Rot and Ruin

by Jonathan Maberry

Summary:

It's been 14 years since First Night, the night the dead came back to life. Now 15, Benny reluctantly agrees to join the 'family business' and become a zombie hunter like his brother Tom. But life in the Rot and Ruin isn't anything like Benny thinks, and he's about to discover that the zombies aren't the only monsters out there. Just because the world ended doesn't mean that the only people left are good.

Review:
A diferent kind of zombie book. Tom addresses the zombies not as 'monsters' but as the people they used to be, which is not something you normally see. It's a good read even for those who don't like the genre.

Age Level: 7th Grade

Genre: Horror

Torn Away

by Jennifer Brown

Summary:
When Jersey hears the tornado alarm go off, she's not too worried. They go off all the time, and 99.99% of the time nothing happens. But she goes down into the cellar anyway, cause she doesn't want her mom to yell at her if she found out she hadn't. This time is not a false alarm. As the tornado recedes and leaves her town devastated, Jersey has lost everything and everyone she loves. Now, sent to live with relatives she's never met, Jersey will have to discover that there are some things you keep even when you thought you'd lost everything.

Review:
Author Jennifer Brown is known for her brilliantly written and poignant books, and this title definitely fits the bill. Jersey is a very empathetic character, and her struggles as she tries to move forward are heartbreaking. The relationships between the characters are believable. I thought the storyline with her stepfather to be extremely realistic and as such very difficult to read. The lack of sex or alcohol or drugs make this a safe bet for even younger teens.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 7th Grade

Hostage Three

by Nick Lake

Summary:
The last thing Amy wanted to do was be stuck on a yacht sailing around the world with her dad and stepmother. But even she didn't imagine it would end like this. Told mostly as a flashback, Amy's story is not just one about pirates, but about how people end up where they are. How people turn to illegal measures after all has been taken from them. How others rise above and find more of themselves. Hostage Three is a book about love and loss, and an adventure that will stay with you long after you finish it.

Review:
Once I picked up Hostage Three I had a hard time putting it down. The book's fast pace keep you wondering what will happen next. Lake does an excellent job explaining the history of Somalia and how things led to the piracy industry there. The love story between Amy and Farouz is believable, and the ending entirely realistic. The book doesn't pull any punches and is definitely a good read to give to teens who like suspenseful adventure novels.

Genre: Adventure Fiction
Age Level: 9th Grade

If You Find Me

by Emily Murdoch

Summary:
Casey can only remember her life in the woods. She takes care of her younger sister, makes them meals out of what little food their mother has left behind each time she leaves, and keeps them clean and out of trouble. Until the day that a man and a woman come in search of them. A man who claims to be Casey's father. Suddenly both girls find themselves living not in a broken down trailer but in a house with a father, stepmother and a stepsister. As their mother's past comes to light Casey is left to struggle with her own secrets, secrets that might destroy the little happiness she and her sister have ever had.

Review:
Murdoch has created an extremely powerful and impressive book. Casey is a strong, resilient character. Both mother to her sister yet fiercely independent, she struggles to rely on someone else to provide for them. It's a haunting story of how mental illness can destroy a family, and an impressive look at how one girl emerges from such pain. A very well written story with a lot of facets to it. Definitely a good read for teens into realistic fiction.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 10th Grade

Shadowlands

by Kate Brian

Summary:
Rory was the first girl who escaped serial killer Steven Nell. Now, hidden by the FBI with her family as they try and track him down, she has to pretend that everything is ok. That she's not terrified every time she steps outside. That she's not plagued with visions of what could happened. But their new community might not be as safe as they had hoped. When Rory starts to hear Nell saying her name in crowded rooms, and finding his things outside their new house, she realizes that maybe no where at all is safe enough to protect her.

Review:
The first of a planned trilogy, Shadowlands is excellently written. The engaging plot grabs the reader from the get go. Rory and her family have already dealt with heartbreak (her mother died of cancer a few years before) and this new incident seems to highlight everything that is wrong with her family now.  Rory and Darcy are great characters, very realistically portrayed sisters who get along but also don't. I saw the the twist at the end coming, but it was a little different than I expected. Overall a great read for teens that like suspense stories.

Genre: Suspense
Age Level: 10th Grade

Unwind

by Neal Shusterman

Summary: 
Years before Connor, Risa, or Lev were born, a war raged in America between those who were pro-choice, and those who were pro-life.  In the end a compromise is reached: abortion is ruled illegal but instead a new practice is put into place. A practice which allows parents to choose to retroactively terminate teens between the ages of 13 and 17 though a process called unwinding.  This solution meant that the child itself would not be killed because all of their body parts would be used for transplants, ensuring that they live on just in different forms.  Now it's been in place for years, and few question it, but for these 3 teens the death sentence put upon them might just cause the spark that causes people to see reason.

Review:
Unwind is an incredibly interesting, though disturbing, book which grabbed me from page one.  More than once I wondered how something like this could happen, and then realized how easily it possibly could.  The solution that was reached at the end of the war was supposed to be so ludicrous that it would shock the opposing ideological factions into realizing that their needed to be compromise.  Instead it became a death sentence for many teens, and resulted in babies being born and abandoned to the state until they were of age to be harvested themselves.  At first you think that everyone will see reason, but instead the demand for healthy body parts overshadows where these parts came from.  In one scene the unwinding process happens to one teen, who is conscious throughout the entire procedure.  It was deeply disturbing, and as a result I hesitate to recommend this book to any younger teen.  The book raises a lot of flags about the danger of being too ideologically wedded to a cause, about the necessity of compromise and reason, and discusses the courage needed to finally stand up to injustice.

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 10th Grade

Forgotten

By Cat Patrick

Summary:
Sometimes we all wish we could forget things from our past.  That we could wake up and start completely fresh.  Wouldn't it be easier?  For London Lane it means waking up not remembering anything from the past.  Not what clothes she wore the day before, not what happened in school, not what happened when she was little.  All she has is the notebook she writes in every night, full of reminders about what happened each day.  But what has she been leaving out of the notebook? What happened in her past that triggered this reset? 

Review:
Forgotten is an interesting book about how a trauma can cause a person to reset themselves.  After London's brother was abducted from in front of her when she was a young girl, her mind closed itself off in order to protect her from the memory.  While she functions normally through each day, her memories of each day don't last longer than the day itself, though she is able to see memories from the future in their place.  The book is an interesting story about how keeping things from someone, even if you are trying to protect them, can have disastrous consequences. 

Genre: Realistic Fiction
Age Level: 7-8th Grade

Eva

by Peter Dickinson

Eva used to be a normal 13 year old girl.  The key words being 'used to.'  After a car accident leaves her close to dead, a groundbreaking surgery is preformed, transferring the essence of what is 'Eva,' into the body of a 5 year old chimpanzee named Kelly.  As Eva learns to use and understand her new body, to meld being a chimpanzee in body but a girl in mind, she grapples with issues far beyond what anyone expected when the surgery was suggested.  In a world where there are few animals left in their natural habitats, Eva becomes a figurehead for a conservationist movement.  And becomes the biggest hope for the future of her species, both human and chimpanzee. 


Eva is a powerful book about the potential consequences of human actions, especially when we think science and modernization can cure all evils.  The book provokes some intense discussion and thoughts on what a life is really worth, and whether a human life is really worth more than an animals.  It issues a warning about overpopulation and the effects it can and may have on the earth and all it's other inhabitants.  Above all though, it is a book about how one girl was ultimately stronger than anyone else and was able to protect her new species from eventual destruction.  The book can be a bit unsettling, but is ultimately worth the read as it presents its concepts and storyline incredibly well.

Genre: Dystopian Fiction
Grade Level: 7th Grade