Tag: high school

#BookReview: Night School: Genesis 5/5 Stars

Overview: 16 year old Allie Sheridan is in trouble for the final time. After her third arrest in a year, her parents ship her off to boarding school. This school is so far removed from London and any town, that no one knows it even exists. To make it more ominous, before she left Allie tried to tell her friends where she was going…and her mom literally pulls the phone line out of the jack. At the school she is set to read the rules and she learns there are no technology comforts allowed. She is in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by strangers with no way to call for help. She makes friends and falls in brief list but soon mysteries around the school, students, and herself start popping up and know one will tell her anything. Because the students know nothing of her or her background, they are afraid to tell her anything,  and that puts everyone in more danger. During the school’s big summer dance, the school is set on fire, a girl is found dead and Allie is attacked. Problems pile up from there ending in some truths coming out and we find out what happened to Allie’s brother, who disappeared awhile before she left for school.

Review: Amazon recommended this book for me, and by the title I jumped to vampires being involved. I was way off base, but holy cow! The story kept me engrossed throughout, we kept getting pulled deeper and deeper into this giant conspiracy and never told what is going on or why Allie is being targeted. I NEEDED to know what was going to happen. Then my mind blew every time we did learn a small piece of information because you never see it coming. I’m getting ready to start the second book, eager to learn more.

Recommend: YES!

#Musical Monday Review #9: High School Musical

Overview: Basketball star meets shy girl on vacation who end up going to the same school. Courtesy of cell phones and a strict drama teacher everybody lands in detention their first day back to school. Detention involves working on sets for the school musical, which shows a rival between the basketball coach and drama teacher. Since vacation, Troy has been interested in singing and Gabriella but is afraid of what his friends would think. He sneaks around to try out for the musical and Gabriella is also nervous about auditioning because it is a new school and she is a bit behind. Being from different cliques, branching out to musicals breaks the status quo. By following there passions they make new friends and prove you can do whatever you want.

Review: While following your heart is always a good message, rewatching this musical showed me how cheesy this musical is. The singing performances are good, but the choreography can be overly staged. The kids tend to over act or over exaggerate there scenes.

My favorite song is Status Quo where everyone expresses there passions outside of their norms, but the dancing is cheesy. It was like they were trying to hard.

Its funny that Status Quo shows trying too hard, when Get Your Head in the Game, involves rhythmic squeaks, passes and ball pounding. The dancing for this song was more involved and looked more natural.

In the end everyone learns to rally together and no matter what they may be into, it doesn’t have to define them. Yes, the musical is cheesy but it has a good message behind it.

#Musical Monday Review #4: Grease

Sorry it was late. Had internet issues all day.

Overview: Good girl Sandy is in the states from Australia for the summer and meets the love of her life, bad boy Danny. At the end of the summer they bid farewell thinking she is going back home. With a change of plans, Sandy ends up at the same school as Danny, but he brushes her off in front of his friends. Sandy tries to make him jealous by seeing a football player. Wanting to win her back, he decides to change and ends up on the track team. She sees how hard he tries and goes back to him. They go to the big dance together, where there is another falling out over a girl this time. Sandy wants to hear Danny out, so they go to a drive in movie together and talk it out. While the problem goes unsolved he tries to make it right by giving her his ring but then tries to do something untowardly and she throws it back at him and leaves him alone at the drive in. Feeling bad about what she did, Sandy goes in search of Danny and finds him in a car race for his best friend. Then and there she decides that if she wants to keep Danny she needs to change. Danny decides he needs to change to keep Sandy and dresses as a jock for the school carnival. Sandy show up head to toe in black leather, teased out hair, high heels smoking a cigarette. Thy realize thy are crazy for each other and ride off into the sunset…literally.

Interesting fact: Olivia Newton John’s career, before the movie was going nowhere. She was weary of playing the part because of the harsh criticism she got for her singing in England. They ran a screen test and convinced her she was perfect. Also for her bad Sandy look, she had to be sewn into the leather pants, because the zipper broke and could not eat or drink all day.

Opinion: I love this musical! I have probably seen it a million times, my dad took me to see it on ice when I was younger and I was in it my senior year in high school. I don’t know why but my favorite character has always been Frenchy, making one of my favorite songs Beauty School Drop Out.

My all time favorite song would have to be Sandra Dee by Rizzo and the Pink Ladies. It is horrible that they were making fun of Sandy, but back when I was a kid I always wanted to have a sleep over like that. Bunch of friends around and just having a great time dancing and singing.

The idea behind the musical is timeless, bad boy meets good girl and they change to stay together…now set to music. One thing I didn’t like about it is the opening where they are on the beach. I am just not fond of the song Love is a Many Splendid Thing, if that was changed I would be happy.

This musical is everything I wanted my high school years to be. I was considered the good girl growing up, so I was going to have friend that were a bit edgy and find a bad boy to fall in love with. We would fight but eventually realize we were good together. I got the bad boy, but he was too much for me and I had to cut him loose.

The choreography wasn’t too over the top, because it was set in high school I guess, but pretty good. I would say my favorite dance number happened during the dance. The Hand Jive is awesome, easy and fun but John Travolta, Olivia Newton John and Chacha (I don’t know her actual name…and I’m lazy) really made it their own.