Archives: Book Reviews

When you’re young, you think you’re invincible, impervious to this thing called death. Stevie was born with diabetes and has had a brush with death before so she knows that it does not discriminate. She and her best friend Sanger are homeschoolers; “normal” homeschoolers meaning they are not super religious or super hippy. Stevie’s somewhat boring life gets interesting when she notices what she thinks may be a dead body in her next-door neighbor’s yard. She was shocked to discover that it was Max Garza, a boy that had cheated death once and planned on cheating it a few more times, 23 to be exact. After a freak accident left him dismembered and friendless, Max is determined to laugh in deaths face and make some new friends along the way. Stevie reluctantly decides to be Max’s accomplice in his quests to beat death. While on his quest, Sanger, Stevie and Max find a reason to live and together they discover the meaning of life in this heartwarming coming of age story.

Diary of a Haunting begins with a note from the editor that makes the reader question whether the following pages are inspired by true events or if it’s just a fictional tale.

The story that follows is the most startling documentation of the effects of supernatural forces I have ever yet encountered, and its significance to human understanding cannot be overestimated. It pains me, however, that this revelation comes at such a heavy cost.

The story of what went down unfolds through a a series of blog posts from Laetitia, who had a super popular hair and makeup blog with tons of followers until her posts started to get a little dark and creepy.  Laetitia starts to feel a little off, and then she starts to have horrible nightmares where people are attacking her or she feels like she’s on fire.  She keeps shrugging them off as weird dreams until random pictures related to them start posting to her blog somehow.  The pictures freak Laetitia, but it takes coughing a sea shell and some chicken bones for her to finally tell someone what’s up.   Laetitia’s family tries pills, home cleansing rituals, some dark magic and more, but will any of it help Laetitia before it’s too late?

Andie has a plan for everything. She knows when what she’ll wear for school the next day, what she’ll eat for dinner that night, what college she’ll go to, what to get her friends for their birthday—she plans for every contingency.  The only thing she did not plan for was a media scandal surrounding her Congressman father.

Suddenly, Andie is thrown right in the middle of a media frenzy and her secured internship at John Hopkins University—and all of her summer plans—falls through. With only days before summer officially starts, Andie scrambles to find a new internship but no one will take her. She eventually settles on a dog-walking job having never walked a dog or owned a dog before. The only advantage to being home all summer is that Andie can spend the summer with her friends but it also means having to spend quality-time with her dad, something she’s avoided since her mother died.

The summer starts normally enough—Andie walks dogs, hangs out friends, avoids her dad and soon meets Clark, a fun and secretive boy  who sparks Andie’s interest. Soon, she begins spending all her time with Clark and her friends begin to notice that all her careful planning is beginning to unravel. Her need for constant control starts to interfere with her personal life and she questions why she needs to hold on so tight in the first place.

Morgan Matson’s The Unexpected Everything is a light and entertaining read about discovering who you are, the importance of family and friends, and how joy can still be found even when you are in pain.

Gabi Hernandez just wants to be the perfect definition of a “good” girl, you know smart but not too smart, attractive to the opposite sex but chaste, agreeable and of course skinny. Day after day, Gabi hilariously and honestly writes in her diary about her friend Cindy who becomes a teenage mom, Sebastian who is kicked out of his house after coming out to his parents, her meth addicted father who can’t seem to conqueror his demons, college applications, her love/hate relationship with her mother and FOOD. Gabi finds solace in both food and poetry as she has this internal struggle of whether to comply with her mother’s Mexican traditional notions of femininity or her own thoughts of self-acceptance, self-love and female liberation.

Gabi is just a girl who is trying to figure it out in an environment that always leaves her in a constant state of doubt and confusion. Gabi, a girl in pieces is a book that will leave your emotional state in a state of flux as one minute you’re laughing and in the next minute you’re in tears. Quintero’s relatable and beautifully written depiction of a girl who comes to term with the fact that nothing is perfect, is a must read.

(Liz, the loft)

This book is about a boy who takes a detective’s course and uses it to solve crimes around his school. But, when he takes his newest case, something goes wrong. He has 12 hours to solve the crime and clear his name…or else. I thought this book was very clever and a good read.

(Tyler, Evanston Teen)