Peeled

This week I continued reading Peeled by Joan Bauer. I read a bunch, but not much happened :[. That seems to happen a lot in this book, but I'll get to that later... Anyway, though there has been little development in the plot, I guess there's enough to talk about. The only major advancement was that a little girl that Hildy used to babysit claimed she saw a ghost in the window of the Ludlow house and was so startled she fell off her bike. After the incident, she claimed that, because she fell, the house has some magical agenda to hurt children. The rest of the many, many, MANY pages I read were just Hildy going through her daily business. She'd work at the market, give tours of her farm, nothing special.
Time to get down to business. I honestly don't know why everyone recommends this book so much. If you ask me, it's EXTREMELY slow moving and the plot is just like any other murder mystery. Practically everyone I know says this book is amazing, but it's really not that special. I'm seriously considering abandoning it. However, every time I go to pick up a new book I think what if Peeled has a really great ending and I'm missing it?! Decisions, decisions.

P.S.
I commented on Becca's blog.

This week, I continued reading "Peeled" by Joan Bauer. I finally got far enough into the book (about 130 pages in) to get to the real plot. If your planning on reading this novel, make sure you stick with it until at least page 100 because thats when it starts to get interesting. Personally, I was thinking of abandoning the book when not much had happened, but I'd heard so many great reviews, so I figured it MUST get better. It did. :]
Anyway, this week I'm going to talk about my favorite quote I've read so far:
"Murder is a big word for a small town." To me, this quote says that murder almost never happens in their tiny town. It means that it was a huge shock, surprise, stunned, and left the whole little community completely in awe. Basically, even saying the word murder is a mouthful for the residents of such a town. Though the meaning of the quote seems pretty obvious, I think it was extremely cleverly written. A lot of books I've read have tried to say similar things, but just say it in one of the following ways:
1. Murder was a shock to the residents of the small town.
2. His murder was unexpected, seeing as it almost never happens here.
If a person compares Bauer's quote to the other two examples, you can tell that all of them got the message across, but Bauer used creativity to keep the reader interested.


P.S. I commented on Erik's blog.

October 7th, 2009

This week, I started reading the novel "Peeled" by Joan Bauer. I've been interested in reading it ever since the author visited Brooks last year. I've read a few chapters, and so far it seems like this novel is setting itself up to be a mystery. In what I've read, the main character, Hildy, is an editor for her school newspaper. She's almost obsessed with asking questions to get to the center of everything in her tiny town. Her town is basically a town of apple farmers.
At the beginning of the book, Hildy's town is having their annual festival, complete with an Apple Blossom queen and all. The girl who was supposed to win the crown suddenly got ill after eating a school lunch and was unable to attend the fair, leaving the runner-up with the crown. I predict that this is where the mystery will come into the book. I don't think it was the runner-up who poisoned the queen-to-be; she seems like a perfectly nice kid who was shocked to be given the award.
Hildy seems to be the in-your-face type who doesn't quite know when to quit. I've only read a few chapters, but three other characters have already told her to either be quiet or go away. She's always trying to make a story for her newspaper where there really is no story to be told. So far, I like this book but haven't read enough to either recommend it someone.

P.S. I commented on Jack's blog