Behind the Albergue Door {Book Review}

Today I am reviewing Behind the Albergue Door by Dean Johnston, a book about traveling El Camino de Santiago in Spain. When I had to opportunity to get this book to review, I jumped on it. Walking El Camino has been a dream of mine for a while, and I must say that this book made me even more excited to travel there someday.

Summary

Behind the Albergue Door : Inspiration Agony Adventure on the Camino de Santiago is a detailed and, according to the author’s mom, hilarious account of the 5 weeks in the fall of 2012 that he and his wife spent hiking the popular 800 kilometre Spanish pilgrimage route, the Camino de Santiago. It mixes stories, advice and humour in a way unique among travelogues and is a terrific read for past pilgrims, future pilgrims, travel buffs, and those who simply enjoy reading about other people’s suffering.


Review


This book is a wonderful combination of informative and hilarious. Dean Johnston intersperses his advice and guidelines with humorous anecdotes and stories of fictional travelers. I found his writing style quite enjoyable, and I think he managed very well to combine the serious and not so serious topic he covered.


This book is thorough, and covered many topics such as what to pack, the food, the weather, the other people, and more. There are also several chapters, intersperced through out the book, which tell the story of a fictional El Camino traveler, usually told through emails, tweets, or other modern methods of communication. These stories help demonstrate the different kinds of people who make the journey, and some of the experiences they might have.


 There are also more real life, semi serious stories from Dean's actual time on El Camino de Santiago, which, by the end of the book, make you feel like he is a family friend you have been asking for advice from. Nothing, it seems, was too personal for him to share, and that is what makes this book so wonderfully comprehensive.


I would highly recommend this book to people to love to travel, people considering walking El Camino de Santiago, and those who simply love a well written real life adventure!

Now, I have the very special opportunity to give away a copy of this ebook to one of you! You can enter below using your facebook account, your twitter account, or your email address. Unfortunately, since I have been really sick lately, I did not get this up as soon as I had hoped, and so Dean Johnston would like to send this to the winner in just three days!
You can find this book at Smashwords here, Amazon here, and the author here.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Three for Three!

Yes! I did it! I won NaNoWriMo for the third year in a row.

In 2011, I wrote "Nothing Good Ever Lasts," and finished on Nov. 30 with 50,002 words.

In 2012, I wrote "To Be A Slave," and finished on Nov. 29 with 50,069 words.

In 2013, I wrote "At the Edge of the Ocean," and finished on Nov. 29 with 50,0067 words.

This year and last year are looking quite similar! I'm really sorry I have not posted any thing in so long. I have had a lot going on, and I will try to get caught up very soon. Now that I am no longer writing my novel (so exciting), I have more time, and so I will try to get a few posts written soon. Either later today or tomorrow (probably tomorrow), I will post a life update about why I have written so little on here lately. I will also be doing a sponsored book review that is going up tonight or tomorrow morning.

NaNoWriMo Update: Two-Thirds Done! + Mini Life Update

Let's try to pretend I'm not almost a whole week late on this one... I'm just going to combine Homeschool Friday posts again, since I did not get the one for last week done.

According to the calender, November is 2/3 of the way over, though my word count does not reflect that at the moment. You can always see my current word count in the side bar, and right now that is 26,332 words. This is a lot less than I would like, but I'm not yet TOO worried about it. In 2011, I had 26,928 words on the 20th, and in 2012 I had 31,479. The 2011 numbers are very close, and I still managed to come back and win that year.

This NaNoWriMo has been the hardest one yet. My story is coming together, sort of, but my other life keeps getting in the way. School has been demanding a lot of time and attention, and it remains my first priority most of the time. I have also been sick nearly the entire month, which has resulted in having several days with no writing.

I had a cold in late October which never quite went away (there was a nasty lingering cough), and last week it seemed to come back in full force again. I don't know if this is something totally different, or if I have relapsed, but I have been feeling pretty terrible for the last week or so, which has negatively effected my writing.

I have also had a lot of other stuff going on that I have been doing. I agreed to go to three Scottish Country Dancing classes so that I could perform with them in three weeks at the port festival (I have never done any Scottish before in my life, though it is similar to Irish, which I have been doing for over a year now). I also have several choir performances coming up. I know I have some local readers, so as the time gets closer, I'll post some dates and places that you can come see me sing or dance if you so desire.

NaNo itself has been going okay. My novel is still very strange, and I sometimes hate it, but I am feeling a little bit better about it. Last Thursday, I went to a Write In at a local coffee shop (my first in three years of NaNo), which was fun. I was nervous because I knew I would be the youngest person there (I was, the rest of the people were college students), but it was still fun. One of the people asked where I went to college when I first got there, which boosted my confidence level a bit.

I was going to go to another one last night, but this cough I have has gotten so bad that I didn't think it was a good idea. Even though I didn't feel too bad, I would certainly have disturbed everyone else with my literal non-stop coughing fits. If I feel up for it, I'll go to the Thursday one again this week.

I think I'll go and try to get some school done. I think I am going to block three thirty to five as my dedicated writing time today, so I have until then to do as much school as possible.

How are you all doing on your novels? Are you feeling confidant, or are you getting nervous?

Allegient by Veronica Roth {Book Review}

Today I am reviewing Allegient by Veronica Roth. Just so you know, I will try not to have too many spoilers here, but this is not going to be a spoiler free review. So, if you have not read the book, but intend to, maybe skip this post. Also, this review is more about how this book fits in with the previous two, and less about it as an individual book.

Summary
What if your whole world was a lie?
What if a single revelation—like a single choice—changed everything?
What if love and loyalty made you do things you never expected?
The explosive conclusion to Veronica Roth's #1 New York Times bestselling Divergent trilogy reveals the secrets of the dystopian world that has captivated millions of readers in Divergent and Insurgent. 

My Review
With this book, I had the somewhat unique experience of not having ANY spoilers. Seriously, I did not even read the front flap of the book before I read it. That being the case, I did not know what to expect, and I have very mixed feelings.

I have always felt like Veronica Roth's characters and writing style is very much middle ground. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about them, but they also don't particularly stand out. I think that it is the story lines in her books that really make them stand out.

I will admit that I didn't have too high of hopes for Allegient. I have read far too many teen dystopian trilogies with a wonderful first book, and okay second book, and a disappointing resolution (Reached, and even Mockingjay are prime examples). It was not as bad I had feared it might be.

The main explanation for everything, which comes a third or so of the way through the book, was one I was happy with. It made sense to me, even though it could have used a little more fleshing out in my opinion. However, the book continued to stretch the idea to greater and greater lengths without ever really making it more then a reletivly abstract idea. I didn't love that.

By the end, the characters are rebelling against this idea, but I was never able to totally get behind them since I never really understood what it was they were rebelling against.

Warning, spoilers ahead. Nothing explicit, but enough info that you might be able to guess how it ends if you read it carefully.



Another thing that bothered me through out the book was the switch from Tris's 1st person POV in the first two books to now switching between Tobias and Tris. I found it rather annoying, though of course I understand now why the author did did that, and I really can't complain too much.

The way the book ended, that one thing that I am sure Veronica Roth is getting plenty of hate about, I can't say I really am too unhappy about. It felt somewhat appropriate, and it showed me that she was willing to take risks with her characters for the sake of the plot.

Who Should Read This Book
 Anyone who read and enjoyed the first two books. As the final book in a series, I can't really recommend it to anyone else.

NaNoWriMo - Week 1

Whew, ten days done, and twenty to go. That means that I should be about 1/3 of the way through my novel, which I am not. I am currently about 3k behind, which is not too bad. I've been much farther behind at this point in the month and still won.

My story is going okay, though I've sort of hit a wall. My story so far as been dark realistic fiction, veering sharply into literary fiction. Literary fiction can be great, but it is a PAIN to write. You have to know your characters really well, and sometimes it can just get to be too much work, especially for NaNoWriMo.

I don't know exactly where I am going to go from here, but my main plan is to change things up a bunch. I am considering jumping forward in time (maybe as much as ten or twenty years), and even switching up the genre (heading for more of a fantasy vibe). I would never do this if I expected anyone to read it, but since that is not really why I do NaNo, it should be fine. I'll update you next week on what I actually decided to do.

I would love to go to some Write Ins this year (write ins are usually held at coffee shops or other public places, and are where a bunch of local NaNoers come to hang out and write together), though I don't know whether or not that will work out. I have never gone to any local events in the past two years I have done NaNo, but I would love to meet some of the people I see so much online. I try to keep pretty active on the Bellingham forums on nanowrimo.org, and I do think that the personal connection can be really motivating.

If you are doing NaNoWriMo, and you want to be friends with me on the site, my name is Daisy512. Feel free to nanomail me, or send to a buddy request.

Homeschool Friday: Weeks 9 & 10

I've been a little behind on blogging lately, but I am going to blame it on NaNoWriMo and leave it at that.

First of all, here is a short summary about last week (Oct. 28-Nov. 1). I did not get a lot done. Halloween was kind of a big deal this year, and with all the stuff going on, school did not end up being my top priority. I did no history, a little Spanish, some math, some science, and half of a Rhetoric chapter. Latin was my best subject of the week. Also, I hosted (and sort of led) a discussion for The Joy Luck Club for our teen book club (our theme this year is World Lit). I hope to write a review of the Joy Luck Club soon, but you know, it is November.

This week went much, much better.

History
For history this week, I did a short writing assignment where I did some research on the Abbasid Dynasty, and wrote several paragraphs about their rise, fall, and the various things that happened in between. I then read and summarized a long chapter out of my textbook about the early middle ages in Europe, ending with the Vikings.

Math and Science
I did not do quite as well here. I did two science lessons on earthquakes, and I did four out of the five math lessons. One of them I did terribly one, one was a test (which I did better on then I had expected), and the other two went pretty well.

Latin and Spanish
In Latin, I finished the chapter I was working, which is really good. It was pretty short, but mostly translation, which is a little more time consuming. I actaully did this book two years ago, but this year I felt like I was not ready to move on to the next book in the series, so I started over, meaning that I have done this all before. I think the repetition is helping me, and I actually know what is coming up. Right now, the translation passages are all ones written by the authors of the textbook, which means they are pretty generic, but I know that pretty soon I will move into older passages (modified for an intermediate student) that were actaully written in Latin hundreds or thousands of years ago.

In Spanish, I finally am almost done with the intro chapter, which is really good. It will be nice to move in to some real grammar and useful information.

Rhetoric
In Rhetoric, I worked through the chapter about statistics, which was fun. They gave me statistics (some straight numbers, others summaries) which I had to analyze, and decide whether or not you can draw conclusions from it, and, if you can, what kind of conclusions. Definetly the most fun I have had in Rhetoric all year!

English, ect.
I am not doing any official English until the new year, which is really nice. I am, of course, writing a novel, but there will be another post about that later today. I am also rereading Things Fall Apart for the World Lit group.

So, that is pretty much it. I have finished several books in the last few weeks, all of which I really want to review if I have time. I am thinking about taking today off of NaNo (even though I am behind) and get a bunch of blog posts written up. We'll see.

Jayden and the Mysterious Mountain {Book Review}

(This review contains affiliate links, and I will receive a small compensation if you purchase a product through them.)


Today, I am reviewing Jayden & the Mysterious Mountain by Katrina Kope. You can find the book on Amazon by clicking the title in the previous sentence, and you can find the author's website here.

Amazon.com Summary
When a rich grandfather figure strangely appears in the dark street to rescue the young boy, Jayden from homelessness, a life better than his dreams has come true. He is taken to a five star hotel – no, actually a school called The Sanctum, camouflaged in the mountains. The students build and operate high tech equipment, including surrogate robots all to fight against terrorism or are they?

By the way, you don’t want to annoy Scarlet who runs the general operations of the building. She is one cheeky AI and plays nasty if you cross her.

My Review
I chose to read and review this book because I was intrigued by the description. I enjoyed the story, and I found myself often curious about where the story was going. I also found the characters to be mostly enjoyable, particularly Scarlet, who had some great lines. :)

This book is full of misspellings, grammatical errors, and awkward phrasings. To me, it reads like a first draft. That does not mean that this story is bad, but it made if difficult for me to enjoy. What this book needs is some thorough editing, and then I think I would enjoy it much more. I have been informed by the author that a new edition of this book, which will have been more thoroughly edited will be released soon. As I have not seen the new edition, I can not say anything for sure about it, but I will say that I expect that I would be able to give it a higher recommendation.

Who Should Read It?
My recommendation of this book is mixed. While I feel like this book has many positive aspects, particularly in terms of the story, the technical errors and stylistic awkwardness may make it difficult for you to read. If this is not something that bothers you, I think that this book would be enjoyed by preteens, and young teens, though older teen and adults might like it too. If you are unsure it, but still find the premise interesting, I would maybe wait until the new edition is released.

I am going to give this 2.5 stars at the moment (out of five). While it is quite possible that an edition of this book with better editing would receive a higher rating, I have not seen it, and can not say for certain.

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

Twenty Five Things About Me!

I thought it would be fun to share some facts about me with the world. Hopefully it will help you enjoy this blog a little more, understanding the perspective from which it comes.

1. I've only ever been in the United States (because that's where I live), and Canada (because it's less then an hour away).

2. Despite having lived this close to Canada my whole life, the first time I went, I was 12.

3. I went to Waldorf Preschool for two years, and was origionally going to go to the local Waldorf school for Kindergarten, but my parents decided it was too expencive.

4. Instead, they enrolled me in the local public school next door to the Waldorf school, and I went there for Kindergarten, and 1st grade.

5. I dislike writing fiction. While I love writing, I never really feel like I have stories to tell, like many people say they do. There are no stories in my head waiting to be written. I love the written word, and I especially love blogging. It is the perfect mixture of the narrative style you can use with fiction, but without the plot and characters, and the factual content of nonfiction, but without all the research.

6. Google owns me. Seriously, I use so many google products, its a little sad. Gmail, Blogger, Google Docs (or Drive, whichever it is now), Google+ (sort of, sometimes), Google News, Google Analytics, YouTube, and once upon a time, Google Reader, though I had to switch away from that this summer. Oh, and of course, the good old fashioned search engine.Yeah, it is more then a little sad.

7. I played a lot of computer games in middle school. I worshiped Jayisgames.com. I mainly played interactive art style indie adventure games, and point and clicks with a good plot. Some favortite develoers of mine were always Mateusz Skutik, Bart Bonte, Last Day of Work, and Flipline Studios. The last two are really more sims, which I also have a weakness for. I don't play a whole lot now, since I have a lot less time then I did a few years ago, but I still do occasionally.

8.  When I was 12 years old and went to the doctor, I was 5' 3 3/4", and in about the 75% percentile for height. Last month, and age 15, I went to the doctor again. This time I'm 5' 4" and in the 53% percentile. I am also a half pound heavier then I was at 12. I grew early, and then not at all. :)

9. I published a newsletter for my friends and family for four years (ages 7 to 11), and charged $10 a year. When I was finished, I had made about $400, before I paid my parents for things like stamps, paper, ink, and envelopes.

10. I have a copy of every edition of the Classical Academy News (my little newsletter). :)

11. I have done Irish Dance for a year now, and love it. I would really like to try other dances, particularly tap, if it becomes a possibility.

12. Only one person has ever read any of the fiction I have written. We both did NaNoWriMo in 2011 (the first year for both of us), and decided to do a December 1st swap. As hard as that was for me to let go of, I'm glad I let him read it, and reading his novel helped me gain a little perspective. That said, nobody else has ever read any of my work, and they are not likely to.

13. I can't wait until I can start taking classes at the community college next year.

14. I've never had an official boyfriend, though there was one boy who came close. We were good friends for a long time, and did a lot of talking and hanging out for a few years. Unfortunately, that whole thing ended rather badly, and we've exchanged a minimal amount of words over the past year and half since then.

15. On the Meyers-Brigs scale, I'm an extrovert, which means I get my energy from social interactions.

16. I have had three library cards over the past ten years, and I still have the fourteen digit number on the back of the first one memorized, even though I've had two others in the four years since that original one cracked. Literally, it had a crack through the barcode.

17. In the nine years we have been homeschooling, I have used four (or maybe five, depending on how you think about it) math programs. It's kind of a lot.

18. Unlike the stereotypical homeschooler, we are a secular homeschooling family. What does this mean? Religion doesn't really have a place in most of our school subjects.

19. Summer is my favorite season, and July is my favorite month.

20. Winter is my least favorite season, because I don't like all the rain we get then. It's also rarely sunny, and usually cold. We don't always get snow, but I don't like it when we do. I am NOT a snow person. Depending on a lot of factors, my least favorite month is either December or January.

21. My bedroom is my sanctuary. Very few people other then me ever enter it, and it is as clean or messy as I like, depending on my mood. It is the place I can always go to try to get away from life, though that doesn't always work too well.

22. I am a total perfectionist. If you've read this post, you probably already know that. It can make life hard sometimes, and its the main reason I dislike a lot of art, particularly drawing and painting.

23. I do enjoy more of the 3D art forms, like clay, print making, and stained glass.

24. For much of my childhood, reading was my way of escaping reality. When I was unhappy with my life, or worried and anxious, I would read a book to get away from it all. The world would all still be there when I came back, but for the several hours it took me to finish the book, my problems didn't matter.

25.  I tend to be a person who sticks to reality, and constantly shoots down thought and ideas that are too frivilous or crazy. Despite that, I have for years allowed myself one crazy dream: to be a librarian. Will that be where my life goes? I don't yet know. Maybe time will go one, and I'll realize that I really wouldn't like to be a librarian, but for now, it's my one sort of crazy, ridiculously long term goal from when I was a little kid: I would love to be a librarian someday.

Well, there you go. Thinking of 25 thing was actually pretty hard, and this list did take a while to compile. A lot of these things are things you probably already know about me if you read this blog regularly, and especially if you know me IRL, but either way, maybe you gained a little insight into my life.

This post is one that I wrote back in October. Right now, I'm hopefully working on my novel. There will be more prewritten posts every Monday and Wednesday this month, along with a school update every Friday, and a NaNo update every Saturday.

NaNo Update: Four Days In {Plus - Vote for Me!}

Yeah, I know I said I would do this update on Saturday, and I really did mean to, but then I forgot, and yesterday was pretty busy, so I did not get around to it until now. So far, my word count is 6683, which I am quite happy about since I have done no writing so far today, and I know I will have quite a bit of time to write later on.

So far, my story is going well. My plot is developing better then I had hoped, which is exciting. I still do not know where exactly things are going to go, but I have an ending, and some of the steps to get there, which is good!

I do not have a lot to talk about this week, so I think I'll sign off now, and try to get some school done before I write.

Also, I was nominated for the HSBA Post 2013 Homeschool Blog Awards! You can vote for me once a day if you like. The voting is open now, and will stay open until Nov. 18. You can click here to vote for me. If you then go all the way down the page (it's a long one) to the categories, you can vote for me in category number 10, Best Teen Blog.

I won't mention it again, since I don't want to be annoying, but if you like my blog, it would be great if you would come back and vote again each day, or even tell your friends about it.

Sorry for the short post, but expect me back for a scheduled post on Wednesday, and then a school update on Friday!

NaNoWriMo: Where it all begins

It's November 1st, and I actually finished 1700 words before noon. I'm pretty happy with that. The afternoon is going to be devoted to school, but before I start on that, here is a quick NaNo post. I'm not going to do a homeschool post today (as mentioned in yesterday's post), but I'll cover this week in next week's post.

As I mentioned a while ago, I have this game called The Storymatic. It's a lot of fun, and I've even used it with my writing sometimes. This year, since I didn't have any story ideas, I decided it would be fun to pull some cards, and create a story around them. As needed though out the month (whenever I get stuck and run out of ideas), I'll pull a new card or two.

Here are my starting cards. Character cards:

1. booworm
2. person who doesn't feel attractive enough.
3. teenager
4. person with a grudge
5. person who can't go back
6. daydreamer

1 and 2 are the same character, 3 and 4 are a single character, and so are 5 and 6.

Plot cards:

1. one way plane ticket
2. letter to the editor
3. scrapbook

That's what I've got to go on at the moment. I'm using most of these pretty loosely, and I give up on some if I don't like them as the story goes on.

What story would you make with these prompts?

*This post contains affiliate links.