I Am Number Four. 



I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book or not because I'm not usually into sci-fi books, personally I think they look a lot better on screen, but this book is different. Perhaps what makes this book easy to read and understand and less sci-fi-y is that although the protagonist, John, is an alien, he still looks and acts like a human, the only difference is that he was born on 'Lorien', not Earth. I'm not entirely sure whether this book belongs under the genre 'sci-fi' as to be honest there is not that much alien/out of this world content. The majority of the book takes place on Earth with brief glances at other planets, and there are only two alien races, both of which look pretty much like humans. This book is aimed at young adults and I think that both boys and girls can enjoy it. There are both battle scenes and love scenes which brings a balance that is just right. The book does not contain lots of made up words that are difficult to understand, pretty much everything can be found in your standard (human) dictionary. The love aspect of this novel is predictable, but to be honest, that can be said for just about every story with romance, the rest of the story; however, is not. There are some unexpected suprises to keep you on your toes and I think the minor characters add a lot to this book.

It is quite an emotional story about a boy, who is next on his biggest enemies hit list, trying desperately to stay alive so that he can save his planet. The relationships between the characters are true and this offers much to the plotline. The book does differ slightly from the film, but the main plot remains the same.

I highly recommend this book to young adults, and if you've never tried reading sci-fi before, this is as good a place as any to start and ease yourself in!

Beastly.


So this movie received mostly bad reviews, but who were these reviews written by? Adults. Who is this movie aimed at? Teens. So it's not wonder it was so critically received, and let's be honest, most teen movies are, but if all the reviews are written by adults, is this really fair? Yes, usually the standard of acting is not as good, and the plot lines are either cheesy or predictable (or both), but the people who it is aimed at are young people who will watch just about anything for a laugh and won't read into the deeper meaning of things. I don't think that these reviews are fair, and the same goes for this movie.

I had been looking forward to Beastly for a long time as it's released date was continually being pushed back to avoid compeition. The main thing that drew me to this movie was Alex Pettyfer, and the thing that pushed me away was Vanessa Hudgens. Beastly is a modern retelling of 'Beauty and the Beast', and is a film adaption of the book written by Alex Finn. Now with two pieces that are distinctly Disney playing major roles in this movie ('BATB' and Vanessa Hudgens), I was concerned that perhaps this movie would appear too... well.. Disney.

This movie will definitely appeal to teenage girls who like cute, romance movies, probably not so much to boys or adults. So, being as it's a modern adaption of Beauty and the Beast, everybody should know how the story's going to go... give or take an arrogant, loaded, bastard, and a drug-abusers daughter... So I guess the story of 'Beauty and the Beast' doesn't really fit into the modern world, but who cares? It's a movie. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. So apparently the acting wasn't too good, but personally, I didn't really notice this. I thought that this was a good movie, with an important moral message, that is important is this day and age: look aren't everything.  By retelling this Disney classic that everybody knows the story of in modern times could help us to relate to it and to release the message behind the story.

I was only disappointed in the fact that Alex Pettyfer spent so little of this moving looking his usual, dishy self, but on the whole it was quite a good movie.