Review: I Represent Sean Rosen

I Represent Sean Rosen
by Jeff Baron

Book Description:
Sean Rosen knows what he wants. A ten-million-dollar deal with a big Hollywood studio. The only problem is, he's a kid. And he's busy with school. And he lives far from Los Angeles or New York City. But Sean does have a laptop and a phone, and he's smart. He's about to have the ride of a lifetime as he discovers the ins and outs—and dos and don'ts—of becoming one of the youngest movie moguls the world's ever known.

Review: 

Funny at times, but ultimately not as good as I'd expected.  This book was a fairly quick read, but I didn't really feel enthusiastic at all once I'd read it.  Sean never really learns not to lie and doesn't have to face any real consequences for all of his deceptions... I kind of found that disappointing and unrealistic.  If you love books where you really see inside the character's head, you might like this one, but I don't think it'll be a hit with everyone. 

Review: Zebra Forest

Zebra Forest 
by Adina Rishe Gewirtz

Book Description:
When eleven-year-old Annie first started lying to her social worker, she had been taught by an expert: Gran. “If you’re going to do something, make sure you do it with excellence,” Gran would say. That was when Gran was feeling talkative, and not brooding for days in her room — as she did after telling Annie and her little brother, Rew, the one thing they know about their father: that he was killed in a fight with an angry man who was sent away. Annie and Rew spend their days under the birches and oaks of the Zebra Forest, telling stories about their father the pirate, or pilot, or secret agent. But then something shocking happens to unravel all their stories: a rattling at the back door, an escapee from the prison holding them hostage in their own home, four lives that will never be the same.

Review:

I had no idea originally if I was going to like this book or not.  I was very surprised that not only was it a super quick read... but, I also found myself unable to stop reading.  The story was a little far-fetched at first (though it tapped into my childhood fears that some random prisoner from a local jail would break into our house *exactly* like this one does...), but the way that Gewirtz writes is so emotionally compelling that I didn't care any more if the story seemed entirely plausible. 

Both Annie and Rew's reactions to their father's sudden reappearance in their lives felt absolutely real.  The intense resentment at having thought their father was dead, only to learn he'd been alive all that time and that they could have visited him.  The hope that maybe he'd been falsely imprisoned, though they really knew he was guilty. Their anger at their grandmother for lying to them, even as she was having trouble coping with reality.  

I really liked how the book ended, too.  Things were emotionally satisfying, but also realistic.  Well done. 

Review: The Testing

The Testing 
by Joelle Charbonneau

Book Description:
It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (”Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

Review: 

If you devoured The Hunger Games and having been struggling to find something with just the same bite to it, look no further.  This is the book you've been waiting for... it is the closest I've come yet to the experience I had reading The Hunger Games. 

This book has the same danger, excitement, self-sacrifice, a hint of romance...and left me DESPERATE to get my hands on the second book.  I highly recommend this one. 

Review: Also Known As

Also Known As
by Robin Benway

Book Description:
Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good and bad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations.

Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover.

Review: 

I really enjoyed this light-hearted spy story.

The teen voice was perfect. Maggie and her friends were all totally believable, each with their own foibles and backgrounds. The action was both believable in the sense that Maggie was not the perfect spy... and had me on the edge of my seat at times.

The romance...ah, the romance... I loved it. It was rocky. It was funny. It was just gushy enough.

I did not want to put this book down at all as soon as I started reading and in fact, I would love to see a follow-up story! Fun, funny, and full of surprises.

Recommended for high school readers looking for a fun summer read! 

Review: The False Prince

The False Prince

by Jennifer Nielsen

The Ascendance Trilogy, book one

Book Description:

In this first book in a remarkable trilogy, an orphan is forced into a twisted game with deadly stakes.

Choose to lie...or choose to die.

In a discontent kingdom, civil war is brewing. To unify the divided people, Conner, a nobleman of the court, devises a cunning plan to find an impersonator of the king's long-lost son and install him as a puppet prince. Four orphans are recruited to compete for the role, including a defiant boy named Sage. Sage knows that Conner's motives are more than questionable, yet his life balances on a sword's point -- he must be chosen to play the prince or he will certainly be killed. But Sage's rivals have their own agendas as well.

As Sage moves from a rundown orphanage to Conner's sumptuous palace, layer upon layer of treachery and deceit unfold, until finally, a truth is revealed that, in the end, may very well prove more dangerous than all of the lies taken together.

 

Review:

Danger, political intrigue, secrets, lies... Sage's story is full of suspense and moments that may shock readers. While I thoroughly enjoyed this book...and really loved the way the story was presented, when the "big reveal" came, I wasn't that surprised.  Despite that, I really enjoyed Sage's character, thought the storyline was excellent, and was left clamboring for the next book. All in all, a winner.

 

Terri's Thoughts: I thought the dialogue was smart and that Sage was a strong character throughout most of the book.

Review: Three Times Lucky

Three Times Lucky

by Sheila Turnage

 

Book Description:
Rising sixth grader Miss Moses LoBeau lives in the small town of Tupelo Landing, NC, where everyone's business is fair game and no secret is sacred. She washed ashore in a hurricane eleven years ago, and she's been making waves ever since. Although Mo hopes someday to find her "upstream mother," she's found a home with the Colonel--a café owner with a forgotten past of his own--and Miss Lana, the fabulous café hostess. She will protect those she loves with every bit of her strong will and tough attitude. So when a lawman comes to town asking about a murder, Mo and her best friend, Dale Earnhardt Johnson III, set out to uncover the truth in hopes of saving the only family Mo has ever known.

 

Review:

Though this book is aimed for a slightly younger audience, it is a GREAT read. 

 

It has murder, it has mayhem...it has a killer storm, it has a kidnapping, it has HUMOR.  There is action around every corner in this story and Mo has a funny little sarcastic remark about every bit of it.

 

Mo is one of my favorite narrators to date. She is smart and a smart-alek.  She doesn't take nothing from nobody and when she decides she's going to do something she gets it done!

 

Try this one out. You won't be sorry.



Review: The Girl is Murder

The Girl is Murder

by Kathryn Miller Haines

 

Book Description:

Iris Anderson is only fifteen, but she's quickly mastering the art of deception.

 

It's the Fall of 1942 and Iris's world is rapidly changing. Her Pop is back from the war with a missing leg, limiting his ability to do the physically grueling part of his detective work. Iris is dying to help, especially when she discovers that one of Pop's cases involves a boy at her school. Now, instead of sitting at home watching Deanna Durbin movies, Iris is sneaking out of the house, double crossing her friends, and dancing at the Savoy till all hours of the night. There's certainly never a dull moment in the private eye business.

 

Review:

Love mystery? Love historical fiction?  Then...you should check out this book.

 

Set in the 1940's, this book's atmosphere was exceedingly well done. The clothes, the slang, the political unrest... I felt like I'd dropped straight into the forties and I wanted to dance the night away with the Rainbows! The best part was that even with the slang and the differences in our culture between then and today, Iris still felt like an average teenager. I didn't have that horrible disconnect that you can sometimes get when historical fiction feels too foreign. 

 

Iris was a great character through which to view the forties. She's Jewish, so considered an outsider, and she's just been exiled from the richest section of New York City down to a much lower socially acceptable area because of scandal and economic misfortune... Iris decides she needs to help her Private Investigator father to close his cases because their family desperately needs the money and because she can go places he can't. 

 

Which leads to a new life built on secrets and lies. Soon Iris is double-crossing "friends" at school and misleading her father... how long can she keep that up? The answer...not too long. The real question, though, is will she be able to solve a potential murder before it all blows up in her face??

 

A rollickingly good ride...and I'm looking forward to the sequel, The Girl is Trouble.



Review: Spark

Spark

by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Sky Chasers, book two

 

Book Description:

After a desperate escape from the enemy ship, Waverly has finally made it back to the Empyrean. The memory of home has been keeping her alive for the past months… but home is nothing like she left it. Forced to leave their captive parents behind on the New Horizon, she’s returned only to find that Kieran has become a strict leader and turned the crew against Seth. What happened to the Kieran she thought she knew? Now Waverly’s not sure whom she can trust. And the one person she wants to believe in is darkly brilliant Seth, the ship’s supposed enemy. Waverly knows that the situation will only get worse until they can rescue their parents – but how?

Before they have time to make a plan, an explosion rocks the Empyrean, and Seth and Waverly are targeted as the prime suspects. Can they find the true culprit before Kieran locks them away… or worse? Will Waverly follow her heart, even if it puts lives at risk? Now more than ever, every step could bring them closer to a new beginning – or a sudden end.

 

Review:

After my sparkling gold star review of Glow, I was beyond excited to read Spark. Unfortunately, for me, the magic was just not quite there in this sequel.

 

 

Ryan added a point of view by having chapters told from Seth's perspective. Though I absolutely saw the need for this in terms of moving the storyline forward, it was somewhat jarring to have happen at the very beginning of the book and it threw the "flow" off for me. It also vastly complicated the emotional tenor of the book and thus slowed the building of the story.

 

 

Though there was action and suspense in this book, it was much slower in the beginning... I was not immediately grabbed like I had been in the first book. By the time I was nearing the ending, it had started to get the magic back, and I will definitely be reading book three to see how things end, but I'm hoping that the author will capture the magic again! 

New School Year... New...Secrets...Scandal...Friends?

Since it's back to school season, we created a new display in the Teen Space at our Library full of YA books that have a new school year theme, but with some kind of twist. Scandals, murders, secrets, and friends... or sometimes frenemies! Thus, "New School Year... New...Secrets, New...Scandals, New...Friends?" was born...


Some of the books on display are:

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

A fabulous romance!
Anna was looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. So she's less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris-until she meets Etienne St. Clair. Smart, charming, beautiful, Etienne has it all . . . including a serious girlfriend.

Harbinger by Sara Wilson Etienne

Totally absorbing!
When sixteen-year-old Faye arrives at Holbrook Academy, she doesn't expect to find herself exactly where she needs to be. After years of strange waking visions and nightmares, her only comfort the bones of dead animals, Faye is afraid she's going crazy. Fast.

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

Before there was ever Sex and the City...
The Carrie Diaries opens up in Carrie's senior year of high school. She and her best friends -- Walt, Lali, Maggie, and the Mouse -- are inseparable, and then Sebastian Kydd comes into the picture. Carrie falls into the relationship that she was always supposed to have in high school-until a friend's betrayal makes her question everything. 

Private by Kate Brian

A true High School "soap opera!"
Fifteen-year-old Reed Brennan wins a scholarship to Easton Academy—the golden ticket away from her pill-popping mother and run-of-the-mill suburban life. But when she arrives on the beautiful, tradition-steeped campus of Easton, everyone is just a bit more sophisticated, a bit more gorgeous, and a lot wealthier than she ever thought possible. She quickly discovers that inside their secret parties and mountains of attitude, hanging in their designer clothing-packed closets the Billings Girls have skeletons. And they’ll do anything to keep their secrets private.

Other titles include:
Blue Bloods by Melissa De La Cruz
Deadline by Chris Crutcher
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
Monster High by Lisi Harrison
My Name is Not Easy by Debby Dahl Edwardson
Something to Hold by Katherine Schlick Noe
Dead is a Battlefield by Marlene Perez
Freshman Year and Other Unnatural Disasters by Meredith Zeitlin

If you have to go back to school, the least you can do is go back to school with a twist, right? Stop by soon and pick up some scandalously delicious reads...

Review: Insurgent

Insurgent

by Veronica Roth
Divergent trilogy, book two

*CAUTION - If you have not yet read Divergent... you may want to skip this review!!*

Book Description:
One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

Review:
It is no secret that I LOVED Divergent. It was amazing...and while I really enjoyed Insurgent, it just didn't have that same magical *spark* that Divergent did...

One of the things I liked the most about this book...and simultaneously cursed, was that it broadened our world-view and gave much more depth to whole story. Readers got to learn more about each faction - how it was developed, who runs it and where, what are its principles - and how they interact with each other. It was really cool to see how the entire city worked as a whole.

The world-building felt much more developed here, but in Roth's feeding us so much information, you lose the magic of living directly in Tris' head. As such, I felt that the first half of the book developed very slowly... it was not until midway through that I became really solidly invested in the characters again.

And what Tris and Four go through... I just wanted to reach through the book and hug each of them... There are betrayals, there are massive secrets revealed, there are deaths. I cannot say more without getting all spoiler-y.

Now... all that being said...the end of this book goes out with a BANG! I love where Roth took this, though I was left with some burning questions that I can only hope get answered in the final book. For a variety of reasons, book three is a must read!

Review: How to Save a Life

How to Save a Life

by Sara Zarr

Book Description:

Jill MacSweeny just wishes everything could go back to normal. But ever since her dad died, she's been isolating herself from her boyfriend, her best friends--everyone who wants to support her. And when her mom decides to adopt a baby, it feels like she's somehow trying to replace a lost family member with a new one.

Mandy Kalinowski understands what it's like to grow up unwanted--to be raised by a mother who never intended to have a child. So when Mandy becomes pregnant, one thing she's sure of is that she wants a better life for her baby. It's harder to be sure of herself. Will she ever find someone to care for her, too?

 

As their worlds change around them, Jill and Mandy must learn to both let go and hold on, and that nothing is as easy--or as difficult--as it seems. 

Review:
Want a tearjerker?  Here you go. 

This book was so good. It made me laugh and it made me cry.  Both girls come from a family situation that is just not working any more.  Both girls find, surprisingly enough, just what they really needed in the other.

This was one of those books that really touched my heart.

Review: The Death-Defying Pepper Roux

The Death-Defying Pepper Roux
by Geraldine McCaughrean

Book Description:

Pepper's fourteenth birthday is a momentous one.

It's the day he's supposed to die.

Everyone seems resigned to it—even Pepper, although he would much prefer to live. But can you sidestep Fate? Jump sideways into a different life? NaÏve and trusting, Pepper sets a course through dangerous waters, inviting disaster and mayhem at every turn, one eye on the sky for fear of angels, one on the magnificent possibilities of being alive.

Review:
I really enjoyed this book. I felt so bad for Pepper, growing up convinced by the grown-ups around him that he was going to die at fourteen...good for him, taking his fate into his own hands! What follows is a mad-cap adventure, a-la cheesy adventure movie style, with lots of twists, coincidences, and finally a happy ending.

I thought Pepper was a great character...charming, polite, well-intentioned, and fortunate in his friends. I was very happy to see the way things turned out for him. I thought the author did a really great job at keeping the tone of this book light and fun, because poor Pepper's life just starts out so sad...