Uni High Book Bloggers

Summer is filled with nostalgic and never-forgettable memories that you cherish throughout the school year. Although it feels slightly early, allow me to guide you through my top picks for books you should read over the summer, in order from least recommended to most recommended. Enjoy while our last bittersweet moments of the school year fade away… Dune by Frank Herbert I am sure that many of you have seen or heard of the two Dune movies (featuring Zendaya, Oscar Isaac, and Timothée Chalamet). Well, the movies were developed from a book. I can’t say too much about the book because I am only 200 out of 700 pages in but Dune by Frank Herbert is a science fiction novel published in 1965 and is actually the first book of a six-book series. The book mostly takes place on a planet called Arrakis (A.K.A. Dune). Arrakis is a desert planet covered in sand dunes. Pretty much no one can live in Arrakis’ harsh conditions except for the Fermen, a group of resourceful and resilient people who hav...

  Ain’t Burned All The Bright Sneak Peek and Review By Krishna Jaswal  One Monday morning, after putting all my folders and notebooks away in my locker, I realized I did not have a book to read during Language and Literature class. So, I decided to head to the library in hopes of finding something that might interest me. I was walking and ended up in the back room of the library looking at random books, until one caught my eye. Ain’t Burned All The Bright is a young-adult poem picture book written by Jason Reynolds and artwork by Jason Griffin published in 2022. To break it down, each page has no more than twenty words on it with unique artwork going with it and all the pages join together to form a beautiful, breath-sucking story. The book is split into three parts: Breath One, Breath Two, and Breath Three. I think what originally caught my eye was the fact that the spine of the book looked like someone had glued the words of the title onto it.  To put it simply Ain’t Bu...

  The Song of Achilles Review by Linden      A few years back, I read Homer's The Iliad and the Odyssey. I thought it was a very interesting story (I personally enjoyed the Odyssey more) that complimented my addiction to ancient Greek mythology at the time. When I found this book, I thought it would be an interesting addition to the story.       The novel starts by introducing Patroclus, the son of King Menoetius and narrator of this book. From the very beginning, Miller sets the scene of Ancient Greek culture extraordinarily well. The writing balances perfectly between description and pacing. I am going on a rant, but the writing of this book is honestly addictive.      Anyway, back to the story.  Patroclus, unlike other princes, is not special in any way, just an ordinary child. This caused his father to be extremely disappointed in him. After Patroclus accidentally commits a horrible crime, he is exiled from the kingdom and ...

Without the threat of suffering, we can’t experience true joy.      In the year 2042, humans have become immortal by discovering the ability to revive and heal people and the government is replaced with the Thunderhead. The Thunderhead is an artificial intelligence “cloud” that possesses some compassion and sympathy for humans but also rules over the world solving global problems like climate change, diseases, crime, etc. Due to humans becoming immortal, a new organization, Scythedom, rises to control the deaths of humans. Scythes glean (kill) people at random; they have to meet a certain number of gleanings per year to keep their position and follow many other rules. Scythes are also immortal and aren’t supposed to be killed by their fellow scythes. They keep their youth by “turning the corner” when they reach a certain age which means changing their appearance to look younger.  One day Scythe Faraday shows up at 17-year-old Citra Terranova’s house and invites h...

I come back yet again with a captivating Greek mythological story retold in poem form. This time centered around the story of Arachne. Most of you who are reading this have at least some knowledge of the myth of Arachne so I am going to dive right in!  Unlike the original myth, Caprara begins the book when Arachne is a little child. Arachne’s life as a child is horrible. She has an abnormal gait because of her bow-leggedness, everyone calls her ugly and malformed, her family is poverty-stricken and uneducated, and practically everyone dislikes her except for her mother, little brother, and her best friend, Celandine. Her mother always reassures her and tells her to not let the fools judge her, and that there are other ways to make her voice heard. Arachne’s mother teaches her how to weave intricate tapestries that depict almost any kind of image she wants. Over the years, Arachne becomes an extremely skilled weaver, but she also begins to pick up some of her own opinions. One of th...

 Flowers for Algernon: A review by Linden Peters                       I was warned by my parents that  Flowers for Algernon  was an insanely depressing story, but as a person who greatly enjoys reading heart-crushing stories, I could not resist picking this book up.                  Flowers for Algernon  starts a 32-year-old man named Charlie Gordon who was born with an unusually low IQ. Because of this, he is exploited and treated vilely by everyone around him. One day, he is offered to be part of an experiment that aims to raise people's IQ. It has already worked for a mouse named Algernon, and Charlie really wants to be smart, so he eagerly accepts.                      The experiment succeeds and Charlie's IQ raises to 190 in a matter of months. While being as smart as everyo...

  The Demon in the Wood Sneak Peek and Review by Krishna Jaswal  “There is no safe place. There is no heaven. Not for us.” The Demon in the Wood is a graphic novel prequel to the novel Shadow and Bone (which is what I wrote about in my first blog that you should go check out!). In Shadow and Bone , one of the main villains, the Darkling, is a rare and powerful Grisha. Grisha are people who can manipulate energy and elements to use as powers. He has the power to use shadows and is an amplifier of others’ powers when they touch him while using their powers. The Demon in the Wood takes a blast to the Darkling’s past to see what he was like before he was the Darkling. The graphic novel also takes us back into the past of Ravka (where Shadow and Bone takes place) and the first steps of the Darkling’s power.  The story starts with 13-year-old Darkling, who is using the fake name Eryk, and his mom Baghra, who is using the fake name Lena. During this time period, Grisha w...