13 Little Blue Envelopes by [Maureen Johnson](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/10317.thumbnail.jpg "img13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson") My rating: ★★★★☆

I zoomed through this book, which had a lot to do with the entertaining writing. Some bits of the book didn't match up with my reality, however, after some thought, I'd rather read and enjoy a book with some factual errors, than read a boring but highly factual book. Besides, a story has the right to stray from reality ;)

At Ginny's age I did not travel Europe, I waited some more years because I didn't have the guts to do it at 18.

I enjoyed reading the parts about places that I have visited myself and could easily imagine myself back there for which the book gets points. I wanted a story to entertain me. I feel entertained. :)

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Little Brother by [Cory Doctorow](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/12581.Cory_Doctorow.thumbnail.jpg "Little BrotherLittle Brother by Cory Doctorow") My rating: ★★★★★

As '1984' did, this book left me feeling slightly paranoid, and I mean that in a good way. I found this an easy read, it pulled me in and I really wanted to read the ending (a happier one than 1984 had). The last few pages of the book contain the URLs for websites which have more info about the hacks done in the book itself, I appreciated that thoroughness.

A few times I seemed to have missed things that I probably should have read between the lines (which I suck at) which made the story a bit jumpy for me, but overall I enjoyed the 'voice' of the book. I thought I wouldn't get into a story about a bunch of 17-year olds and liked that I did.

Now excuse me while I go faraday my backpack...

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1984 by [George Orwell](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3706.George_Orwell.thumbnail.jpg "19841984 by George Orwell") My rating: ★★★★★

This book left me feeling slightly haunted and paranoid, which I believe the writer intended. Although I don't think we find ourselves in the same society today as the one portrayed in the book, I definitely see similarities. At the first mention of the 'victory cigarettes' (or coffee) I thought of 'victory fries', or 'freedom fries;' I forget which one really happened ;)

Ironically, while finishing the book I read about the rewrite of Mark Twain's 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn' and 'Tom Sawyer' to exclude a certain word and replace it by another (not quite the same). Hello, Newspeak!

At times I thought the book went on a bit (specifically the parts where they read from The Book) and I had to struggle to get through it; nothing I hold against the book though, it seemed to fit the story.

The rebellions of Winston and Julia seemed small when held against today's society, however, they already lived in theirs for a long time and didn't know any better. Although I hoped for another ending, the way the book ended added to the haunting feeling I had.

It all does not seem very unlikely to happen.

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I recently ordered an e-reader and because it did cost quite a bit more than a book I decided to challenge myself by first reading enough free books to compensate for its price. By free I really mean free, either public domain books or free as decided by the author. This means I've decided on reading a lot of classics I've either read as a kid (in Dutch) or 'always wanted to read'.

I discovered GoodReads and created a list of books to read. I planned on having 42 books on there -- we all know 42 is the only correct number -- and ended up with 44. I'll leave the extra two on, so I can skip a book or two because they suck.

Check out my readinglist: my before-buying-ebooks shelf:

Also, I created a reading list page with links to books I've read and books I want to read. I spent the day geeking out and tweaking Goodreads-wordpress-plugins so I can have my shelves show up nicely.

Very excited, it got shipped today and should arrive tomorrow. Snow might interfere so keeping my fingers crossed!