Pretty Little Liars - Book Review by Lindsay

Pretty Little Liars  by Sara Shepard

High school juniors Aria, Spencer, Emily, and Hannah are 4 pretty girls with some ugly secrets. Hannah had low self-esteem because her own father called her overweight, but after making herself eat greasy, fatty food, then throw up, she's one of the prettiest, most popular girls in school now. She stopped for a while, but after some stressful things happen, all she wants to do is eat. Is she going to fall back into her bad habbits? Aria has always been the unique one but very unsure of herself. She contantly tries out different personality types, to see which one is most pleasing to other people, and make her popular, so she won't be just the weird girl with the pig-puppet. But when she meets an older man in a bar, was pretending to be someone she's not the best idea after all? Spencer is always surpassed by her older sister Mellissa, from school, to boyfriends. Spencer is always a little envious. And when Mellissa brings home her new super cute, British boyfriend, will Spencer be able to push aside her jealousy and resist temptations? And Emily, her life is going pretty well, she's doing good in school, and one of the stars of the swim team. But things shake up a little when there's a new girl, Maya, moving in across from her. Emily is very intrigued by Maya, and soon learns some secrets about her, and maybe herself. But are Emily's feelings for Maya a little more than friendly?

What do all these girls have in common? They were all best friends in 7th grade, along with their "pack leader", Alison. But the summer 7th grade ends, Ali goes missing, and nobody knows what happened to her. All the girls are really confused and creeped out by this, and since it happened, their friendship broke off. But there's something even scarier happening now, the girls are getting messages from someone who obviously knows secrets about them, the mysterious person only signs their name with an "A". Is it Alison? No. She's been missing for 3 years. She has to be dead by now, and ghosts can't send texts and emails, right?

I liked this book; the plot is really interesting and suspenseful! I liked how the book is told in switching view-points between Aria, Spencer, Hannah, and Emily. It made it easy to stay interested when there's 4 kinda seperate stories, and I like how they all tie to each other. It did get a little confusing at first, but other than that it's a really light read, no big complicated words, it's written pretty simply.

Book review by Lindsay

The Summer I turned Pretty - Book Review by Lindsay

The Summer I Turned Pretty  by Jenny Han

This book is about a 15 year old girl named Isabel, or Belly, as she goes by, who pretty much lives for summer. At the beginning of every summer, Belly, her brother Steven, and her mom go to a place called Cousins beach, where Belly's best friend's mom lives. Her mom's friend, Susannah, has 2 sons, Jeremiah, and Conrad. Jeremiah and Conrad have been just friends with Belly since they were little kids, but that doesn't mean Belly hasn't been crushing on either of them... And this year is different. In more ways than Belly knows at first. For one; She's matured a lot over the past year, this is the summer she turned pretty.

I was a little hesitant to read this at first; it sounded cliche, predictable and kind of boring. But it most definitely was not. (Well, some parts were, but it was still really good.)  I'm so glad I decided to give this book a chance because I really, really loved it! It's one of my favorites. I literally read it in a day. Belly is such a relatable character, and you can really connect with her emotions. And I loved most of the other characters too. I liked how there were little flashback chapters, where you could learn about some of Belly's past, it makes you almost feel like you grew up with the characters. This is the first book in a trilogy; I'm about halfway through the second book and I can't wait to read the third!

Book Review by Lindsay

Matched - Book Review by Lindsay

Matched by Allie Condie

In a "perfect" future society, the government controls absolutely everything. What you eat, what you wear, who you marry, when you marry, ect. When you're 17 years old, the society holds a "matching" ceremony for you, an event where they match you with the person that you will eventually marry. The society uses algorithms to find your perfect match, it's guaranteed you'll get along great, dating made easy, right? Not for Cassia. Cassia is both shocked and happy when she finds out that she's matched with her best friend since childhood, Xander. They give her a microchip that contains information about Xander that she's supposed to look at later. But when she does look at it, something extremely strange happens, something that's never happened before. Instead of Xander's face showing up on the computer screen, it's a different boy's, a boy Cassia recognizes as Ky Markham. Cassia is confused, shocked, and worried. A society Official tells Cassia that it was just a glitch in the system, Ky shouldn't even be in the matching system, she gives her a new microchip, and says she should just forget about it. But Cassia is too intrigued by this "glitch" to pretend like it never happened.

Matched is a great book, and very unique. It has a great plot with tons of twists and mysteries, and interesting characters. It's a real page-turner that you can't help but stay up late reading! 

Book Review by Lindsay

Liar - Book Review by Lindsay

Liar  by Justine Larbalestier

Liar is about a 17 year-old girl named Micah, who is a compulsive liar. Micah is the narrator of the book, but she swears that she'll tell nothing but the truth for once while she's telling you her story. When her boyfriend goes missing, everyone thinks that with her history of lying, she should be a major suspect in the crime.

I did not really like this book. Micah is just a really annoying and bitter character. There are lots of twists and stuff in the story but half of them don't even make sense. When you get about halfway through the book, there's a really random plot twist that just makes you go like, "Whoa, where did that even come from?!" I won't spoil it, but it just makes no sense. This book messes with your mind a lot, and it can be pretty hard to follow. You know how Micah says she'll tell you nothing but the truth? Yeah, well she's a compulsive liar. She wasn't even being honest when she said that. She says one thing, and then later she tells you that it was a lie. Eventually it gets so annoying, and you don't even believe that anything she says about the story is true anymore. Because it's probably not. The ending is terrible, it feels like the author got really lazy. it makes no sense, It really gives no conclusion, and it just leaves you guessing.

Book review by Lindsay

Fallen Angels - Book Review by Janae

Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers

Fallen Angels is a Vietman-War story full of action, comedy, and drama.  It is told from the point of view of a soldier named Richie Perry, a black man just out of high school.  He had dreams of playing basketball until he injured his knee during a game.  In order to keep his family out of the poor house, Perry joined the military, hoping not to get into too much combat due to his injury.  That did not work out in his favor... By being sent to Vietnam, Perry gained some great friends and got a few more injuries on his plate, and learned many life lessons in the process.  But the question is if he can survive until the end of the war?  Surprisingly enough, Fallen Angels was a great book (in my opinion).

Book Review by Janae

The Future of Us - Book Review by Lindsay

The Future of Us   By Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

It's the year 1996, and Emma just got her first computer as a gift from her father. Josh comes from next-door, over to her house with a CD-ROM that his family got in the mail, but when they install it, a weird little blue icon pops up. When Emma clicks on it, it takes her to this extremely weird website... Facebook: a website where people post details about their personal lives on the internet where everyone can see. What they had for dinner, how work is stressing them out, new relationships, why do they put these things on the internet? ...But wait, it's 1996, Facebook hasn't even been invented yet... What Emma and Josh are looking at are their Facebook profiles 15 years in the future, where it shows their future friends, spouse, kids, job, location, everything. The thing is, every thing they do now effects what their future will be, so every time they log on, something's different. Will they save themselves from making massive mistakes in the future, or just make things go completely haywire?

I loved this book! I read it because Jay Asher, the author of 13 Reasons Why, (Which i also liked), co-wrote it. The characters are lively, realistic, relatable, and full of personality. The pop-culture references are funny, the romance is suspenseful, and you'll stay up late reading cause you just have to know what happens next! It has that fantasy feel, since they can pretty much see the future, yet it seems real. It has a little of everything so I'm sure you'll enjoy it!

Book Review by Lindsay

Strings Attached - Book Review by Lindsay

Strings Attached    By Judy Blundell

Kit Coorigan is a 17 year-old girl, who dreams of being a big-time dancer in Broadway. It's 1950's New york, Kit ran away from her home in Rhode Island, to become famous, and to try and forget about her bad breakup with Billy, who is in the army and is heading to Korea. Kit got a job as a showgirl, but the money just isn't enough, Billy's father, Nate, who is a former gangster, and currently a lawyer defending criminals, gives Kit a great apartment and designer clothes, so what's in it for him? All he asks is Kit try to get Billy to come home, and do an occasional favor for him...

The book has lots of romance and a little mystery. However, the romance is kind of unexplained, Kit loves Billy, will do anything for him, and vice-versa, but why? The book mentions that Kit cried constantly because of Billy, and Billy seems to get easily irritated by Kit. I found myself NOT wanting them to be together. The characters seemed a little dull too, easily forgettable, with little personality. The ending was... Not great, I have unanswered questions about a few things. It's kind of a sad ending too, but i never really got emotionally attached, and failed to sympathize with the characters. It's not a completely terrible book, but i don't really recommend it, if you really want YA historical fiction, I'd try The Luxe series instead.

Book Review by Lindsay