Shadows

Shadows by Ilsa J. Bick


Non-stop action, adventure and gore.

I could not not put this book down because something was always happening.  Instead of focusing on just Alex as Ashes did, Shadows jumps around among different characters.  Some people might have a problem keeping up with all the characters and situations, but I did not have a problem following the different story lines.  I liked the different story lines, and even though the novel does not follow Alex the entire time, I do like following Tom, Chris, and Peter in their various situations.  When my students ask me how I can read several novels at the same time, I ask them if they only watch one television show all year long or are they able to watch different ones and still keep the plot lines separate?  This is the same concept.

If you have not read Ashes, I would not recommend beginning with this book.  You need the background of the first book.

After finishing this book, I feel like I am at the mid-season cliffhanger.  What is going to happen to everyone?

A few years ago, I would not have been interested in this type of series of books, but maybe because my husband has been watching The Walking Dead, and I watch it as I'm reading books or grading papers, I have begun to like the zombie genre. Some reviews I've read complain about the gore, but I didn't notice it or maybe I would read over it to find out how the characters survive this harrowing incident to be able to survive the next one. 

Alex has been banished from Rule and "kidnapped" by the Changed but is still doing everything in her power to find Tom.  Jess's plan to have Chris banished has worked too, so now he has to survive during the winter while looking for Alex.  There is NEVER a dull moment in this novel.

I am looking forward to the third book in the series but will regret when I read the last page because I won't want it to end. 

Rival

Rival by Sara Bennett Wealer



Wealer uses the alternating narrators, Kathryn and Brooke, to show us how they became friends and eventually rivals of each other.  I did not expect the ending that Wealer chose, but that does not mean I thought the ending was bad. 

Kathryn and Brooke are both into singing, so those of you who like Chorus and Honors Choir might like this novel.  Instead of immediately letting us know what the problem is between Kathryn and Brooke, Wealer lets the story unfold with flashbacks leading up to the fatal incident and the repercussions afterward. 

Because we just finished reading Julius Caesar and watched the video comparing Mean Girls to the play, this novel is similar to those two.  This is a good mix of the too with the realism of high schools today.  We all know who our "rival" is and what led up to the rivalry, but does everyone know both sides of the story?

You

You by Charles Benoit
 
This is the first novel that I have read written in second person.  Even though Kyle is the main character, he tells the story as if we the readers are him experiencing the choices he does and does not make.  Kyle is another angry teenager who everyone considers a loser because he does not apply himself at anything.   I see several of my students in this novel.  I even see myself in the novel with the comments that Kyle's parents and teachers make.  I know nothing I say will matter to most students because they have already decided they don't want to amount to anything like Kyle.

Because Kyle "fakes" his way through school and homework, he ends up at Midlands High instead of attending Odyssey high school with the rest of his friends.  He meets Zack, who reminds me of the Paul Finch character in American Pie, who changes Kyle's world.

After you have read the novel, you will realize why Benoit chose to use second person point of view.  Neat idea, and I hope none of you are like Kyle. Would you make the same choices Kyle makes if you were in his shoes?   

Ophelia (revenge)

Ophelia by Lisa Klein
 


This is a book I have been meaning to read for two years, after Cindy read it for a book report I was intrigued.  I have read Shakespeare's Hamlet and always wanted to know more of the background on the other characters.  While Hamlet focuses on revenge, this is a love story between Ophelia and Hamlet.  Even though I know Hamlet's madness causes his death, I still read hoping the ending will change.  As people in our lives today act different around different people, Hamlet has two sides to him too.     

Instead of following Hamlet around, Klein has us follow Ophelia and learn what motivates her and why she acts as she does.  I knew early in the novel how Horatio feels for Ophelia, but she is so in love with Hamlet that she does not see what is in front of her face.  Would Ophelia's story be different if she saw what the readers see? 

I would have liked to have seen Ophelia's immediate reaction to when Laeretes dies, but that would change the ending of the story too much.

This Ophelia is stronger than Shakespeare's Ophelia though.  This is a novel worth reading for girls who have lost a mother and seek a connection with other women in their lives. 

Pregnant Pause

Pregnant Pause by Han Nolan

The first page of the novel hooks me with what type of person Eleanor is.  She is an angry teenager who does not make the right decisions and anything anyone tells her to do or she needs to do, she does the opposite.  All she and her boyfriend, Lam, want to do is drink, get high, and have sex.  Sound like anyone you know?

Eleanor thinks she cons her's and Lam's parents into letting them marry so that they can raise the child together, but realizes that their parents let them marry just so that they will fail. Lam's parents own and run a "fat camp" in Maine, where Lam and Eleanor have to work to help support themselves and their future child.  I would not want to live the way they live.  Both Eleanor and Lam find out marriage is not what they thought it would be and throwing a pregnancy in the middle and it really isn't as fun as they thought it would be.

Nolan makes the characters realistic for me because I have had these types of students sitting in my classroom each year.  I was angry with Eleanor at the beginning of the novel but begin to feel sympathy for her at the end.  Lam is a total JERK, and girls, if you meet a guy like him.....RUN AWAY!

   

 

Between Shades of Gray

Between Shades of Gray by Ruyta Sepetys

This book is not to be confused with Fifty Shades of Gray.  

Sepetys researched her family and what happened during World War II to people in the Baltic States.  In 1941 during World War II, fifteen-year-old Lina, her mother, and brother are transported from their Lithuanian home by Soviet guards and sent to the gray cold landscape of Siberia.  After watching the film My Way, I can understand the pain, torture, work and dealing with the cold in the Siberia.  I am amazed that so many people were able to survive in this climate without adequate clothing. 

I knew the Soviets killed people during World War II, but until reading this novel and Unbroken, I did not  realize that other countries besides the Germans had concentration and work camps during the war.  I guess my head has been buried in the sand, and Sepetys wants us to let others know about what has happened. 

I cannot imagine someone coming in and removing my family and me from our home, trying to split us up and making us work while only giving us a few grams of food to survive on.  As a mother, what would I do to make sure that my family survives?  Would I be like Lina or Andrius's mother to save my own children and my own life?