Lock And Key

I usually LOVE Sarah Dessen books, this one however fell a little short. You know form the start that Ruby's mother has run off, leaving her to live by herself, and when she gets caught living in a rat hole, she is sent to live with her estranged sister that she hasn't seen in ten years. It seemed sort of as though there was just some essence missing in this story. I mean I really liked Ruby's sister Cora, and Cora's husband Jamie, I even liked the (obvious) love interest Nate. I think it was Ruby who I didn't like all that much. I think it was how she just didn't seem believable whenever Ruby was trying to be bad. It seemed off I guess, whenever it talked about Ruby's past or when she was in situations that involved sex, drugs, or alcohol. It was that and also how Jamie and Cora seemed to kind of let Ruby do whatever she pleased, and even when they DID set down rules, it seemed like she found ways of getting around them. I have started to see a theme in most Sarah Dessen books, and that is the one of the wealthy messed up society kid. In every story of her's I've read the main girl is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS either well of or even more then that. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it just didn't work as well in this book. Overal grade...B-.

Going Too Far...

This book may have come out last March but it was AMAZING!!!!!! All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far... and almost doesn't make it back. John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge-and over... Meg is forced to give up her Spring Break to ride around every night with John in his squad car. She may love pushing John's buttons now, but what will happen when she finds herself loving John himself?? Overall grade...A+!!! (it was just sooo good!!)

Tangled

This book follows four different people beginning with the insecure, chubby Jena, to Dakota who has just suffered a tragedy, the aloof Skye who is trying to deal with her life questions, and Owen, the boy who hides behind his blog. Jena's story begins in Paradise, a resort in the Caribbean where Jena's mom best friend and her daughter, Skye meet up. Also there is Dakota and his younger brother Owen. This tale talks of how the littlest things can have a huge impact. With Jena is might be a note found on a hot tub or a handsome boy giving her some serious attention. With Dakota it may be finding someone to talk with, or maybe, just someone to listen. With Skye is could be the answers to all her questions, or the help she has felt she needed for a long time. Owen, it may be getting out from behind his computer screen, or staying behind it and being fine and dandy that way. Each person is somehow connected, the ways always shown at the beginning, but always at the end. You learn to love how each character grows a little bit with the help of the others, and sometimes with the help of people you didn't think could. Almost anyone can relate to at least ONE of these characters!! This novel is cute and fun, but has a serious side that will have you wanting more. Overall grade...B-!!

Living Dead Girl

I have to say, Elizabeth Scott is an AMAZING author. I have never read a book anything like Living Dead Girl. This book may have been short, but packed the BIGGEST punch. It's about a girl who was kidnapped when she was ten by Ray. Now her name is Alice, now she is fifteen and she is still with Ray, now she longs for death but he has something more dangerous in mind for her. When I started reading this I didn't understand why she didn't run away, she was home alone all day long. Then Ray mentioned how he could go back to her old house and kill her family. He did it with the Alice before her, he killed her then killed her family. Ray is sick, his mother used to have sex with him so now he keeps Alice tiny and bare, under 100 pounds even though she is over 5'7". He dresses her in clothes from the children's section, trying to keep her young. Every night he lays with Alice, everyday he makes her sit in his lap like a child much smaller. Alice wishes more then anything to die, to be free from Ray. Ray, however, has other ideas. He wants a mew little girl, he wants Annabell. He also wants Alice to get her for him. Ray is a sick twisted man, but Alice is not. Alice is hollow, empty. Alice is dead inside, and she has been since the first time Ray showed her how easily it would be to kill her family.

Perfect Chemistry

This book I read on a charter bus to New York. The entire time I was there I couldn't wait t read more of the book. Then on the way home I just couldn't get enough. If you read it, you won't be able to either!! Brittany and Alex are from different sides of the tracks...literally!! Brittany has a boyfriend and lives in the nice part of town, Alex has this trashy girlfriend and lives in a tiny house with his younger siblings. Brittany has a sister too, but she has autism and her mother want's to send her away. Brittany and Alex end up being paired for Chemistry partners and soon enough someone bet's Alex that he can't get Brittany to sleep with him. He takes the bet of course, and starts in on trying to make her fall for him, the only problem is that he starts falling for her too!! They start dating, Brittany dumping her stupid meat-head of a boyfriend, and Alex leaving the trashy girl he was "dating." Obviously there friends don't get why they are together, Alex's friends believing it's just for the bet, Brittany's thinks she's just going crazy or in need of a little rebellion. The truth of the matter is that they are in love. The biggest problem of all however, is that Alex is in the local gang. And the only way he can truly be with Brittany is to leave the gang, except most people never survive the beating they give, so will he give up all his friends and maybe his family to be with Brittany?? Or will he win the bet and leave her hanging heart-broken and alone?? So, without further ado, overall grade...A+ of course!!

Just One Wish

I read Just One Wish almost a year ago, but I loved it. The main character, Annika has a little brother with cancer. He has to have a surgery he doesn't want so she says a genie will give him three wishes if he uses one of those wishes to come through the surgery all right. The problem is, he wishes for not his teen idol's action figure doll, but for the teen idol himself!! Now Annika must find a way to go all the way to L.A. to convince the teen Robin Hood to come meet her brother. The story was extremely heart-warming to see the lengths that Annika will go to to make her brother happy. She does eventually get teen robin Hood's attention and even succeeds in getting him to agree to meet her brother, after kicking his butt in an archery contest, but the real question is will he actually come through?? Will he actually keep his word?? And better yet, will Annika's brother survive the surgery?? The tale is heart-wrenching and heart-warming and I loved it from beginning to end. Overall grade...A-

Wings

I tried REALLY hard to like Wings. I REALLY did. I finished it and will read the sequel as well as the third book...I think. Since the sequel Spells comes out in May I figured I should review Wings but there were a few issues I had with this book. The problem with Wings was that the first twelve chapters or so have three things happen. One is Laurel and David become best friends. Two is Laurel starts growing this "thing" out of her back that are (obviously) her wings. The third thing is that she moves 45 minutes away from her childhood home. Well, number three happened first, but it doesn't really matter. The problem with this book is that after the first twelve chapters the NEXT twelve chapters seemed crammed in and it's seems almost as if she just RUSHED through it all so she could start working on the next book!! I can't exactly say this book was BAD per say, but it wasn't great and it was only KIND OF good. I usually LOVE faerie books, but this one was really hard to love, actually, it was hard to even LIKE very much. I liked parts of it, like the character Tamani, not the love triangle, it felt to similar and over done, but the character himself was kind of cool. Though David, I didn't really like in parts. I didn't like how he just accepted what Laurel said and just believed like it was no problem!! I hate to give this such a bad review since it wasn't BAD, it just wasn't all that great...so overall grade...C???

Stupid Cupid!!

This is one of the cutest books I've read in a long time. It's about a girl who is Cupid...well actually who is A cupid. She has no arrows, instead she has a pink PDA and emails of lllllloooooooooooovvvvvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee!!!!!! Felicity starts matching people up, one of them being her best friend Maya, except she breaks a rule...she matches Maya up with THREE guys!! The three guys start vying for her attention, jumping through hoops just to get near her, and so much else!! Felicity is trying to juggle helping Maya decide who to pick, her gigantic crush on Derek, the one she's had since she first saw him her freshmen year, and her job of making lasting matches. When her first match doesn't last she becomes a bit disheartened, and even uses her hot-pink PDA to re-match her own PARENTS!! (NOT a good idea if you know what I mean!!) Felicity and her other best friend Andy try to help Maya in any way they can, but sometimes, they just have to let fate run it's course. When another of felicity's matches lasts after the two-week love spell, she feels that she may be better at this cupid thing then she thought!! I can't WAIT to read the sequel which comes out SOON!!! Overall grade...A-

The Miles Between

This book, I have to say, was AMAZING!! At first, I was a bit skeptical, since I had never read anything else by Mary E. Pearson, but I have to say, I was BLOWN AWAY!!!! At first I thought this would be just another messed up girl falls for equally messed up boy, they fall in love, yadda, yadda, yadda, but it wasn't!! This story was not about a journey to find love at all. It was a journey to find a fair day. One fair day where the good-guy wins, and everything just adds up to be just and right. The journey for this fair day starts after Destiny, or Des, is in the garden at her boarding school, Hedgebrook, and she talks to a visiting calculus teacher, and she asks for one fair day. She then finds an abandoned pink car, one that has the doors open and the engine running. Since she doesn't know how to drive she goes off to find Seth, who knows how to drive and finding him next to a statue, taking a break from trash duty, she convinces him to come on a trip, they soon after pick up Mira and Aidan, all by a "coincidence" of sorts, a well timed bloody-nose, a test short, and their fair day starts. The best part, was that everyone got a bit of what they wanted. All by coincidence. Aiden talks to the President in a bathroom in a tiny town with a population of 334, Seth finds Lucky, the "lambadoodle" the lost little lamb they found in the middle of the road, for Mira a poodle skirt and a pair of red peep-toe pumps, and for Des...well...Des finds her fair day. You know from the beginning that Des has been abandoned by her parents and little brother Gavin, but you aren't sure why. Why would anyone abandon their seven year old daughter?? Destiny had been to boarding school after boarding school, always being taken care of by Mr. Gardian and her Aunt Edie, but on this day, the day Aunt Edie is supposed to visit, she can't. Some might call there whole day a coincidence, some fate, but everyone would call it a fair day. This book tears at your heart, and is also one of the most heart-warming books of discovery I have read in a long time. Overall grade...A+ of course!!!

Jinx

This is another of Meg Cabot's wonderfully fun teen novels, this one however, is about Jean Honeychurch. She recently moved to New York to escape, well, something, though you aren't entirely sure what it is. Her cousin Tory, or Torrance as she now goes by, thinks she's a witch. Well, she thinks that Jean, or Jinx as Tory calls her, and herself are the witches that their grandmother told them about and while Jean knows to stay away from dark magic, Tory seems to revel in it. Tory goes a little overboard trying to make her neighbor Zack fall in love with her using a doll she's made, thinking that since she's a witch she can control his will. The problem is, Zack is in love with Jean, though she can't see it, thinking that he's in love with her cousins au pair. So when Zack and Jean start becoming closer, spending a lot more time together then Tory and he ever did, Tory starts devising a plan of her own, especially after learning that Jean might be the more powerful witch in the family, maybe even the only one. Though you don't know exactly why Jean had to flee Iowa for most of the book, when you do find out, it's definitely worth the wait. It's a cute, fun novel, and I'd expect nothing less from someone as accomplished as Meg Cabot. Overall grade B!!

Sleepless

This book, I'm sad to say, was really bad. I thought it would be scary, a thriller. Something more then it was. The idea behind it was alright, but was executed very poorly. The only good character, was Jake, and that was because he smoked pot all the time and got in trouble. It was the most exciting part of the book, him getting in trouble...well that or the girl who randomly smashed a guys face in with a book. That, i have to admit, was pretty entertaining, but it wasn't good enough to make me love this book. There was a lot of quick chapters, so the book definitely wasn't long at all, and though the prologue definitely caught my interest, it slowly dwindled until I basically didn't want to really finish it. I have to say good attempt, bad execution, try again next time?? The good point of this book however, was the author's writing was fairly decent. The plot may have bombed, but at least the writing was alright!! So, I'm sad to say, overall grade...C-

Dream Factory (Where dreams come true!!)

In this magical tale we begin with a Disney character strike, which means Ella gets to be Cinderella, simply because the shoe fits. She shouldn't even be there, and it should be a dream come true, but Ella no longer believes in dreams. Her parents went on a missionary trip after her brother Ash died, and sent her to Florida to live with her aunt. Now she's living in a "fairy tale" and she's even dating Prince Charming, I mean she is Cinderella after all, but in comes Luke. Luke is a fur character, Dale the chipmunk. Chip is played by his girlfriend, Cassie, who is perfect in every way. Except that he finds himself more drawn to Ella then he ever did to Cassie, especially when she keeps telling him he should take the job his dad has prepared for him, though he sweats more in a tie then he does after a full day in costume. When Ella and Luke end up paired together for a "team-building" scavenger hunt, while Cassie and Ella's boyfriend Mark team together, they become closer then ever. Then a disastrous double date, a snow globe, a set of keys, and a Disney fur character phantom, just might lead to a wonderful love affair, a life changing decision, or worst of all, nothing at all. Overall grade...B+

Ice (Ice Baby!!)

So, when I first started reading Ice I thought to myself "I can get on board with a talking polar bear...but falling in love with one?????" *Skeptical Eyebrow Raise* "Suuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee." But as I read the book, I found that I could believe it. Since that was what was happening. Bear (real original) was already in love with Cassie (the human) and Cassie quickly fell in love with Bear, without even realizing it. The thing that made it as unbelievably believable, was that she didn't just fall in love with him immediately, it took her time, which is something most books don't do anymore, the boy and girl always fall in deep everlasting love with each other at the end...every stinking time!! This book however, was different. This time, she fell in love with Bear in the beginning, and at the end, realized just how much she loved her soul mate. I especially loved this book because Cassie fought with Bear, she didn't just agree with everything he offered, and actually disliked his actions at times. The other part of this book that I LOVED was how Cassie went on this intricate (and beautifully described) journey all over to save Bear from her own selfish indulgences. This story follows Cassie through the Arctic land, to the Arctic Sea, and all over so many other places, all the way to the end of the world. I loved this story mainly because it took my original judgements of creepy polar bear "love" and turned it into a story that I loved and would read over and over again. Overall grade...A!!!

My Invented Life

I'm sorry to say that this was not one of my favorite books. It follows Roz through her various social and physical blunders of high school. Starting mainly with when she tells her Drama friends she is a lesbian. Though she only says this since she is convinced her sister is a lesbian, and is having secret lesbian affairs with Eyeliner Andie when she's not around. Though at first you think she only wants this to be true so she can start dating Eva's boyfriend Brian, who is scum of the earth. Brian is dating Eva, and yet, kisses and flirts and all sorts of other things with Roz, until Eva finds out that is!! Carmen, Eva's ex-BFF lets her in on this secret affair and the sisters grow even farther apart in one way, while growing ever closer because of Roz's "LR" or Lesbian Report, that she tells Eva in order to get her to talk to her again. Though this book was fast-paced and funny, I felt that it was just a bit to predictable so, sadly I must give it....an overall grade of...B-