The Pantanos

After reading Emmie's review of Crying in H Mart, I was really intrigued and wanted to read the book for myself. To me, it was the perfect combination of a sad story and connection to the popular Korean market that I loved called H Mart. Emmie was certainly correct, this book was truly so well written and has easily placed in my top 3 books. "For 엄마," Zauner starts the book with "For Mom," which is such a great way to start the memoir. She walks the readers through her and her mom's relationship from high school all the way until college and how they didn't maintain a great relationship with each other. Describing all the times she felt like she didn't feel like she belonged anywhere due to her Korean and Caucasian identity. Before Zauner received the devastating news of her mother's terminal pancreatic cancer, she was distant from her family but that quickly changed. After hearing the news, Zauner returned to her family in Oregon to spend time ...

  I first found this book in my 8th-period art class, Design Thinking. Design Thinking (DT) is a human-based approach to innovation that aims to make creative ideas and business models by focusing on the needs of people. The book teaches you about various techniques and tips for doing design. DT can be used to develop new products, create new services, design new business models, and design social innovations. The book starts off with an analysis of the basics of DT, such as focusing on people from the start and finding lead users, or people that are the first to recognize an innovation trend. DTers are expected to be empathetic toward their product users. Their ideas should be visualized through creative and simple methods.  DT is split up into five phases: empathize, define, ideate, prototype, and test. Despite the clearly defined phases, DT is not a linear process. Rather, it is nonlinear, meaning that one can go back and forth along the steps, repeating previous phases as ...

Here it is, the long awaited review of the first Mailboat book: Mailboat Ⅰ The End of the Pier. After first discovering this book in the recommended section of a Lake Geneva magazine, I took full interest in this suspense novel. Mailboat takes place in Geneva Lake, Wisconsin (also known as Lake Geneva, but Lake Geneva is one of the cities on the lake aside from Fontana and Williams Bay) a place that I have a lot of special memories tied to because a lot of my family lives there. Mailboat is about a girl named Bailey who works on the mailboat. But when delivering the mail one day, she misses the boat and lands in the water, only to find a dead body tied to the pier. Bailey along with police officials and the captain of the mailboat Tommy get tied up in the mystery as they try to figure out the identity of the body, and who the murderer was. Before reading you should know two things. The first is that each chapter is from the perspective of a different character. Because of this, it can ...

     I recently realized that multiple people were doing blog posts on Webtoons.So I thought I’d join in this trend. However, I have so many I’m reading that it would be too hard to pick just one. So today I present my top 5 Webtoons (in no particular order) that I recommend. Rooftops & Roommates by: Zaanart      Rooftops & Roommates was the first Webtoon that I discovered. I was scrolling instagram when I discovered the artist and this comic and decided to give it a try. I still love it today and recently the story has been getting pretty interesting. Rooftops & Roommates is about Jeb, who is actually a gargoyle attempting to stay in the human world to get an architecture major. Between studying for classes, magical mishaps, and fun collage things, Jeb goes on lots of mini adventures along with his roommate Tod. Each episode isn’t too long so it makes for a good series to easily catch up on and it updates twice a week. So if you're looking for ...

  I read this book a couple of summers ago and I was originally reading this book because I had watched the movie version and my friends told me the book was better. The movie was a really well done visual of the futuristic technologies of the book but lacked so many details that was in the book. I recommend reading the book but if you would like a visual representation, the movie does a fantastic job of that. This book is a fantasy kind of mystery fiction novel that brings you through the underground world full of fairies and trolls. Artemis Fowl is a 12 year old criminal mastermind who lives with his butler in Fowl manor. His family can be described as mafias that are holding secrets of this underground society. Artemis discoveres The Book of the People and plans to get gold from the leprechauns by kidnapping a fairy, Holly Short. She is a member of the LEP which stands for Lower Element Police. After threatening the LEP to get Holly back in trade of gold, the fairies decide to t...

Once again, I am here with a dystopian novel (after Animal Farm and 1984). After hearing about this book from some friends, I decided to try it. My first impression of this book was that it was quite depressing and gloomy. The first few parts were boring and extremely flowery, but I pushed through see why everyone liked it so much for myself. Guy Montag, a fireman who burns books, is the protagonist of the novel. Instead of putting out fires, Guy and his colleagues start them. People in Guy's society watch too much TV and listen to the radio instead of reading books and enjoying nature. One day, he meets a girl named Clarisse McClellan. She illustrates Guy's empty life through her questions and love of people. Guy then goes through a series of disturbing events. Mildred, his wife, first attempts suicide. When he is assigned to burn an elderly woman's hidden literature, the woman chooses to be burned alive along with her books. He then learns a few days later that Clarisse w...

I was able to watch the movie a while ago and enjoyed it very much. So, I decided to read the book for this month's blog post. The Martian opens with the most iconic sentence I've seen: I'm pretty much fucked. The book's main character is Mark Watney, who is the resident botanist in NASA’s mission to Mars. While the crew was scheduled to spend a month on Mars, they were forced to leave the mission early due to a violent sandstorm causing damage to the transportation vehicle which the crew needed to return to their ship, Hermes. While evacuating, a stray antenna punctured Watney’s suit and cut into his side, causing him to pass out. Thinking he died, the rest of the crew returned to Earth. After regaining consciousness, Watney returned to the Mars base and began to make a survival plan until NASA would return to rescue him. Watney rations his meals and finds a way to grow food. As the botanist, he had some Earth soil with him. Mixing in his feces and the leftovers from h...

       If you’ve heard the name Alice Oseman, then you probably know that she wrote the Heartstopper series. But did you know that she wrote other novels? Such novels include I Was Born for This , Radio Silence , Loveless , and the book I will be focusing on: Solitaire . She also wrote the novellas Nick and Charlie and This Winter , which follows the events of Solitaire.       I had received all of these books for Christmas and decided to read one of them. I chose Solitaire and I wasn’t disappointed. Solitaire has a great plot involving Tori the protagonist, Michael Holden who becomes Tori's friend, and Solitaire. Solitaire is a blog that started in her school and no one knows who it is that’s posting on it. It isn’t a normal blog either, each post comes with some form of chaos like music playing on the speakers or ratting someone out for doing something really bad. Tori believes that the blog is somehow connected to her as some posts seem real...

  Hello readers, in this blog I will be reviewing the book The Art of Racing in the Rain. I had watched the movie version of the novel on a plane and was immediately intrigued to read the book to compare the two.  I've just finished the book recently and I have quite a lot of opinions about it.  Enzo, the golden retriever, is our narrator throughout this novel. He guides us through his life with his owner Denny Swift. Denny is a race car driver and mechanic located in Seattle and picked Enzo out of a litter of puppies on a farm in Washington. The book starts off with a silly warm mood as Denny takes care of little Enzo through his puppyhood. We quickly fast forward to a year later where Enzo is full grown and  the two of them are out buying groceries when they bump into a young woman named Eve. We soon get a glimpse of their romantic relationship through the eyes of Enzo. She started to appear more and more in their lives and before you know it they are married. At t...

       Diary of a Tokyo teen is Christine’s illustrated guide to her trip to Japan as a 16 year old Japanese-American. As she says in the book, her mom is Japanese and her dad is American and she has lived in America for almost her whole life. She however at first lived in Japan and then moved when I believe she was around 6. She talks about the differences between when she lived there and when she returned years later, and I find that really interesting to see the similarities and differences between a place you've been to and how it's changed since you left.      She describes all the places she went providing some pictures as well as her own drawings, the people she saw, and the crazy adventures she went on. Each page is about something fun, interesting, and different. W hether it be ramen, maid cafes, or chasing down a geisha, they show many random fun things to see and do if you were to ever go to Japan. They also provide really interesting fact...

  In this blog post, I will be discussing Final Exam: A Surgeon's Reflections on Mortality by Pauline Chen. This book is a biography/ personal narrative, and it  is divided into three sections; lessons in medical school, how professional responses manifest and perpetuate themselves, and the transformations in how doctors approach end-of-life care.  All the experiences she had deals with the problem of mortality and how "facing that mortality in ourselves is perhaps the most difficult task of all." Chen leads us into her laboratory facility before her cadaver dissection as she describes the lingering sharp and rancid aroma of formalehyde (formalehyde is a preservative used for cadavers). The smell got much worse as she was presented with the cadaver the next day. Her first response after being in the laboratory was how "unsettling [it was] to be presented with so little history, and it became more so as we allowed ourselves to become intimately familiar with every det...

As part of Health class and Consumer Ed, I (and my classmates) made an Investopedia account and participated in a group stock investment game. After making some poor decisions (dropping my net worth down to 930k from 1m), I made a new account with a bit more success (1.05m from 1m). However, I felt the urge to learn more about the art of investing itself, which is why I chose The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham, a book considered a classic in the investing world.  Benjamin Graham is also known as the "father of value investing." This book focuses on the long-term and risk-averse approach to investing and focuses on research and factual data instead of predictions and speculations (which I had been doing). I picked up this book with the idea that it might help me improve in another area of investing, and it did not let me down.  The first thing he states is, simply put, the reasons people lose money: buying into the hype of bull markets, not doing your own research, re...

My sister checked out this among many other books at the library because looked like an interesting read. After she read it I thought it looked fun and decided to give it a try. I’m glad I did, it’s funny, relatable, and a great read. It starts off with Dany, who just started 7th grade and isn't having the best time. She has no classes with any of her friends, finds it hard to navigate the school, and even gets picked on by some mean kid. Then, she discovers a sketchbook that brings anything you draw come to life! So she decides to draw herself a best friend. One that's in all her classes, has a cool personality, and can stick up for her when she can't. But what happens when her new friend finds out why she really exists?? While there are quite a few stories that involves magical sketchbooks I like the idea this book approaches. Drawing yourself a best friend. Not one that's all magical with neat superpowers, but a normal human friend who can relate to you in some way. ...

  Hello Blog Readers,  I read this book because it was my old English teacher's favorite book, and I also happened to have a copy at home. Initially, I was confused while reading this because it seemed to have a relatively simple (and boring) plot. But, upon reading it again, I was able to feel the light and almost dreamlike writing style that this book is written in. I really enjoyed it and strongly encourage you to read it! The protagonist of this book is Santiago, a shepherd roaming around Spain. He recalls how his father had wanted him to become a priest instead of his own dreams of becoming a traveler. His father had said that although travelers see the wonders of the world, they themselves do not change and return home, feeling nostalgic for the past. His father then gives Santiago three gold coins to buy some sheep and travel around the countryside, and to return when he learns that his own town is the best.  The story shifts to the present, where Santiago goes to ...

In this blog, I will be reviewing the second book in the Small Spaces quartet,  Dead Voices by Katherine Arden. After reading the first book, I immediately read the second book after being fascinated by Arden’s storytelling. I was so excited to read this book that I read the whole thing in 3 days. I hope you enjoy the review! Continuing from Small Spaces, we follow the 3 main characters, Ollie, Coco, and Brian, as they are now traveling to a ski resort together with their families. We get a good visual of the setting as Ollie describes the snow that she sees outside of the car, and the darkness in the night as the snow piles up in the  road ahead. They soon pull up to the ski resort and find out that the lights are all turned off and all of them are snowed it. The three families make the best out of what they have as they play board games, drink hot chocolate, and pass out blankets to everyone stuck inside. Everything seems to be normal until Coco is convinced that she is seei...

  Hello readers! In this blog, I will be reviewing The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. Hinton was known for writing this book when she was only in high school. I can say that this helped her develop the realistic emotions of the characters. I read this book in 2021 and I still remember being intrigued by the captivating plot of the "greasers" and the "socs."  The Outsiders tells a story between the drastic differences in social status of teenagers living in the same city. The "greasers" were a community of a lower class, while the "socs" were people belonging to a higher class. The main character, Ponyboy Curtis, a 14 year old "greaser" who lives with his brothers, Darry(oldest) and Sodapop(middle child). Readers follow his narration through the events that he experiences in only a couple of weeks of his life as a "greaser." Many of those experiences include the "socs" making harsh comments and threats against the ...

  Continuing the dystopian theme (Animal Farm, 20,000 leagues under the sea), I decided to write about another book I really enjoyed: 1984. This book is written by the famous author George Orwell, also known for writing Animal Farm . His writing style is unique in that his books are concise but often contain deep meanings. They are written so that even a 3rd grader could easily understand the words used in this book. Still, even adults discover hidden meanings in the book, often containing elements of historical satire. The book mainly features Winston Smith, a 39-year-old man living in London, Oceania (a fake country, of course, to encourage the reader to figure out which place Orwell is talking about). The Party, the political party in power, watches everyone in the community through telescreens (basically a Zoom meeting that never ends). On the telescreens, a message that says "Big Brother Is Watching You" is present at all times. In this world, even thinking about rebelli...

  The Silver Eyes is mostly based off of the first three games of Five Nights at Freddy’s. For those who don’t know, Five Nights at Freddy’s is this horror game franchise created by Scott Cawthon. The basics of the first three games is that you are a nighttime security guard working at different locations within Freddy Fazbear’s company. While they work just fine in the daytime, the animatronics there can become a little quirky at night. Your goal is to survive each night with limited power and animatronics who are on the hunt for you.  Even though the original book is a novel, they did a great job of creating it as a graphic novel. The art is amazing and really shows the details of Freddy, Bonnie, and the rest of the crew. While the plot can be a little confusing at times, you can still make sense of what's happening. You can see where the plot of the book uses lore from the games and where its entirely new concepts. The book stars Charlie who with her friends, decide to chec...

  SPOILER WARNING Summary: This book, like most of the Harry Potter books, starts over the summer with his aunt and uncle who want nothing to do with him. As he is kicked out of the house for using magic and blowing up his other aunt he is informed that there is a killer that has escaped from the most secure magical prison in the world, Azkaban. Sirius Black (The Killer), was found guilty to have led Voldemort, (The Evil Wizard) to Harry’s Parents, to find them and kill them. When Harry is at school, he learns more about Sirius Black, but he hears something that makes him enraged and he wants to go looking for him. Later on in the book, he finds Sirius Black and learns that Sirius was framed and it was Peter Pettigrew, a wizard thought to be dead who was the cause for the death of Lily and James Potter. Sirius then goes into hiding, as he is still assumed to be guilty by the wizarding world.  Reflection: This is one of my favorite books and I have read it a couple of times. It...

  This book is a short, simple and fun read that lets you get to know Pusheen and her family. Each part is pretty short and about a different aspect of her life. From things to know about cats, to how to live, this book goes into all the fun parts of her life. Each page is fun, colorful, and drawn in a simple cute style.         I first discovered this book at our school's book fair in third grade. After looking through a few pages and deciding it looked like a good book to get it. However, the book I was looking at was the last copy so I had to order it online. It arrived a few weeks later and I read it and loved it.  I like how this book mixes up the content inside by switching from cute little stories to fun pictures of Pusheen and repeating the process.          Since the book came out, Pusheen has gained a massive amount of popularity and she now has a website that has fun things that include quizzes, comics and merchandise! Sh...