The Bridges of Madison County

According to my mom, this book was huge when it first came out. Not quite the same reaction from me, though.
This book was okay. On the love story front, it was pretty good. A photographer meets a housewife and they spend the week together while he takes pictures of the bridges in Madison County. They fall in love, like deep in love. But then he has to leave and instead of running away with him the housewife stays with her family. She keeps track of him, though, because she always still loved him and vice-versa. This was kind of like The Notebook with the whole "true love conquers all" message. But unlike The Notebook, the ending sucked: they die without seeing one another again.
So yeah, a bit disappointing, but it's less than two hundred pages, so might as well read it. This book went on my Best Books shelf just because they were so in love and the author did a great job of conveying that.

The Guardian

This has gotta be the best Nicholas Sparks book I've read so far. Not only was it a phenomenal love story, it was a killer suspense thriller! (Hey, that rhymed.)
It's the story of Julie, who has just gotten over the death of her husband and is ready to start dating again. She and her overprotective dog from her dead husband, Singer, are looking for love. So Julie goes out with Richard. There are chapters from Richard's point of view in here too, and when it's his turn in the story, you can tell that something's not right about him. He just doesn't sound A-okay. Julie sees that too, and breaks it off with him. She finally "sees the light" and goes out with her exhusband's best friend Mike, and they're immediately deeply in love. And Singer the dog likes Mike too, so he has to be good. But Richard isn't through yet. He wants Julie, and he'll do anything to get her. Including getting rid of Singer and Mike. Suddenly he's stalking Julie, and the police just won't listen... until things get really bad. But by then it might be too late.
This book also reminds me of Kissed by an Angel series. It has the whole "guardian from beyond the grave, true love lasts forever but you have to move on if it did too" thing going on because Julie is conflicted between mourning her husband or going out with Mike, and she might find help in the most unexpected places.
I loved this book. Now I'm gonna go force Cara to read it.

Ten Little Indians

Who knew Agatha Christie mysteries could be so good in play form? I had to read this for Drama class, so I wrote a report on it. I really don't feel like writing a whole other summary and review for this story out of the book of her plays I have, so I'll just copy my report here. Be prepared for longness... just skip ahead to the sections you want to read.

Alison L.
Mr. Finch
Drama 1
28 August 2009
Title of Play: Ten Little Indians
Characters: There are ten main characters in this play. One unique thing in this play is that every main character has been accused, directly or indirectly, of killing someone before we see them in the story. We first meet Rogers, the housekeeper for the unknown Mr. Owen on the island. He and his wife, Mrs. Rogers, take care of the house and the grounds. Mrs. Rogers is the chef. Together they have been rumored to kill off their previous employer. Next appears Vera Claythorne, a young lady in her mid-twenties who used to be a governess. Her previous charge drowned while in her watch. Vera’s love interest is Philip Lombard, a thirty-something traveler who finds Vera attractive and wants to get to know her better. He was accused of killing a bunch of people in Africa “on accident.” The next character doesn’t really stand out in the story because he’s the first to leave it. His name is Anthony Marston and he somehow led to the death of two people. Then comes William Blore, an unimaginative man that, throughout the story, is revealed as a pathological liar. He “brought about the death” of a person, too. General Mackenzie is another who does not particularly stand out. The only thing interesting about him is that the person he killed was his wife’s lover, and he did it almost completely on purpose. Emily Brent is the next person, and she inadvertently killed a teenage girl who was pregnant. She scolded the poor girl so much that the girl went and drowned herself in the pond, which gives you an idea of how strongly Ms. Brent feels about her ideals. Sir Lawrence Wargrave is a judge who has sentenced death to many a criminal that perhaps shouldn’t have died. He is strict, and very judgmental, being a judge. Lastly there is Dr. Armstrong. He is a doctor but more importantly an alcoholic. He killed a person in the middle of surgery because of his drinking problem, and now he’s trying to recover.
Scenic Requirements: The main scenes take place in the sitting room. To perform the play you’d need a bar, many windows along the wall facing the audience that look out on the sea, two sofas in the middle of the room and chairs around the room with one bookcase somewhere on stage left. By the fireplace there should be a tapestry with the Ten Little Indians nursery rhymes written on it, and on the mantle there should be ten Indian statues sort of clustered together. There is a door stage left (by windows) leading to the dining room, a door down stage left that leads to the hall, and a balcony that is part of the set with presumable steps leading down from the balcony. All in all it’s a pretty easy set to put up, and there’s not major special effects that would be costly or difficult to reproduce. Some lighting for dramatic effect would be nice at the climatic parts.
Plot Summary: Eight people make their way to this island, all of them supposedly invited by U. N. Owen. (The other two, the Rogers couple, were there previously.) None of them have actually met this Owen, but they come anyway. They get to know one another before dinner, but then comes the shock. Rogers puts on a record and a disembodied voice comes on accusing them all of murder in some form. They all realize they have arrived on the island for judgment.
The first one to die is Marston. He dies like the first rhyme in the tapestry, by choking while drinking. This is when the remaining characters start to get scared. The next day they awake to discover Mrs. Rogers has passed away in her sleep, just like the second Indian to die in the tapestry. They also notice the little Indian statues on top of the fireplace are disappearing one by one, just like they seem to be doing. That day a lot of people die in accordance with the tapestry’s rhymes: General Mackenzie dies from a blow to the back of the head, Rogers gets killed by ax while chopping wood, Emily Brent is injected with cyanide (modern bee sting). This leaves five little Indians: Blore, Justice Wargrave, Dr. Armstrong, Vera, and Lombard. They are all getting increasingly nervous, and they have long since realized the murderer has to be one of them. Next Wargrave dies, dressed up like a judge on his own judgment day in a terrifyingly ironic fashion. Then Blore dies, crushed by a bear clock (like being eaten by a bear in the poem), and Dr. Armstrong is found drowned on the cliffs outside the house. Vera and Lombard realize they’re the only two left, and therefore one of them is the murderer. Vera finds Lombard’s pistol and shoots him with it; he collapses over backwards. Then Wargrave (yes, the thought-to-be-dead one) emerges from the other room and confesses how it was all his plan: stage the perfect murder in perfect irony, taking nine lives, and ending with Vera hanging herself. He gets Vera’s head in the noose when Lombard sits back up, grabs his pistol, and shoots Wargrave dead. Uttering a remark about how he’s thankful girls can’ shoot straight, he goes up to Vera and proposes to her; and so the story ends.
Personal Reaction: I loved this play. I originally read the book by Agatha Christie first, and that was good, but this offered a more in-depth understanding of how the characters feel and think during the plot. This was a very thrilling mystery, because you never knew who might go next. Also, there was never a point where I could tell who the actual murderer might be. It looked like it could be anyone, from Vera to Rogers. This was a very surprising, very intense play to read, and I’m sure it would be even better to watch.
Overall Recommendation: Although I loved reading this play, I would not suggest VMHS performing it. Why? There are just too many characters. Say you’re sitting there for two hours, watching this play. You have to keep track of ten characters, what they’re saying, how they’re acting, and keep track of who dies. All the characters are of equal importance, so you have to pay attention to everything. To me, that doesn’t seem like enough time to actually enjoy the play, and let the suspense build. It just wouldn’t be as enjoyable to the audience, at least not in my opinion. All in all, though, this was a pretty good play.

Yep, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

"Tak."

Tak is possibly one of the most terrifying nonsense words I've ever gotten out of a book. This book, to be exact. To be more exact, Desperation by Stephen King. Now his books are pretty gruesome/eerie/creepy/horrific at the best of times, but this one had this whole religious element in it. Like the "force of evil" that the main characters was battling was actually a god. But who are the main characters?
First off there are Peter and Mary, who are driving along when a huge cop pulls them over because their license plate was gone. The cop has a hunch and searches their car, and just happens to find dope in the backseat (from Peter's sister). He takes them in. Later he pulls over Ellen and Ralph and their two kids David and Pie. This happy foursome was RV-ing across the southwest states and get pulled over because the cop says there's a madman with a rifle on the loose. Lastly we have Johhny Mandeville, the writer who has been in the tabloids since the day he got his first novel published. He's a king of controversy and he gets taken in by the humongous cop because he was taking a "potty break" (although that's not the term King uses) by a state road. These people plus Mr. Billingsley, a resident, end up in the holding cell in the sheriff's office of Desperation, a tiny little mining town. Later they're joined by Steve and his hitchhiker Cynthia, who have been sent out to find Johnny Mandeville. The cop turns out to be inhabited by the "force of evil" known as Tak.
Speaking of Tak, there are a lot of other nonsense words in this book, like a whole language. I'm going to post a guide I worked out right here, although keep in mind this is only to the best of my knowledge, not any definite translations.

Tak/God
Tak ah lah/ I am God
Cay de mun/ Open your mouth

Yep, that's about all I know. I liked this book, it was one of the few Stephen King books I didn't try to rush through the end on because it was starting to bore me or I was tired of reading it. Of course, this one was relatively short.
Speaking of Stephen King, my friend John recently read the first chapter of Carrie. He is now disgusted by everything that happens in girls' locker rooms.

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie

So with this being a Jordan Sonnenblick book, I expected the dry sarcasm, abundant humor, and zany situations that fill his other books. I picked up this book looking for a light read, something to crack me up when I was bored. Now, don't get me wrong, there was tons of humor and I guarantee you'll still laugh out loud, but this book was SAD. I don't think many books are seriously sad, but this one almost had me in tears at some points, and the last book to do that to me was Marley and Me. Maybe it was because I could relate with so much that happened in the book; I mean, all the trouble starts on my birthday, for cows' sakes.
It all starts October 7th. It's a normal day for Steven: he wakes up early to practice his mad drumming skills and is interrupted by his little brother Jeffrey who wants breakfast. So he goes and makes Jeffrey "moatmeal"(read the book to find out what the heck that is, as well as Dangerous Pie), and Jeffrey falls off the kitchen counter and gets a nosebleed that just. Won't. Stop. Their parents take Jeffrey to the doctor's that day and come back with devastating news: Jeffrey has LEUKEMIA. Now you see why this book makes me sad. Wouldn't you be sad too if you knew somebody (even someone imaginary) had found out they had cancer on your birthday? Now Steven has got to learn how to deal with this while simultaneously keeping his grades up and preparing for the most significant drumming in his whole life.




Like I said, this book was sad, but it also has a lot of humor. It's amazing how the main character, Steven, can continue to be sarcastic and find normal things to complain about when his family's whole world is turned completely upside-down. I'm glad I read this book, it has some good life lessons about laughing when things suck, basically.

Pants on Fire

Yep, more Cabot books. There are tons, and I just HAVE to read them because they're so good, you know? This one was no exception.
Meet Katie, who leaves in a small seaside town famous for Quahogs: the legendary clams and the legendary football team named after the clams. Katie, like everyone else in this town, is in some way involved with the Quahogs, by running in the town beauty pageant, Quahog Queen, even though she can't stand the taste of them, and also by dating one of the star players on the Quahog high school football team. Another thing you need to know about Katie is that she lies. A lot. She is covering up the fact that she doesn't like quahogs, she is sort-of-kind-of falling OUT of love with her star football player boyfriend, she's dating ANOTHER guy behind her boyfriend's back, and her biggest secret of all, how she was involved in running Tommy Sullivan out of town at the end of eighth grade... But now Tommy's back, and Katie is worried she'll blow her huge, quahog-sized cover.
Of course this book has a lot of romance in it, just look at the cover for crying out loud. Katie can't decide between her two boyfriends, and she's lying every two seconds to cover THAT up, when more guys start entering the picture. You start to worry what the heck is going on, and you just know she's going to explode with the truth at any moment. And trust me, it happens, and when it does, you'll never forget it.
Also, Tommy Sullivan is now up on mine and Cara's BEST MALE BOOK CHARACTERS LIST. Right up there with Ron Weasley, Harry Potter, Edward Cullen, Jacob Black, Michael Moscovitz, Percy Jackson, etc. I need to publish that list, dang it.

"Who are you to say there is no god?"

Yeah, that's a quote from the Big Book, AKA the Alcoholics Anonymous book, 4th Edition. No, I don't have a "problem," but my Grandpa used to and he gave me this book because if it can change his life and so many others, I should read it just so I know what's in it. And it was GOOD.
What surprised me is that it's not just a fool-proof method to beat drinking and achieve sobriety, it's a freakin' LIFESTYLE. You can live by these infamous Twelve Steps:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol-- that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all those defects of character.
7. Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood him, praying only for knowledge of His will and the power to carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Basically it's all about being right with your God and never holding a grudge between you and other people and trusting things to work out.
I also like one other phrase in this book:

"If you're an apple, you can be the best apple you can be, but you can never be an orange."
(pg. 427)

That applies a lot to life, because it means be yourself, don't try to be like other people. In A.A. I guess this would mean, "You're an alcoholic, not a 'social drinker.' You'll never be a 'social drinker,' so try to be a sober alcoholic."
Everyone, alcoholics, 'social drinkers,' and sober people alike, should read this book, just to get the idea out of it. I guarantee your life will be a bit better for it.

The Mediator: Darkest Hour

Holy crud, this book definitely is the DARKEST HOUR. Of course, it's by Meg Cabot, so you've got the whole super-girly teenage girl main character thing in this book too. There's actually a whole Mediator series, but I was stupid and read the last one first so now I'm stuck reading them all out of order. This is the second one I've read, and I have to say they're great as stand-alone novels too. Darkest Hour is actually book number 4, I think.
Anyway, meet Suze, who can see dead people (No, she's not from an overplayed horror movie). She is actually known as a mediator, someone who helps dead people figure out why they're still on earth instead of living it up in the afterlife and helps them accomplish what they need to. The only other mediator she knows is the principal of her Catholic high school, Father Dominic. Actually, he's the only other mediator she knows THUS FAR... *hint hint wink wink nudge nudge cough cough*
Another thing Suze has going for her that you don't find in a typical teenage girl's life: her boyfriend is a ghost. Jesse de Silva, who died in the 1800's, to be exact. Actually, Jesse seems to be oblivious to the fact that Suze is in love with him, no matter how many hints she keeps dropping. Suze, meanwhile, is supposed to be helping him get to the afterlife, but she's stalling a bit more than she should. Then Jesse's psycho ex-girlfriend from the 1800's shows up (don't they always?) and threatens to kill Suze! Suze only has a little time to figure out how to get rid of Jesse's ex and somehow save her relationship with Jesse.
Then there's the whole Cabot spin on it. Look at this:

"Here's the thing about mediators:
We're hard to kill.
I'm serious. You wouldn't believe the number of times I've been knocked down, dragged, stomped on, punched, kicked, bitten, clawed, whacked on the head, held underwater, shot at and, oh yeah, thrown off roofs.
But have I ever died? Have I ever sustained a life-threatening injury?
No. I've broken bones--plenty of them. I've got scars galore.
But the fact is, whoever--or whatever--created mediators did give us one natural weapon, at least, to use in our fight against the undead. No, it's not superhuman strength, though that would have been handy."
(pg. 172)

*sigh* I love Meg Cabot books. She has a really unique way of writing that I've never seen any other author use, which is what makes her books so special. Even the supernatural books have her flair in them.

Angels and Demons

Yup yup, way better than The Da Vinci Code. Well, actually they're both really good and Angels and Demons (written by the genius known as Dan Brown) is noticeably longer, I think. I remember my dad reading this book on vacation a couple years ago when I was little. I was thinking, "Dang, if I ever read a book that boring-looking, I'll know my life sucks." But now, life doesn't suck, so the book was good. Dad actually said he didn't like it as much as he thought he would because Dan Brown relied too much on "divine intervention." But that's basically what the book's about.
We all know The Da Vinci code is about Robert Langdon, famous religious symbologist. Angels and Demons is technically the prequel to that book, although it's great by itself too. Robert gets called by the biggest science corporation in the world known as CERN because one of their leading scientists was killed-- and branded with a sign saying "Illuminati" on his chest in ambigram format. (Ambigrams are when the image is exactly the same forwards and backwards, something almost impossible to achieve unless you're a supergenius-- or an Illuminati member.) The murderer also cut out the scientist's eyeball to get through the retina scanner into the laboratory... to steal the most destructive substance in the world, antimatter. Now the Illuminati are threatening to release the antimatter at midnight when the battery on the canister runs out, right under Vatican City, which will completely destroy the Church and undermine religion forever. An incident like this CANNOT happen, since the cardinals are in the process of electing a new pope as the previous one died fifteen days ago. Robert Langdon teams up with the dead scientist's daughter, Vittoria Vetra, to find the hidden lair of the Illuminati Church, save four cardinals each sentenced to death by this murderer, and show that religion and science can comfortably exist side by side.
One of my favorite parts was when Robert Langdon plays the tape given to him by Kohler right before he dies. Did anyone else notice this was just like the Snape-Dumbledore-Pensieve situation? Only in digital format and not quite as heartbreakingly sad.
This book is now approved by the Nosilas Library as a FREAKIN'-AWESOME-READ-IT-OVER-AND-OVER-UNTIL-YOU'RE-SICK-OF-ROBERT-LANGDON book.

The Notebook

Yep, I finally read it. The book Cara, Melissa, Adrie, Holly, and practically every other girl I know has been raving about: The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. It did not live up to my expectations. People sad it was so sad I was sure to cry and that it was one of the best books they ever read, but I just didn't see it.

Overall, though, I did like the story. Boy meets girl (named Allison!!!), boy and girl fall in love in teen years, girl is forced by parents to move away and is kept from communicating with boy, girl is being forced to marry other man while boy lives in solitude, girl goes back to visit boy one last time and ends up falling in love with him again, but how do they end up??? You'll have to read the book to find out. *cue suspenseful music*

The story was really good, just it didn't make me tear up or go, Wow, this is an amazing book and I'm now considering stealing it from the library. But whatever, I still really like Nicholas Sparks and Dear John is still pretty good.

The Shack

This book was kewl. I've been hearing people rave about this book for months, so I decided I finally had to read *cue suspense music* The Shack by Wm. Paul Young. I mean, even my Grandpa Chuck loved this book, and if he loved it, it's almost guaranteed a good read. He actually was the one who gave me my copy.
The Shack is about Mack Phillips, who had five kids: Kate, Josh, Tyler, Jon, and Missy. I say "had" because Mack now has four kids: while on a camping trip, his youngest, Missy, age six, was abducted by the serial killer known as The Little Ladykiller. There was no evidence, clues, DNA, or anything until they found Missy's torn, bloody sundress that she had disappeared in in a shack off a little road out in the middle of nowhere. Missy was now officially presumed dead. Around this time, Mack gave up his faith in God.
Flash forward to a few years later. Mack is being affected by "The Great Sadness," as he calls it, neglects to have faith in anything, and slowly his life is detiorating. Then one day, he gets a note supposedly from God, telling him to come to the Shack to get reacquainted. Against his better judgment, Mack goes. What he finds will forever change his life and yours.
I don't want to reveal too much, but let me just say that the outlook the author has on religion in this book is astounding. I've never heard God described in quite this way. First of all, in the Shack Mack does actually meet God: in the form of three people. First, there's Papa, known as the Father, who's actually a plump, welcoming African lady. Then there's Jesus, who is pretty much everything you'd expect your picture of Jesus to be only Jewish. (Isn't it sad that all our conceptions of religious figures are usually white?) Last, there's the Holy Spirit, named Sarayu for the wind. She's a petite Asian woman who loves to garden and moves in rainbows, if that makes sense. These characters teach Mack everything about God, his life, his relationships, and give him the answers he desperately needed to save his humanity.
I thought this book was going to be all religious-lovey-dovey, and actually avoid the issues that we all thought the book would answer, but it wasn't like that at all. As an almost-nonreligious person, I can honestly say this book changes your whole outlook on life. In a good way.

"Dig -- Dig Everywhere."

Oh. My. Fred and George/Gods/Harry Potter/Jasper/Edward/Emmett. This book is so good every time I read it. It's The Diary of Pelly D by L. J. Adlington. Set in the future, it's about this dude Toni V who is excavating a war-torn city that was buried in rubble not too long ago. He finds a diary, and decides to keep it and reads it. It turns out to be *shocker!* the diary of Pelly D. She writes about her life, the politics, and slowly her diary turns to darker topics: the war, discrimination against her race (Galrezi, the weakest race), the water shortages, being forced out of their home, and losing people she knew and saw every day. Toni V becomes more and more horrified at what happens in Pelly D's teenage life. He is dying to know what happens to her, but her diary leaves off abruptly. Then he has to answer the question... if all the Galrezi escaped, where did they go? And did they leave willingly?
This book will leave you completely haunted. And the only clue we have is "Dig-- Dig Everywhere."
I also want to show how her earlier entries in her diary contrast with her later entries... they start off about her superficial life and her extreme popularity and end up showing how Pelly D really feels about how the world has gone wrong.

"From up on the roof even the streets & buildings looked pretty. I cd just make out my house, over by the Plaza. Cool. I thought of all the light-years Colonists had traveled to get to this place, of all the centuries of evolution required to breed me. D*mn, I felt good!
The planet was mine for the taking!
Then Marek T blew the whistle and reminded me that the Gala was actually still happening (I think I could entirely work that out for myself, I mean, shouting to Sassy B over the noise of all the cheering was making me hoarse). Marek T had the nerve to say, would I please step off the winner's podium and get back to my seat?
--Just trying it out for size, I said."
(pg. 16)

"A few more of the older kids are missing from school, I'm sure of it. Does anyone else notice these things? It's probably something to do with the lists on the Big Screen in the main hall. A lot of students pretend to be excited to get the summons to City One-- the Big One. It's all bright lights & loud music. City Five's so-o-o-o-o rustic, they say.
Yeah, we're rustic. We've got grass as green as the stamps on all our hands. You don't have to be a political genius to see what's going on here. The CCTV cameras have quadrupled in the last couple of weeks. Who's watching all the screens?"
(pg. 135)

Remind me to check this book out of the library yet again in a couple months.

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE...

Okay, so I was reading a really creepy book called The Intruders. It sounds like science fiction, but it's actually the story of a haunted house. First, I want to tell how I found the book:
I was at the library and it was sticking out at me in the teen section. I picked it up, and since it was Permabound and not hardcover, I looked at the back for the summary, reviews, etc. Instead, I found this:

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO TAKE. IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO TAKE. IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE I WAKE, I PRAY THE LORD MY SOUL TO TAKE IFISHOULDIDEBEFOREIWAKE

Yeah. That's all that's there. Understandably, I HAD to get the book. And then once I started reading it, I thought it would turn out to be a bit lame. It's British, it's slightly cheesy at the beginning, and it didn't seem scary-- until you read on a bit further. Then the kids in the book start being haunted, and the youngest kids, Joel and Tim, are hearing whispers wherever they go: "If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take..."
Creepy book. Good book, though. Slightly gory, but not overly so, with a good story line, although I have to say about halfway through the book you get a pretty good idea of what's going on so say goodbye to any major plot twists.
This was definitely a different kind of book haunting.

Has It Really Been Four Days?

OMHP it's really been four frickin' whole days since I've finished a book. Man, I've been slow.
Anyway, this one was Joey Pigza Loses Control by Jack Gantos. I've also read Joey Pigza Swallowed The Key, which is another good book.
Joey Pigza is an ADHD kid who isn't so hyper and spazzy anymore, thanks to his medicine patch. He is going to visit his dad for a couple weeks, and his mom says his dad is just like Joey, only bigger, so Joey expects his dad to be hyper too. But Joey's dad is WAY past hyper: he drinks, smokes, can never stop talking, gets really mad at Joey when Joey screws up, etc. And then, he takes Joey's patches away, saying Joey's all better and he doesn't need them. That's when Joey LOSES CONTROL. He spazzes out majorly!
This was a good book, though, and it's in first person so you can really see what life is like through the eyes of an extremely hyper kid. Readers will also love all the weird adventures Joey gets into, from pitching at a baseball game with his dog down his jersey, or dressing up like a mannequin in a mall and scaring people.

Mean Girls-esque

Yep, I just read The Rise and Fall of a Tenth Grade Social Climber. Really good book, almost like The Princess Diaries or the Clique series in some ways. But what it really resembles is the movie Mean Girls: girl moves to a new town, makes stupid bet with unpopular friend to see if she can become a popular girl, plan works, she gets sucked in, loses herself, finds herself, keeps all her friends... etc.
Only in this book, the popular girls are bizarre, out-of-your-league cool. Viv wears enough eyeliner for fifteen people, Lily acts like she doesn't give a darn, Pia always has the latest European styles, Jess flirts with everyone she meets, and their leader, Nona, doesn't seem to be real. When Nona ends up in the hospital, the main character, Mimi, makes her move. She somehow gets into the popular clique and discovers all their secrets, and what she finds is surprising (and also that cheesy heartwarming lesson): the girls actually are real people.
This book was great, I'm so glad I found it. It is a page turner and has a little bit of everything: romance, adventure, friends, New York, psycho, eccentric parents, and everything else. Awesome book.

You Know Where To Find Me

Talk about haunting. This book was all about this girl, Miles, and her perfect cousin Laura's suicide. And also, the whole book was about drugs.
Miles is trying to deal with being overweight, goth, and always the picked-on sidekick to her best friend Jamal, and when her cousin kills herself it sends her over the edge.
This book was really depressing and deals with a lot of issues teens should know about, but it was a little dull and more of a psychological thriller and the whole horror movie, if you know what I mean.
I did like one part of this book, though. Miles and her uncle Jim always smoke together. Jim never holds out the lighter at the same time he has it lit for his cigarette, though, he just hands it to Miles to light her own cigarette. When she asks him why he does this, he says something along the lines of, "I don't like being responsible for a child smoking, it's your decision though, and I won't stand in the way of it, I'm just not going to be the one to help you." Basically he tells Miles he still thinks of her as a kid. But at the last smoke they share together, he holds out the lighter to her, already lit. See, a touching moment found through substance abuse: something only found in this book.

Brooklyn Rose

I've read other books my Ann Rinaldi, but this one is the best. It's about Rose, who is fifteen and a young lady sometimes, and just a girl at others. Her parents are in debt and need to marry her off in order to take a load off the family, so they set her up with Rene, who is easily twice Rose's age. (INSANE!!! I KNOW! THANK GOD FOR THE 21ST CENTURY AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS!) Rose is very apprehensive (I would be too) but she agrees to marry him because her friend told her he holds the mortgage on her parents' plantation.
Rene and Rose get married and go back home to Rene's house in Brooklyn. Rose feels very out of place, like anyone normal would. Can you imagine being forced into marriage and moving away from everything you grew up around at 15? Slowly, though, she's starting to love Rene. She's still very immature, though, and thinks because Rene holds the mortgage, she shouldn't fall in love with him. That's the main conflict in the book, I guess, in case you're wondering.
Also, this book is based around real people. Ann Rinaldi's grandparents or great-grandparents (can't remember which) were Rose and Rene. Rene married Rose at fifteen, and the basic storyline is true. The author says she even heard a story about how Rose had to be called in to nurse her baby from skipping rope! (Oh yeah, she gets pregnant in the last half of the book too. Wait, let me put it in 1900's speak: she becomes "with child.")
I liked this book, and I think other girls would too because
a) it's large print and pretty short, and
b) you can really relate with Rose. Not the whole married and pregnant (sorry: "with child") thing before age twenty, but feeling like everyone else wants you to be adult and have this responsibility and you feel like you've been forced to grow up too fast.
Anyway, yes, good book.

Another Book Haunting

Another that has always seemed to pop up in libraries when I'm around is Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Lee Curtis. I've been thinking it's a boring book all these years and haven't bothered to read it, but I decided it would be good to get off that list. It's actually a great story.
It's about Bud (not Buddy, obviously) who lives during the Great Depression, a time when things were pretty bad for white people, but REALLY bad for most black people. Bud lives in a home because his mother died and he doesn't know who his dad is. But he has a hint: his mother left him flyers with Herman E. Calloway and his band on them, and he thinks Mr. Calloway could be his father.
So after the home sends him to a new family and his "brother" beats him up and blames it on him so his "mother" locks him in a shed and he runs away, Bud decides he's had enough. He heads to the library to figure out how far away Herman Calloway is and walks there. He figures it's about twenty-four hours of walking, so he starts at night to get that part over with. On the way, though, he meets some unusual people. What's even crazier is who Mr. Calloway actually is...
Bud has a great sense of humor in this book, I think that was my favorite part. He grew up poor, or at least in his first ten years he did, so he's never seen indoor plumbing or been to a restaurant and done other things normal people took for granted. So he's amazed when he meets Mr. Calloway and gets to live the rich life, although working the toilet turns out to be tricky. I loved this book though. Wow, it seems like all my book hauntings were actually for a good reason!
Another part I like is how Buddy talks. When something happens without meaning too, he always says, "whoop, zoop, sloop!" It's really cool, kind of like his catch phrase. I totally recommend this book, even though it's at like a third grade reading level. It's great for everyone.