Write a Book Review! Read a Book Review!
Don’t you always read the books your friends recommend? Here’s a great forum for you to recommend books not only to your friends, but also to any one who reads the WHS blog. In addition, it’s a great place to get recommendations, find out what your peers are reading, and what’s new in the world of books!
So write a review! Great book or bad book…slow book or fast book…characters you’ll never forget…scenes that play over and over in your head! Let us Know!! Remember to include the title and the author. Tell us what you thought, give a brief summary…in your own words…not some other reviewers and then rank it and/ or recommend it.
I really enjoyed the book “Whirlygig”. I thought it was a really good book. I like how the book started at the party. I could see that happening to a teenager my age, so in a way I can relate to it. I also like how he went all the way across the US to put the whirly gigs. I really enjoyed this book mostly because i could reate to it.
David F
March 22, 2010
Have you ever read a book that you can’t put down? Once you get started you can’t stop thinking about it? Well I read those all the time but none as good as Bad Monkeyes it’s so good. The ending had me shocked, I thought I had it all figured out but I guess I didn’t. Pick it up sometime. You won’t regret it. Trust me.
Eric
December 18, 2009
Tick Tock Tick Tock Tick Tock There is a moment in human’s life when they wonder, “Who am I?” They enter a state of exploration in search of themselves wondering what type of person they are too be. Like the lovely words of ~Anaïs Nin “There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Then it is only a surprise like a jack in the box where one is waiting for the jack to detonate out of the box. One knows it is coming so with calmness and the patience of a skilled bomb detonator they crank that bar like the Soluja Boy and BooooooM! There they are. Unfortunately not everyone finds themselves and they are lost in with a map that points north in every direction. Unfortunately my book had absolutely no relation to this search for self question. Well maybe a little bit. If you were given a chance to change any part of your body and make yourself prettier, what part would it be? Would you doit? What if you had no choice and that was just the way the world went?
Well in book talk book titled Uglies by Scott Westerfiled. We start of in a world set a few hundred of years from now. Our main character is a girl by the name of Tally Youngblood. She is almost 16 and waiting for her birthday when she can be remade into a “pretty.” In Tally’s society when someone turns 16 they are put through an operation, making them over completely from head to toe. While spying on new pretties (those who have just turned 16) Tally meets Shay. Shay has the same birthday as Tally and they hit it off and become the bestestest friends almost immediately. Although a little strange, Shay is adventurous, smart and fun.
She and Tally enjoy their last two months together before the big operation. One night while designing a ‘pretty’ face for herself, Tally finds out that Shay has no intentions of becoming a pretty, but instead plans to run away before she can be taken for the operation. Each night Tally and Shay have been sneaking outside the city to a place called the Rusty Ruins and waiting on some mysterious stranger named David who never seems to show up. This David is supposed to take those who don’t want to become pretties to a new home where they live independently from the city. The big night comes and goes and after a tearful farewell Shay leaves and Tally is alone again, with only a cryptic note from Shay about how to find her if she decides becoming Pretty isn’t for her.
Tally’s 16th birthday comes and she is whisked off to the hospital to become pretty. After waiting an hour in the waiting room, recycling everything she has except for a few personal items (after all she will have all new things once she’s in new pretty town and none of her old stuff will fit anyway) she meets a new type of pretty, one who’s features are anything but nice and cuddly, like other middle pretties she’s seen. This one is Special, he’s cold, commanding, and a meanie. He leads her to a place that isn’t supposed to exist and yet there she is at the headquarters of Special Circumstances. She finds another special waiting for her, this one even scarier and menier than the last, she is told to call this one Dr. Cable.
Tally learns that Shay’s escape has cost her more than just tear drops, but also her chance at becoming pretty. Unless she tattletales on Shay she will be an Ugly forever. At first she refuses, she made a promise to Shay to keep quiet, but as the days wear on and she receives visits from first her parents, then her longtime best friend (and now pretty) Peris, she caves and agrees to do what the Specials want, after all she did promise Peris before Shay that she would be with him in New Pretty Town soon. Tally is sent out into the wild to find the elusive Smoke, the town where the uglies are hiding. After almost falling over cliffs, almost being burned to death, and freezing she finally finds the smoke, and learns more about life outside the city and also about what really goes on in her perfect city, There is something more done when the big operation happens. Find out what it is and if Tally turns in her new friends to the specials. Will she and Shay become Pretty? Who is David and what does he stand for, good or bad? Well what did you think I was going to read the book to you no!!! I guess you’ll have to find out. Plus this book is the first a trilogy. Ha Ha he he
Rogelio
May 28, 2009
Nick Andreas is one of the coolest guys in school. He comes from money, plays football, has a nice car, and is even a handsome guy. Nick never tells anyone, even his best friend, Tom, though about his father’s habit: hitting Nick when he’s drunk and mad. When Caitlin comes along it’s like a dream come true: a beautiful, intelligent girl who seems to understand Nick: who is a controlling, jealous boyfriend who got more from his father than just the green eyes and nice smile.
Nick loses everyone and everything over this one mistake. His best friend leaves him, a restraining order is sentenced, and everyone is a jerk to him. His whole life Nick has put on a mask that no one could comprehend. “So I concentrate, really concentrate, on making my face a mask. I’m good at that. People at school…see me how I want them to: Nick Andreas, sixteen-year-old rich kid, honor student, coolest guy around.”
After court he is ordered to six months counseling dealing with family violence and anger. Although he does not believe he should be there, he comes to find he has more in common with his group members than he thought.
Nick is entered into a relationship with one of the group members who eventually is released from the program. Although they are two different people, Leo, who is the friend, eventually does something so unexpected that Nick sees what would happen if he doesn’t change or at least try.
Throughout the novel he keeps a journal the judge told him he had to write about what happened. The novel switches from present to him writing the journal. Nick, at first, believes the journal to be nothing more than a joke, but he continues to write in it. In the journal Nick tells how he met Caitlin, what happened in the relationship, and what went wrong.
Breathing Underwater is a story about a changing teenage boy that at first believes he didn’t do anything wrong, but in the end realizes his mistake and apologizes. Life is different, Nick is different, it’s all for the better.
Steven H.
May 26, 2009
Elsewhere
Unfortunately, Elizabeth Hall gets hit by a car while riding her bike. She eventually dies after being in a comma for a few days. Not knowing that she is dead, she thinks that she is in a dream about being on a ship called the SS Nile. She finally realizes that she is dead. On the boat, she makes two new friends Thandi and Curtis Jest.
When she arrives in elsewhere her strength to survive being away from her family forever and never being able to see them in person again is tested. Elizabeth is stuck in elsewhere with her grandmother Betty, who died before she was born, so she has never met her before. She is frustrated because she has no way to return to her old life without breaking the rules of elsewhere.
At first, Elizabeth has a hard time adapting to being away from Earth and her friends and family. She soon realizes that being in elsewhere is a lot like Earth in many ways, yet different at the same time. She will age backwards from the day she dies until she becomes a baby again, and then she will be sent back to Earth.
During her stay in Elsewhere, Elizabeth tries to make contact with her family on Earth. Even though she gets caught, she meets Owen Welles, her soul mate. While she works at the DDA helping dogs find owners, she and Owen begin to form a relationship. They fall in love, but Elizabeth soon finds out that Owen had a wife when he lived on earth, and she has just died meaning that she would soon be arriving in elsewhere. Elizabeth is worried and doesn’t know how it will affect her relationship with Owen.
Zevin says,” There is no difference in the quality between a life lived forward and a life lived backward, she thinks. She had come to love this backward life. It was after all, the only life she had.” Elizabeth is pondering the fact that while she lives her life backward, doesn’t get married, go to college, or turn sixteen, she still lives her life to the fullest.
In the end, she realizes that being in elsewhere isn’t so much like being dead, as it is almost like living another part of her life in reverse.
Read this thrilling and fantastic book about Liz’s life or death. Read Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin.
Breonna M
May 26, 2009
Have you ever wondered who the Great Khan was? Where did he come from? How did he gain so much power? Conn Iggulden’s novel Genghis: Lords of the Bow can answer these questions and so many more. Follow a middle-aged Genghis and his brothers as they conquer the globe and take no prisoners.
Genghis and his family had just achieved the greatest feat known to the Mongol people. They successfully united the many small, weak, and vastly different Mongol tribes into the greatest army ever known to come from the Gobi Desert. But one great feat is not always followed by another. The family soon begins to drift apart. Some of the brothers take the battles a little too seriously and jeopardize what Genghis had worked so hard to achieve. Another begins to take up the practice of the magical arts, a career long abhorred by the Mongol people. Even Genghis’ own sons begin to bicker over their right to the empire.
“He came from the horizon, a single Mongol warrior surrounded by his brothers, sons, and fellow tribesmen. With each battle his legend grew and the ranks of his horsemen swelled, as did his ambition. For centuries, primitive tribes had warred with one another. Now, under Genghis Khan, they have united as one nation, setting their sights on a common enemy: the great, slumbering walled empire of the Chin.”
Even with these setbacks harrying his every move, Genghis is still able to conquer the larger and much more civilized nation of the Xi Xia through cunning trickery. With this great feat accomplished, what comes next? Do they travel to the lands of the Chin and the great Chinese Empire? Or do the pull themselves back into the desert with enough loot and gold to make a city? Will Genghis make the right decision and become the savior of his people, or will he be crushed and defeated like his fathers before him? Only time will tell. Read Genghis: Lords of the Bow by Conn Iggulden today!
Kevin S
May 23, 2009
Deadline By Chris Crutcher
It was just a normal day when Ben Wolf went to the doctor’s office that day. All he needed was his physical form to be filled out so that his cross-country coach would let him join practice. Something was not quite right though. The doctor had not even checked on him yet and he had already been in there for a while. Getting restless, Ben began to daydream about a huge catastrophe that occurred, and that his doctor was being a hero saving lives. As Ben pondered this daydream, the doctor finally entered the examination room. His normal happy go lucky personality was not present today; instead, he looked grim and rather upset. The first words that the doctor spoke to Ben were not the normal, ‘Hey, how have you been son!” Instead, he heard, “Ben, we need to talk. Something’s wrong.”Ben’s head began to spin. He began to ask himself, “What could be wrong? I’m a healthy teenager. I exercise every day. I even eat my vegetables! How could I be sick?” The doctor soon began to explain what was going on inside Ben’s young body. Ben was not listening though. Instead, he was thinking about his senior year and how perfect it was supposed to be. He thought about all the amazing football games he would see his brother play, his cross-country matches that would lead him to the State Championships, the amazing parties, graduation, and going to college. But now, he might not even see any one of those dreams happen. Suddenly, Ben snapped out of his inner thoughts when he heard the doctor say, “We need to notify your parents as soon as possible and begin discussing treatments.” Ben was not ready for death, but he also was not ready for sickness and death to take over his last year of life; so, Ben did the unthinkable. “No. I do not want treatments. I’m eighteen years old. I have the legal right to deny treatment, and that is what I want to do.”, Ben told the doctor. Of course the doctor thought he was crazy, but by law he had to follow what Ben desired. So that was that; Ben was refusing treatment which meant facing a long road ahead. Ben walked out of the doctor’s office with a heavy conscious and one step closer to death.
“I walked away understanding I have a rare form of whatever the hell it is and without treatment my chances sucked, but with it they still sucked and somehow I knew my chances aren’t about living, they’re about living well. I wouldn’t recommend this for anyone else, but I’m not going out bald and puking. I don’t have anything to teach anyone about life, and I’m not brave, but I’d rather be a flash than a slowly cooling ember, so I’ll eat healthy food, take supplements, sleep good, and take what the universe gives me. “
As Ben begins his last year to live, he faces several tough questions. What is he going to do with his last year? How are people going to react when they hear he kept his illness as a secret? What about the people he will leave behind? Read Deadline by Chris Crutcher and follow Ben Wolf’s last year as he sets out to live a lifetime in one year. Watch Ben, throughout the novel, grow and discover more about himself as he decides what he would like to achieve in his last year. Put yourself in Ben’s shoes. What would you do if you had one year to live….and you knew about it?
Katie V
May 22, 2009
As Simple as Snow: Book talk
When it comes to Gregory Galloway’s young adult novel, As Simple as Snow, it is far from a simplistic book and takes readers on an emotional, mystifying rollercoaster ride. The narrator of the story, whose name was never mentioned except for the various nicknames he was given, lived his life day to day without putting much thought into it, until he met the new girl in town, Anna (Anastasia) Cayne. He described himself as blander than milk, more like water in a glass that is dull and completely invisible to everyone around him. That all changed as he began to fall for this Gothic and mysterious girl he could not get out of his head.
The relationship between the author and Anna was very deep and beautiful, yet rather unusual. Anna was always leaving riddles and clues for the author to solve and he was always in the dark when it came to understanding her. Anna was very unique in herself; she had such a passion for abnormal reading and loved all elements of the past (she often felt she was born in the wrong time period). The most unusual part about her was how she had written one thousand five hundred and sixteen imaginary obituaries for everyone in town. The haunting part about it was how she exposed dark secrets about the “deceased”, something only they would know…and would rather keep secret. As soon as she had finished the last one, she mysteriously disappeared like Houdini leaving only her black dress by a hole in the ice covered river.
No one knew if she had committed suicide, ran away, or was murdered; it was a complete mystery. She, however, left the author various clues, found in old books, music albums, and even in her own obituaries for him to decipher. He spent all his time trying to understand her cryptic messages so that he could finally discover where his true love had vanished to. In the end, he never figured out her location. Instead, he began to understand himself and drastically change in character; he ended up transforming from blander than milk to Goth. He also learned that his life was meant for joy, not just going day to day without being noticed.
As Simple as Snow is a remarkable novel that can be interpreted in two ways. It can be a quick and easy read. For those who wish to solve the labyrinth of riddles, it can be challenging and quite enjoyable. Either way, Galloway’s novel is a quirky yet excellent puzzle that everyone should take the opportunity to unravel.
Logan
May 22, 2009
Tattoos have always been one of the world’s most unique forms of art. Tattoos are often seen as significant for accomplishments or for religious piety, but what if tattoos were created to convey a message? This concept is explored in the wonderful action-mystery novel Seven Paths to Death by Dorothy Hoobler. The novel begins with the mystery of the murder of a man whose back “…caused the most murmur in the crowd. They had seen tattoos before, but none as elaborate and colorful as this man had. It was almost enough to make them think he was, after all, a visitor sent from heaven to deliver some strange and wonderful message” From then on, the novel follows the story of a young samurai named Seikei and his adoptive father Jundge Ooka in their attempts to unravel the mystery of seven similar tattoos upon the backs of seven men, and why those men are slowly turning up dead. And if that isn’t enough, Seikei has to deal with his old nemesis Kitsune, a ninja bent on revenge. An action packed mystery set in feudal Japan, this novel keeps you guessing until its surprising conclusion. Why are these men tattooed? What do they mean? And who wants them dead? If you like samurais, ninjas, and a complex mystery underneath it all, I highly recommend Seven Paths to Death.
Sean
May 22, 2009
Book Talk:
Elsewhere
by Gabrielle Zevin
Elsewhere is a very unique young adult novel. The story is set, obviously, in a place called Elsewhere which is where people go when they die. The main character, Liz finds herself on the SS Nile, a ship on its way to Elsewhere. For the longest time, Liz thinks that everything she is experiencing is merely a dream and spends quite a few chapters incredulously trying to wake herself up. Once she realizes that she is, in fact, dead, she is forced to get used to life on Elsewhere. The strangest thing about Elsewhere is that instead of aging forwards, its citizens age backwards. Once they have become babies again, they are sent back down The River to Earth to restart their lives. In this book, Gabrielle Zevin shows a life that is actually multiple lives, a never-ending cycle filled with opportunities. The novel allows readers into Liz’s journey through this cycle and her experiences as she balances life after death. Along the way she finds friendship and even something more. She learns about life, love, and herself. Though she is reluctant to accept it at first, Elsewhere proves to be a place of growth. This shows that, contrary to popular to belief, life actually continues after death. With a poignant ending and addicting plotline, Elsewhere is an eclectic, enjoyable modern novel.
Excerpt from Elsewhere:
“There will be other lives.
There will be other lives for nervous boys with sweaty palms, for bittersweet fumblings in the backseats of cars, for caps and gowns in royal blue and crimson, for mothers clasping pretty pearl necklaces around daughters’ unlined necks, for your full name read aloud in an auditorium, for band-new suitcases transporting you to strange new people in strange new lands.
And there will be other lives for fathers walking daughters down aisles.
And there will be other lives for sweet babies with skin like milk.
And there will be other lives for a man you don’t recognize, for a face in a mirror that is no longer yours, for the funerals of intimates, for shrinking, for teeth that fall out, for hair on your chin, for forgetting everything. Everything.”
Kelsey L
May 22, 2009
Caitlin has a hard family life. Her popular and honors bound sister Cass disappears, and her family is falling apart. “As I closed the cover, something caught my eye on one of the first pages. It was an inscription in Cass’s loopy script, my name big, the message little. Caitlin, it said in black in I’ll see you there.” One night Caitlin notices Rogerson Biscoe, and everything changes. Caitlin knows Rogerson is a drug dealer, but he makes her forget her problems. Caitlin gives up her friends for Rogerson because he gets mad when she’s with them. Caitlin is so caught with the world around her that she forgets her morals and everything her family use to stand for self respect and dignity. She starts using drugs with his friends, and he begins beating her. The relationship is now physical and she is caught up in domestic violent situation were there is only one way in and no way out for her. “There were some times-when things got bad-that I saw something flash across Rogerson’s face, like he couldn’t believe what he’d done.” They begin to have an intimate but forceful relationship with one another, and after that she is afraid to leave him, although in the back of her mind she knows things aren’t right. One day Caitlin’s friend convinces her to go out for the day with her. Caitlin tries to call Rogerson so he won’t be mad, but she can’t get through. She is terrified at the outcome of her predicament knowing Rogerson is very controlling and obsessive with her whereabouts. When she gets home he is waiting and beats her. A neighbor calls the police and he is arrested. Caitlin’s family takes her to a mental hospital to help her get over the trauma and to get her off the drugs. Dreamland is a pleasant read and a book that can be read in your leisure time. Most books are time consuming and hard to follow the plot, but not this book it’s easy to comprehend and keeps the reader at the edge of their seats throughout the book leaving them to wonder what is going to happen next?!
antonishia
May 22, 2009
Wait for Me a novel by An Na
In Mina’s life, there are only three things that are truly important: school, her parents’ laundromat, and more school – at least in her mother’s eyes. Mina struggles with her school and life overall, especially since she has to deal with it all for her ever strict mother.
The only contribution Mina’s mother makes is sending Mina to Jonathon’s house. She has to deal with this sleazy, smart, jerk of a boy, because her mother thinks it will help her education, when really she just wants to get close to Mrs. Kim, Jonathon’s mother and a popular woman. Mina suffers through Jonathon’s attempts to vie for her attention, when all she wants is his friendship. All he does is add to her growing list of struggles and stresses.
The one person that doesn’t truly drive Mina crazy, is Suna. Mina loves her kind, innocent younger sister, who struggles with being deaf. Mina works very hard to guard and protect Suna from the harsh world, since their mother won’t.
Then Ysrael enters the picture: an older teenage boy who gets a job at Mina’s parents’ Laundromat. Even though Mina’s mother dislikes the idea and refuses to let him work there, he eventually does with the persuasive efforts of Mina’s calm father. Ysrael doesn’t just get a job, but soon realizes he’s in love with Mina. Suna, at first, doesn’t understand Ysrael and Mina’s relationship, and all she can do is try to hold on to them tight before they run away and leave her behind.
“Suna leans forward between the two front seats and studies these two forms as though they are strangers. He touches her cheek and she leans into his palm, into the hand that cups her face. And he brings that face to his, their foreheads touching, their lips whispering. He strokes her face with the back of his hand, his knuckles tracing the gentle slope of her jaw, her neck. She bows her head, her long hair falling forward. He kisses her forehead, her brow, her temple. She slowly raises her face to his and their lips meet. Gentle as petals falling to the floor.”
And so it is. The two forms, the two strangers, in finding each other, in their union, become recognizable. Mina and Ysrael. Ysrael and Mina.”
Wait for Me is a sweet, coming of age novel for anyone who needs to break away from the oppressive. Na has the reader fully engaged from page one to the very end, having the reader love every word and leaving them wanting more.
Katie C
May 22, 2009
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You
“I go to a school for spies. Of course, technically the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women is a school for geniuses—not spies—and we’re free to pursue any career that benefits our exceptional educations. But when a school tells you that, then teaches you things like advanced encryption and fourteen different languages, it’s kind of like big tobacco telling kids not to smoke; so all of us
Gallagher Girls know lip service when we hear it.”
Meet Cameron Morgan (Cammie), an average teenage girl who attends a special boarding school for exceptional teenage girls. Almost too exceptional that is; Cammie is no ordinary girl, she attends a top secret school educating the next generation of super spies. Being a student at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women was expected of Cammie, what with her super hot spy mom (who is actually the headmistress of the school) and her famous father, who never returned from his last mission, being a spy ran in her veins.
As Cammie and her friends try to work their way through tough classes, new missions, and learning fourteen different languages, they don’t really stop and think about what a “normal” life would be like. That is until two major events happen- Macey McHenry is accepted into spy school and Cammie meets a love struck town boy named Josh. Macey ends up being way behind in all the school-related classes, but knowing boy-talk and fashion put her one step ahead of all the other girls. This really helps Cammie since she has never talked to a “normal” person much less been in a relationship with one.
When Cammie has no email or phone number to give Josh she doesn’t worry- she can get to know him in much better ways. Putting all their spy tactics to use becomes a outside project to Cammie and her friends as they hack into Josh’s email, pick locks, and dig through garbage trying to really get to know Josh and his feelings for Cammie. Read as Cammie, who could smash a sumo wrestler to bits, tries to live a double life from a Christian home-schooled girl to a super-spy chick in I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have To Kill You.
Mary S.
May 22, 2009
Nineteen Minutes
By: Jodi Picoult
“In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five.
Nineteen minutes is how long it took the Tennessee Titans to sell out of tickets to the play-offs. It’s the length of a sitcom, minus the commercials. It’s the driving distance from the Vermont border to the town of Sterling, New Hampshire.
In nineteen minutes, you can order a pizza and get it delivered. You can read a story to a child or have your oil changed. You can walk a mile. You can sew a hem.
In nineteen minutes, you can stop the world, or you can just jump off it.
In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge.”
After being bullied for twelve years in the quiet hallways of a Sterling, New Hampshire school, Peter Houghton is fed up. In a town where everyone knows everyone, where neighbors honk in greeting as they drive down the road, where no one moves away and not many people migrate in, one shattering act of violence will shake the foundations on which it was built.
Josie Cormier, the daughter of a judge, should be the state’s best witness to the crime, but she can’t seem to remember anything about the day that changed her life. Caught somewhere between the “outcasts” and the “in-group”, she finds herself doing anything to stay popular; even if it means losing her real self behind the mask.
In a beautiful but startling exploration of a teenagers search for self-identity and the fragile nature of a parent-child relationship, Jodi Picoult captures not only your interest but also your heart. In a romance, courtroom drama, and tragedy, we learn that things are not always as they seem. The good guys aren’t always good, and sometimes the bad guys have a reason to be bad.
Hannah E
May 22, 2009
Graceling
By: Kristin Cashore
Graceling is, in a way, a kind of daunting book, with a thick cover and heavy on book page numbers, and even at times, the book’s plot can get hard to get into. However, if you can pick up and assemble minutes over the course of a few lightly written pages, then this book is far less intimidating.
The book begins with the feel of an action spy movie, with kicks and punches performed by a: to use a pun, graceful fighter. We soon learn this is our main character Katsa, a young woman who possesses a Grace, or an extreme, almost magical talent in the art of killing. While Katsa hates fighting, killing especially, she finds herself at the hands of a self-centered king’s hands as a killer of his disloyal subjects. However, this sort of manipulation ends when she meets a young foreign man named Po, who is also possesses a Grace. Po tells her how she can stand up to his oppression, and use her skill for better things. Eventually, she finds herself on a quest with Po, and from there, the real adventure begins.
While this book is a thriller for those who are ready to embed themselves into another world, it also provides a rich tale of a woman reaching maturity, though in a completely unconventional way. Should either of those appeal to you, I would recommend the book, for those who wouldn’t, it might be a good book to put on hold.
Excerpt:
“She had killed once by accident, a memory she held close to her consciousness. It was how her Grace had announced its nature, a decade ago. She’d been a child, barely eight years old. A man who was some sort of distant cousin had visited the court. She hadn’t liked him – his heavy perfume, the way he leered at the girls who served him, the way his leer followed them around the room, the way he touched them when he thought no one was watching. When he’d started to pay Katsa some attention, she had grown wary. “Such a pretty little one,” he’d said. “Graceling eyes can be so very unattractive. But you, lucky girl, look better for it. What is your Grace, my sweetness? Storytelling? Mind reading? I know. You’re a dancer.”
Katsa hadn’t known what her Grace was. Some Graces took longer than others to surface. But even if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared to discuss it with this cousin. She’d scowled at the man and turned away. But then his hand had slid toward her leg, and her hand had flown out and smashed him in the face. So hard and so fast that she’d pushed the bones of his nose into his brain.
Ladies in the court had screamed; one had fainted. When they’d lifted him from the pool of blood on the floor and he’d turned out to be dead, the court had grown silent, backed away. Frightened eyes – not just those of the ladies now, but those of the soldiers, the sworded underlords – all directed at her. It was fine to eat the meals of the king’s chef, who was Graced with cooking, or send their horses to the king’s Graced horse doctor. But a girl Graced with killing? This one was not safe. “
Earl B
May 22, 2009
Born to Rock
By: Gordon Korman
“I’d always blamed my McMurphy DNA for every weird urge and character flaw, but that was just neurotic. Never did I seriously believe that I’d turn out to be so spectacularly right! I mean, a dad in the entertainment industry would have been kind of cool, but this was more like terrorism than show business. The blood of a notorious lowlife flowed through my veins. I was Prince Maggot.”
Leo Caraway is a Young Republican who’s attending Harvard in the fall, and he has a perplexing secret regarding his biological father. According to his birth certificate, his true father is Marion X. McMurphy, a man whom Leo’s mother had a one-night stand with and refuses to discuss. Due to the shroud hiding Leo’s biological origins, Leo often blames his short temper and rebellious attitude on the “McMurphy” in him.
Leo’s closest friend, Melinda, is a Goth-dressing punk, and the two don’t always see eye to eye. She convinces Leo to tutor her homosexual friend Owen in mathematics, which leads to a huge problem. While taking the final, Leo and Owen are accused of cheating when Leo tries to jog Owen’s memory by providing him hints. In the end, Leo takes the blame and ends up losing his scholarship to Harvard. Now, he is pressed with the issue of obtaining sufficient funds for his college tuition; $40,000.
During this time period, Leo stumbles across a clue to his biological father’s background when he’s reading over Melinda’s online blog on rock music. He discovers that Marion X. McMurphy is really “King Maggot,” the lead singer of Purge. Purge is known as the most famous and angriest punk rock band of all time. Leo realizes that King Maggot is obviously rich, and concludes that he is the ticket to his college tuition.
By contacting King, Leo receives an offer to tour with the band as a roadie over the summer and accepts it. He joins the tour (which Owen and Melinda follow during the whole summer) and experiences the adventure of a lifetime. From dog-knapping to punk rebellion, this novel is full of excitement.
Will Leo succeed in obtaining the tuition money? Read Born to Rock by Gordon Korman.
Chris Cutler
May 22, 2009
UGLIES by Scott Westerfeld
Tally Youngblood will soon turn sixteen, the age she’s been waiting for her entire life. In Tally’s world, everyone gets the operation that makes them pretty when they’re sixteen, when they leave the dorms at Uglyville and move to New Pretty Town with the other new pretties. They get wider eyes, healthier skin, fuller lips. It’s all according to the formula of attraction written in our genes by biology, all the things we instinctively look for in another. But not everybody wants to have the operation. Sometimes, they run away, out into the ruins of the Rusties–the civilization that existed before; the girl that Tally becomes friends with, Shay, is that type of person. She’s not excited about getting the operation. So Shay decides to run away, and in doing so, Tally comes after her. But not thinking it through, Tally becomes surrounded by a group of “Specials” that are living on their own in the Rusties. Tally grows closer to their leader, David. And she learns the very, behind-closed-doors secret about being Pretty. Uglies does a magnificent job of flash forwarding to where current American society could find itself in the future. The emphasis this society places on being “pretty” not only reflects modern-day society’s obsession with the beautiful and the perfect, but also shows how an empty-headed and uneducated society can find itself being completely controlled by a small number of people. The book is not just a societal reflection, however, it’s also just a very good adventure story. Though it’s a little over 400 pages, it is a quick read, as many find it hard to put down.
“Freedom has a way of destroying things.” -Tally, Specials
Alexandra O
May 22, 2009
Pierre
Booktalk
May 21, 2009
Deadline
People say life is short, but for some it is even shorter. Ben Wolf, a Senior in high school, is one of those people who has had his life shortened. After going to the doctor’s for his yearly physical, Ben learns he is suffering from a terminal illness and opts out of treatment and telling anyone. Ben just wants to go out like a normal person, not just another bald kid, lying in bed feeling sorry for himself for an entire year. Ben wants to live his life in his final year, he figures it is something of a blessing to know his “deadline”, because now he knows he has to experience everything and he means everything. Starting with sports, Ben has always been known for his cross-country abilities while his brother, Cody, has always been the football star, but this year Ben has nothing to lose and goes out for the team and makes it. This is just the beginning of Ben shaking things up at school. Ben has always been a pretty quiet kid, but this is also about to change, and life for his civics teacher will never be so frustrating. Ben is not out just to fool around, well, yes he is. But his love interest becomes so much more then that when Dallas Suzuki reveals a secret she has been living with since she was 13 years old. He also becomes Rudy McCoy’s unofficial AA sponsor when he takes the time to actually listen to what Rudy has to say, and once again a deep dark secret is revealed to Ben, but his stays bottled up. Throughout this entire novel Ben is visited by his new found spiritual side and companion, “Hey-Soos”, who leaves Ben with more questions then answers during his visits. By the end of the novel, Ben is forced to make a difficult realization, after a fellow student dies, he has to tell his secret. Ben doesn’t know where to start; his coach who has been like a second father, his brother, his dad, his depressed mother, his girlfriend, but one thing he does know is that he has to tell all of them.
Deadline is a compelling novel that makes you question your own ability to make extremely difficult decisions and deal with the consequences. So if you are looking for a novel that discusses the powerful subjects of death, rape, love, forbidden love, hate, forgiveness, and spirituality, this is the novel for you.
Excerpt (page 256-257)
“On this moonless night, the Milky Way spreads across the sky like a billion fiery marbles. If it weren’t for potholes, the roads around here would have no surface at all, so I run high on the left edge on hard-packed snow to avoid them, starting slow, worried my body might bail on me again. But in a mile or so I’m into a slow pace, and in two I’m wondering if other kids are like me. I don’t mean other dying kids, and I know there are lots dying in lots worse ways than I am. But I wonder if other kids try as hard as I do to figure out who they are and why they’re here. Adults talk about how kids’ brains aren’t fully developed and we’re like bulletproof sociopaths or something, but that’s not true, at least not for me. Most of us just have a hard time putting things into words. I consider this road I’m running on, bordering water for nearly fifty miles, frozen white just below the road’s edge. Ride back twenty-some odd years and these are Coach’s feet, pounding the dirt in the middle of the night, trying to soak up the meaning of life, when the most important one in his had been taken, it would have been spring; warmer, but he would have been staring up into the same Milky Way asking the same question I ask. How do I make it worth it?”
Pierre N
May 22, 2009
Sold is a novel written by Patricia McCormick, the best-selling author of “Cut”. The novel is a graphic depiction of a young girl, Lakshmi, who lives in a rural village in the mountains of Nepal. Her life with her mother is hard by our own terms. Lakshmi and her mother live in a highly patriarchal society; one where when a woman begins menstruating, she must lock herself away for seven days so that she may “purify” herself and prevent disease in the crops.
In the novel, Lakshmi’s father dies when she is a young girl, and because a woman is considered nothing without a man in their society, her mother quickly finds a man to marry so that they can have a slight income. Her mother marries a cruel hearted man with only one functioning arm who quickly gambles away any money they earn.
Her father soon owes debt to the tea house he goes to, and in order to make more money, he tells Lakshmi that she is going to work as a maid in a wealthy family’s home and send home her wages to help support the family. Lakshmi, who is a kind and bold girl, is excited to venture out of her small town and begin helping the family to have a better life. Her main goal is to give her mother a tin roof, like all the other villagers in town.
Her bright, hopeful future turns out to be a fantasy, as Lakshmi is transported hundreds of miles away from her home to arrive at a brothel in the red light district of India and Calcutta, where she is dressed in bright clothes and owned by the cruel brothel owner, Mumatz.
Everyday, Lakshmi works to send money to her family and gain her freedom so that she may return home to her family. She keeps a book of calculations to keep track of her wages, which are always minimized by the heavy debts Mumatz imposes for Lakshmi’s stay in the brothel.
Sold may be a fictional novel, but the facts behind the novel are all very real. At the end of the novel, the author writes of how she travelled to Nepal and interviewed girls and women of the red light district who had been sold into prostitution both willingly and unwittingly. She tells the story of thousands of young women, and the intention of her novel is to speak out against it.
“Today, Harish tells me, is the festival of brothers and sisters. He shows me the rag doll he is giving to Jeena. “I bought it with my own money,” he says.
Then he hands me a pencil. It is shiny yellow and it smells of lead and rubber. And possibility.
“For you,” he says.
And then he runs off, his paper kite in his hand. And I am glad because something strange is happening. Something surprising and unstoppable.
A tear is running down my cheek. It quivers a moment on the tip of my nose, then splashes onto my skirt, leaving a small, dark circle.
I have been beaten here,
Locked away,
Violated a hundred times,
And a hundred times more.
I have been starved,
And cheated,
Tricked
And disgraced.
How odd it is that I am undone by the simple kindness of a small boy with a yellow pencil.”
-Sold
Mary M
May 22, 2009
Most Americans are unaware that the president can declare any person, regardless of citizenship, an “enemy combatant” and detain them without trial. 9/11 provided an excuse for phones to be tapped and people to be watched, all in the name of national security. Most people do not worry about what the government is doing as long as the right people are being watched. But what if you were suspected of terrorism? How do you know the Department of Homeland Security isn’t monitoring your phone calls or internet history? The answer is you don’t. The question citizens have to ask themselves is where protection stops and privacy-invasion begins. Is George Orwell’s prediction of 1984 being seen in 2009?
Marcus and his friends are apprehended after a terrorist attack in San Francisco. Obviously the high school students had no involvement in the attack, yet the DHS treats them as if they were Al Qaeda members. They are detained on an island with no contact with the outside world. For days their parents had no way of knowing what happened to their children or whether they were alive. Marcus was subject to abusive treatment that infuriates anyone who supports the Bill of Rights.
Marcus is eventually released, but the four member group of teens is now a group of three. One of Marcus’ friends doesn’t make it out. From this point forward, Marcus is bent on revenge against the DHS.
Throughout his adventure, he encounters personal and physical barriers. Marcus manages to cause major problems for the DHS while maintaining a relationship, not letting his parents find out, and most importantly not getting caught.
The book also provides cool and interesting technology advice and instructions. The entirety of his rebellious activities involves some sort of computer hack, IM, undetectable internet program, or something more extreme. At the beginning of the book Marcus is established as a computer savvy teenager, whose tricks help keep him out of trouble.
“Cracking my SchoolBook had been easy. The crack was online within a month of the machine showing up, and there was nothing to it—just download a DVD image, burn it, stick it in the SchoolBook, and boot it while holding down a bunch of different keys at the same time. The DVD did the rest, installing a whole bunch of hidden programs on the machine, programs that would stay hidden even when the Board of Ed did its daily remote integrity checks of the machines. Every now and again I had to get an update for the software to get around the Board’s latest tests, but it was a small price to pay to get a little control over the box.”
Little Brother is an amazing book that inspires a bit of techno-geek rebellion in anyone who reads it. Perhaps the best part is that it inspires readers to ask questions about the government. Is something like Little Brother possible? Read it and find out.
Heath
May 20, 2009
How to be Bad
By: E. Lockhart (Author), Sarah Mlynowski (Author), Lauren Myracle (Author)
How to be Bad was a fast and easy read, it looks intimidating to the high school students eye because of it size.
In an unexpectedly rebellious moment, Jesse “borrows” her mama’s car and skips hicksville with Vicks, her best friend, and Mel, a new girl at work. Their destination: Miami, where Vicks’ boyfriend, Brady, attends college. Jesse is running from the news that her mom has breast cancer; Vicks is afraid that Brady is already over her. Mel just wants to belong. Like most road trips, this one is more about the journey than the destination: numerous detours including breaking into a roadside attraction, escaping a hurricane, and hooking Mel up with a hot guy provide the space the girls need to sort out their problems.
I liked this book, because the different shade of characters that were portrayed from the 3 authors that collaborated. You have the typical poor girl, the girl that is the median, and then you have the rich girl that does not know what she want or where she belongs. What I love is that these girls that are completely different go on this journey together and become closer through their experiences. This book showed the meaning of true friendship and through anything your bond can be stronger.
Jen
O
OltonMedia
April 2, 2009