Review: Guitar Notes

Guitar Notes 
by Mary Amato

Book Description:

On odd days, Tripp Broody uses a school practice room to let loose on a borrowed guitar. Eyes closed, strumming that beat-up instrument, Tripp escapes to a world where only the music matters.

On even days, Lyla Marks uses the same practice room. To Tripp, she’s trying to become even more perfect—she’s already a straight-A student and an award-winning cellist. But when Lyla begins leaving notes for him in between the strings of the guitar, his life intersects with hers in a way he never expected.

What starts as a series of snippy notes quickly blossoms into the sharing of interests and secrets and dreams, and the forging of a very unlikely friendship.

Challenging each other to write songs, they begin to connect, even though circumstances threaten to tear them apart. 

Review: 

I really enjoyed this book! I'm not much of a musician, though I used to play the clarinet eons ago, but I do know what it's like to feel passionately about something and not always have other people understand. Or to have people too much pressure on you just because you are good at something. 

I loved the two perspectives of this book and I loved reading the notes that Tripp and Lyla left for each other. It was very cool to see how their friendship developed and how they supported each other completely.  I highly recommend this book to any middle or high school age reader! 

Review: Absent

Absent

by Katie Williams

 

Publication date: May 21, 2013

 

Book Description:

When seventeen-year-old Paige dies in a freak fall from the roof during Physics class, her spirit is bound to the grounds of her high school. At least she has company: her fellow ghosts Evan and Brooke, who also died there. But when Paige hears the rumor that her death wasn't an accident—that she supposedly jumped on purpose—she can't bear it. Then Paige discovers something amazing. She can possess living people when they think of her, and she can make them do almost anything. Maybe, just maybe, she can get to the most popular girl in school and stop the rumors once and for all.

 

Review:

This book is short, but very good.  It doesn't flinch away from the harsh truth of death and how other people perceive you...or how you perceive them.  This story feels really genuine.  The teen ghosts' despondency, Paige's quest for justice, vengeance, and the way that she yearns for acknowledgment from beyond the grave will definitely pull in most readers. As each student, both the living and the dead, finally find what they need to move on, you will not be able to put the book down until the very end. I know I couldn't!

Due to some drug related content and other mature themes, I would really recommend this book for high school or college age readers.

Review: Hothouse

Hothouse

by Chris Lynch

 

Book Description:

If you do it right, it can be a life. The hothouse, the guys, the glory. But just like that, it can all go up in smoke.

In the beginning it was strange, ya know, because of all that we had lost. But there was something about it that felt so good and so right, too: "I'm so proud of you, Russ." "We'll always be here for you, man." "Heroes don't pay for nothin' in this town." It was nonstop. The mayor shook my hand. Ladies sent food. I've never eaten so much baked ham in my life.

And now? Now the phone won't stop ringing from the crazies ready to blame me. My mom has to cry herself to sleep. They take a firefighter, a man, and they pump him up so big. . . . But once they start taking it away from you, they don't stop until they leave nothing on the bones.

First they needed heroes, then they needed blood.



Review:
I liked this book. It's not something I would ever have picked up without a recommendation, but I ended up liking it well enough. It's very raw and real. It's short and easy to read. It deals well with grief and heroism and how it feels when you realize that your parents are not the infallible heroes that you may want them to stay forever.