Puberty is weird enough. Everyone already thinks she’s an oddball with anger issues because her father vanished in a mysterious storm one night when she was six. Then there are the mean, false rumours people are spreading about her at school. On top of all that, now she’s a flying freak.
How can she tell her best friend or her mother? How can she live her life? After Gwendolyn almost meets disaster flying too high and too fast one night, help arrives from the most unexpected place. And stranger still? She’s not alone.
Sequoia Kim 8A
ReplyDeleteGwendolyn Golden is an awesome character.
I usually find the main character hard to connect with by way of issues concerning age, gender, and especially personality. It's hard to understand a 17 teen year old nerdy boy when you're a 13 year old girl...but I really liked reading this novel because Gwendolyn was just going through puberty, is the same age and you know, pretty entertaining to listen to. I read this book in a couple hours, I just read full on, and couldn't stop. There was something about her and the plot that wasn't the complex and wasn't annoyingly long to get to the point. The action/problem started right on the first sentence (Today I woke up on the ceiling or something along the lines of that...) One thing that I did find a little funny was the random death cloud that came out of nowhere, I just felt like it didn't really make sense given the context and it seemed a little out of context. I really liked the plot; authors seem to constantly be striving to come up with a plot to confuse me and just not make sense sometimes. This plot however, was so simple, it was entertaining!
I can personally say that I've been asked numerous times "what superpower would you have?" and every time I respond: to be able to fly. That would be so swinging awesome! I also loved Mrs. Forest, she's just great.
Overall, I'd give this book a 7/10.
Thanks!
Ruth 7B
ReplyDeleteI rate this book a 8/10 because this book was pretty good but I never really got into the story although the storyline was quite good. I thought that it was really neat how Gwen builds up a relationship with Mrs Forest and Mr. McGillies. I thought that it was great that Gwendolyn had inherited something from her father - The ability to fly/ being a night flyer - that made it possible for her to learn what really happened to him. My favourite parts of the story were when Gwen dragged Jezebel into the washroom when Gwen is about to take off in the middle of class or the part where she is at the party with her feather. I absolutely love the name of Mr. and Mrs. Forest’s candy and ice cream store the “float boat”. I thought that Christopher and Christine or "the Chrissies" as Gwen calls them were quite cute. Even though when you think about relating to one of the characters many people would think that they would relate to Gwendolyn and I think that that is true but I also think that we can all relate to the Chrissies as well because they are so unaware of everything that is going on around them. At many parts of this book I felt really bad for Gwendolyn like the time she was in the storage room trying to get back on the ground instead of flying around. I always thought that she (in an extreme way) feels that she has a secret that she can’t tell anybody about and everybody has that. I think this book really connects with many people. My least favourite part was when she was out of Martin’s window screaming at him.
I also thought that it was kind of weird that her name was Gwendolyn and the girl that comes to sandy shores in Summer Days and Starry Nights have the same name.
Ruth 7B
ReplyDeleteI rate this book a 8/10 because this book was pretty good but I never really got into the story although the storyline was quite good. I thought that it was really neat how Gwen builds up a relationship with Mrs Forest and Mr. McGillies. I thought that it was great that Gwendolyn had inherited something from her father - The ability to fly/ being a night flyer - that made it possible for her to learn what really happened to him. My favourite parts of the story were when Gwen dragged Jezebel into the washroom when Gwen is about to take off in the middle of class or the part where she is at the party with her feather. I absolutely love the name of Mr. and Mrs. Forest’s candy and ice cream store the “float boat”. I thought that Christopher and Christine or "the Chrissies" as Gwen calls them were quite cute. Even though when you think about relating to one of the characters many people would think that they would relate to Gwendolyn and I think that that is true but I also think that we can all relate to the Chrissies as well because they are so unaware of everything that is going on around them. At many parts of this book I felt really bad for Gwendolyn like the time she was in the storage room trying to get back on the ground instead of flying around. I always thought that she (in an extreme way) feels that she has a secret that she can’t tell anybody about and everybody has that. I think this book really connects with many people. My least favourite part was when she was out of Martin’s window screaming at him.
Crystal 8F
ReplyDeleteI have to be very honest about this, I didn't enjoy this book very much. There were some OK parts, but the rest to me was just a blur. Though I have to admit, surprisingly I got through the book pretty easily, unlike some books that are so boring you never want to finish reading. To be able to fly sounds really cool, and the writing was easy to follow. Also, the description was amazing. Mrs. Forest also seems really cool, but it seems like she'd go broke with all the candy she gives away...But those are some of the only good parts. The storyline was decent, though it left A LOT of questions unanswered. They never say how Gwennie gets over the fact that people think she's a druggie, or if she and Martin ever re-kindle their friendship. Personally, I'm not going to sit around and let people spread rumors about me. Also, Gwendolyn thinks of Martin a lot, so I thought it'd be really important to see where Gwendolyn and Martin's friendship goes. Also, everything is very sudden. She's suddenly flying. Jez suddenly knows that she can fly. And the concept of 'Spirit flyers' seem cool, but they were introduced very close to the end, so I didn't really know what was going on. I could never really relate to Gwendolyn, or all of her problems...I just didn't find her personal life realistic. The guy she has a crush on suddenly likes her back, her friend finds flying like completely natural... And Jez...I found her kind of useless. She doesn't do much at all and to be honest, if the author hadn't implemented her at the beginning, the story could've went the same way. None of her actions really impact the story. This story wasn't great, but there were some OK parts. So in conclusion, I'd rate this a 5.5/10.
Liam 7B
ReplyDeleteThe Strange Gift of Gwendolyn Golden was a 5.5/10. It was an interesting plot line, Gwendolyn woke up in the morning flying on her roof. It starts happening more and more and it turns out that some people are night flyers, people who can fly. Gwendolyn then encounters all sorts of problems, going to a party at a boys house, getting accused of being a druggie, and getting attacked by a flying monster. However, lots of the things are not well explained and happen very suddenly. Like the ball and the spirit flyers.
Lucas 7A
ReplyDeleteI would give this book an 8/10 because for the most part it was easy to follow but there were some parts that didn’t make much sense. I liked that this book got right to the point from the very first sentence: This morning I woke up on the ceiling... I’m glad that the main idea was easy to understand because there were many other parts in this book that didn’t make much sense to me. The giant death cloud confused me right from when the author first described it, and the spirit flyers were just thrown in to the story so quickly with no explanation. Although some parts were hard to understand, I could easily tell what the main plot of the story was. And of course there’s the whole Night Flyers concept that I think was really cool and the fact that Gwendolyn finds out her father was also a Night Flyer was a nice twist. I think that this was a good book but it could have explained some of the ideas a bit more clearly.