A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

Gemma Doyle is 16 and living in India with her parents. She wishes desperately that she lived in England where she could be going to a proper school like a civilized teenage girl. Her mother believes firmly that she should not go back to live there because she is against all that they stand for in preparing girls to walk the straight and narrow and answer to their husbands every whim. After a disagreement while out in a marketplace Gemma runs off angrily, during her moments apart from her mother she gets sucked into a 'dream' of some sort that takes her over. In this dream her mother is being followed and after being caught she pulls a knife from her bodice and plunges it into her chest. Gemma awakens to find herself still lying in the street with an Indian boy questioning her, but it doesn't take long before that very dream begins to unravel right in front of her, ending in her mother's death.

Gemma is shipped off to the very prep school her mother loathed and she learns all too quickly why her mother was opposed to such a situation. Young girls can be harsh and cruel, especially when there is a new girl and she's in their territory. Gemma must try to fit in as much as she can while knowing something is terribly wrong with her, how did she see her mother's death before it actually happened? If the others find out she will be ridiculed, but it happens again at school and she is starting to think she can't hide it. Then there is the young boy from the street in India, he has followed her to the school and is watching her, leaving cryptic messages and telling her to stop what she's doing but the mystery of The Order is too powerful for her to ignore. Will it also be too powerful for her to overcome?

I enjoyed this book on audio download. I cannot comment on the readability of this novel, but I can tell you that listening to it through my ipod held my attention completely. The person that told the story did a wonderful job. The spiritual nature of this book builds so gradually that by the end it truly reaches a climax and has an ending that doesn't leave you hanging. This is the first book in the Gemma Doyle series and I half expected that I would be left frustrated at the end like other YA series that don't give you a real ending between each installment. I was very pleased with this one.

I love watching the relationships build in the story and seeing how the young girls interacted. It was very real without being cruel or harsh. With this novel taking place in the victorian era there was no issue at all with language, violence or sexual situations since those are all things that were avoided by young ladies in that period. It was not written prudishly or on some moral high ground, just realistic to the period. I love reading a good YA book that is NOT centered around hormone crazy teens, sex and violence! This was just the thing for me. I'm sure that I would have loved reading a hard copy of this book just as much as I loved listening to it on my ipod.

Chasing Brooklyn by Lisa Schroeder

Chasing Brooklyn is the story of Brooklyn and Nico, two people overcoming the grief of losing a loved one. Lucca was Nico brother and Brooklyn long time boyfriend and an all around great guy that came to a sudden and early demise in a terrible car accident in which his best friend Gabe was driving and survived. In the beginning of the book it is the one year anniversary of Lucca's death, and everyone is taking it quite hard, especially Gabe who was found at home after having over-dosed and now is gone also. Brooklyn is closing down and Nico sees her but doesn't know what to do because it's even harder on him since his parents still haven't moved on with the death of their son either. Suddenly, a whole year after his death, Lucca begins to show up in the dreams of his brother and eventually makes himself present when Nico is away too. His message to Nico... "Help Brooklyn". How? What's wrong with her? She won't talk to him so how is he supposed to know how to help? Will Nico help break down Brooklyn's walls and help her to live again or will the walls that are coming down on him keep them apart?

Chasing Brooklyn is an absolutely beautiful book written in verse as a daily journal of two people dealing with grief and loss. There are so many facets to their lives and relationships with all of the people around them and Schroeder does a great job of showing the feeling and the haze that falls upon them as they are grieving and trying to break through. Living with nightmares and trying to run away from reality is pretty much defining Brooklyn and Nico, fear of living lives again because the person they each loved more than anything no longer has life.

This book is not action packed, it is just a simple and beautifully written look at human emotion and healing and Schroeder did a fantastic job at hitting those emotions straight to the readers heart with the style she writes in. I've never read a book this long written in verse and on top of that it kept me spellbound from beginning to end.

Bleeding Violet by Dia Reeves

2.5 stars

Hanna loves talking to her father, they have long conversations and he is her best friend. That would be fine if her father was alive. He died over a year ago and he's been with Hanna ever since. Her Aunt has had her sent to psychiatrists and locked away in mental hospitals with multiple diagnoses finally coming to Manic Depression which puts her on medication to control her moods. She is on the road now headed to Texas toward a mother she has never met, by the guidance of her father she gets there much to the surprise of Rosalee, her mother, she just walks right into her home and makes herself comfortable.

Rosalee finds out that Hanna hit her Aunt on the head with a rolling pin in order to run away, and now she has no chance of returning which means she must stay with Rosalee, her only living relative. The very next day she is sent to school to register and finds out that in this town she is considered to be 'normal'. The strange things that happen around this place make her look like someone without a problem in the world. She meets Wyatt, the strong, handsome, brave boy that everyone in the school looks up to and he actually notices Hanna, she is beautiful but being a "transient" he shouldn't have given her a second glance. While living here she will face her inner demons as well as real live ones that try to kill the people of the town. Wyatt and Hanna must prove their strength and bravery to everyone around them but will it pay off in the end?

I'm going to start my review by saying this book, IMHO, is in no way suitable for teens to read. I can't believe it's classified as YA fiction. It is riddled with cussing, use of unknown drugs, lying, stealing and lots of sex. The sex is enough that any parent should worry about their child reading this. Rosalee and Hanna both flaunt and admire the fact that they each use sex as a tool to use and abuse men and that feelings are something that shouldn't be had. Sex is something to get what you want and nothing more. Rosalee is quite proud of her numerous affairs with married men and the fact that she 'fascinates' men enough that they fall in love with her and she throws them to the side like trash. She talks with her daughter about all of this and gives her a box of condoms so her daughter can do the same thing with Wyatt to snag him and get him to take care of Hanna.

The story itself is different, new. Something that held my interest beyond the gasps of disbelief as I read things imagining a 14 yr old reading them after checking this out from the library. It had a pretty cheesy ending and not much depth to the story that revolved around Hanna being completely crazy to begin with, then moving into "crazy-ville" itself and letting her crazy loose since it was no longer taboo. As an adult I can say read it if you like that sort of YA book because you'll probably love it, but I do caution parents to think twice about letting your teens read it.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Imagine waking up in complete darkness in a strange box and knowing nothing more than your name. Thomas awakened to that reality on page 1 of the Maze Runner. Where is he, why is this place filled with nothing but teenaged boys and why can he remember nothing specific about his life prior to the box? Once a month a new boy is sent up through the box where he is taken into the Glade and trained in several jobs to find each boys strong suit. Thomas shows up no different than any other 'Greenbean' or 'Greenie' (new kid) but less than 24 hrs later the alarm sounds again notifying the boys that another person is coming up in the box... only this time when it reaches the top, it's a teenage girl and she's in a coma. She has a message for the boys that Everything is going to change.

The days to follow the girl and the message lead to many strange occurances in a place where things are always in Order and on Schedule. They must solve the puzzle of their captivity in order to find the Creator of their locked up world and fight for their freedom. Is it worth fighting for anymore or is the world outside even worse than the maze they exist in now where you must avoid being stung by terrible animal/machine creatures that what nothing more than to steal them away and tear them apart? Without a memory of their life before the Glade, none of them truly know what they are fighting to get out to... just what they are fighting to get away from.

The Maze Runner is the first novel in what will be a trilogy written by James Dashner. It takes place in a dystopian society where teenage boys with a strange dialect seem to be in charge and running things pretty smoothly. Thomas shows up and wants to be a "Runner", the people that run the maze to find an exit. He doesn't know why he wants to do it because it's extremely dangerous, but deep in his gut he is driven to this job in particular. Thomas's character is not very well developed but since he has no memory of who he is prior to the box all we know is the integrity and strength we see as he performs his daily tasks and through his eyes we get a better glimpse of some of the other characters, like Minho, Chuck and Newt.

Unlike most YA genre books there were no romantic ties at all in this book, that was a good change for me. It moved along at an Ok pace and had enough action and drama, I suppose, but it seemed to lack something for me. I really had to force myself to finish the book so I could see how it ended and I found myself skimming the pages a lot just reading the dialogue. The story was different and new but not anywhere near the calibre of the Hunger Games trilogy, another dystopian series I very highly recommend. It was an entertaining enough read if you have nothing else on your TBR list.

Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

Her Fearful Symmetry is a dark and haunting story following mirror twins Julia and Valentina. Their mother Edie is also a twin but has been estranged from her sister Elspeth for 20 years. Now Julia and Valentina are 20 yrs old and have just found out that their aunt, that they never knew, has died and left everything to them with a few stipulations that are mystifying. They must be 21 yrs old before accepting any of it and live in her flat in London for 1 yr before they are permitted to sell it, plus, their parents must never be allowed to stay there in that flat.

Niffenegger is a literary artist in the way she paints a visual canvas using only words. The story was well written and the characters are well developed and very easy to like. She has woven a tale that keeps you interested in every aspect of the many characters without being confusing and gives a glimpse of London to those of us that may never make it over there. I fell in love with the people and never found a point in the book that was lagging where I felt a need to skim through just to get by.

Towards the end the story takes many unexpected turns (and I'm usually great at predicting twists) and some of them made me *gasp* while others left me frustrated. The book was already at 400 pages but I didn't care for the abrupt and odd ending, I wished she would have stretched it a little longer to give it an end that matched the rest of this fantastic book.

Ending aside, this was an absolutely wonderful book that kept me turning pages for hours on end, I finished it in one day because I couldn't put it down. I recommend this book as long as you are not a person that gets bent out of shape when a book doesn't end your way with the perfect happy ending. This one is far from that and definitely borders on odd and disjointed in the last 1/4 of the book, but still was an outstanding novel.

Deadly Little Lies by Laurie Faria Stolarz

Deadly Little Lies is book 2 in the Touch Series. If you haven't read Deadly Little Secrets, check that one out first...

Camelia is back at school for the second semester of her Junior year. It would seem that things couldn't get much worse than they were in the first semester, with being kidnapped and held in a secluded trailer by a psychotic ex-boyfriend and all, but things suddenly take a strange turn once again. Photos and strange messages begins showing up in her life again at the same time that Ben returns to school and tells her that he wants space and doesn't think they should be together. Camelia is heartbroken but Spencer hires a new college student at Knead that happens to be a good looking guy who's very interested in her and his name's Adam. Will Ben become jealous and decide he made a mistake? What will happen with the threatening messages and phone calls she's suddenly receiving again?

Deadly Little Lies held my attention from the beginning, I am always wondering what is going on in Ben's head and why he continues to avoid Camelia. Camelia has discovered that her new psychometric ability to sculpt objects of future (or past) relevance is with her to stay but she would like nothing more than to share this with Ben.

The overall story isn't all that different from Deadly Little Secrets. Ben tries to avoid Camelia and ignore the chemistry that pulls them together. Another boy enters in and tries to take her attention away but fails at which point Ben makes himself more present and weird things begin to happen making him look all too guilty.

Good for a lazy day that you want a quick book that requires no concentration to read. A simple story with suspense and mystery. Fairly predictable, and as I said before, very similar to the first book. But, if you liked Deadly Little Secrets then you will like 'Lies'. I enjoyed it enough that I plan to read book 3, Deadly Little Games (Dec 2010).

Don't think about anything else

Micah's 5th birthday is on Monday, but I'm going to be in Maine on vacation... HOW DARE I DO THAT!! Anyway... he has been wanting to go to Toys R Us to spend his birthday money like it's burning a hole in his pockets. (a whopping $10 so far that doesn't get you much at Toys R Us, but he doesn't know this yet) Today I gathered up all 3 of our $5 eGift cards, courtesy of babies R us on Facebook simply for becoming a fan, and his $3 Birthday gift card from the toys r us birthday club and off we went now with a grand total of $28 in his hands (in my purse actually).

This boy likes to shop about as much as any man likes to meander through the hallways of the mall. Not at all. Not even at Toys R Us. We were ALL business. He wanted to blow his money and get outta there! LOL We walked in and he grabbed a jump rope, threw it in the cart, said "That's what I want, can we go now?". Like I was the one that begged for a week to be there. I said "But Micah, that only costs $2 and you have $26 left, do you want to save it?". "Ummmm, No, I'll find more stuff. I want a soccer ball"

We grab the soccer ball, and a football while we're at it. He throws in a water gun, then pulls it back out stating that "it's still too cold for playing with water right now". We go to the back of the store to the area that is considered hallowed ground by many male creatures... The video game section. This caught his attention, even at not-quite 5 yrs old. He picked Star Wars Lego Wii and threw it in the cart. Glanced over the numerous titles one more time then grabbed the front of the cart and began pulling it along as he walked away saying "Ok Mom, that's enough, it's time to go now", and I agreed.

We start walking through the store finding our way back to the registers to check out and the whole time Micah is firmly pulling the cart at a pretty decent pace saying (quite loudly) "Don't think about anything else, Mom. Don't think about anything else. We're all done now. Don't think about anything else" Is this a 5 yr old's attempt at hypnosis? Or repetitive chanting hoping he can be saved from endless hours shopping because he knows his mother well enough to know that it COULD go on for endless hours. Micah always cracks me up. :)