Ok guys, the following reviews are nothing more than my humble (yeah,
right) opinion as to what constitutes a worthy read. Some of these had
me in tears, some totally cracked me up, and some gave me insights into
the lives of those around me and made me a little more understanding.
Take them for what they're worth, and enjoy!
Safarik
A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning
by Lemony Snicket
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
orphans
inheritance
bad luck
fiction
humor
series
Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire were 3 happy siblings playing at the beach when an ominous man approached them and said: Your parents are dead, they died in a fire. I am in charge of their will and will find a home for you. In the meantime, you must come with me.
The 3 Baudelaire children's lives changed - for the worse. Given to a distant relative to be raised, they discover that he is determined to get the fortune left to them by their parents - using whatever means possible.
Written in a candid and open style, like one is simply participating in a casual conversation. In spite of the "series of unfortunate events" there is a humorous overtone throughout the book, taking the edge off of the drastically bad situations the children find themselves in. A surprisingly fun read.
A Book of Lost Things
by John Connolly
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
adventure
fantasy
young adult
fiction
suspense
storytelling
David, 12, is angry about his mother's death and his father's new marriage. Georgie, David's new half-brother doesn't help either, when his father dotes on Georgie, but gets angry at David. How does David handle this? He goes off to a mysterious corner of a sunken garden where he hears his mother's voice calling to him. Through this corner lies another world, another reality, where all of your dreams...and nightmares, come to pass.
I loved this book! It is full of fantasy and adventure, while moving through a world that is both real and made-up all at the same time. This is one that we all can relate to!
Buddha Boy
by Kathe Koja
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
bullies
high school
friendship
Buddhism
karma
peer pressure
A
realistic look at the social scene of life in high school, Buddha Boy
gives us perspective on what it feels like to watch a "freak" in school
being bullied by a group of popular boys and yet never to complain or
fight back.
Chains
by Laurie Halse Anderson
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
slave trade
independence
American Revolution
historical fiction
Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson, encompasses the lives of two sisters who are slaves in America as the Revolution begins. The younger sister is "peculiar" and given to seizures that some belief are signs of the devil living in her body and soul. The older sister Isabel must make sure that her sister remains with her, that they are not separated. Isabel understands that her sister Ruth would be as good as dead if she got into the hands of a cruel owner. But when things take a turn for the worse and their ability to remain together is threatened, Isabel takes the only option she can see: work as a spy for the Patriots.
The character of Isabel is so strong that you become part of the book as you read through the pages. This is a deep look into the realities and inhumanity of slavery, as seen from the eyes of a very human young black woman.
Clockwork
by Philip Pullman
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
fantasy
suspense
clockmaker
storytelling
evil
good
Fritz is a master storyteller, known throughout his city as one of the best, this is why the White Horse Tavern was so crowded this particular winter evening: Fritz was scheduled to tell one of his stories. As he begins to regale his audience, he gets to one tense and scary moment, when the tavern door forcefully blows open, and in walks an ominous figure exactly like the evil character that Fritz had just described in his story. But it wasn't a character "like" his story, it was the character from the story: Fritz's story is happening as he tells it, coming true as he speaks. But Fritz never wrote the ending, he intended to make it up once he got there, but now he and everyone else are so frightened they run off (including Fritz!), leaving only a few left to deal with the open can of worms, the story that has no ending.
An easy, quick read, "Clockwork" throws a few twists and turns that make you do several re-takes. This is a fun, fantastic story housing bits of life-lessons within its magical scenes. Fun, tense, and exciting, Clockwork is worth the time.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night
by Mark Haddon
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
Asbergers
Autism
Mystery
Fiction
Humor
Eva
by Peter Dickinson
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
science fiction ecology empathy chimpanzee transplant young adult celebrity
Upon waking up one day, Eva finds herself totally unable to move or speak, laying in a hospital bed. Her mother speaks to her from a chair next to the bed but does not touch her. Eventually Eva discovers that she has been in an accident and her body was ruined, she needed a new body in order to live. She was placed in the body of a chimpanzee. Eva must deal with learning to control her new body, learning to cope with life in a body seen very differently by the humans around her, and deal with the notoriety it brings her. Is Eva still Eva, or is she now part chimp from whence the body came?
Eva is an interesting story; it approaches the tendency to sensationalize situations to the detriment of people's lives, the tendency to destroy nature, and the tendency to be less than human when it comes to empathy. While the sociological implications of putting a young girl's mind into a chimp's body is an interesting concept, the story sometimes tends toward being too preachy and may lose some appeal.
Fat Kid Rules the World
by K.L. Going
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
fat
young adult
high school
music
self-esteem
family support
drugs
Fat Kid Rules the World is about a 6 ft., 300 lb. HS senior, Troy Billings: the "Fat kid". Troy knows, or at least thinks, that everyone is laughing at him, no matter what he does, all the time. Troy's life is ruled by his thoughts of his fat, of what people think of his fat and of what they think of him.
One day, Troy is at the subway station, picturing the scene if he were to step in front of a train. His large body splattering everywhere as the train hit, when he hears a voice: "You laughing at me?" A young man, idolized by all at school although now a HS dropout - filthy, homeless Curt MacCrae is speaking to him. Out of the blue, Curt steps into his life and treats him like a normal person, not like some freak. Troy is mystified as to Curt's interest in him, but Curt is so cool that Troy just basks in the atmosphere of being the friend of someone that everyone regards as really, really cool.
Curt is a wicked good guitar player and decides that Troy will be his drummer in their new band: Rage/Tectonic. The only problem is that Troy doesn't play the drums. And the very thought of being on stage with everyone watching and laughing at him makes his stomach churn. But that doesn't matter to Curt; Curt acts like he has no idea that Troy is anything less than an accomplished, confident drummer, and plans their first gig.
Caught between his strict but caring ex-Marine father, his football-playing over-achieving little brother, his fright of what Curt expects from him, and his excitement of what Curt expects from him, this story will take you for a real ride.
This book is amazing. Going's ability to get inside the head, mind and heart of a "Fat Kid" reads real and true. This is a peek into anyone who has every felt that they are out of the accepted social circles. This is a story about getting over yourself, your fears, and your paradigms; it is a story about living in the real world; it is a story about hope and fear, and ultimately, it is a story about life. This is not a boys OR girls' book, it is an "everyone" book. A great read, it will make you cross your fingers in anticipation, cry, rejoice, and always, laugh out loud.
Flatland
by Edwin Abbott
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
Coming soon
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
holocaust
German occupation
literature
friendship
survival
Immediately after the German occupation of the English island Guernsey during the first world war, an Englishwoman begins to write to its inhabitants; she learns of their stories, of what life was like when the Germans took over and what life is like now that the Germans have so recently departed. Juliet learns about how the "Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society" came to be, how it saved their lives, and eventually how it (figuratively) saves her own!
Written as a series of letters, this book caught me off-guard. I was confused as to how come I was to care about the people writing and the people reading these letters. But within a few pages, I began to be pulled into the lives of the letter writers, and then began to see how looking at life through the eyes of different people with their different perspectives can be more interesting and enlightening than simply a single narrative voice. This was an absolutely excellent book.
Harmony Arms
by Ron Koertge
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
young adult
romance
humor
father and son
relationship
Gabriel is like any small-town, 14-year-old boy: mortified that his dad plays with puppets in public! Gabriel's father, Sumner, is moving to Burbank for a new job, and Gabriel must move with him, at least for the next month.
Gabriel and Sumner arrive in Burbank and more specifically, to the Harmony Arms apartment building where he meets an odd assortment of residents: Mr. Palmer, an old nudist; Cassandra, a large, alcoholic fortune-teller, Mona, an attractive woman who runs the place, and her quirky teenage daughter Tess, who Gabriel quickly pairs up with.
Between Sumner's episodes with his puppet, the romantic alliance developing between Gabriel and Tess, and the aged Mr. Palmer who mourns for his dead wife of many decades, the story takes you through Gabriel's funny and poignant days spent in Beverly Hills.
The Harmony Arms has some laugh-out-loud moments, but mostly is a story about getting thrown into a new circumstance and making the most of it; thriving with it, actually. A story of growing up, new romance, undying love, and stepping beyond one's comfort zone, Harmony Arms is well worth a read.
3.5 stars
The Highest Tide
by Jim Lynch
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
The Hunger Games
by Suzanne Collins
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
survival
adventure
love
truth
contest
violent
real tv
future
Set in the future, "The Hunger Games" is about a society separated into 12 districts by "the Capital", those in control of everyone's fate. Once a year, all children in each district, from 12-18 years of age, must participate in a lottery to see which 1 boy and which 1 girl from each district must attend the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are a type of "real T.V.", a type of contest where the winner is the one person who manages to stay alive during a no-holds-barred, bloody and violent battle for survival.
A story about challenge, survival, hope, despair, and love, reading the Hunger Games will jerk you from raging fires designed to root out the human Hunger Games contestants so that they must fight, to the jaws of human-like wolves with claws of razor blades snapping at your heels, to the heart-breaking death of some so undeserving. This book will keep you on the edge of your seat from the first page to the very last word.
if I stay
by Gayle Foreman
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
love
loss
death
relationships
out-of-body experience
family
Coming soon
It's Kind of a Funny Story
by Ned Vizzini
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
going crazy
psychological problems
peer pressure
love
finding yourself
The public are just too intrusive and judgmental about David Yaffe's life and will not let him move past the horrible time when he was on trial for his girlfriend's death. Although acquitted, people just won't forget, and so his parents send him to do his senior year of high school out of town, with his uncle's family.
His uncle Vic, his uncle's wife Julia, and their daughter Lily, are not much better than strangers though. There's a pall hanging over their house; Lily must speak for Vic and Julia, who won't speak to each other, ever since their daughter killed herself in the upstairs room which they have assigned to David. David feels for 11-year old Lily but soon realizes that something is desperately wrong with her, something that only he is allowed to see. Between David's visions of a ghostly girl appearing in his room at night, and Lily's strange behavior, life has remained the nightmare he was trying to escape from.
3.5 stars
Life Is Funny
by E.R. Frank
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Safarik's Summary & Review
Rating
0-5 stars
raw
drugs
inspirational
abandonment
love
realistic
vulgar language
brutal
search
problems
This is a book of short stories, most of which are incredibly hard-hitting, about people dealing with poverty, drugs, abandonment, grief, and more. The people these stories are about live very poor, rough lives. The language is very crude and crass and sometimes, hard to hear.
There is the story of Eric, a young man with a drug-addicted mom, left to care for his younger brother alone. He knows he isn't very smart and that his teacher just puts up with him. But one day, when the teacher asks him to stay behind after class, he discovers that she actually doesn't think he isn't smart, and begins to tutor him after school, along with several others. Eventually, both he and his little brother have to go to separate foster care homes, but with the help of the teacher, he manages to keep his life aimed in a more positive direction.
A later story picks Eric's life back up but from the perspective of Linnette. Linnette is the daughter of one set of Eric's foster parents; a more well-to-do family, who have never really recovered from the death of their son, Linnette's brother. They finally recognize they need to move on in their lives and so decide to take in Eric and his little brother as foster children. This family gives to Eric and his brother all of their care, stability, and finally love. The story is the journey of people from different worlds bridging the gap that divides them.
This book has crude and vulgar language, and is filled with the realities of drugs and poverty. It is very raw and is about hard lives. As I read each story, the absolute truth involved in each scenario, the grittiness of the people and lives, I found myself certain that this book must get into the hands of young adults. It is powerful and truthful, and is a recipe for strength through its honesty.
