal Questions and Reading Log

Personal Questions:

• What would it be like to be a hero?
• What inspires me to read more?
• What makes a setting description realistic?

Reading Log

 

Siddhartha 2 hours 10/13/13

Prodigy 30 minutes 10/10/13

 

Reading Log

Reading Log

Siddhartha- 2 hours- 28-55%

Prodigy- 20 mins 50-56%

Waltz of the Fat Man- 45 mins

And of Clay Were We Created- 30 mins

30 mins of short story writing

Short Story Response

I felt that the most helpful thing we have done in reading these short stories is just talking about them in class. Sometimes (actually most of the time) I find myself skipping over a lot of important details or points when reading and attempting to annotate these short stories. So when we go over them in class other people’s perspective help me see those things that my fast paced brain tends to skip over. This applies to stories like “Dry September” because I don’t find them particularly interesting and they aren’t very straight forward. Annotating in general helps me with focusing on a story’s details.

There are a few things that I didn’t find extremely helpful and things that could help make the readings more enjoyable. The word thing we did on the board with sending in words describing A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings in the end was pretty beneficial but I felt like there could be a more efficient way of doing it. A bunch of people were complaining a little about how the stories were so weird and they didn’t really understand what was going on. I don’t agree with that because I’m more interested in odd stories like Harrison Bergeron or A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings. Even though I might not have an easy time understanding everything that is going on, I find stories like those a much faster read.

 Reading Log

Siddhartha all of part 1

9/29/13

2 hours

 

Short Story Plot

My story started out as something that seemed easy and I pretty much knew exactly what I wanted to do but as time went by I realized my idea was just a big blurry mess of a story line. So the plot of my story is still not completely decided and anything I say is open to suggestions to change things because I am not completely satisfied with where I’m going with my story.

Exposition:

-          Mainly set in a small apartment complex where the two main characters, Brayden and Katya live. Brayden is mentally unstable because of his parents abandoning him as a child causing him to form a habit and a severe fear of losing things. Katya is Brayden’s neighbor who he has fallen head over heals in love with and seeks to claim her affection to fill the void of loneliness left by his parents.

Rising Actions:

-          Braden repeatedly attempts to catch Katya’s attention  

Climax:

-          On his last attempt, he sends a love letter, but receives a letter back gently rejecting him. He flips out and tries to find a way to escape the situation without losing anything

Resolution:

-          He gets himself out of his predicament

 

Reading Response: That Big Red Book in the Library

            Friday after school, I was sitting in the library waiting for my mother to pick me up and I noticed an enormous red book on one of the tables. I got up and went over to see what it was about. The title of that book is The First Folio of Shakespeare, so basically it is an anthology of Shakespeare plays. This summer I performed in a ballet based off of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which made me interested in reading it. As I was skimming over these plays (skimming because they can get too hard to understand when actually reading) I paid attention to how unique Shakespeare’s writing is and that it’s a rare occasion when you come across someone who still writes in that style. Shakespeare made up many of the words he used in his plays, which is something that I don’t see very often.

                Pretty much every school assigns one of Shakespeare’s master pieces to be read at some point. They do this because all of his writing is beautifully written in a way that almost every line has meaning and importance. And usually if there wasn’t a real meaning to a phrase it usually had a pun or witty statement. His imagery was incredible and the order in which he wrote his phrases was unique. Not to mention, all the while he kept some sort of rhythm or tone. Shakespeare is probably one of my all-time favorite writers, because they are fabulous to read and several of them have been made into ballets.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

1 hour 30 mins

9/16-18/13

A&P- 30 mins

To Da-duh, in Memoium-30 mins

 

I've lost It...

            I’m going to have to take care of that in the morning… Another pair of shoes? How could I have possibly lost another pair of shoes? That is now..what..the fourth pair of shoes this month? I made a wreck out of my apartment looking for them. I won’t have time to take care of all of this in the morning! I’ll be late! I won’t see her. She will head off to work the day away wondering why I have abandoned her. She will think I don’t care! Wait a second…. Didn’t I buy three extra pairs of shoes on the way home from work today? Yes! Now I will not be late to start her day with a ‘good morning’. If only I could remember where I put them. If only I hadn’t made a mess of my house tonight looking for them. I’m going to lose so much time that I won’t be at the courtyard gate as the sun is rising. I will have to find them quickly, before it’s too late. Before I miss her. Before I lose the one thing I dread losing the most. Before I lose the love of my life. Before I lose Katya Day.

Ok so this was the second version I wrote. The first one, I wrote before I realized it had to be of the character before they fall asleep. I want to put the first version also because I liked it better but they are both pretty much the same thing..........so read it if you would like to.

Original:    Where is it? I could have sworn it was just in that drawer! How is it possible to lose four pairs of shoes in a month? I’m going to be late. I’m going to miss her! She is going to walk straight into her apartment without my greeting. Is it possible to live not seeing my love for even a day? I’ve got 15 minutes, and it may be enough time to go buy another pair of shoes. No, wait! I bought 3 extra pairs on the way home from work in case this were to happen again. Now where did I put them….. Ah! Here they are. Oh I’m losing too much time! Already 10 minutes have passed. I must move swiftly now! Before it’s too late. Before I miss her. Before I lose the one thing I dread losing the most. Before I lose the love of my life. Before I lose Katya Day.

EBook

              Literary narratives are at their best when they are jam packed with imagery. So wouldn’t a literacy narrative with an actual image to back up the imagery. In my narrative I don’t really go into detail about how Twilight Twins looked physically, so I think it would be amusing to see my amazing illustrations. I have nothing against MLA headings but I much prefer just something simple. Underline and bold titles are what I always use and I like how magazines have pictures in the middle of articles. Hopefully this eBook won’t look like an explosion of colors, because I’ll find it distracting me from the actual narrative.

                I don’t have a problem with anything in my narrative ‘going public’ and I’m sure anybody I mentioned won’t either, so I’m probably not going to change any of the writing. But I might want to proofread one more time because I added a few things before I turned it in. I’m excited about this and even though I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to be adding, I’ll figure it out as I go.

Guess Who?

             They’re Made of Meat is a short story by Terry Bisson that I had read back in the 6^th grade. I’ve recently read it again. Since I really don’t real want to blog about the book I’m reading again, I’m going to blog about this short story. I strongly recommend reading this if you like new perspectives on things. Also it is completely dialogue, so if you’re having trouble figuring that out, this might help.

                They’re Made of Meat is a dialogue between two characters in outer space who were sent to research some alien species to see if they could communicate and make relationships with. But they are appalled and disgusted when they find that the species is completely made of meat; no carbon-based body parts, no electron plasma brains, they are simply made of meat. Meat that thinks, dreams, makes machines, and even communicates by flapping their meat together to make sound. They are so abhorred by this species that they pretended they never discovered them and left them to be lonely in the universe.

WARNING YOU MAY WANT TO READ THE ACTUAL STORY BEFORE READNG THE NEXT PARAGRAPH. IT WILL RUIN THE MAGIC. So here's the link.

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TheyMade.shtml

Guess what the intelligent species they found was? Us. The whole time I was reading it for the first time, I believed it was two humans talking. Turns out it was two aliens talking about humans. And all the things they described us as, is actually true. Our vocal chords are just meat flapping together and we are completely made out of meat. Those things may seem very odd for aliens who are made of rock or who knows what (I’m not saying I believe in aliens but if there were….). I found They’re Made of Meat intriguing and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes short stories.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

2 hours 30-42%

9/15/13

Diolougue: Q&A

                “How old are you?” asks the stern looking middle aged man. This startles the younger guy who stands outside the door on the brick front porch. “Fifteen,” he replies.

“What classes are you taking?” grumbles the man.

“Pre-calculus, chemistry, AP US History, English 2, and Spanish 3,” stutters the boy.

“You make good grades?”

“Yes, Mr. Smith,” says the boy in a slightly higher pitch than before, while nodding his head.

“You don’t play football, right?”

“No, sir. I play golf,”

Mr. Smith grunts with approval and asks, “Got a job?”

“Yes sir. I cut lawns in my neighborhood and I dj parties.”

This time Mr. Smith grunts disapprovingly. He looks up in contemplation and looks back down at the boy with a despising glare. “Have you ever been arrested?” he says in a low growl.

“No sir! I’m not like that!” He exclaims, adding ‘sir’ a second later.

“Good,” utters Mr. Smith, then asks “Do you really want to date Sarah?”

“I’m not so sure now, sir,” stammers the boy.

“Alright, be back by nine,” murmurs Mr. Smith as he lets Sarah pass and closes the door.

Twilight Twins Update

           The subject of my literacy narrative is a story I wrote in the third grade called Twilight Twins. I’m pumped about how I managed to transition between parts of the narrative. I’m quite fond of how I shifted into a summary of our brief story. I used my trip to the library to show off the story to the librarian as a transition into describing the faults and strong points of Twilight Twins. Also I am very proud of some of the descriptive parts within the essay. I worked especially at recollecting the settings of the moments I mentioned in my narrative.

             I believe I might have to go back through and correct some of my sentence structures and switch out some words for more accurately descriptive choices. I’m not particularly confident about how I concluded the narrative. I typed it on the remaining five minutes of a plane ride that I was allowed to use electronics and ended up slightly rushing the ending. I also might need to go back through and add some more sensory to some parts of it. Other than those few instances, I think I typed up a reputable rough draft.

Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

9/5/13

120 minutes 14%-30%

Not So Great of an Example

          The literary narrative Proficiency by Shannon Nichols was about a girl who failed her writing section of her proficiency test. Even after retaking the test she failed it, only to succeed on her third attempt. This article is not an adequate example of a literary narrative because of several negative characteristics. I was not all that impressed by this paper's word choice. The organization and sentence fluency were not outstanding either. But most importantly there was no real purpose to the narrative.
           After reading Proficiency I was left confused because I had not gained anything from it, I was bored and it was not clear what the purpose of the story had been. The article just goes on about how she failed the writing portion of the test twice and then passed it the third time. The style of writing made me disdain the narrator because of the sense of self-absorption I received. Also after watching The Case Against "good" and "bad"  video in the Vocabulary topic on the English class page, I realized how dull the articles vocabulary is. I now understand why Proficiency had not been one of the ones assigned.

Reading Response: Prodigy

            The second book of Marie Lu's Legend series, the book I posted on last week, is Prodigy. As I said last reading response post, Legend is brain candy so that its hard to stop reading once you've started. I finished it on sunday night, then promptly bought the second book, Prodigy.This made me wonder why books now are made into a series. Not long ago, people really only wrote novels and left it at that. Authors put everything they wanted to happen into one book, instead of just drawing out the story over the course of three or more books. Is it because it all didn't fit into one book? Or just because people want to make more money?
            Prodigy is a continuation of June and Day's escape from the Republic. Someone complained about The Knife of Never Letting Go that the whole plot was about the two characters just running and running. Prodigy is starting to feel like that to me, but with more variation. One negative characteristic I find in sequels that I am noticing in Prodigy is that the power of the characters is weakening. Their secrets are revealed, leaving no mystery about them. The reader knows their weaknesses, and there is less of a superior-being quality to them. I believe the Legend series so far has a captivating plot, but I wish it could just be all in one book.

 Reading Log

Prodigy by Marie Lu

8/28/13

0%-14% 120 mins

My First Day

          My car pulls up late down the street from Episcopal, so my mom and I have to get out and hurry to the church while Gavin goes off to do whatever. When we get to the church we can't find the entrance. We circle around it and find someone standing by the open door, so we walk in and are greeted by several people standing around a table. The woman sitting behind the table asks for my name and hands me a couple of papers. I thank her and mom and I go to find a pew as close to the front as possible, as instructed by the power point displayed on the projector in the front left corner of the church. Mom seats herself near the middle of the congregation and I follow after.
           Mr. Perkinson stands at the front of the aisle, in the middle of a speech I can't seem to hear or pay attention to so I start to look around. At first I feel a little bit overwhelmed by so many unfamiliar people, but  a smile spreads across my face as I'm reassured by the sight of Allison, my childhood friend, along with several other girls from my old school scattered across the church. I see glimpses of a few people I used to know and some that look familiar but I cannot seem to remember their names.
          I'm running out of people to observe so I move on to my setting. The church is beautiful, with several stained glass windows and brick walls. There is a circular one on the front wall, three tall ones on the back wall, and an uneven number of windows on the side walls, which bothers me. The stained glass windows are beautifully crafted and I marvel at how they fill the space that the dim lights inside can't reach. The brick walls make me feel uncomfortable with all that weight around me, but the pointed barrel vault roof is massive and reminds me of sixth grade social studies when we learned about roman arches.
           I spot a man staring at me, clearly annoyed, because I keep twisting around to look at the church so I decide to listen to Mr. Perkinson's speech some more. But soon that fades back into a droning background noise as I start flipping through the papers that were handed to me by the lady at the entrance. By the time I finish flipping though the packet, the speech is over and people are standing up to walk out. I get up excitedly  and rush to see my friends. We talk, laugh, and compare schedules as we head off on our first day of high school.

Reading Response: Legend

              The book I am currently reading is Legend by Marie Lu. An intoxicating story of a boy named Day, who is wanted by the Republic, and a girl named June, who is a child prodigy who's mission is to find Day for the Republic. The book consist of family, a plague, a corrupt government, and a secret love. This book is well written along the lines of plot and keeping the reader interested. It's what my mom would call 'brain candy', because not to difficult to read and it is non-stop action or suspension.
              This near future book is sort of similar to Divergent by Veronica Roth. The main characters are an anomaly in their society and wanted by the government. They have the same qualities that make them such good books that once you start reading its hard to stop. I'm finding myself enjoying Legend more that Divergent though, because of the way the characters were developed and brought together. Anyone who enjoyed reading Divergent should probably consider reading Legend.

Reading  Log

Legend by Marie Lu

8/20/13

1 hour 30 mins

8/21/13

1 hour

Reading Log

8/13/13- Crossed by Ally Condie- 45 mins
8/16/13- Crossed by Ally Condie- 5 mins
8/17/13- Legend by Marie Lu- 95 min

St.Lukes to Episcopal

           St. Lukes was my second home and school for ten years, and now I have changed to a new school. I have never had to change my daily routine before now, never had to figure out a new campus, and never had to be the new kid. At St. Lukes it was easy to feel important, unique, and special because there were so few of us. It was easy to feel at home and comfortable because most of us had been there for our whole lives, the rest were welcomed warmly and quickly became part of the family. Everyone got along with everyone because if you got in a fight with someone or didn't like them then who else are you going to hang out with, there weren't that many choices. I'm not saying that the people here haven't been nice, I mean, they really are, but I just don't know them on a personal level like I did at St. Lukes. But here, at Episcopal there are so many people, I remember maybe 15% of the names of the people I have been introduced to. I've always been one of the welcoming faces, not one of the ones who can't find the office.
          Episcopal isn't that hard to figure out, every type of class has its own place. There is one area for lockers and one area for lunch but there is still a huge portion of the school that I have never seen or heard of. When I applied to Episcopal, I had no idea there was a tennis court or two breaks! I can't wait to get to use things like the library, computer lab, and writing center. I'm excited about going to Episcopal! In fact, I predicted in second grade, that my friend Allison and I would go to Episcopal together for high school (really only because the only high school I knew the name of back then). Alright, lets see how the rest of the year goes.

Summer Reading Response: Night Circus

                 What I liked most about Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern was that it was unique in terms of its plot. It was filled with magic and mystically elaborate settings. Every event was a surprise, I could never predict what was about to happen. Something I found annoying yet interesting was how the book was organized. Some books may change point of view from one character to another, but this book changed in point of view, setting, and time. The different points of view, in the end, all tied together and it made sense why they were even mentioned. Also, the author would occasionally pop in a chapter describing a circus-goers experience. 

                 Since most people probably didn't read Night Circus for their book of choice, this book was about two magicians bound together by a game of skills, with the entirely black and white circus as the stage. The two players were trained from childhood so that they may be prepared for the competition were only one can be left standing. While reading, I always looked forward to another description of the circus because I felt like I was actually there and it also made me really want to go to a circus. The author is very skilled at using sensory in her writing because she uses all the senses, making it easy to imagine actually being there. I highly recommend this book for those of you who enjoy enchanting fantasy books with magical occurrences and a little bit of romance.