love, read, write

And this breaks the "spell" of the so-far-one-titled-titles. Because this one (book) is titled Touching Darkness... TWO WORDS...
Anyway, Touching Darkness, as you may have guessed (or maybe not), is one of the Midnighters series. The second one, in fact. And to tell you the truth, I finished reading it already. Well you should know that if you check on the countdown page (on my blog) every once in a while. Back to the subject.

I'm going to write like I didn't finish reading it yet. And it is going to be true, what I will comment. Because I have a notebook that I use to record what I think about it and why and you know... I write it right at the instant I read it. So... it's "real."

Okay, this is starting when Jonathan and Jessica see the stiff in front of Jessica's house, taking a picture at the time. Maybe he was acting like a stiff. Or maybe he knows something. Obviously. But how? Why a photo? Why, out of all of the midnighters, Jessica?
And when Dess misses sleep. I was frightened. Well not literally. You know. How? Maybe it has something to do with the man with the picture who is following Jessica. Somehow. But let me note, Dess is a pretty amazing mathematician. She would be a mathematician, when you see her skills. Adding and subtracting is as easy as saying "Hello" to her. When it comes to the part where Dess tries to figure out something (I'm still not really sure what... It's too much complicated math), my head was spinning. More than spinning. I just pretended I understood. Because sometimes, it's better not knowing something than knowing it. How could you measure time in inches? Yards? How could you time space?
Back to REGULAR stuff an average 6th grade human can take... I just remembered, maybe the man has something to do with the previous book, when in the last part, Melissa hears someone say "We must have Jessica Day." Maybe that's the man that said that. And speaking of that man, his house is creepy. He probably somehow works for the darklings or something. And it creeped me out when it came to the fact that Rex will soon become that halfling or something. Scary. But probably he wouldn't. One of the main characters wouldn't be gone to the "bad side," would they?
Note: The following information is a quote from a book.

" 'Not for her. You.' Melissa turned on the headlights, stared out the front windshield. 'She's sick, probably dying, and soon they'll decide they need another one and come looking for you.'
He blinked, shook his head. 'What . . . ?'
'Think, Rex. They can already fly, they can already mindcast, and they hate math.' Melissa pulled onto the road. 'She's a seer.' "
                                                                                                  --Touching Darkness, Scott Westerfeld

Specials

WARNING: IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED THE BOOK, DON'T READ THIS ENTRY. BECAUSE IT TELLS YOU THE END AND IT SPOILS THE BOOK. AND YOU DON'T WANT THAT TO HAPPEN, DO YOU? BUT IF YOU DON'T REALLY CARE, THEN NEVER MIND, JUST PRETEND THAT THIS MESSAGE DOESN'T EXIST... =D



Just to finish it off. I haven't mentioned what I thought about Midnighters yet, but I have mentioned what a good book it is. And it is a good book. Really. It creeps me out, though. As I mentioned in the previous, (or before the previous) it is so other-worldy that it creeps me out. But it's pretty cool. The idea of everything. I don't know HOW this author (Scott Westerfeld) thought of these brilliant ideas, including the Uglies series. 


It scares me a little bit how in the end, Melissa hears that evil, obviously sinister mind that says, "We must have Jessica Day." That's probably what leads the problem to the next book. Don't worry, this book doesn't end here! There's a second book. I believe it's called Touching Darkness by... Scott Westerfeld. You should know the author's name by now. I memorized his name, too. Well maybe not too because I don't know if you DID memorize the author's name or not. 


It would feel cool to be like Jonathan. Did I mention him in the previous? Maybe, maybe not. But anyway, it would feel cool to fly. Well not fly, just glide. But anyway, it would be really cool. And I would like to try to be Melissa for once. Maybe not. Maybe. I might want to see my friends' minds. Or maybe like the old saying, Knowing more than what you know may give you more harm than good. Or is it a saying? I don't know. Anyway, maybe not Melissa. Definitely not Rex. I've lived with glasses enough. I don't want to be half blind. DEFINITELY Jessica, because now the darklings can't harm her. Because of her new special power of the FLAME BRINGER. Did I mention that? You probably know it, but anyway, I'll just explain. In the secret hour, technology is "not allowed." Meaning, the darklings made the secret hour because they want to avoid technology. So why let technology able in the secret hour? They just excluded it from their list of STUFF DOABLE AND AGREEABLE IN THE SECRET HOUR. Not that there's such a list. But the flame bringer, as you may have guessed, could use technology in the secret hour. So Jessica just happens to be one of those people. If she uses a flashlight, it turns on. Even in the secret hour. So she brings her flashlight around to kill the darklings. 
And, I would like to be Dess. I wonder how it feels to just know all of those complicated math. She would be the top smartest math person in the world! Well, if she's the only polymath on Earth, I mean.


Midnighters was exciting and fun. A great spookyish otherworldy book to read. If you haven't read Midnighters, I strongly suggest reading it!

Well, as you may know, I haven't written in this blog for more than a week... And you must have been waiting sooo~ much,,,, (not really...) 
I hope you didn't forget the title of the book in that short period of time,,,


Midnighters 
By Scott Westerfeld


As you may know, I read the whole book. And it's one of the best books I have read. But it creeps me out. One of those scary stories. But it's not the "monsters" and "goblins" or whatnot. There aren't even goblins in this story. It's the unreality that creeps me out. And the darklings. Did I mention the darklings? I don't really remember, so I'm just going to "re-explain" them. Darklings are the reason of the secret hour. The twenty-fifth hour. Darklings can't live in daylight. They would die. They're like wild animals, only that can live in the dark, with no electricity, nothing. They go far back from the time before Einstein, before Thomas Edison, just as far as you can think. And there always was a 25th hour, from the beginning of the darklings' species. But they were feriocious. They tried to destroy everything in their way. And there were many different types of darklings. Flying darklings, snakey-darklings, tiger-looking-darklings.. and whatever you can imagine. And there's only one thing that the darklings are scared of and hate -- unfamiliar technology. New types of metal, any metal that a darkling or a midnighter didn't touch, anything with technology -- they were scared of. 
Jessica Day is the only person who doesn't know who she is. Now, don't take the previous sentence literally; then it wouldn't make any sense. Of course she knows her name is Jessica Day and she lives in Bixby and.... you get the point. Each midnighter has a job. Not a job, but a power. The main characters in the story (just to remind you) are Jessica Day (duh...), Rex, Dess, and Melissa. There are many other "secondary" characters, but these are the main. 
Here is a chart of who has which power.
_________________________________________________________________
| Name              | Power        | Description                                                                             |
                                                                                                                                                  
| Jessica Day   | Unknown-- | Not specified                                                                          |
                                                                                                                                                  
| Rex                  | Seer           | can see things far away; can see the focus                        |
                                                                                                                                                  
|Dess                 | Polymath   | math prodigy; can easily find any quantity of anything       |                   |                          |                    |                                                                       without thinking |
                                                                                                                                                   
| Melissa           | Mindcaster | can read people's minds; can also change people's        |
|                         |                      |                                                                              minds         |
                                                                                                                                                   
| Jonathan         | Acrobat      | can "defy" gravity; can "fly"                                                   |
                                                                                                                                                   


I just made it without putting a real chart in, so I hope it's understandable. 


You might have a lot of questions...
 The focus is when something was contacted with a midnighter or a darkling, it looks different than the rest of the world. If you yourself is a midnighter, you also get the focus, too. Apparently, not everyone can see the focus. Rex just happens to be one of those people. So he can easily find where the darklings are and went by looking for the focus. He is also helpful when you are looking for some metal that the darklings didn't touch. Only Rex could determine that.
 Polymath might confuse you. Dess is like the high-school Einstein of math. She has a power of counting. That might sound silly, of COURSE everyone can count! But not the way she does. Think of it like this. You know the game guess how many in the jar, right? Where the teacher or parent or adult or whoever puts jellybeans, candy corn, or any type of candy in a jar and you try to guess how many are in (they're usually in the hundreds, two hundreds...) the jar. Well, Dess has the power that when she just looks at it, she doesn't need to think; she just says,"two hundred fifty four," which is the exact amount in the jar. 
That's why she is a poly math. And, she can do the opposite. If you ask her to make a thirteen letter word, she automatically comes up with one. "Deliciousness."
Thirteen letter words are handy. Darklings are scared of thirteen. The number thirteen; anything that has to do with thirteen. And in order to make a new not-touched-by-a-darkling metal work to scare a darkling away, you have to name it. Specifically. With thirteen letters. And here's how the  job of making a weapon for the darklings work: Rex finds a metal without focus, gives it to Dess, who automatically names the metal.
And the coolest thing is, Bixby, Oklahoma has exactly thirteen letters. B-I-X-B-Y-O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A... thirteen letters.


            And on to the last person-- Melissa. She can read people's minds. She can taste their anger, smell their bravery, sense the danger. She can read what people are thinking of. If she goes too near someone, the volume goes up. That means physical contact can really harm her... somehow... 
             This is mentioned in the book. In some part, I forget. I tried looking for it, but no luck. But I'll try to write what is similar to what was in the book (because it's more easy to understand after you read this...) ::::
          Think of it like this. Everyone is like a different radio, each person with a different channel and style. And I can hear all of those radios. If I go near one radio, the volume increases. If I have physical contact, then, the volume just goes too high.
         Understand? Hopefully... Well, maybe you understood even before...


And for Jonathan, he can fly. Not FLY fly, but like a flying squirrel. By the way, flying squirrels are real. And you probably know that they don't really fly, they just glide. Just long, far jumps that look like flying, but you can't actually stay in the air for long. In midnight, gravity stops with the time. So, he can actually feel the "no gravity" thing while others can't. He's an acrobat.


Well, that's it for today...
Hope you learned a lot about the characters!!!!!!

This is seriously getting kind of scary. Not literally SCARY, but you know, somehow coincidental. Guess how many words this book's title is -- ONE! Not that you didn't know. If you don't really read titles to entries, then, you wouldn't know that this book is a one-letter titled book. Called Midnighters. By the famous Scott Westerfeld. The same person who wrote the book Pretties. I noticed this person (Scott Westerfeld) writes a lot of other-worldy things. You know? Pretties is about the future, and this is just in this world, everything how it is, but with a veiled secret inside. Which would be unveiled if you read the book.


Midnighters
By Scott Westerfeld


Okay, to tell you the truth, I finished this book. I read fast. I read a lot of books, so after about five years of reading, you obviously - just instinctively read quickly. And so, I read this book pretty quickly, even if this book has exactly -- uhhhh -- 297 pages. And its a good book, too. This author definitely went up to my top 15 best authors list. Not that I actually HAVE such a list. 


The world in this book is just like ours. No different. Just the same. As in Bixby, Oklahoma, it's a little bit different. For example Dess, Rex, and Melissa. The three people are definitely one of the differences. Why? They are midnighters. To explain your confusion, actually, in this world, there is not 24 hours in a day, but 25. But to us humans, the 25th hour passes by in an instant. Some specific humans, though, can experience that time of the day - the 25th hour. It starts at the base of midnight, where to those humans and the darklings who live there, time stops. Not literally, time stopping. Of course, time never stops. Time is one of those elements that goes on infinity, no matter how hard you try. I think. But anyway, we're not getting into science. The people who are not midnighters, stop moving. Obviously this instant isn't supposed to be an hour, so they stop moving. Everything stops moving. Only those who can actually see and feel the "secret hour" (what the midnighters call it) can move. How do you become a midnighter? If you are born at midnight. And that is just when Jessica Day was born.


This book, as you might have noticed, is about Jessica Day. She is new to Bixby, and suddenly as she moves to her new house in Bixby, she becomes a midnighter. Not that she wasn't before. As much as anyone can try, she is still born right at midnight. But before, back in Chicago where she lived before she moved here, she didn't know anything about a fifth hour or anything to do with time freezing. Until she moves to Bixby. Why? It explains in this book... =D
I hope you read enough today. This is the end of today's "unfinished" entry. But I am purposely doing this, so you can want to read the next entry and wait for it. I mean, just to make it a little bit suspenseful. Just expect another entry coming up this week!