Friday, October 3, 2014

Hit by Lorie Ann Grover


Genre:  Young Adult, Realistic Fiction
Source: I received the book as part of the BlinkYA book tour.  The opinions expressed here are my own.

About the Book:
After receiving a full-ride scholarship to Mills College for Girls, it appears Sarah's future is all laid out before her … but then she walks into a poetry class led by Mr. Haddings, a student teacher from the nearby University of Washington. Suddenly, life on the UW campus seems very appealing, and Sarah finds herself using her poetry journal to subtly declare her feelings for Mr. Haddings. And she becomes convinced Mr. Haddings is flirting back. As she sets off for school in the rain, she slips a poem in her back pocket—one that will declare her feelings once and for all. Mr. Haddings has noticed Sarah's attention; the fallout from any perceived relationship with a student is too great a risk, and he has decided to end all speculation that morning. But everything changes when Mr. Haddings feels the thud on his front bumper when he glances away from the road and finds Sarah in the street with blood pooling beneath her.

My Thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book.  I was reminded of my senior year in high school. We had a student intern come to our school.  All of the students liked him.  He crossed the line when he invited students to come to his apartment.  He was trying to be friendly and let them see what college life was like.  There was one girl who was infatuated with him the way Sarah was with Mr. Haddings. It almost cost him his internship. He was lucky. The parents had already talked to him about their daughter’s infatuation with him.  He did everything he could to avoid her and never be alone with her.  Unfortunately she showed up at his apartment with a few other students and a rumor got started.  It was completely unclear how much Haddings made clear his feelings for Sarah.  I felt from his writing he definitely liked her.  However, I am not sure if a lot of it was from guilt. Having someone injured to the point that you have to help them recover is tough.  So many friends leave because they really don’t know what to say.  I found this book to be so realistic and true to life in so many ways.  The anger felt by everyone in the family, even when they tried to deny there was anger was spot on.  I have to mention the father’s faith.  He was shocked by how angry he felt when he met Haddings.  Most people believe that having faith means you never get angry. For me seeing the father react was what really made this feel so real.  Families try to pretend things are one way and then they try to hide feelings only to lose control at some point.  There were so many ways to connect to this book.  My cousin was involved in a terrible accident, the night she got engaged. When she finally regained consciousness a few weeks later, she overheard her fiancĂ© make a comment that he could never marry a retard or someone who looked like a monster.  Luke reminded me of him in his inability to hold his tongue.  I think that teens can definitely benefit from reading this book.  I think it would be of benefit for teachers to read this as well.
I am careful every day how I speak to my students because I never want to put myself in the position that we find so any teachers in.  This was an excellent book and one I will gladly share with my students.

About Lorie Ann Grover: 

Lorie Ann Grover is a co-founder of the influential site readergirlz, where she is a visible advocate for teen literacy and activism. In addition, she is the author of four acclaimed novels: FirstbornHold Me Tight, a VOYA pick; On Pointe, a Bank Street College Best Children’s Book of the Year; and Loose Threads, a Booklist Top 10 Youth First Novel and a 2003 Washington state Book Award Finalist. Lorie Ann lives in Washington State with her husband. Read more at www.lorieanngrover.com

Thursday, October 2, 2014

Hunger For Atlantis by Pandora


Genre: Adult, Realistic Fiction
Source: I was gifted a copy. The opinions expressed here are my own.



From Goodreads
“Hunger For Atlantis” is simply: The Individual’s Struggle Against Authority. 

Danicka, the owner of a kindergarten, bans toys and inspires preschool children to work, but is she a dictator or a liberator? Stanzie inherits a billion-dollar empire. Armed with a ‘progressive’ education, will she save the Company from disaster, or will she pave the way with good intentions?

The younger generation is clashing against the older . . . colleges and schools are self-destructing . . . teachers and professors are fighting for survival . . . wireless electricity threatens to change the world in the new Age of Atoms . ..

My Thoughts:

I’d like to say I loved this book but I didn’t, but I also didn’t hate it.  In the beginning Stanzie came across to me as a very dumb woman who had married a man only for what he could give her financially.  When her husband dies suddenly and she is put in charge of his company that has always been run by “the good ol’ boys” standard. She lets them know that she may not know as much as they do, but she will learn.  I loved her pairing the opposite sides of the education issue.  Although I would not go so far to believe that we should get rid of higher education, after all I am a teacher, I believe that we need to stop spoon feeding our students a watered down education.   I thought it funny that Stanzie hired a former chicken farmer/editor of his magazine to run the opposite side of the publishing campaign.  I felt a lot of things were repeated.  My only pet peeve was the constant use of “expectorated in an officious manner, coughing politely.” I don’t really know why that phrase grated on me so much.   Over all it was an okay book.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Dark Digital Sky by Carac Allison


Genre: Adult, Technological Mystery
Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review. What follows is my honest review.

From Goodreads:
LA Private Investigator Chalk is hired to find three adult sons a Hollywood mogul fathered through a sperm bank many years before. United, the three half brothers discover they share a desire to be warriors. They plan a heist to prove they are worthy of enlisting with a paramilitary leader who has taken both a name and a mad inspiration from Kubrick’s dark satire Dr. Strangelove. General Ripper’s forces begin by robbing pharmaceutical warehouses and then mailing the stolen prescription drugs to America’s veterans. They escalate to kidnapping video game designers and broadcasting their deaths. The ensuing chaos builds toward a culminating drone attack that will forever prove Ripper's warning that graphics have made warriors terrorists.


My Thoughts:             
There were several things I found intriguing throughout this book.  First of all is the fact that Chalk had tattoos of book covers on his body and went about explaining their meanings. The second thing was that at times, with all of the technology and how much he used it to help himself or just to know what was going on, made me feel like I was reading an episode of A Person of Interest. I didn’t always understand all of the technology.  The reader is given the feel of a detective along the lines of Mike Hammer using modern or futuristic technology to make this an interesting read.  There are many people I am sure that have thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.  It was enjoyable but not my cup of tea.  I am sure that the author definitely will have a following. As I said the book , and its story line were well written just not a genre I enjoyed as much as others I have read. I will recommend it to those I know enjoy this type of novel.

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

The Flip by Michael Phillip Cash



Genre: Adult, Horror, Ghosts
Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

This is the first book I have read by this author.  I am so glad that I was offered the book for review.  I might never have found him.  As a middle school teacher I often have trouble finding adult books that I enjoy.  This is definitely an author whose books I will enjoy reading and recommending.

If you are like me and love a good ghost story then this is definitely the book for you.  It mixes the past and the present.  Brad and Julie flip houses.  When they find the Hemmings House on Bedlam Street, they figure this Victorian house would be the perfect project.  Brad feels something is not quite right the minute he enters the basement.  He wants to flip the house and sell it.  Julie on the other hand has fallen in love with this run down property.  She wants to keep it and turn it into a bed and breakfast. 


The other inhabitants in the house, Gerald and Tess have other plans.  Tess has design on Brad.  She wants him even if it means she has to get rid of Julie.  Sentinels in the house keep this from happening. With all of the strange happenings Julie now wants to sell the house.  It will take a lot of money to fix it up to sell.  She and Brad find a lot of valuable items left behind by the previous people.  What else does this house hold besides, ghosts, valuable possessions and secrets?  You really must read this book to find out.  This is not your bloody, gory type of horror book.  It is just creepy enough to keep you sitting on the edge of your seat turning the pages until you have finished.  

Thursday, September 25, 2014

The Buried Children - Daniel Farcas

Genre:  Adult, Memoir
Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own.

If you like reading about the hardships faced by others from different countries then you migh like this book.  If you enjoy reading about someone's life then you mike like this book.  This is not a feel good book.  Danile Farcas was one of many children who grew up in an orphanage in Bucharest, Romania.
During Nicolae Ceausescu's reign he created a law that made it a criminal offense to get an abortion or to use contraceptives.  He was trying to increase the communist population.  Unfortunately the effect of this was women having babies they did not want and leaving them in an orphanage. Most times they were not wanted there either. They were abused, neglected and nameless.  For many the only names they carried were the nicknames they were given like Scabby, Burned, or Horse.  Daniel managed to escape from the celar of the orphanage.  He ended up living in the sewers under the cities with many other boys.  Finally, he is assisted in reaching America where he hoped to see a change in his life.

This is not easy to read.  Is is open and raw.  American children are for the most part blessed to live in the circumstances they live in.  This is a good book

Saturday, September 20, 2014

The Reaper's Daughter Book Cover Reveal

The Reaper's Daughter by KM Randall
Publisher: Booktrope
Expected Publication: February 15, 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal
The Reaper's Daughter
I’ve always felt like an average girl . . . except for my strange relationship with death. You could say I like to court it. Whether I’m soaring through the air as a flyer for Specter University’s cheer squad, or speeding down the steepest mountain with only grace and balance keeping me from an icy end, I’ve always needed to feel a rush. But now Death is courting me―in more ways than one. First, there’s Rishi, a rogue death deity who has a penchant for annoying me nearly to my grave and whose intense gaze has the power to see right through me. Then there’s Hades, who I’d rather had stayed just a myth. Now that he knows I exist, he’s never going to leave me alone until he can do the same to me as he’s done to my mother. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention her? I spent my whole life thinking she had died when I was a baby, but now I’ve found out she’s much more than dead. Fifty years ago, Hades banished my mother from the underworld and along with the Council of Death Deities, took away her ability to cross over souls―souls that have wandered lost through the world ever since. Now she wants me to clean up the mess. You may have heard of her before: they call her the Grim Reaper. You know what that makes me? The Reaper’s Daughter.
About the Author
KM Randall
As a girl, K.M. always wished she’d suddenly come into magical powers or cross over into a Faerie circle. Although that has yet to happen, she instead lives vicariously through the characters she creates in writing fantasy and delving into the paranormal. When K.M. is not busy writing her next novel, she is the editor-in-chief of a blog covering the media industry, as well as an editor with Booktrope Publishing. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Syracuse University and a bachelor’s degree in English-Lit from Nazareth College of Rochester. K.M. lives in Upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region with her husband and her extremely energetic little boy.

Friday, September 19, 2014

The Threshing Circle by Neil Grimmett


Genre:  Adult, Mystery, Suspense
Source: I received a copy to help facilitate my review.  The opinions expressed here are my own.
Warning:  There is some profanity and sexual violence mentioned in this book.

I wasn't really sure what to think about this book.  It sounded interesting from the beginning.  I was completely surprised by what I read.  It starts off in 1942 in a small village in Crete.  A young English woman is married to a Cretan soldier.  What she doesn't know is that he is married to another Cretan woman. She thinks the people of the village have accepted her when they give her a gift.  She shows it to her husband when he slips away from his patrol to see her.  Little does he know that the person who gave it to her has branded her in many ways and the Germans will use these gifts against her.  They take her from her house, leaving her young infant crying and they hang her.  Until she takes her last breath she believes she is dying for the cause of her village.  I could not believe how angry I felt at the villagers and how evil I felt some of them were.

The story then moves to present time and we meet a Scottish girl who is living in a Cretan village.  She keeps getting proposals from a Cretan named Barba Yorba.  They both see a young couple enter their village.  Barba Yorba is spooked by this for reasons you learn later.  Kristy welcomes Patneck and Eleni to the village.  She helps them find a jeep to tour the place.  Several strange events happen and then the couple disappear.  Kristy tries to find out about them and finds herself a target for reasons she doesn't understand.  She decides to seek the help of Barba Yorba.  At first he is reluctant.  The reason?  He holds secrets the villages and families want kept hidden.

This becomes a quick read because once you get started the action of it keeps you going.  You don't want to stop for any reason.  Definitely one you want to read.



Thursday, September 18, 2014

Princess nevaeh Book Tour

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Princess Nevaeh: Lessons on Self- Discovery 
by Paulette Harper
Paperback: 34 pages
Publisher: Thy Word Publishing (August 27, 2014)
ISBN-13: 978-0989969147
front cover 8 x 5

About The Book
Six year old Nevaeh wants to be something she already is. She will soon learn that her wish to be a princess takes a little more than just asking. Lessons on self-discovery are taught by her Mimi who makes her understand that being a princess takes work.


My Thoughts
This was a lovely book.  It is great for teaching children how to be a productive member of society. This book is full of great character traits that we want to teach our children. only did the author show what we want our children to exhibit, but also show the child the negative traits we don't want them to exhibit.  Definitly a book that should be on shelves in every home.


About The Author
author photo

Paulette Harper is an award-winning and best-selling author. She is the owner of Write Now Literary Virtual Book Tours and is passionate about helping authors succeed in publishing and marketing their books. Paulette has been writing and publishing books since 2008. Paulette is the author of That Was Then, This is Now, Completely Whole, Living Separate Lives and The Sanctuary. She resides in Northern, Ca.
Buy Link
Paulette Harper is an award-winning and best-selling author. She is the owner of Write Now Literary Virtual Book Tours and is passionate about helping authors succeed in publishing and marketing their books. Paulette has been writing and publishing books since 2008. Paulette is the author of That Was Then, This is Now, Completely Whole, Living Separate Lives and The Sanctuary. She resides in Northern, Ca.
Buy Link
amazon
Social Links
website

Monday, September 15, 2014

Desperate Reflections by Shay West


                

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Source: I received an electronic copy to help facilitate my review. The opinions expressed here are my own 
            
In This final book in the series, you can find reviews of the first and second book here and here,  we find Alexis Davenport dealing with even more issues.  She has broken up with her long-time boyfriend.  It was funny that it bothered her to find out through social media they were broken up, after she had ignored him for more than a month.  She has finally been given the okay to get her learner’s permit.  This is something everyone has joked about for a long time.  She, her mom and aunt have finally reached a point where she has set hours and expectations at her job, so that she has time for friends and a social life.  Things are going well until she learns her mom has a boyfriend.  I found this section to be absolutely hilarious.  She began to act like a spoiled little kid who couldn’t have her way.  There was a reason, an underlying cause for her behavior, which eventually comes out.

Then we get to the meat and potatoes of this book.  Her ability to travel back in time to stop things from happening that would change and have an adverse effect on history.  The reasons behind the Drifter’s plan to stop her become clear.  She has learned to use her gift to find the Traveler and is shocked to learn he doesn’t live in the past, he lives in the present and through a mistake he now knows who she is, and is set on coming after her. He will do whatever it takes to her family to get to her.

I sat up to finish the book.  I could not sleep until I read the last page.  I have recommended the series to our media specialist at school and will soon have all three copies on my own classroom shelves.  I wanted to wait until all three were out.  I have students who hate when a book comes out and they have to wait forever to read the next one in the series.  This is a series you want to read from cover to cover.  I can only hope that Shay West comes out with something new soon.  She is one of my favorite new authors.


Sunday, September 14, 2014

My Cousin’s Keeper - Simon Frency



Genre: Middle Grade Realistic Fiction
Source: I won a copy from LibraryThing


The main characters in this story are like many of my middle schools students. They want to fit in, and be accepted by others in school.  Looking and acting different make that difficult.  Associating with someone who is different is just as bad.  The main character Kieran has been trying to be part of the “in crowd” since his best friend moved away. He is always on the fringe as if he just isn’t quite good enough.  It is usually these kids who get into trouble by going too far to fit in.  In Kieran’s case, his difficulty fitting in just got harder.  His cousin Bon, whom he’s only met once before and doesn’t really like, shows up at his school and his home.  Kieran’s friends Mason and Lucas make fun of  Bon for his long braid and his not as nice clothes.  Bon seems unfazed.  He doesn’t care about fitting in.  Things get tougher when Julia the new girl that Kieran has a crush on, starts hanging with Bon.  Kieran really feels betrayed.  He joins in the bullying of his cousin. 

Things aren’t always what they seem, and this author did a wonderful job of showing that.  Bon is a character I not only felt so sorry for, yet admired.  He had his eyes set on where he wanted to go in life and kept his head up as he headed that way.  He was a true friend and cousin.  We learn more about Julia and her secrets as the story progresses and see how and why Bon and Julia became such good friends.  We have all had that one black sheep in the family that we didn’t want to acknowledge. This book made me look back at when we were younger and how I treated that cousin.  My treatment of them may not have gone to the extremes that Kieran’s did but I was just as guilty. They are someone I now look up to and admire. 


I think one of the reasons I liked this book so much is because I can see the value of reading it to  my students and having it on my shelves at school. I also love books that take me back to my own childhood and show me how I was not much different than the character,s and teach melessons I should have learned long ago.  Yes I can say I learned a lot.  I am currently dealing with one of those black sheep in the family and realized I was headed the wrong way. This book was a great reminder.  It is a great thing when a children’s book can teach a lesson to an adult.  Because after all, we all want to fit in.  This book looks at the dynamics of “family”, bullying, and jealousy. This is definitely a book I will tell my school librarian needs to be on our shelves.