Redwall by Brian Jacques
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I had to read this for my book club. I would never have picked it up if not for the club.  I don't plan on reading any others.  It is well written.  But I am shocked to think of it as written for tween.  It is so violent, and graphically violent to little animals.  If I had read this when I was 10 I would have been devastated.


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I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Ed Kennedy is an underage cab driver, pathetic at cards, hopelessly in love with his best friend Audrey, and devoted to the Doorman, his old and incredibly smelly dog. He doesn’t have a lot of prospects: he works, plays cards and ….. well, that’s it really.

Until the failed bank robbery ….

Until the envelope arrives in the mail…..



Here is

A book about hope

A book about caring

A book about a messenger

A book that is a message





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Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


A book about bullying.
A book about the effects of steroids.
A book about losing your humanity.
A book about facing fears and doing the right thing.

Football is king at Oregrove High School.
And the best players think they are privileged and beyond the rules that bind everyone else. Nothing pleases these self-proclaimed kings more than to target the weak.

The bullying becomes progressively more violent over time. 

Who is brave enough to do the right thing and show these thugs up for what they truly are? 

Soon a despicable act lays the foundation for right against wrong, decency over depravity, and freedom over victimization. 




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First Date by Krista McGee

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


This started off promising to be an entertaining read.  The idea was good and the dialog moved the story along.  But after week two of the competition the plot twists became too contrived and lost their reality for me.  I won't go into details as that would spoil if for others.  I'm willing to suspend my beliefs but only so far.
It also became too preach-y which turned me off.  I liked the Christian aspect until it became all consuming.



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Trapped by Michael Northrop

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Here is a cross between Breakfast Club and Assault on Precinct 13 and it has all the drama and suspense of each film.

A blizzard stalls over New England resulting in the worst storm in living memory. The high school closes early but not everyone leaves.

“There was a little circle of people in the hallway outside the gym when we arrived: four kids and one teacher, all standing near the double doors.  It looked like a field trip just beginning to assemble.  The three of us joined the group, bring the total to eight.  That was the most there would ever be.  From here on out, the number would only go down.” (pg 34.)

What happens at the school as the heat and power fails and the snow keeps piling up?





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The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This is a cancer book.
But a cancer book with a difference.
The Fault in Our Stars is not about living with cancer, even though that is the book’s plot. It’s about living. It’s about creating genuine relationships and opening ourselves to others and finding love, and laughing hard and often, even in the face of death.
What the characters express is an understanding that it is up to each of us to shape the story of our lives.
I expected gratuitous smaltz, super-heroic teens and troubled parents who disintegrated under the pressure of a sick child. That is not what happened.

I knew how the book was going to end. I was prepared: but I still cried even though I told myself it was fiction, and I should get-a-grip.  These characters are real.

The main characters’ feelings are very teenagery even if their dialog is sometimes more advanced than the normal teens’
You will fall in love with Gus and Hazel and Isaac. You will ache for the teenagers and their unfair lot in life, and you will ache for the parents as they do their best for their children.

Hazel and Gus may have faults in their lives but they get love right.

The Fault in Our Stars has received positive reviews from critics. The New York Times' review of the book "stays the course of tragic realism", while noting that the book's unpleasant plot details "do nothing to diminish the romance". Time called The Fault in Our Stars "damn near genius."Entertainment Weekly wrote, "[Augustus and Hazel's] love story is as real as it is doomed, and the gut-busting laughs that come early in the novel make the luminous final pages all the more heartbreaking".




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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars


Oskar is a highly intelligent 9-year old boy. Despite his intelligence that gives him a better understanding of the physical and historical aspects of the world, Oskar retains the emotions, confusion, and exasperation of a 9-year old. Oskar lost his father in the 9/11 attack. Oskar carries a secret he hasn't shared with anybody else. He was sent home from school soon after the attacks on 9/11 and was the first one home. There he found five messages from his father calling from one of the World Trade Towers on the answering machine, and he replaced the phone and kept the messages to himself. He finds a key in a vase when searching through his father's closet. This key sets Oskar off on a quest to find the story behind it, to find the secret that his father kept, in hopes that it would help him understand his dad better.
The story is one of loss and trying to understand loss.  The story of Oskar's grandparents runs parallel showing that loss and heartache is ever-present and for many not understandable.
I found the novel a chore to read.  I do not like the author's style of dialog where there is no line break between speakers. I think the story would have been stronger if kept to Oskar's actions.  He is a likable, real character and the grandparent's story cluttered his narrative.



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