Online Book Club - Conversion - Week Two Discussion!

Good Morning!

We hope you all enjoyed reading the second section of Conversion by Katherine Howe.

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In pages 63 - 124, we learn that more girls in Colleen's school have fallen mysteriously ill and that the school seems to be keeping secrets about whether or not they truly understand what is going on. Colleen has also begun receiving strange text messages from someone who will not reveal themselves.  In the seventeen hundreds, Ann has begun telling her story to the Reverend, revealing that Betty and Abby were faking their illness...

Here are some questions where we'd love to hear your thoughts:
1. What type of illness do you think the girls have in Colleen's school?
2. Who do you think is the person secretly messaging Colleen? What is the connection to The Crucible?
3. What do you think has caused Ann to suddenly start confessing to the Reverend?

Please, give us any thoughts that you have about the pages we've read so far, BUT...NO SPOILERS please!! If you read ahead, make sure not to give away any clues to things that may come ahead.

Online Book Club - Conversion - Week One Discussion!

Good Morning!

We hope you all enjoyed reading the first section of Conversion by Katherine Howe.

It’s senior year at St. Joan’s Academy, and school is a pressure cooker. College applications, the battle for valedictorian, deciphering boys’ texts: Through it all, Colleen Rowley and her friends are expected to keep it together. Until they can’t.

First it’s the school’s queen bee, Clara Rutherford, who suddenly falls into uncontrollable tics in the middle of class. Her mystery illness quickly spreads to her closest clique of friends, then more students and symptoms follow: seizures, hair loss, violent coughing fits. St. Joan’s buzzes with rumor; rumor blossoms into full-blown panic.

Soon the media descends on Danvers, Massachusetts, as everyone scrambles to find something, or someone, to blame. Pollution? Stress? Or are the girls faking? Only Colleen—who’s been reading The Crucible for extra credit—comes to realize what nobody else has: Danvers was once Salem Village, where another group of girls suffered from a similarly bizarre epidemic three centuries ago...

In pages XI - 61, we jump between two different time periods, the seventeen hundreds and 2012. In Salem, a young woman named Ann wants to confess her sins and in Danvers, a high school senior named Colleen finds herself in a school plagued by something strange that is making her classmates sick.  

Here are some questions where we'd love to hear your thoughts:
1. This book has a connection to the Salem Witch Trials - what do you already know about that time?
2. What do you think about the type of school that Colleen and her friends attend? Would you like to go to that type of high school?
3. How do you think that Ann and Colleen might be connected?

Please, give us any thoughts that you have about the pages we've read so far, BUT...NO SPOILERS please!! If you read ahead, make sure not to give away any clues to things that may come ahead. 

Stay Connected With Us While We’re Closed!

Stay Connected With Us While We’re Closed!

Join One of

WSPL’s ONLINE BOOKCLUBS!

How Do WSPL’s Online Book Clubs Work?

We’ve picked two books, one for adults and one for older teens, that we’ll all read together and discuss online. Simply read the pages suggested each week and then join us for the online discussion of that section.    

Week One: Oct. 19—24

Week Two: Oct. 26—31

Week Three: Nov. 2—7

Week Four: Nov. 9—14

Week Five: Nov. 16—21

Week Six: Nov. 23—28

On the last day of each week, we will post a link from the Library’s Website and Facebook page to our online blogs where the discussions will take place. You can discuss the events of the book so far, your favorite characters, and even try to figure out what might happen next… 

BUT NO SPOILERS PLEASE! 

If you read ahead, don’t give away what happens!!

Questions begin tomorrow, November 20th... Talk to you soon!

Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick

SUMMARY FROM PUBLISHER: (Simon and Schuster) Danger is hard to resist in this sexy thriller from Becca Fitzpatrick, the New York Times bestselling author of the Hush, Hush saga.

Britt Pheiffer has trained to backpack the Teton Range, but she isn't  prepared when her ex-boyfriend, who still haunts her every thought, wants to join her. Before Britt can explore her feelings for Calvin, an unexpected blizzard forces her to seek shelter in a remote cabin, accepting the hospitality of its two very handsome occupants €”but these men are fugitives, and they take her hostage.

Britt is forced to guide the men off the mountain, and knows she must stay alive long enough for Calvin to find her. The task is made even more complicated when Britt finds chilling evidence of a series of murders that have taken place there ¦and in uncovering this, she may become the killer's next target.

But nothing is as it seems, and everyone is keeping secrets, including Mason, one of her kidnappers. His kindness is confusing Britt. Is he an enemy? Or an ally?

Black Ice is New York Times bestselling author Becca Fitzpatrick'€™s riveting romantic thriller set against the treacherous backdrop of the mountains of Wyoming. Falling in love should never be this dangerous


REVIEW: First I must say that I enjoyed Becca Fitzpatrick's Hush Hush series. I recommend it to many of the teens coming into the library looking for a paranormal romance. When I saw she had written a realistic fiction thriller steeped in mystery and intrigue I knew I just had to read it.....  

I loved the first chapter! The story begins with the drugging, abduction and murder of a young woman, Lauren Huntsman, by a mysterious man she meets at a bar. Okay so this is a great set-up to a mystery. We know we will need to look at characters in the story for clues to who is the murder. 

Unfortunately after that first chapter, the rest of the story falls apart. The characters were shallow and two dimensional and many of the situations that occur in the story are implausible. 







SPOILER ALERT***






For example, 
1. Britt and Korbie decide to go to Korbie's family chateau on the Teton mountains for Spring Break when they are caught in an unexpected snowstorm leaving them stranded on the mountainside road. This snowstorm is still raging throughout the book. Britt mentions that she had checked the weather before the trip. But a storm that large doesn't "just appear". 
2. The two girls decide, in the middle of the snowstorm to abandon the jeep and all their hiking equipment to look for a safe place to go during the storm. What person with an ounce of brains does that?! 
3. They find a cabin with two men inside who we quickly find out are running from the law. Britt convinces them that she has been hiking the Teton's for year and can get them off the mountain and away from police. They decide to take her in the snowstorm instead of Korbie. Yet later one of the wanted men, Mason, also known as Ace also known as Jude proves to be a trained wilderness survivalist (then why did they need Britt in the first place) but insists they run when confronted with an aggressive bear. Britt keeps telling him she sure she saw that they aren't supposed to run when she was searching the internet.... wow! really!!! 



I also had an issue with the characters themselves. Britt Pheiffer's (the main character) friendship with her "best friend" Korbie is toxic. For example, Korbie actually keeps a tally of the ways she is better than Britt in her journal (yes, Britt looked) Britt also had a secret relationship with Korbie's brother.So secret he didn't even tell anyone and didn't allow Britt to tell anyone either. That's certainly not a healthy relationship.  Britt changes her mind over who she's in love with, Korbie's brother Calvin or the mysterious Mason/Ace/Jude, so often I thought I was going to have whiplash. The women are airheads and men are deviants. None of characters had likable personalities.; I found myself not caring what happens to any of them.

There are many who loved this story and gave it rave reviews. Those who love the catty relationships and LOTS of drama will love "Black Ice". Those who enjoy series like the Pretty Little Liars or Clique Series will probably enjoy this story. Honestly, this one was just not for me!  


FULL DISCLOSURE: Audio-CD from the West Springfield Public Library. 

Half Bad by Sally Green

Half Bad by Sally Green

PUBLISHER SUMMARY: Coming of age in a modern England where good and bad witches live among humans, the son of a powerful black witch father and a dead white witch mother struggles to escape a violent incarceration and claim three magical gifts in order to survive. A first novel

Book #2 - "Half Wild" published March 24, 2015

REVIEW: This book wasn’t half bad!! Ok, sorry for the cheesy response but its true, I thought it was pretty good story.

There are parts that seemed to fall into the “kinda close to other famous plotlines” category. For example, “Half Bad’s” setting occurs in present time England but, similar to Harry Potter, there is another subculture of white witches and black witches. Nathan’s parentage comes from a white witch mother (who is dead) but the most infamous of black witches for a father (who is absent). Nathan’s life has never been easy because of his father’s notoriety; there’s the fact that he is the spitting image of his father, and then there is the prophecy…   in it Nathan is destined to kill his father. Nathan, although he has never met his father, has no desire to kill his father or anyone for that matter. 

Almost all of this book is taken up with Nathan’s journey from “whet” or young witch-to-be up to his seventeenth birthday when he will be given three gifts and drink the blood of an ancestor to gain his “Gift” and a witch designation. Let's just say that it is a hard journey with most against him and only a few in his corner. 

 On the negative side: the characters weren’t as well developed as I’d like and one book seemed to be completely about the “set-up” for the real action in book two: “Half Wild” I’m willing to overlook both of those issues though. I liked Nathan’s attitude and thought process through the story. I could relate to his struggle to be accepted and his need to not be judged by the actions of his father; he just wanted to be free to live his life.

 This was an interesting and engaging story that will appeal to all those upper middle school to high school students looking for the next, “magic” series.