Oliver Fister - Assignment 2

While I like to consider myself an avid reader and a dabbler in creative writing, I have read very little in the past year as school responsibilities have continued to pile up. That being said, I have read some, not including the books I've been required to read for school (Of which, I can say that The Writer's Style Guide for AP Lang and The Years of Rice and Salt for AP World History were the most entertaining).

Over spring break, I read Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. A science fiction classic, I'm a huge fan of the movie series inspired by it, and found the book to be on par with the films. It's much more graphic and brutal than the movie and also varies from the movie greatly in terms of characters, events, etc., but I enjoyed the differences very much. It was a refreshing twist on a story I hold very near and dear to my heart.

Another book I started over the summer but haven't quite made it through is The Lost World, Jurassic Park's sequel. It's inevitably inferior to the first book (and, in my opinion, it's movie version as well) but is still a fun and extremely thought-provoking science thriller that I plan to complete soon.

I finished reading what is quite possibly my favorite book series ever, Skulduggery Pleasant, early sophomore year. A little-known and therefore totally underrated series, it functions like an odd mix between Harry Potter, X-Men, and Sherlock Holmes. It takes place in Ireland, and, like Harry Potter, it details the tale of a magical society that lies hidden underneath the normal one; like X-Men, the characters each have a specific proficiency or magical power that is oftentimes completely unique to them; and like Sherlock Holmes, the two main characters, Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain, investigate various mysteries as detectives. Besides these vague similarities, the books are wholly unique, and read like extremely fun and well-paced movies, striking a fantastic balance between mystery, horror, and action-packed battles, with ample doses of sarcasm and cynicism in both the characters' personalities and the author's style. I finished the last book, The Dying Of The Light, sometime last October or November.