Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is Young Adult series about time travel. Gwen unexpectedly inherits a time travel gene and becomes part of a secret society. Unfortunately there is evidence of a spy in the organization and as the newest member she's a suspect so they refuse to actually tell her any of the secrets. Through various conversations with her ancestors while in the past and some sneaking around in her current time she is able to piece things together to find and stop the villain.
The time travel aspect of it for the most part is handled well. For one thing they are limited to traveling into the past there is no traveling forward. The secret society they are part of has kept records for years about who traveled to the past and why so for the most part they just blindly follow the plan. Since there is no risk of the travelers running into themselves the books never mention what might happen. You would think that with all of their actions recorded in history it would be hard to work against the system but towards the end of the series it discusses how they were able to go back and somewhat change the past. The entire thing does get a little bit confusing though. The entire trilogy takes place over just about 3 weeks in our time and their meetings in the past don't happen in order. For example at one point they go to party in the past where she talks to a Count. For her this is their second meeting but for the Count (who can also travel in time) its the third and he mentions that they have a conversation tomorrow. Gwen does later travel to that next day but for her it's about a week later in time. So it gets to be difficult to keep track of who know what information about the plot at what time.
Overall I really enjoyed these while I was reading them. However after the finale where the final secret is revealed I did end up with some questions. It's very hard to explain without giving spoilers but let me say that most of my questions or issues revolve around the device they use called a Chronograph. Where did it originally come from? When it reveals the Final Secret, did it somehow create it or was it just always hidden inside? Does this mean they can go back slightly in time and reproduced it multiple times?
One other thing that kind of bothered me is the fact that Gwen can see and talk to ghosts but it is almost a side note. She is supposed to have the magic of the raven and throughout the books even people who know that she sees ghosts still are trying to figure out what her magic is.
10-Minute Hairstyles by André MärtensMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
I grabbed this off of the new shelf at the library, excited, hoping to find some quick easy everyday hairstyles that I could throw together before work. I ended up being disappointed. It says it has 50 styles. To start with there are some that just don't work for my hair, either wrong length or hair type. After that there are some that I just didn't really like. I didn't do an actual count so I don't know how many are left after that but those leftover fit in two categories; those I already know how to do, and those that will definitely take me more than 10 minutes. Several involve french braids which I'm just no good at but might be able to do if I had lots more practice. The rest mostly involve a curling iron and I don't know about you but anything that requires me to curl all of my hair with a curling iron is not a 10 minute hairstyle. I'm not saying it can't be done just not by me... Anyways one of them even says in the last step to let everything cool for a least 10 minutes. If the final step takes 10 minutes by itself then the entire thing cannot take just 10 minutes.
Modern Terrarium Studio: Design + Build Custom Landscapes with Succulents, Air Plants + More by Megan GeorgeMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Lately I've been seeing a lot of terrariums on pinterest using old action figures or toy dinosaurs and I checked this out thinking it might be a good starting point for making something like that. It has a lot of good information about choosing plants and adding accessories. It also seems to have good information on caring for the whole thing once you get it all put together.The only thing missing in my opinion is a good set of references as to where to buy the plants because it doesn't strike me something you can pick up just anywhere, like say the garden center at Home Depot. Maybe I'm wrong though, it's not something I've looked into yet.
Here are some examples of what I'm thinking of making. You can also see more examples here and here.
Check back on Thursday to see more about our celebrations this weekend including a visit to Union Station to check out the Da Vinci exhibit.
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