9.10.2009

Book review: Catching fire/ Collins, Suzanne

Catching Fire (Hunger Games, #2) Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins


My rating: 5 of 5 stars
While not quite as well written as Hunger Games, this sequel rocks!!!! My love for these characters is neverending. Read read read these books! They are so fabulous. I am currently rereading the 1st one 'cause I can't get enough.

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5.29.2009

Book review: Paper towns/ Green, John

Paper Towns Paper Towns by John Green


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
John Green loves to write the teen novel about the perfect, ungettable girl and this is no exception. Paper Towns is similar to Looking for Alaska, but much more humorous and lighthearted. Quentin, a self-professed band geek who doesn't play an instrument, has known his great love, Margo Roth Spiegelman, since childhood. High school forces the childhood friends apart into separate, cool vs. uncool social circles, and Margo maintains the peace between the two circles, protecting Quentin & co. from the wrath of the jocks and homecoming queens. While Q continues to love Margo from afar, he has no idea how troubled Margo has become since they were kids. When Margo invites Q to join her in a night of pranks and schemes, barriers fall and high school as Q knows it begins to unravel. Engaging read to start, drags a bit in the middle, but part 3 is so hilarious I was in stitches.


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4.25.2009

Book review: Prep/ Sittenfeld, Curtis

Prep: A Novel Prep: A Novel by Curtis Sittenfeld


My review


rating: 2 of 5 stars
Set in a fictional, elite Massachusetts boarding school, Lee Fiora applies to Ault School on a whim, gets a scholarship, and leaves Indiana for a world completely unlike her own. While the prose was well written and pitch perfect, Lee grated on my nerves. Definitely an engaging read, if only for the spot on characterizations of life behind the ivy-covered walls of prep school. Admittedly I love a character who's fiesty and outspoken (I mean, really, who doesn't?) and I can abide by a character who's shy and introspective, and both must at least be likable or endearing in some way. Lee was neither of those things. Spineless, whiny, fearful, skittish, snobbish to the people who did actually try to reach out to her, Lee commits a mortal sin in my book--hanging her entire self worth on a boy. Perhaps I've forgotten what it's like to be a teenage girl, but if this is what it was like, thank goodness I am an adult!


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4.06.2009

Book review: Beware of the frog/ Bee, William

Beware of the Frog Beware of the Frog by William Bee


My review


rating: 4 of 5 stars
This one actually made me LOL, for real, and it's been a long time since a picture book has surprised me. Love the retro illustrations, story structure, and twist.


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2.14.2009

Book review: Dragonfly pool, The/ Ibbotson, Eva

The Dragonfly Pool The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson


My review


rating: 3 of 5 stars
12-year-old Tally knows the war between Hitler and Britain will begin soon and she wants to do everything she can to help. When her father secures a scholarship for her to attend boarding school in the countryside, Tally is at first dismayed she'll have to leave her father and aunts. She soon learns that Delderton, a hippie-ish "free school" where children are not forced to wear uniforms or even attend classes, is an amazing place where she begins to discover who she is. What starts off as a school story then turns into a trans-European adventure as Tally and her young friends form a folk dancing troupe, visit neutral Bergania, and end up smuggling its young crown prince away from the clutches of the Gestapo. Slow to start and definitely not for reluctant readers, this turned out to be very enjoyable as the characterization, action, and plotting picked up.


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