First Post! :D

First post! WOOHOO!! *celebratory music*

Hi there! I'm Nightshade... no, that is NOT my real name. So what is my real name? Not telling! :) Yup, that's me and my stalkerphobia. But anyway, this blog is probably going to center around- you guessed it- books. I figured, Well, reading is my favorite thing to do, so I'll make a blog about it. Every post, I'll (probably) talk about something I'm reading or one of my favorite books or something. For those of you on book overload- don't worry, I'll talk about other stuff, too, but mostly books. That way, it'll be organized chaos instead of... well... just chaos.

And before I forget, I have a question for everyone out there- is it DIET Coca-Cola or REGULAR Coca-Cola that makes Mentos explode? I can't remember, but I think it's Diet Coke. If anyone knows, post a comment and help me out! :)

What I'm Reading: River Secrets by Shannon Hale; The Magic Half by Annie Barrows

River Secrets is a part of the Books of Bayern series, written by Shannon Hale (like I said). The first is The Goose Girl, the second is Enna Burning, River Secrets is third, and a fourth is supposed to be coming out this September! *excited* I'm not sure how much I should say about this book, since it's third of a series... don't want to ruin the first two, and all that. But this series is totally awesome- it's fiction, but it's the type of fiction that's written in a way that you can believe. Sometimes I forget it's not real, and then I have to smack myself and go "Nightshade, you dork! This is fiction! Use your brain!" But then I get all sad, because it'd be WAY cool if it was nonfiction. Here's a bit from the book...

Ingridan was an ancient city. Memory ached in its stone arches, crept down its narrow alleys, sluiced through its seven rivers. And its newest memory still burned, raw and sore--a failed war, a nation shamed, and an army dishonored.

On the western edge of Ingridan, just across the Rosewater River, someone watched a man die. The man had been poor and desperate for a bit of coin, but now he was just dead, his body black from burning.

When the smoke cleared, the watcher dragged the corpse out of the nearly empty warehouse, rolled it into the river, and kept watched as it floated into the sea.

"They will pay for making me do this," spoke the voice that no one else heard. "I'll see Bayern in flames."

My sister just found The Magic Half (by Annie Barrows) at Borders last week. It doesn't seem like much, and it's a quick and easy read, but it's a pretty darn good one at that. Again, this is one of those fiction novels that's written so that it seems real (I love that kind of book).

Suddenly, Miri stopped rocking. There, in one of the many corners of her room, something glinted. Miri screwed up her eyes. It flashed like glass or a mirror. Her heart began to thump as she rose from her chair and walked toward the small, shining spot. Maybe, she thought, it's a tiny window.

But it wasn't. It was just a piece of glass, taped to the wooden board that seperated the wall from the floor. Miri knelt down to get a better look, her dark hair tumbling forward. It was shaped like the glass in a pair of eyeglasses. It was a single lens from a pair of glasses--just the lens--stuck to the paint with a strip of yellowing tape.