Big Boned

I just finished reading Big Boned. I usually love any of Meg Cabot's creations and I was pretty much expecting the same from Big Boned. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. I mean it's a great book and all but there were too many flaws in the story.

Blurb from Goodreads.com:

Life is reasonably rosy for plus-size ex-pop star turned Assistant Dormitory Director and sometime sleuth Heather Wells. Her freeloading ex-con dad is finally moving out. She still yearns for her hot landlord, Cooper Cartwright, but her relationship with "rebound beau," vigorous vegan math professor Tad Tocco, is more than satisfactory. Best of all, nobody has died lately in "Death Dorm," the aptly nicknamed student residence that Heather assistant-directs. Of course every silver lining ultimately has some black cloud attached. And when the latest murdered corpse to clutter up her jurisdiction turns out to be her exceedingly unlovable boss, Heather finds herself on the shortlist of prime suspects, along with the rabble-rousing boyfriend of her high-strung student assistant and an indecently handsome young campus minister who's been accused of taking liberties with certain girls' choir members.

With fame beckoning her back into show business (as the star of a new kids' show!) it's a really bad time to get wrapped up in another homicide. Plus Tad's been working himself up to ask her a Big Question, which Heather's not sure she has an answer for . . .

Quick Summary of the Series:

Heather Wells, former teen pop sensation has changed a lot since her fall from fame. Her mom and her agent ran away together, stealing all of her money and leaving her to fend for herself. She moves in with her ex-boyfriends hottie brother Cooper Cartwright, gets a job as an assistant resident hall director at Fischer Hall of New York College. Fischer Hall is known to most of the students as "Death Dorm" because of the number of murders and mysterious deaths that happen there, and Heather is the one who solves them, usually making a mess of things at one point and requiring the aid of knight-in-shining-armor Cooper. Very funny series, worth every minute, a few gory scenes describing the murder victims, but not too gruesome.

The Summary:

The heroine of the book, Heather Wells, former teen pop star who now works as assistant residence hall director at Fischer Hall of New york College a.k.a Death Dorm. When Heather's stick-in-the-mud boss Owen Veatch is shot in the head while at work Heather can't help but try to find out who did it. The book is great but only to a certain point. The book ended too soon and quite abruptly, the ending reeked of being rushed as a result of a speedily approaching deadline. The ending came before it should have, you know? I mean there were dozens of unresolved issues hanging around. I sincerely hope that she's planning a fourth book (edit: she isn't ): )to clear up all those loose ends because the series is way too good to end now and so inadequately.

The Verdict:

My final verdict is that the book was great but the ending, yeah, not so much. To anyone who was planning on reading the book I say go ahead but don't put your hopes up for a masterpiece, this one has flaws. The end was too rushed and leaves you wanting an epilogue of some sort, just to tie everything together and finish properly. Otherwise, its another one of Meg Cabots amazing books.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

The Devil wears Jeans.

This isn't particularly useful or , just me wondering why some people go out of their way to be bitchy...

My old english teacher was a real pain in the you-know-where so everyone in the whole school used to call her devil-spawn. She's a really "save-the-whales" kind of person, generally I have nothing against saving whales and you know feeding people in Zimbabwe but its not something you talk about everyday right? Once she failed this girl on a pop-quiz on "Comparisons using "as" and "like" (actual title of the pop-quiz) The girl answered a question in what the teacher dubbed a racist comment. I would totally understand if it was Ms.Devils race we're talking about and she was insulted, the thing is that the girl wasn't saying anything degrading, actually she was comparing the beauty of something or other to the beauty of a japanese eye. Our teacher isn't Japanese, or even asian. The poor girl was just trying to get through the pop-quiz and technically her grammar was spot on in the sentence she used but that doesn't matter to devil-spawn...

Schools have rules about appropriate and inappropriate comments and behavior, most teachers follow these rules in their classrooms and manage to still be considered a nice teacher, a teacher who doesn't go out of their way to count the seconds after the bell rings just to hand out tardies to everyone. Then there are the teachers that are considered evil, the ones everyone knows wont give you a second chance, who is supremely strict and make the exam longer just because you complain that 18 pages is too long. There are also chameleon teachers, those who morph from one to the other as easily as changing clothes. They practically change personalities in front of your eyes. I have met two of these teachers so far, and one of them simply morphed from a regular strict teacher (to the tenth graders) into a friendly chatty doesnt-require-any-work-whatsoever to us! It wasn't a bad change from where i was sitting so i'm not complaining. But isnt it just the slightest bit weird for them to do that? Switch from being strict and a stickler for the rules to being about as strict as a substitute? I suppose you get used to it, depending on the faces you see and the attitudes that go with them. I'm not really concerned her because a) Its an elective class and b) She's going from bad to good so thats a pro for me. No complaints here.

The other teacher with what i've decided to call the teacher chameleon syndrome wasn't quite as harmless as the previous one. This teacher taught me both this year and the last. Last year she was a new teacher, she had taught all over the world and told us that in her other schools she didn't give tests because she was allowed to forgo them and because she "doesn't believe in tests." Our school has a minimum number of tests, quizzes and chapters we have to cover each quarter, so she couldn't do whatever she wanted about testing without permission from the principal (which was not granted by the way) So instead of canceling tests altogether she gave us the answers beforehand so the test was more like a worksheet than a test. This was her way of "getting back at the system" and teaching in her own unique way. I'm not one of those students who try to steal the exam or buy it, but i'm no rat either. I wasn't complaining about the circumstances but i can't say i've ever been through that before and to be completely honest I wouldn't want to repeat the experience. We went through the entire year like this, including the final exam without the principal or anyone else realizing anything was off. This past year however, she turned over a completely new leaf, apparently she now fears the system too much to be normal. I mean she didn't just stop being a give-away-the-answers teacher, she became a full-on monster, she had a timer on her desk for tardies and would take every opportunity to chop off a bit of your grade that she could, complete about-face! To say that we were all shocked would be an understatement. This went on all year, with her getting stricter and stricter...i just dont get how someone who is giving away answers one minute can flip 360 degrees so easily!

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

My Newest books

Ok, so I was browsing the racks the other day and I found a couple of books that I liked so I'm posting the details up here:




Ok this one is called "The blue girl" by Charles de Lint






Another one I really liked was "Big Boned" which is the third book in Meg Cabot's Series "Heather Wells Mysteries" Heres the Cover:

Yet another one is "Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Sea of Monsters" by Rick Riordan it is the second in the series.







I know, I know. This book is like for sixth graders but hey! I really like it. I mean the plot is great and Riordans way of writing is both humorous and very interesting. So heres the cover:









The Separate Reviews are coming up in a couple of days, I'm halfway through Big Boned now and am hoping to be able to put up my review this weekend.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

Learn to tie your shoes!

I know, I know when was the last time you heard that being said to you? In KG or the first grade? That was my initial reaction to getting an email of the same title but boy did that change quickly when I saw how cute the pics actually were, so I'm posting 'em up here for all who want to learn how to tie their shoes! My fave styles are Lattice and checkerboard.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all

New Kid on the Block...Yet Again.

Today was my first day at my new school.

All I have to say is: Oh My God!! I mean the girls are scary! I know two of them from my school in sixth grade, they moved here in grade eight and one of them turned scary! It amazes me, the girl was one of those cheerleader types who is constantly cheerful and really diplomatic about the way she talks even though you can totally tell that she hates your guts. She totally ignored me even though I could sooo tell that she recognized me, my other friend, on the other hand, came over and hugged me right away.

It was the worst first day I have ever had.

The teachers are so damn LAX! The girls were just ignoring the teacher and chatting for the whole hour. I understand the fact that you don't pay attention to the teacher, it's like an unspoken rule, but that was too much! Then this other teacher gave us TWENTY-FIVE minutes of free time!! I haven't had twenty-five minutes of free time since the fourth grade!!! And what did the girls do during that time??? The were talking so seriously about the properties of..wait guess...Redbull!!!!!! One of them was like Redbull gives you more energy when its hot not cold, another one said that Redbull light had more flavor than normal Redbull. And yet another girl claimed that Blue Redbull gave more energy than all the rest AND had the best taste. I mean they fit the bill completely for those airheaded girls who can think of nothing but clothes and parties! They're against everything I believe in. Those who were not discussing the virtues of Redbull light were sleeping of the desks! I concluded that all the girls were either extremely stupid, extremely bored or extremely good actresses.

I don't know how I'm going to get through next year. The only good thing about the school is that they have pretty good electives, not what I wanted per se but good, the counselor says she might let me change...I am doubtful.

Ever yours ~

The Know-it-all