Miracles

"Everyday at Timpanogos Regional Hospital, we've got front row seats to the miracle of birth. It's inspiring, but can also be difficult when considering how many babies are born into families where basic necessities are missing. That's why, during the month of November, MountainStar is donating 40,000 diapers to local non profits such as Community Action, Welcome Baby of Utah County and others."

I've been seeing this on an ad in my school's daily newspaper. I didn't actually read what it said until this morning. This is LITERALLY all you have to do:

1. go to www.TimpanogosRegionalHospital.com

2. click on the Diaper Drive link (on the left of the page, about halfway down)

3. click the large "Donate Diapers" button

It's 100% FREE on your part, all you have to do is CLICK

You just provided one day's worth of diapers to a family in need!

It's seriously that easy. They don't ask for money, or your email address or anything. All you need to do is click your mouse. It's basically the easiest act of service you could ever do. And you can click everyday up until the drive ends on Nov 12th.

"Those in abundance are to voluntarily sacrifice some of their comfort, time, skills, and resources to relieve the suffering of those in need." ~ President Henry B. Eyring

Book Review: Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Once again, a Sarah Dessen book has ended up in my hands. And, once again, it was fantastic. Dessen again succeeded to wow me with her amazing writing. Her characters were very three dimensional and had great development throughout the novel. Her dialogue is the sort of stuff every aspiring writer should study. Basically, Dessen knows how to write really well.

Here's a quick synopsis: Annabel is starting her junior year of high school with no friends and a horrible status with her used-to-be-best-friend. Annabel should confront people about what really happened, but she likes to be "nice" and she hates confrontations, so she holds the truth in. That is the main story line, but of course Dessen has more than one. Annabel's sister Whitney is dealing with an eating disorder, but that sort of thing affects the whole family. Then there's the mess up with Annabel's old friend, Clarke. Throw in Owen, the boy who gets Annabel to think about her past and actually start to change. Add some influential music and an enthusiastic 12 year old, and you get a beautifully written, intense and insightful Dessen novel. I highly recommend this book, but be warned: I rate it PG-16 due to descriptive, slightly disturbing scenes and some swearing.

Sarah Dessen's writing will blow you away.

Happy Reading!

Book Review: Not My Type by Melanie Jacobson

I forgot how wonderful cheesy Mormon realistic fiction can be! This was like a refreshing glass of lemonade to me. I've missed the clean, peppiness of this genre. Anyways, Not My Type is about Pepper Spicer and her trying-to-be-an-adult issues. She dated the same guy for all four of her years at BYU and it just flat out ended in a disaster. Now she's trying to find a way out of her dead-end sandwich shop manager job to move on to bigger and better things. She starts writing a witty column for an online magazine, and does pretty well, but there's a catch. The column is about being single in Salt Lake, and Pepper has to go on a date a week and then write about them. She feels like she is not being very nice to the guys she writes about, and she'd rather be writing feature articles. Then a real guy shows up, not just one of the one-time date type of guys. Is Pepper ready for a real relationship? Will her job get in the way?

I'm sure you have already guessed the answers to these questions, but it was the story of how Pepper ended up that was so fantastic! That didn't make a lot of sense...I mean, yes, the story is predictable in the ending, but the way we get to the ending was really cute, fun, exciting and just all around great. I really enjoyed this novel. The writing was clever and witty. The only problem was that Jacobson had a lot of modern refrences (Twilight, Justin Beiber, ect.) and those will date the novel in just a few years. But, oh well. I loved this book, and I recommend it!

Happy Reading!

Jump into the news

So unless you've been hiding in a cave or something, I'm sure you've heard about the Jeffress/Romney fiasco. Well, I'm jumping in.

First off, I AM CHRISTIAN. I KNOW that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. I KNOW the Book of Mormon is true. I KNOW Thomas S. Monson is prophet of God. I KNOW that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is 100% true. I don't question any of this.

Now, I think this article puts this whole debate into perspective.

Book Review: La's Orchestra Saves the World by Alexander McCall Smith

A quick synopsis: Lavender, called La, goes through some marital problems at the beginning of the book, which lead her to move away from London to a little country town. World War 2 starts, and La helps the war effort by taking care of some chickens for a local farmer and by planting a ton of potatoes. She ends up starting an Orchestra to help keep people's spirits up during the tough times.

La has some insightful outlooks on the world, war, people, and life, which I found interesting. "So each of us...each one of us should do something to make life better for somebody, to change the course of events, even if only in the most local sense" (285). It was an interesting book, but I'm not sure I enjoyed it. I felt like it addressed quite a few issues and brought up some good points, but I feel like it never went in depth enough. The story almost seemed shallow; there were a few different story lines (and of course they intertwined) but the individual story lines were never penetrated deep enough for me to enjoy them. I like happy endings and complete wrap-ups, which wasn't necessarily the case with this novel. It was a very realistic story (and my aunt loves it) but it just wasn't my type of book. The writing was well done and also unique. I'm sorry I don't have a definite recommendation on this book - maybe you should read it and make an opinion for yourself. And, of course, if you choose to do so, leave a comment with your thoughts, please.

Happy reading!

TSwift

I adore, adore, adore Taylor Swift. I got to go to her concert in Salt Lake City last week with my beautiful friend Ariel. We were on the radio, took pictures, and thoroughly enjoyed the fantastic concert. It was Enchanting!

We were definitely in the as-far-away-as-you-can-get nosebleed seats, but it was SO worth it!