Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Andi Alpers' little brother is dead, and it’s her fault. Her father left home, her mother's gone crazy and Andi's just trying to fight the urge to commit suicide.
When Andi’s father drags her to Paris where he's doing business, she doesn't care. When he tells her she'd better get busy researching Malherbeau's life, she doesn’t care. She doesn't even care about the music she once loved.
What's will make Andi care? Finding the journal of Alexandrine Paradis that's hidden in the secret panel of a guitar case made during the French Revolution. Andi engrosses herself reading about Alex's life. Alex wanted to be an actress but lands the job as playmate for the young son of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. But there is a revolution brewing and heads will roll.
What do Alex and Andi have in common? What makes Andi care so much about someone who lived 200 years before her? Will Andi find answers to her life just as she finds answers to lives lived 200 years ago?




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The Trouble With Half a Moon by Danette Vigilante

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A quick read but with deep emotion.

Dellie lives in the projects with her mom and dad. Last summer her little brother was killed in an accident. Dellie blames herself. Her mother is overcome with grief and has become hyper vigilant about Dellie.
New tenants move in on the ground floor and the once peaceful building starts to have problems. A gunshot goes off in one of the halls. A small boy wanders the halls knocking on doors asking for bread. Dellie secretly becomes close to the boy, taking him under her wing, feeding him and finding out that he is neglected and abused by his mother.
Dellie sees the boy as her salvation – if she can save him maybe she will be forgiven.
Is Dellie’s emotional agony realistic; is she responsible for her brother’s death?
And the little boy, what goes on behind the closed door of his apartment?
Can Dellie and the little boy survive?




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The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible As Literally As Possible by A.J. Jacobs

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a really fascinating book and fun to read. HONEST

A.J. Jacobs attempts to live by the Bible’s laws as literally as possible for one year.

Jacobs does not ram religion down your throat. He shows us some of the zany and not-so-crazy rules from the Bible. On many occasions he also gives us some historical perspective to the origins of these laws - which I found very interesting.

Some of the famous laws visited include the Ten Commandments; not stealing including: neighbors wireless networks or straws that his two year old wanted to play with at Starbucks; be fruitful and multiply, no lying (this proved a hard one as sometimes it is easier to tell a white lie to a 2 year-old and avoid a tantrum. But he also obeys dozens of less publicized instructions, including growing a beard, avoiding clothes of mixed fibers and, yes, stoning adulterers.

Interpreting the Bible leads Jacobs to visit some remarkable Biblical communities, from a Kentucky-based creationist museum to the Pennsylvania Amish, from Christian charity workers to Hasidic Jews.

You all should really read this.





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Backtracked by Pedro De Alcantara

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


A bit of suspense, time-travel and history.

While cutting school, Tommy stumbles into a time travel portal in Grand Central Terminal, and begins a series of time travel adventures through the Italian immigrant experience in New York City. As far as time travel goes this is a good book and Tommy develops as an interesting character. It's probably more interesting if you are very familiar with New York and like subway trivia, as it is fun to track all the action.

Read the book and see where he ends up, who he meets, how he gets back and how he grows throughout the novel.




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Gatsby's Girl by Caroline Preston

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Preston reimagines the life of Ginevra King, F. Scott Fitzgerald's first love and the basis for many of his novel’s leading ladies - Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby ), Isabelle Borge (This Side of Paradise ), and Josephine Perry (The Basil and Josephine Stories ). Fitzgerald meets Ginevra at a party in St. Paul, where she is visiting her boarding-school roommate. The two hit it off and correspond for eight months with only one meeting, until Ginevra looses interest. Ginevra is very self absorbed, vain and spoilt. She turns her attention to Bill Granger, a solid but boring man, whom she marries at only 18. Life with Bill and their two children is not the grand romance Ginevra envisioned, and as Fitzgerald's literary star rises, she wonders what life with him would have been like. When she finds herself depicted in his novels and stories, it is clear Scott has never stopped thinking about Ginevra either. This fictional Ginevra matures somewhat; the prose is enjoyable and richly imaginative. This would be a great companion to The Great Gatsby.



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When the Whistle Blows by Fran Cannon Slayton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Succession of stories take place on seven consecutive All Hallows' Eves, from 1943 through 1949, and tell the story of Jimmy Cannon's teenage years in Rowlesburg, WV. Jimmy describes the high jinks, the championship football game, the risks and rewards of his part-time job, and other significant events that shape his love for his small hometown. It is a coming of age story as Jimmy learns to accept that the days of the steam engine are over and to better understand his emotionally distant father. Details and gentle humor help set the scene and reveal a great deal about these characters and their lives. You develop a great fondness for these ordinary people you could imagine meeting on the street.

A gentle, sweet read.





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The Mockingbirds by Daisy Whitney

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This is a story about date rape and how a school’s secret society deals with the wrongs that befall individual students.



Alex has been date raped while under the influence of alcohol

All of her confused and ambivalent reactions to what's happened to her are explored. She moves from believing it's her fault and being ashamed of it, to being confused and shy, to being furious and wanting revenge and sometimes all the feelings occur at the same time. What happened that night is reveled slowly as the case against her attacker is gathered.



But should a group of students be the ultimate justice system? What about the police? It this system fair?





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