Thursday, October 27, 2011

Divergent

by Veronica Roth

Summary:
In what used to be Chicago, 16 year old Beatrice Prior must choose which of the five factions of society she will live with for the rest of her life.  But Beatrice is not like everyone else, who are slotted neatly into a faction by exhibiting the characteristics that are the base of each.  Beatrice is different, divergent from the norm.  And being divergent isn't a good thing in this society, in fact it's a threat to it's very fabric.  A threat that needs to be eliminated. 

Review:
Divergent is not just a social commentary about the dangers of societal control.  It is about the courage of a girl who is different, about her courage standing up to her government.  It is written in the same thread as many other dystopian novels written for tweens, but Roth brings a new character which many tweens will identify with. 

Hate List

by Jennifer Brown

Summary:
No one really knows what to make of Valerie.  Innocent victim, hero, or accomplice in the murder of several of her classmates?  It might have been her boyfriend Nick who pulled the trigger, but she was the one who lived.  Now she not only has to recover from a devastating bullet wound, but also learn to make her way in a school where no one trusts her.  Where everyone is recovering from losing someone they loved, but she is the one recovering from loving a killer. 

Review:
School shootings are a sensitive topic, one which Hate List is able to bring up in a very powerful way.  The book focuses not only on Valerie as she attempts to heal from the trauma of being shot, but intersperses it with flashbacks to the day of the shooting as she attempts to figure out where everything went so wrong.  It all began with a list she made about things she hated, people who were annoying her, but spun so out of control the reader truly empathizes with her and the situation.  The book is a great read which focuses on devastating consequences bullying and social seclusion can have.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Grade Level: 8-9th Grade

Speak

by Laurie Hale Anderson

Summary:
Melinda didn't want to start freshman year as the girl everyone hates, but after calling the cops on a party at the end of the summer she has found herself to be persona non grata with everyone.  No one asked her her side of the story, and even if they did she's not sure what she'd say.  With no one to turn to she takes refuge in the one class she likes, art.  As the year goes by she finds that the things she really needs to say she can't.  But when her friend is threatened by what she experienced at that party, she realizes that the courage to speak was there all along.

Review:
Speak is a powerful book about a girl's reaction to being raped.  Her confusion and shame, unwillingness to talk, and ostracism by her peers (though none of them knew about it) are all taken matter of factly by Melinda herself.  What struck me the most about the book was how no one really stepped in to talk to her, how her parents left her alone and didn't question as she withdrew from everyone.  How her friends turned on her after learning she had called the cops, without asking her why.  But once she does tell her side of the story, everyone stands by her, realizing that she was the only one who had it right all along.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Grade Level: 9th grade

Pretty Little Liars

by Sara Shepard

Summary:
Spencer, Hanna, Emily, Aria, and Allison were not only the most popular girls in the 7th grade, but they were the very best of friends.  But even friends have secrets.  After Allison disappears, the girls left behind see their friendship disintegrate.  Now they are in the 11th grade, and those 7th grade secrets are coming back to haunt them.  They think Allison might be behind the emails and texts threatening to expose them since she has never been found, but when her body is discovered behind the house she used to live in, it leaves them all questioning everyone they know.

Review:
Pretty Little Liars is about 'mean girls.'  It's not a book with substance, though the plot line does draw one in, wondering who could be behind it all, and makes one want to read the next in the series to find out.  The book is not for younger tweens, though is similar, though darker, to the Clique books.  Not a great book to recommend young tweens, but could be a good guilty pleasure for older ones.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Series Information: Book one of the Pretty Little Liars series, currently 10 altogether
Grade Level: 8-9th grade

Thursday, October 20, 2011

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

by Ransom Riggs

Summary:
After the death of his grandfather, Jacob struggles to understand what he saw on that tragic day.  In an attempt to understand not only that but also more about his grandfather, he and his father travel to the island where his grandfather grew up.  On this tiny place outside of Wales his grandfather lived in an orphanage.  But it was no ordinary orphanage.  It was an orphanage for a special kind of child.  As Jacob explores this place he learns that things are not as they appear, and are in no way what he expected. 

Review:
Miss Peregrine's orphanage is full of the impossible.  The children are capable of extreme feats.  They live in a permanent world where every day is the exact same.  Jacob is introduced to an entirely new life at this orphanage and has to choose between this new one and the old life he had.  The book is well written, definitely not quite what you expect when you begin, but overall very good. The old pictures throughout the book are an interesting touch as well.

Genre: Fantasy Fiction
Grade Level: 8th-9th

The Compound

by S. A. Bodeen

Summary:
While the rest of the world has been destroyed by a nuclear bomb, Eli and his family are safe in an underground compound built by his extremely wealthy father.  Trapped underground for the last 6 years with no communication with the outside world, 16 year old Eli is beginning to question his survival.  Why has he and his sisters survived while his twin perished outside? How are they going to leave when it's finally safe outside?  As their food supply diminishes faster than anticipated, Eli is forced to confront everything he believed in, only to discover that nothing is actually as it seems.

Review:
The Compound is a book not only about a monstrous betrayal, but about what people will or won't do to survive.  Eli's father is a cunningly evil man, who has turned his family into a great experiment in survivalism.  Eli himself shows remarkable fortitude in grasping the situation as it develops, and is a character that many teens will identify with.  Overall a really good book that was hard to put down.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Grade Level: 8th Grade

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Uglies

By Scott Westerfield

Summary:
Imagine living in a world where everyone looks virtually the same.  Everyone is beautiful, slim, without a care in the world.  This is the world Tally and Shay are born into.  Until age 16 they are uglies, unaltered by surgery as they grow up.  But once they hit that magical age they will become pretty with all the fun benefits that come with it. But what is the price of becoming pretty? Is it more than just a surgery that makes them pretty on the outside? Tally and Shay begin to realize that maybe there is more to life than being pretty, maybe there is more to life than following the rules.

Review:
Uglies is set in the future, after the world we know is destroyed by our own follies, and rebuilt by those who decide to curb societies more ruthless impulses, including the ones which lead us to destroy our own planet.  But the book also acknowledges the cost of going to far to protect one thing from another.  To prevent conflict minds are altered.  To prevent forests from being destroyed no one is allowed in them.  The books are well written and engaging, allowing the reader to identify with Tally as she struggles between wanting to be pretty and live a carefree life or whether she should live in the wild unalered. 

Series Information:
Uglies
Pretties
Specials
Extras