Crewel

Crewel

Gennifer Albin

★★★★☆

“I knew we could never hide how special you are,” he murmurs against my hair. The basement door bangs open.

But before I can say I’m sorry for failing them, or tell him I love him, the boots are on the stairs. I scramble into the hole. He restacks the bricks behind me, shutting out the light. My chest constricts in the darkness. And then he stops. A large crack of light still streams in to the tunnel from the basement. I can’t move.

The bricks crash onto the concrete floor and light floods back into the tunnel. Choking down the scream fighting to loose itself, I struggle forward in the dirt, away from the growing light. I must keep moving forward. I try to forget Dad, and Mom and Amie in the other tunnel, as I crawl through the cold soil.

Keep moving forward.

In a fantastical future world, spinsters weave decisions, the future and life. Those with the spinning gift are called by Arras’s Manipulation Services to work the looms of multicolored threads that keep the country alive. They are given some of the highest possible privileges in Arras, but with consequences: they can never return home or see their families again.

All her life, Adelice has been trained by her parents to fail the most important event in her entire life- her testing. But when she messes up and accidentally weaves, they come for her in the dead of night, killing her father in the process.

Caught in a web of lies and intrigue, who can she trust? As first her new friend then her mentor and stylist fall away, Adelice struggles to unravel the secrets behind Arras’s true history. In a powerfully written, unique debut novel about a society where the Spinsters’ Guild makes all the decisions, one special girl dares to defy the boundaries of society and makes her own way in a tightly woven world.

Crewel is a masterfully woven novel of a world where people play God and memories can be erased with the snip of a thread. I would recommend this book to readers ages 11-15. At the moment I can’t think of any other novels to compare it to but if you have a suggestion, comment below. Thanks!

If I stay

if i stay

Gayle Forman

★★★★☆

            How am I supposed to decide this? How can I possibly stay without Mom and Dad? How can I leave without Teddy? Or Adam? This is too much. I don’t even understand how it all works, why I’m here in the state that I’m in or how to get out of it if I wanted to. If I were to say, I want to wake up, would I wake up right now? I already tried snapping my heels to find Teddy and trying to beam myself to Hawaii, and that didn’t work. This seems a whole lot more complicated.

            But, in spite of that, I believe it’s true. I hear the nurse’s words again. I am running the show. Everyone is waiting on me.

            I decide. I know this now. And this terrifies me more than anything else that has happened today.

            It happened on a day that began like any other.

            Mia had everything anyone could wish for- a loving family, an adoring boyfriend and a bright future filled with music. All that is taken away in an instant. The moment the crash happens, Mia is spirited out of her own body and watches as the ambulances arrive, watches as she is taken to the hospital, watches as the paramedics frantically work to keep her alive. Torn between life and death, Mia watches her loved ones come to terms with her nearly fatal injury and her family's death and contemplates the biggest decision of her life- to go, or to stay.

            Simultaneously forlorn and hopeful, If I Stay is a thought-provoking, uplifting story of a girl who is given the choice of life without her family, or certain death. I would recommend this book to readers of Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. This book is a beautifully and  hauntingly woven tale of memories, love, romance and decisions, but most importantly it’s a story of music, life and death. 

STARCROSSED

STARCROSSED

Josephine Angelini

★★★☆☆

            Meeting his eyes was an awakening. For the first time in Helen’s life she knew what pure, heart-poisoning hatred was.

            She was not aware of the fact that she was running toward him, but she could hear the voices of the three sobbing sisters rise into a keening wail, could see them standing behind the tall, dark boy she knew was Lucas, and the smaller, brown-haired boy next to him. The sisters were tearing at their hair until it came out of their scalps in bloody hanks. They pointed accusing fingers at the two boys while they screeched a series of names- the names of people murdered long ago. Helen suddenly understood what she had to do.

            Helen Hamilton has spent her whole life- sixteen years- hiding the fact that she isn’t completely normal, no easy feat on the small island she lives on, where everyone knows everyone else. But when she begins having nightmares of walking in a deserted, dry land and wakes to find her sheets grimy and her feet scratched, it gets even harder. To add to that, three weeping women suddenly start haunting her and she has not the faintest idea why.

            The moment she first sees Lucas Delos, she is overcome by rage and hatred and very nearly kills him, right in the middle of her high school’s fully crowded hallway. Little did she know, she and Lucas are doomed to play the leads in a tragedy the Fates are relentlessly determined to repeat throughout all history. As Helen uncovers more and more about her ancestry and who she is, she finds an unseen force irresistibly drawing her closer to Lucas- and brutally ripping them apart at the same time.

            Starcrossed is an entrancing novel that has many elements of Greek Mythology. I would recommend it to people who liked Lauren Kate’s Fallen series and Kiersten White’s Paranormalcy, as well as any romance novel lovers out there. Personally, I’m not a huge romance person but this story pulled me in so well that I enjoyed it much more than I thought I would. So if you’re looking for something to read, try this novel out if you’d like. Comment please, and Happy Valentine's Day!!!J

Grim Reaper from the dark side of Kawaii

Confessions of a Murder Suspect

Confessions of a Murder Suspect

James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

★★★★★

          If only Caputo could interrogate Robert. You see, Robert sees stuff. He knows stuff. About the angels. About me. Such as; he knows about the time I put my foot right through his TV screen. On purpose. Or so I'm told.

 I don't even remember it. But I know wit happened because one day I was the best lacrosse player at All Saints, and the next day I woke up in the hospital with fifty stitches in my foot and leg.

At the hospital, Malcolm’s and Maud's stern faces had looked at me without sympathy.  Maud said she never thought lacrosse was good for me anyway. (I would never play again). Malcolm announced that my Big Chop was going to be repairing Robert so that he was as good as new.  (My efforts were, sadly, flawed; that's why Robert only watches static these days.) And that's pretty much all they'd told me. You don't demand answers from Malcolm and Maud.

Hugo was the only one who saw what happened. He said I flew into the apartment in such a rage that he hid behind the Claes Oldenburg sculpture and watched me kick the hell out of Robert, screaming, “They killed her. They killed her!”

            My foot crashed through Robert's screen with the force of a wrecking ball, he claims.

How could I do that? I'd need almost superhuman strength. When I asked Matthew, he shrugged and said only, “It's a piece of art, Tandy. It's not industrial strength.”

More important, though, was why would I do that. Could I really have been talking about my dead sister, Katherine?

Was I accusing Malcolm and Maud of killing their eldest daughter?

And why don’t I remember it at all?

Tandoori Angel, aka Tandy, is a whip-smart prodigy in an incredibly unusual family. Her eldest brother, Matthew, is the NFL’s poster boy and a football legend. Her eldest sister, Katherine, is dead. Harry, her twin brother, is the odd one in the family with a passion for music and art, and the ability to feel and experience emotion. Hugo, her younger brother, is a Samson look-alike with superhuman strength.

When Tandy’s parents, Malcolm and Maud Angel, are killed in a double-homicide in the middle of the night, there are only 5 possible suspects- Tandy, Matthew, Harry, Hugo and Samantha, Maud’s live-in personal assistant. And in this family, everyone has a motive; no one can be ruled out.

What is the Angel family capable of? As secrets are uncovered and past memories remembered, Tandy vows to find her parents’ killer- even if it’s her.

Confessions of a Murder Suspect is a suspenseful, complex mystery novel with an awful lot of cliffhangers. Narrated from Tandy’s point of view, a lot of unanswered questions are still left at the end of the novel, leaving possibilities for a sequel and possibly, a series. I absolutely adored this book because Tandy was such a believable character even though she was, let’s just say, extraordinary. By the end of this book, I felt like I’d really gotten to know her, and I am looking forward to a continuation of her story.  With minor profanity and violent, gruesome deaths, I would recommend this book to readers ages 14-ish. If you liked James Patterson’s Maximum Ride series, you should give this one a try. Comment and subscribe if you liked!! Thanks J

Black Widow from the dark side of Kawaii

Victorian Witch from the dark side of Kawaii

Distant Waves

Distant Waves

by Suzanne Weyn

 

 

★★★★☆

I took Emma aside into the hall. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve been having bad dreams,” Emma said. “We still think this ship is going to sink.”

“When?”

We don’t know. But we have a dream and we are both underwater, floating. Our skin is blue and our hair floats everywhere around us.

“The two of you are there?

We’re not sure. Each of us only sees the other.

             Five daughters of a famed clairvoyant arrive with their mother to a town called Spirit Vale, home to many fortune tellers and psychics. There, their mother makes a living talking to the spirits of the dead; however, even she cannot clearly see the future.

            It is not the fate of the Taylors to call Spirit Vale home for long. The society of the rich appeals to Mimi, and she finds herself unable to resist its call. Emma and Amelie, the twins, share their mother’s gift of clairvoyance and have dreams that predict the future in vivid detail, while Jane finds herself in the midst of a mind-blowing scientific discovery that could possibly alter her future. Blythe, the youngest, has her mind set on wealth and fame.

            All their destinies converge on the maiden voyage of the Titanic; a beautiful state-of-the-art cruise ship that everyone believes is unsinkable. To their dismay, it soon turns into a fight for survival, and the sisters will find that not everyone will be able to make it through alive. But can love and sisterhood escape the threat of death?

            This is an ethereal, excellent novel that historical fiction lovers will enjoy. I would recommend it to readers ages 10 and above. Have fun J

Inside Out

Inside Out

by Maria V. Snyder

 

★★★★☆

 “Imagine every space in this room filled with people. Constantly being jostled and pushed. In the lower levels, there is no quiet place. To a scrub, this room is paradise.” I drew a deep breath. I’d spoken more in one burst to this stranger whose room I’d invaded than anyone else in weeks. And with a single word he could alert the Pop Cops and send me to the Chomper. We stared at each other for a few heartbeats. Before I could retreat he said, “My name’s Riley Narelle Ashon. Any time you need peace, you’re welcome to use my hideaway.”

            Trella is just one of 8 thousand scrubs- nobodies who spend their entire lives cleaning Inside for the Uppers. Her whole life consists of cleaning pipes and avoiding Pop Cops- Population Cops- until the day she meets her first upper, Riley. The only one at risk from her rebellious ways has always been her- until she accidentally starts a revolution- and with it a desperate search for Gateway, the one and only way out of Inside.

            Inside Out is a compelling story of rebellion, as well as a fight for freedom and equality in a very small but almost completely corrupted world. I would recommend this book to those who enjoyed Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan or Across the Universe by Beth Revis, as it has a similar setting to those books. Comment and +1 if you like this book! J

Monument 14

Monument 14

Monument 14 Book 1

By Emmy Laybourne

 

★★★★☆

Three heavy metal gates were rolling down over the gaping hole at the front of the store. One, two, three, side by side they descended. The two on the sides covered the windows. The center one was a bit bigger and covered the entire space of what had been the sliding doors.

            The gate was perforated so we could still get air and see out, but it was kind of scary. We were being locked in.

            The little kids lost it. “What’s happening?” “We’re trapped!” “I want to go home!” That kind of thing.  Niko just stood, watching the gate come down.

            “We should like get something under it. To like wedge it open,” Jake shouted. He grabbed a shopping cart and rolled it forward, under the central gate. But the gate just pushed the cart out of the way. The three gates settled with a heavy CLANK that rang with finality.

“We’re locked in,” I said.

“And everyone else is locked out,” Niko said quietly.

            It began with a freak hailstorm, or a supercell, as they call it, on a perfectly normal day in a perfectly normal town. An extraordinary hailstorm that killed many and stranded 6 high schoolers, 2 eighth graders, and 6 elementary schoolers in a chain superstore, which, honestly, isn’t really the worst place to be stranded. Then came a chemical cloud that turned some of them into hallucinating psychos and covered some with bloody blisters. Yet others became rage-fuelled monsters when exposed to this toxic substance. Fourteen kids. One superstore. What could go wrong?

            Monument 14 is Emmy Laybourne’s debut novel. Complete with action, tragedy, comedy and even a little romance, it’s a read that is sure to pull you in. I would recommend this book to readers ages 11-14. If you liked this please subscribe!!! J

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children

By Ransom Riggs

★★★★☆

“There’s no time,” he whispered. Then he raised his head off the ground, trembling with the effort, and breathed into my ear: “Find the bird. In the loop. On the other side of the old man’s grave. September third, 1940.” I nodded, but he could see that I didn’t understand. With his last bit of strength, he added, “Emerson-the letter. Tell them what happened, Yakob.

            And with that he sank back, spent and fading.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a mystery book about a place where it is never tomorrow, and the grandson of a boy who left.  Jacob has always dreamt of exploring the world and discovering continents, but his mother said it would never be possible. Jacob’s grandfather always told Jacob tales about monsters who hunted children who were capable of wondrous things-flying, lifting, and even invisibility. Jacob didn’t believe his grandfather, assuming they were just fairy tales, until he saw one of the monsters for himself. Following the trail of clues his grandfather left him, he first flies to a sparsely inhabited island off the coast of Wales. It is here that he discovers that there’s still somewhere in the world that he can explore.  From there, he travels back in time to a day that never ends, and finds truth in his grandfather’s words.

Told through a series of pictures as well as words, Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children is a very unique book. My favorite character in the book is Emma, because even though she can be emotional at times, underneath it all she seems to be a caring person. She has awesome powers, too. I mean, who doesn’t want to be able to conjure fire at will? Duh.  

I would recommend this book to lovers of mystery and paranormal fiction, aged 12-15. If you read or have read this book, comment and tell me your favorite character and what you rated it. :)

 

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