A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

Miss Shayne is back with a savage book review!  And stay tuned this week for some special programming on the blog. Reading the synopsis for this book, I wasn't sure I would like Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones. It sounded like a meager fairy tale. Since the cover was beautiful and plastered with appraisals that made reading it seem worthwhile, I decided to take a gamble. Never let me into a casino, folks, because I will never hit the jackpot. Wintersong tells the story of Liesl, who grew up playing her violin for the Goblin King in the Goblin Grove, a clearing in the woods by her house where the Goblin King was able to cross into the world above the ground. In addition to playing her violin, Liesl would play games and make careless gambles, not understanding the gravity of what she was promising the Goblin King. Now that she is grown, the Goblin King expects her to fulfill all that she had promised as a child. Because years have passed, Liesl has forgotten the Goblin K...

Miss Shayne returns this week with another review!  This title is new to teen collection at the library. This book follows the individual stories of Juliet and Declan and how they become intertwined. Juliet’s mother recently passed away and to help cope with the sadness, Juliet writes letters to her mother and leaves them at her grave. One day, a letter is discovered by Declan, who is doing community service in the graveyard after getting drunk and crashing a truck into a building. Declan reads the letter, relates to what Juliet wrote, and writes a response. This begins an anonymous correspondence between the two. When they are in school, these two don’t get along. Juliet is an artistic student who has had a hard time getting back into the swing of things since her mother’s passing, and Declan is an outcast who seems to only have one friend: Rev. Even though they run with different crowds at school, Declan and Juliet get along when they are writing anonymous letters to...

Our guest reveiwer, Miss Shayne, returns this week with a new review! This semester I am taking a class called Research in Literary Studies. Before you get too bored, this class is strictly on everything Alice in Wonderland . We started by reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland , Alice in Wonderland spinoffs inspired by the original book, and watching several Alice films. I then had to choose a book that was based on the original Alice in Wonderland and write a report on it. I’m grateful I got to pick a book to read this semester because I’m often forced into reading literature that I don’t care for, but this book was a bad choice. I decided to read Insanity by Cameron Jace. In this story, Alice Wonder has been in a mental institution for the past two years. Two years ago, she accidentally killed everyone in her class. She doesn’t remember that incident or anything she did before being admitted into the asylum. The only ray of light in her life is the tiger lily she is all...

Frozen Charlotte is the third novel written by Alex Bell who has seven books to her name, some of which belong to the horror genre.   Frozen Charlotte , a young adult novel, is a creepy, strange, mysterious ghost story.  It is a terrifying read for much of the novel especially once the reader intuits just what is actually afoot regarding one of the characters. Following a frightening and bewildering incident with a ouija board cell phone app in a cafe, Sophie's best friend, Jay, drowns in a freak biking accident on the way home.  Dealing with her grief over Jay's death and determined to find out exactly what happened that night, Sophie travels to the Isle of Skye to stay with her uncle and cousins, Cameron, Piper, and Lilas, over vacation while her parents go on a long planned trip to California.  By the end of the novel this inciting mystery will be eclipsed by the story of the disturbing evil that is source of the nail biting horror. Sophie fears she and Jay...

Miss Shayne returns this week with the review for the second installment of the Graceling Realm series by Kristin Cashore.  Read on for her thoughts about Fire by Kristin Cashore! As I mentioned in my blog post reviewing Graceling by Kristin Cashore, I wasn’t expecting another book in this series. However, this book is a partner to Graceling . It is set in an area adjacent to the realm where Graceling takes place. However, the areas (somehow) don’t know of one another and the superhuman phenomenon is different. In this land, instead of people being graced with abilities, there are monsters in the shape of animals and humans. For example, there are regular raptors and there are monster raptors that come in a variety of colors. These monsters are so enchanting; they can lure people to their deaths. Fire (appropriately named because her hair is like fire) is the last of the human monsters. She is beautiful and has the ability to manipulate people’s thoughts. Her father was ...

Miss Shayne returns with a new book review.  Read on to find out what she's reading! This book has been on my bookshelf at home since summer. I have a habit of collecting books with every intention of reading them, only to discover I don’t have enough time to read my ever-growing library. I was determined to pick something out and read it over my winter break. I decided on Graceling  by Kristen Cashore mostly because I thought it wasn’t part of a series. As it turns out, it’s a trilogy. So I have my work cut out for me. In this book, some people have incredible abilities called graces. These graces range from mind reading to predicting weather patterns to baking good bread. A person could be graced with anything—even if it’s useless. In most countries, the graced usually strike fear into the hearts of people who are not graced. In Katsa’s case, this is especially true. She has the ability to fight really well and this has resulted in her harming several people and killin...

What the Dead Want is Norah Olson's second novel; it is the first novel by Olson that I've read.  It's a rather fast paced novel in that the whole story takes place over just a couple or three days.  This is also a young adult novel.  I don't read a lot of YA, and even though there are quite a few YA titles in the library that pique my interest, I usually don't ever get around to reading them. Gretchen travels on short notice out to the boonies of upstate New York to spend the summer helping a great-aunt she never knew she had clean out her family's ancestral mansion.  When phrased like this, this seems an extremely ill-advised decision that Gretchen, a teenager, makes.  And her de facto guardian, Janine, just lets her make it even though Janine is so "level headed" and calm.  When Gretchen arrives, she finds the mansion isolated, dark, and in disrepair; the aunt, Esther, is eccentric and evasive; and cell phone reception is spotty and unreliable....

Miss Shayne returns with another review for the blog! In this story, we get to view the world through the eyes of a troubled teen who cannot speak. Instead, he writes everything down. This is both his main form of communication and his hobby.  Because of his journaling, he is very introspective and observant. He also enjoys telling stories and spending time alone or stealing things from people in hotels. This is how our story begins. Once Parker meets Zelda in a hotel (after trying to steal from her), he is immediately drawn to her because her eyes convey what he calls “prefect sadness.” For someone who looks so young, how can this be? After a conversation with her, Parker discovers that Zelda is planning on jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge once she spends all of her money. She offers to spend it on Parker if he “treats her like a teenager.” Parker is tasked with devising typical teenager activities for Zelda, not because he wants her money, but because he needs to find out...

The Accident Season is Moira Fowley-Doyle's debut novel.  Her next novel will be released next year.  Fowley-Doyle lives and writes in Ireland where her novels are set. Every October brings the accident season down on the Morris family during which its members suffer inexplicable accidents that usually cause bodily harm or worse.  Some years are worse than others; there was the accident season that claimed Cara's father and the one in which her uncle Seth died.  Despite the family's extra precautions every accident season, such as adding extra layers of clothing, padding to sharp edges around the house, or replacing the gas range with an electric one, Cara and her mother, sister, Alice, and ex-stepbrother, Sam, suffer cuts, scrapes, bruises and broken bones.  And according to Cara's best friend Bea's tarot cards, this accident season is going to be the worst of them all.  Because this accident season won't just tear skin and break bone, it will reveal ...

Miss Shayne returns this week with a new review of a YA title! “This has a bizarre cover,” I thought as I looked for something to read before I got my hands on the next book in the series I am currently invested in. As I paged through this book, I thought, “it doesn’t look like a long read, either. Lemme check it out.” Let this be a warning to book cover-judgers everywhere: don’t make the same mistake I did! This story is about the complicated relationship between Wink, Poppy, and Midnight. They are all connected somehow, whether they show it or not. Wink is the imaginative girl who lives beside Midnight. Midnight is the awkward boy who is quiet and analytical. Poppy is the pretty blonde bully. Their lives converge, and their interactions lead up to an event that alters the lives of all three and uncovers some truths in the process. What I like about this book was how introspective the characters are. Poppy in particular realizes the error of her ways and goes off to be hap...

Miss Shayne returns with a review of the first book of the Endgame trilogy.  Stay tuned for her reviews of the rest of the trilogy later this summer! This is the first book in the Endgame trilogy. Years ago aliens enslaved humanity and left them with a message: one day, they will return, and the world will end, and only one of the original 12 bloodlines will survive. In the present day, twelve people from the ages of 13-20 compete in a worldwide scavenger hunt by solving riddles in order to find three keys. The winner of the scavenger hunt will save their bloodline, and everyone else on the planet will die.   Because the premise of this book sounds ridiculously close to The Hunger Games , people have refused to read it. This book has taken a lot of heat from people who haven’t even read it, which makes me sad. Though there are minor similarities, this book is completely different from The Hunger Games . It is different from most of the other books that I’ve read ...

This week brings another review installment of the Shades of London series by Maureen Johnson.  This review is from our guest reviewer Miss Shayne. This is the third book in the Shades of London series.   Since I read the first two, I had to get my hands on this one.   I was really excited for this book.   The author left us with a big cliffhanger to draw us back in once again.   I had to continue reading to find out the fate of one my favorite characters. In this book, our protagonist Rory has to go into hiding because she knows people are looking for her.   She cannot be found because of her involvement with a secret organization.   There are things going on that the public can’t know about due to their supernatural nature.   In the midst of all of this madness, Rory also has to aid in the search for her kidnapped classmate.   If all of this wasn’t enough, Rory’s therapist is crazy and is ...

This week's review is our semi-regular guest reviewer Miss Shayne.  This week she's reviewing the second title in a series; the first title of this particular series was one her Staff Picks 2015. After reading the first book in this series, I was confused.  The author left us hanging with a game changer!  It was then I realized that this book is part of a series.  Maureen Johnson’s cliffhanger successfully drew me back in.  I had to have more. This is the second book in the Shades of London series.  With shiny new characters and a more complex plot than the first book, this book had everything the first book lacked.  And I enjoyed the first book, too. After nearly being murdered, our protagonist Rory had to be taken out of school to go live with her parents and undergo some therapy.  A string of shady events lead her back to school where she must try tirelessly to catch up with her classes.  This is impossible though because Rory lea...

Miss Shayne is starting off the series with her picks for 2015.  Read on to see what she picked for her 'best of' for the year! Books Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi: Miss Shayne says she loved the strong, female lead character who starts with nothing and works to get to a powerful position.  Miss Shayne also liked the journal that the lead character kept throughout this beautifully written book. The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson Miss Shayne recommends this good ghost story that stars a girl who's relatable.  The girl has to make new friends to solve a murder mystery. Movie : Jurassic World Music  1000 Forms of Fear (album) by Sia Sale el Sol (album) by Shakira Minutes to Midnight (album) by Linkin Park What Miss Shayne is looking forward to in 2016 : Sia's new album, This Is Acting Shakira's next new release, rumored to be in 2016

Hello, readers!  This week's review is by guest reviewer, Miss Shayne; for Miss Shayne's previous review posted to this blog, please click here , and for Miss Shayne's Staff Picks 2014 post, please click here . I had been eyeing up this book since I saw we had it. I know I shouldn’t judge books by their covers, but I usually do. I was instantly drawn to this mysterious-looking book with the black-and-white forest on the cover. The Creeping looked so wonderfully creepy. This story takes place in a small town called Savage. We are immediately introduced to the main character, Stella, and her friends. We also get a bit of background information. Eleven years ago, Stella and her friend Jeanie disappeared, and only Stella returned chanting over and over, “If you hunt for monsters, you’ll find them.”  However, Stella doesn’t remember anything that happened that day. Eleven years later, a little girl’s body is discovered, and the story launches into a murder mystery as Stella ...

It's been a long, long time since I've read a graphic novel.  I found this one when I was perusing Amazon.  You know how that goes: you go on there to look up one book and then the next thing you know, it's two hours later,  you've got a long list of interesting titles you want to read and you've forgotten why you went on there in the first place.  Or maybe that only happens to me. Through The Woods is a graphic novel.  Carroll is a graphic artist who publishes many short comics via her website and in other print anthologies.  She lives in Canada.  I like to read a graphic novel every once in a while, and this one seemed right up my alley because the stories looked spooky. This is a collection of several tales told in the graphic novel/comic format--all of them twisted, all creepy, with endings bleak and dark as the tales themselves.  These are tales of monsters and murder, of things that hide in the dark of the shadows and the night. ...

This is, I think, the first book that by Julie Halpern that I've read.  It's Young Adult fiction, it's a slim novel, and it's a quick read.  The novel opens on a death in the family and a betrayal between friends (drama), there's cancer (for which I was afraid I'd need tissues at the end of the story, but I did not), and a blossoming romance (awww).  This is a witty, irreverent, heartfelt, at times humorous, at others heartbreaking, tale. Alex takes the summer off from her best friend, Becca, after Becca sleeps with Alex's boyfriend at Alex's father's funeral (I said there was drama).  This is no big deal in part because Alex wasn't really 'in love' with said boyfriend.  Besides Alex and Becca have forgiven each other numerous transgressions over the many years of their friendship, so it's a given that Alex will forgive Becca come the first day of school.  Right now she just needs space to process her father's death and to att...

Amelia Anne Is Dead and Gone is the spellbinding debut novel by Kat Rosenfield.  Technically it's young adult fiction.  But old adults will appreciate it too. It's the day after Becca's high school graduation when the bruised and broken body of an anonymous, young girl is found on the edge of town.  It's been over a decade since the town's last homicide--a cut and dried affair, so to speak, in which the identities of both perpetrator and victim were known from the outset, requiring a minimum of investigation.  The new homicide, of an as yet unidentified young woman, is even more brutal, unsettling and bewildering, and it threatens to shake this small community down to its core and change it forever. Becca's struggling during the summer after her graduation.  She's struggling, spinning out, spiraling out of control; her heart's broken, she's nauseous, she's gaunt and spaced out and is increasingly finding solace at the bottom of a wine bott...

Published in 2009 The Everafter is Amy Huntley's first and (thus far) only novel.  It's a fast, suspenseful, and sad read--I read it in a day.  Unfortunately, it is not available in county; I requested it through Inter-library Loan. Madison Stanton wakes up dead in an endless, dark void populated only by the glowing objects she lost during her lifetime.  She discovers each object is a portal to the moment in her life when she lost that object.  She can use these objects to relive those moments to see her family and friends again who were involved in those moments, but there are rules.  If she finds an object while reliving that moment, it disappears from the void and she can never return to that moment in her life.  She can change the moments' outcomes, but in changing them, she also changes herself in imperceptible but monumental ways. Using these objects Madison slowly pieces together who she was, who her family and friends were, when she died, and...

Where She Went is the sequel and follow up to Gayle Forman's debut novel, If I Stay , a novel that was previously reviewed here on the blog.   If I Stay was devastating and suspenseful and it is available here at the library.  I recommend you read it before you read Where She Went which is also available here at the library. If I Stay was told from the perspective of Mia in the wake of the car crash that killed her entire family; it took place over the several days she spent in a coma as she decided whether to stay or die with the rest of her family. Where She Went is told from Adam's perspective.  Adam was Mia's boyfriend and much like Mia reminisced about memories shared with her family and boyfriend throughout her coma, Adam shares his own perspective on that fateful week and the years since that have been spent estranged from Mia. Over three years have passed since the horrific crash that took the lives of Mia's parents and brother and nearly hers too.  ...