Love Letters to the Dead

This week I read Love Letters to the Dead  by Ava Dellaira. This book is about a 15 year old girl named Laurel who just started high school. Her sister May has been dead for almost one year, and her mom left for California without her after suddenly getting divorced. Laurel did not want to go to the same high school that May went to, so she doesn't know anybody, and hides in the corner during lunch. Until she gets her first assignment; to write a letter, about anything, to someone who's dead. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain; he was May's favorite singer, and writes to him, but  decides that the letter is too personal to turn in to get credit on the assignment. Soon, Laurel has many letters to different people including Amelia Earhart, Amy Winehouse, Janis Joplin, E.E. Cummings, and more. It basically documents her life in high school, making friends, having a crush, and dealing with her dysfunctional family and other things too. She also has to get over her guilt for her sister's death, which she thinks is her fault, and some pretty terrible things that happened to her as a younger teenager that she had blocked out of her mind. This book was really good, even if I found it kind of depressing sometimes (ok, all the time). You really cared about the main character, and all of her friends/other people that she cared about. My favorite character was probably Laurel, because she never got discouraged and you really could connect with and and care about and root for her to do well. My other favorite character was probably Sky; but I can't tell you who he is or why without giving stuff away! You also found yourself wondering what you would do in her situations. This book is not like a normal "white girl book", I thought that it was really different, cool, and interesting. Overall, this is a really good realistic fiction book with some mature content, and I would recommend it to a lot of people in our class, if you feel like reading a book with some mature content. I would probably recommend it to both boys and girls too.
Next books I want to read:
Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
Dash and Lily's book of dares
Unbroken
Kindred (book group)

First SOL:

"Look, I'm tired of texting. We should go talk at Robinson Park". My phone buzzes annoyingly as I get this text. I look out the already dark window. I really want to go to the park, I've been texting with a friend for the past couple of hours and would love to meet up and talk to them face to face. But it's dark. My mom's not a home, but she would flip. I stare out the window again, hoping to catch some sort of light source, but instead I just see my mirrored reflection as the sun's last rays disappear, leaving us in blackness, if there were any in the first place. I stare at my reflection a moment longer, noticing the shorts and short sleeved shirt that would also present a problem if I was to ride my bike out in the snow. "Sarah?" my phone chimes annoyingly. "You still there?" "Sry", I text back. "One Second". I look at the glowing digital clock, standing out bright blue against the blackness. 6:35. My mom had already been gone over an hour, which means that she would be coming back soon. But I really wanted to go...maybe I'd have enough time. I would ride quickly, but what if my mom did come back? Or what if my dad decided to come home from work early? I imagined the scene of freak that would happen if my family came home in the darkness, opened the door, switched on the warm lights, called my name- and found out that I wasn't there.

But I'm old enough to ride a bike a couple of blocks. Even when it's nighttime, pitch black and snowy. I'm responsible enough. My mom and dad never got that, I think in my minds I'm still trapped in the body and mind of a little kid, the one that they would worry about walking a block by themselves in the middle of the day, never the less ride there bike to the park when it's dark out. And maybe if I said that it was my friends idea- no, I quickly pushed that thought out of my mind. I was going, and I guess that I would just hope that they didn't come home. They can't stop me from seeing my friends. "Coming," I text, and am rewarded by a series of smiley faces :) :) :). Switching off the lights, I slam the door to the garage, put on my helmet, grab my bike, and go to open the doors- and they open by themselves. Shocked, I am greeted with the bright headlights of a car, and my dad's face, not noticing my thankfully, smiling from the chance to come home from work earlier. Sigh. I take off my helmet, text my friend, and quickly retreat into the house. Maybe next time.

Idk what pic to do so I just did a picture of a bike :)

Conversion

This week I read Conversion by Katherine Howe. I would recommend this book to people who like books like In a Heartbeat or 13 Gifts, books like that. Imagine if every day, when you went to school, there was a risk of getting Ebola. That's basically what this book's like. This was a book about a girl named Colleen, living in the same town that the Salem Witch Trials were held in hundreds of years earlier. She is a senior in a private christian girls high school, and is stressing out about getting into college, among other things. Suddenly, the popular girl in the school becomes sick, suffering from seizures and different stuff like that. Suddenly the school becomes a prison, with people getting sick one after another, and nobody quite sure what it is. Colleen and her friends have to survive school, dealing with boys, college, and family problems all under the spotlight of the mystery illness; until she thinks she might just have figured it out. This book was great. Maybe not especially deep or anything, but it was really entertaining. The characters in my opinion were kind of two dimensional, but slightly relatable in their situations in their school and it was a really fast-paced book. It also flashed back and forth between scenes from the Salem Witch Trials, when they were held, and the school, so I guess you learned some history. There was a plot twist at the end, and you found a connection within the book, but otherwise it was actually a pretty shallow book with a weak plotline, even if it was a really quick, fast, and entertaining read. Overall, this book is realistic fiction, has some inappropriate stuff, but not too bad, and is overall good if you don't want anything especially deep to read.

The Black Book of Secrets

This week I read the Black Book of Secrets by F. E. Higgins. This book is kind of weird, but kind of fascinatingly strange at the same time. I don't even know why I read it, but I think I"m glad that I did. This book was about a boy growing up around some time and place that seemed semi-equivalent to medieval London, and was mistreated by his parents. He then flees from them into a smaller town with a pawnbroker who sells secrets. He badly wants to trust him, but doesn't know what to do about it, as does the rest of the town. This book was interesting, really short and a quick read, and not really my type of book. Overall, I wouldn't read this book again, it was only okay, and not the type of stuff that I would normally read, but if you think it sounds good. Overall, this book was okay, had a few graphic descriptions of violence, and would probably be good or even great to someone who reads these types of books just more often.

Cloaked

This week I read Cloaked by Alex Flinn. This was a really good, weird, book, with a really good lead that was exciting and hooked you right from the beginning. This was about just a normal guy, even if he was a little weird, working as a car mechanic. Suddenly, his world turns magical. This involves a series of unexpected events. I can't tell you much more without ruining this book, but it was overall just really good. This book was kind of weird though, and interesting in that way, with a lot of strange, interesting, unexpected plot twists. Overall, I would recommend this book to anybody, maybe more seventh and eighth graders, who like magical, fantastic books set in real life, with unexpected plot twists and many eccentric, real-life characters.

The Here and Now

This week I read The Here and Now by Ann Brashares. This was a really good book-if kind of weird. The book starts with a girl named Prenna being sent back in time. Back in the future she leaves her family; her two siblings, one of them dead, and her mom, dad, and family-friend/aunt. The mosquitoes in the future have spread a disease; Prenna's own little brother died of it. She travels to the year around 2020, and tries to reverse history. She lives in a little colony, where there are very strict rules, some of the most important being to never develop friendships with people outside the future-colony, who all come from the same place that she does; never tell anybody about the future, and certainly don't fall in love. But when Prenna comes to the past, traveling back in time, she meets Ethan, and quickly gets involved in a relationship. Prenna loves Ethan more than anything, but is under strict pressure from her colony leaders, always watching her, from breaking the rules. As Prenna Learns more about the time period, she has to come to a couple of stunning realizations-including that people might know more about the disease-ridden future that they have then they think- and comes to see that she might be able to save everyone in the future; if she's willing to give up the one thing she loves more then everything else, Ethan.

This book ROCKED! It was slightly strange with the time travel and the beginning- but you have to give her a chance everything suddenly makes sense by the end and it's so sad and amazing and really awesome. There are lots of amazing plot twists and you definitely get very strong feelings about some of the characters, whether you like them, don't, or in between. It's so sad, and I love the plotline in particular. It is slightly inappropriate but not that bad. Overall, if you want a book that you actually care about, read this book. You will be glad that you did.

PS both boys and girls, eighth, seventh, and possibly sixth graders would probably like it.

Savvy

This week I read Savvy,  by Ingrid Law. This book is kind of like a coming of age book. Mibs is about to turn thirteen, and lives as part of a family called the Beaumonts, who are harboring a strange secret; when they turn thirteen, each of them gets a special knowledge, called a savvy. Mibs has two older brothers, one named Rocket (who controls electricity) and Fish (who controls the water), as well as a younger brother and sister, a grandpa, and a mom and dad. It's generally pretty hard for the Beaumonts to make friends; everybody can sense something is different about them, that they don't fit in, and playdates are not allowed because of the weirdness of their house, with tons of kids with different savvys, still learning how to control them, and sometimes things going wrong. The day before Mib's 13th birthday, when she gets her savvy, her dad gets in a car crash. Her mom, Grandpa, and oldest brother Rocket all leave in order to take care of him, and try to wake him up from the coma that he's in. They leave the kids under the care of Mrs. Rosemary, and her 16-year-old daughter Bobbi and son Will, who is Mib's age. Mibs wakes up on her 13th birthday, and realizes something-her savvy might be crucial to saving her dad's life. Through a series of events, Mibs, Fish, Bobbi, Will, and her younger brother Sampson hitchhike in the back of a bus, hoping to get to Mib's dad, and meet some pretty cool people along the way.
This book is AMAZING, but don't read it if you are too old. I think that this book would be great for the sixth graders in our class, especially the girls. It's an awesome book, probably the best coming-of-age novel I've read so far, that has Mibs dealing with growing up, boys, and a lot of other things. Also, it's so imaginative, and it relates to something I think that we've all imagined about, running away with our friends. The characters are AMAZING, and it's just so funny and so relatable.
Overall, I wish that I had read this book sooner, as a sixth or maybe seventh grader. It's really amazing though; I would totally recommend reading it, especially for girls but for boys too, if you want a funny, relatable, coming of age book that is not inappropriate at all. Overall, This was a really good realistic fiction book, even if it was a little too young for me (totally read it sixth grader girls)!