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I'm featuring two Meg Cabot books today, part of the charming middle grade Allie Finkle series! Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls: Stage Fright Stage Fright comes out strong, setting a very powerful and perfect tone to a great story. This series really is great for fans of Barbara Park's snarky Junie B. Jones. It's the same brand of humor, and fans who may have outgrown Junie and are looking for something new to read will definitely find the same type of honest outlook on the world from Allie. Cabot is really good at keeping up with current pop culture and putting in age appropriate references, which would make the books all the more appealing with her target audience. This book is not only adorable and kid-friendly, it also contains simple environmentally-friendly facts for them to learn and hopefully adapt in their own lives. We need more books telling our children how to be environmentally friendly in this day and age, so kudos to Cabot for blending it in with t...

Deadly Little Secret written by Laurie Faria Stolarz My hopes for this book were not all that great, as I saw it was Disney and also by the author of Project 17 , Laurie Faria Stolarz. This book didn't have the greatest writing (I mean, okay, I've definitely read worse , but it could have been better) and a lot of it seemed Twilight-y. Really, did there have to be love at a lab table again? I'd like to let some authors know that we don't all magically pair up at science class. Ben had the same kind of drama with Camelia that Edward did with Bella, the whole mysterious stranger with some kind of power deal. The characters were all pretty flat, too. I did like the eventual reveal of what Ben's problem is, but other than that, it doesn't really pick up from there. The story's pretty predictable and it's easy to see who the culprit really was. I do like that it had a supernatural element other than supernatural creatures. That part was reminiscent ...

Stolen from glorifield : 1. Take five books off your bookshelf. 2. Book #1 -- first sentence 3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty 4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred 5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty 6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book 7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph: The startled residents of Washington D.C. awake one morning to find the red banner of Soviet communism flapping proudly from a tall flagpole in front of the U.S. Supreme Court Building. "Very well," said the Patchwork Girl, "I'm going to serve you and your wife by helping Ojo find the things you need." Although for some reason, when No 1 thought about Abbott, the many moments of cruelty he had suffered at the pride leader's whim seemed hazy, hard to focus on. You snuck out without Gage or me noticing. Stupid b********. If At All Possible, Involve a Cow: The Book of College Pranks -Neil Steinberg The Patchwork Girl of Oz- L...

It's time for a special post! Featuring three jaw-dropping books by Elizabeth Scott :) Love You, Hate You, Miss You Love You, Hate You, Miss You , catchy title, catchy start, to a catchy plot. Everything about this book screams reality at the reader, honest in tone and easy to read. Even the format, letters to a girl's dead best friend, are heartbreaking. The narration, via the letters, establishes an early level of comfortable interaction. It's a simple, but powerful, tale of a girl struggling to move on with life. For me, the most powerful part of the story was Amy telling her parents of all people, what had happened with Julia that fateful night. It's breathtaking to watch the growth of the relationship between Amy and her parents springing out of something as tragic as death, as well as the strange post-death evolution of her relationship with Julia. It's a book filled with perceptive thoughts for a very thought-invoking read. Scott really delves int...

Tricks written by Ellen Hopkins Tricks seems to be an epic conglomeration of many of Hopkins' past themes under a new umbrella topic. This one pushes at the bar just a little bit more than her previous books have, dealing with the controversial subject of prostitution. I found her reasoning for writing this book to be shocking. According to Hopkins, it all began when she learned that the average age for a female prostitute in the US is twelve years old. Twelve . It's facts like these that make Hopkins' books more memorable than the usual YA literature out there, pushing it to the extreme. I didn't know if she could pull off having five main characters, but she did, and she did it extremely well. There is, as usual, tons of fantastic imagery throughout this book written in poems. I was saddened to find less of her usual stylized poetry in this book than in the others; the poems seemed to just be in standard clumps for the most part, other than the section openers...

The Book Thief written by Markus Zusak I don't like World War II fiction. I don't like the fact that I haven't read a single World War II book that isn't a tragedy. World War II was a seriously horrible time when horrible things happened, and I don't like reading about those horrible things. So clearly, The Book Thief ? Not the book for me. The narration, personification, and imagery were remarkable, but the story itself? Meh. It moved slowly, and nothing much happened until the predictable ending. It's easy to see where it's going, both due to its subject matter and choice of narrator. Zusak does do a wonderful job delving into the mindsets of all of his characters, particularly the complexity of a child's--Liesel's--mind. It's a great mix of a child's mind forced to live and function in an adult world. The foreshadowing, though adding to the predictability, adds to the book and the complexity of the narration. But again, there ...

currently reading: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak want to read: By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters ArchEnemy written by Frank Beddor I must say, I'm a little torn. Part of me wants to say that this was a fantastic book, a perfect ending to the trilogy, but unfortunately, I don't think I can. A lot of this book was insignificant fighting scenes that seemed to go on forever. I'm sure this makes it a popular read for some readers, but that's really not what I go into books for. The writing was spectacular, sharply witty, albeit going overboard sometimes with the details of the fight scenes, and it was through this amazing writing that these characters really came to life. I found myself switching favorite characters from Dodge (who sadly doesn't make as many appearances as I had hoped/expected him to make) to good old Hatter. My heart really broke for him and Molly, and Beddor portrayed the awkward phase they were going through r...