Review: Stolen by Lucy Christopher

I had been hearing a lot of buzz about this book and was so excited to read it. I only knew a little bit about the book—that it is about a teenage girl who is kidnapped and that there is something unusual and interesting about her captor—but people were so excited about it, I knew I had to read it. It took FOREVER (or it seemed like it, perhaps I was overexcited and impatient) for it to come in for me at the library, and when I finally got it, I dove right in and didn't stop until I was done.

I've read a few books about kidnappings, but never one like this. The story is written as a letter from Gemma to Ty, which is really helpful in understanding Gemma and her complicated relationship to Ty. I never expected to end up with Gemma and Ty in the Australian outback, but like many other aspects of this novel, its location is probably one of the most vivid and memorable I have read.

Ty is one of the most interesting characters I think I have ever read. You hate him, but don't; he's crazy, but he's not; he's aggressive, but gentle. Like Gemma, my feelings for Ty were so complex that I didn't even feel like I completely understood them.

More than just a story about a kidnapping, Lucy Christopher's novel is a complete eye-opener. Through Gemma's story, she is able to take what we all know as the truth and flip it so we, as well as Gemma, are not sure what is actually right and what is wrong.

Definitely 5 stars for this book!

Review: Wildthorn by Jane Eagland

Wildthorn by Jane Eagland
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, September 2010
352 pages
Rating: 4 out of 5

From Goodreads:

Seventeen-year-old Louisa Cosgrove longs to break free from her respectable life as a Victorian doctor's daughter. But her dreams become a nightmare when Louisa is sent to Wildthorn Hall: labeled a lunatic, deprived of her liberty and even her real name. As she unravels the betrayals that led to her incarceration, she realizes there are many kinds of prison. She must be honest with herself - and others - in order to be set free. And love may be the key...

I didn't really know what to expect from Wildthorn.  I don't usually read historical YA fiction, so it was a very different read for me. I also found the book to be incredibly refreshing because of this—a young character with all of the troubles we're used to seeing in teens (family problems, identity issues, the struggle to fit in, the discovery of love) but set in a world we've all read about in classics.

Most of the characters were extremely frustrating and one-sided, though that only brought me closer to Louisa. Though I normally would want a bit more out of the secondary characters, in this case I think I was able to relate more to Louisa because they were so impossible to like.

The story is exciting and fast-moving, for the most part. Once I got into it, I had a hard time putting it down. I do think sometimes the relationships between characters suffer because the book moves so quickly—I found the relationships developing almost out of nowhere as the story moved. Other than that, I really appreciated how exciting the story was.

Wildthorn is structured between the present story and flashbacks to Louisa's childhood and near past. At the beginning of the story before the action at Wildthorn really starts, these flashback chapters are frequent and serve to lead up to the present action. However, once Louisa is at Wildthorn, the flashback chapters sort of disappear. They return later, almost surprisingly, and I felt that I had been missing an important aspect of the book without them.

Overall, I really enjoyed Wildthorn. It was a very different read from what I'm used to and had a very exciting and often thrilling story.

Review: It Started with a Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech

It Started with a Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

September 2010

My Rating: 3 Stars

I thought this was a cute cover: the girl is cute, looks happy, but also looks like she has some sort of secret. Knowing nothing else about the book or the author, I decided to give it a shot.


CG Silverman has always considered herself a bit of an outsider, so when she moves to a new town and the three most popular girls in the school actually speak to her, she can't help herself. She starts with small innocent lies to impress them, but finds herself spinning a life for herself that she could have never imagined. As the newly crowned rebel of the popular crowd, she agrees to a dare from her new BFFs Alona, Grace, and Sammie that has major problem potential. When Alona's super hot older brother gets in the picture, CG's new life seems almost too good to be true.

It Started with a Dare is a story about identity and friendship. Though CG's lies can sometimes be frustrating, they speak pretty honestly to the insecurities of a teenage girl who just wants to fit in somewhere.  The speaker's crazy comparisons and potty humor can sometimes be over the top, but CG has a funny voice that you just have to love. Lindsay Faith Rech's strength in this book is her ability to go beneath the surface with each character and explore what every one is hiding beneath their constructed high school exterior.


It Started with a Dare is fun, funny, a little crazy, but always honest about the importance of being yourself.


Thanks NetGalley for the ARC!

Review: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park

A Long Walk to Water: Based on a True Story by Linda Sue Park

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2010

Ages 12 & up

128 pages
Rating: 4 stars

"One step at a time . . . one day at a time. Just today—just this day to get through . . ."

That's the mentality that Salva Dut takes on on his journey from a war-torn Sudan to—he's not sure where. When Salva is forced to leave school due to nearby gunfire, he is separated from his family and friends and sent on a walk that seems to have no end in sight. Along the way, he makes friends with a boy named Mariel and is reunited with a family member, but the hardships of war prove troubling in even the lighter moments.

Newbery Award winner Linda Sue Park's A Long Walk to Water is a story of hope—and how that hope can overcome even the greatest struggles. Adding fictionalized details to Salva Dut's fascinating life story, Park creates a story that is at times heartbreaking but always educational and inspirational.

*Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

Review: Greek: Double Date by Marsha Warner

Greek: Double Date by Marsha Warner

Harlequin Teen, May 2010

Young Adult

192 pages

Casey Cartwright, Zeta Beta Zeta sorority sister at Cyprus-Rhodes College, gets herself into a bit of a bind when she agrees to go to an engineering event with her brother’s nerdy, love-struck roommate Dale—the event just happens to be the same night as the All-Greek Formal, where she already has a date with the cute new transfer student Rob.

As if two guys aren’t enough for one night, there’s also Cappie, her slacker ex-boyfriend who always seems to show up in Casey’s life—and who she may or may not still be in love with.

So what’s a nice, ambitious sorority girl to do? Try to balance all three of course, with the help of her sweet but slightly nerdy younger brother Rusty and her best friend Ashleigh, president of ZBZ.

Greek: Double Date is a fun book that tackles both the crazy lives of college students and the difficulty of working through relationships. These relationships are interesting, but the book does often get weighed down by the need to catch the reader up on the characters’ history. In that way, it’s sometimes difficult to think of the book as its own story. This book would probably be most loved by fans of ABC Family’s Greek, but it does do a good job of tackling three seasons’ worth of history for readers unfamiliar with the show.

(This review was written for my internship with TeenLibris.com.)

Review: The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

The Carrie Diaries by Candace Bushnell

HarperCollins, April 2010

Young Adult

389 pages

(So I'm a little late, but I finally got around to reading The Carrie Diaries and figured I'd share my thoughts.)

Though the cover of The Carrie Diaries is eye catching, something about the super sweetness of it didn't make me want to read it immediately. After seeing it available for loan on my library network's e-book site, though, I decided to give it a shot (I'm always looking for quality reads for my new nook).

I have to say, I'm surprised by how much I ended up enjoying this book. The plot, though over the top at times, is still extremely relatable, in true Sex and the City form. The book's heroine, the future icon Carrie Bradshaw, fumbles through high school while still maintaining her cool. Even when her relationship with new hot guy Sebastian Kydd turns her small-town world upside down and threatens to ruin some of her best friendships, she remains the crazy but lovable character that Candance Bushnell created and Sarah Jessica Parker made so famous in the HBO series.

The Carrie Diaries has characters to love, characters to hate, moments to make you laugh, and moments that speak to the more troubling aspects of teenage life. Despite the often absurd take on high school life (these kids order fancy drinks in bars like they're grabbing milks at the cafeteria) The Carrie Diaries is a great read that goes beyond the frivolity and truly captures the spirit of a small-town high school.

Review: Tagged by Mara Purnhagen

Here's the review I wrote of Tagged for my internship with TeenLibris.com:

Kate Morgan lives a pretty boring, average life—that is, until graffiti murals of gorillas start showing up all over town, and no one can figure out who the culprit is.

The students of Cleary High School are immediately intrigued by these murals—who put them up? Are they art? What do they mean? No one seems more intent on uncovering the mystery than Kate, the police chief’s daughter, especially when her cute co-worker crush Eli seems so interested in the murals, and her quiet, normal life just keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Tagged is a quick, fun read, but it is not all graffiti and mystery. Kate and her Vietnamese-American best friend Lan go through very real high school experiences, from forming crushes and new relationships to not being invited to the biggest party the town has ever seen. More than that, Tagged is a story about confidence and self-discovery as Kate learns to stand up for herself and her friends and discovers she can be more than just the quiet girl at the coffee shop.

If you are looking for something that is both relatable and different, Tagged is a great book to read. It offers an entertaining story about high school friendships, relationships, and identities while examining a question that has been debated for centuries: what is art?