Review of The Quick by Paige Espinosa

     After growing up in a calm country lifestyle, James Norbury has to learn how to make his way through life in London at the turn of the century, the 1890s. After leaving Oxford and preparing to start his career as a writer, James gets mixed up in a curious crowd of people. After he suddenly disappears, his sister, Charlotte, is drawn from her comfy country living into the big city to find her brother. Along the way, she runs into vampires and ends up fighting for her own life as well as that of her brother.
     I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars because the idea seemed original enough but after about two plot twists it became too predictable. Some of the characters, like Charlotte, were relatable and realistic while others, like Mould aka Doctor Knife, a human who experimented on campus and was accepted into an exclusive vampire club weren't realistic at all. It's hard enough for vampires to get into the club, yet a simple human, a mere bedtime snack, can walk into a room of vampires and be mostly accepted? After awhile, the book started getting confusing and there were a few too many loose ends not tied up at the end. Honestly, reading it made me feel like the author didn't rally know where she was going with her story and she rambled on for 500 pages until realizing maybe that was long enough to be an acceptable novel. It took a good 450 pages to get to the real climax but then nothing really happened, few questions were answered, and new mysteries and cryptic hints were still being added. (Like hints of corpses being reanimated but not as vampires? Almost like zombies but the book didn't mention that the corpses wanted to kill you, just that they were difficult to put down. But that, point was never elaborated on and was brought up once or twice more and then forgotten.) overall, despite the lack of planning involved in writing this and the insanely predictable ending, it was an okay book. It would be perfect for anyone looking for a different, less twilight-sequel vampire story.

Marcelo In the Real World - Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Marcelo In the Real World by Francisco Stork

Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Growing up, and being able to face reality or the "real world" is tough. It's even tougher though, for a seventeen year old boy named Marcelo Sandoval. All his life, he has been catered to, due to the fact that he has a type of autism, more closely related to Aspergers's syndrome. This does not impair Marcelo in any severe type of way; it just makes him high functioning, and socially awkward to a large extent, but otherwise he is normal. He soon learns that people in the "real world" seem to think otherwise though, when he is faced with the choice to either work at his father Arturo's law firm for the summer, or forego attending his special needs school Paterson. Marcelo chooses to confront the "real world" for the first time, and in doing so realizes just how awful it can be out there. Not only do these coworkers and people he meets think he's extremely mentally retarded and incapable of the work given to him, but they also treat each other, people like themselves, with horrible intentions. He is soon enough faced with a situation where he has to choose for himself the path he gauges to be right, a path that might possibly lead him farther away from the destination he wanted to come to.

I gave this book four out of five stars. It was a lovely read, one that touches on a topic most authors seem hesitant to approach, or if they do, they approach it incorrectly. There are so many people out in this world that deal with special needs of all different kinds. But just because they are a little different gives no one the excuse to treat them like some horrific abnormality. This book points out perfectly, how special needs or not, people in general just seem to treat each other negatively anymore. It also shows that no matter who you are, you have the power to fight against this, and possibly manage to bring about a change. Having two special needs siblings, one of them a brother with autism, it was sweet seeing characteristics of Marcelo that were so similar to that of my brothers. That such a gentle soul dealing with these kinds of things makes Marcelo a very unique character indeed. I greatly enjoyed this book, and hope to read another book similar to it (which also received good reviews) called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon. I would definitely recommend this book to those who feel weird about people with special needs, people who are familiar with those of special needs, and mentors of the people with them!

Life of Pi - Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Life of Pi - by Yann Martel

Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Piscine Molitor Patel, known better as simply Pi, expects nothing but a grand adventure when his family ups and leaves their home in India, and more importantly their zoo, to begin again in America. Little does he expect after a sudden turn of events, to end up on a small lifeboat, with none other than Richard Parker, a three year old adult tiger. Even though he, the son of a zookeeper, knew better than anyone what sort of harm such a beast could bring upon him, he made the choice to stay in the lifeboat. Would you do the same? Pi spends a long amount of time in this boat with his feline companion, lacking pure water and nutrition, before washing up on an island. The island leaves Pi feeling paranoid though, so he and Richard Parker once again take to the Pacific Ocean. When they end up landing again some time later on a Mexican beach, Richard Parker disappears and Pi gets taken to a hospital. He tells the story exactly as it is, but isn't believed until he tells it again, this time changing the animals for actual people. Because really, who would believe the adventure of a boy and a tiger?

I've never been an adventure story type of person, but there was something about Life of Pi that I really enjoyed. Maybe it was the more philosophical feel of it focusing on the minute details of how animals, and even humans work. And though you would never expect it, theology and zoology make quite an interesting mix of topics in this novel. Both play equally important roles in Pi's life, making him, in my eyes, an extremely unique character. Also, the way the story is presented, as a man telling a story he was told by another, through first person narration as Pi, was something I hadn't seen before. This part could be confusing at points, especially when he would stop telling Pi's story, and add in his own personal experience of how he came to know the story and the man behind it. See? Confusing just trying to explain it. Even so, I enjoyed the read and would recommend the story to others, although not super highly. There is in fact a movie based on the book, though I have not seen it. I've heard multiple different reviews, but I think anyone who has read the book should see a movie to make a rightful opinion about it. Nor have I read other books written by him, but if you are interested, they sound more along the lines of scifi genres, but have different and cool topics all the same. The titles are: Self and We Ate the Children Last. I think in general Yann Martel has a lot of potential as an author. 

Thousand Words - Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Thousand Words by Jennifer Brown

Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Do you really believe it when people say that an electronically uploaded picture of yourself stays on the internet even after you think it's gone? That there's no privacy whatsoever? Ashleigh Maynard finds this out the hard way, after a pool party, a few drinks, and a bad decision. At the time, it had seemed a good idea...she missed her constantly preoccupied college boyfriend Kaleb, and it was a way to get his attention focused directly back on her. Unfortunately, this doesn't remain as intimate as Ashleigh had hoped and she is soon faced with sixty hours of community service for a crime she didn't realize she was technically committing. Through this scandal, both family and friends shy away from her and this unwanted connection to the whole problem. Only one person acts at all sympathetic to the scandal and even friendly to her, and this boy is doing community service for something she doesn't know. She struggles with accepting the outcome of the entire event, and learning to deal with it almost alone. During this time, Ashleigh truly learns that "a picture is worth a thousand words, but they don't tell the whole story."

When I first opened the book, and got an idea of the storyline, I honestly was expecting to lose all interest super quickly. A plot even slightly including high school love can be very unappealing when you hear about it day in and day out, both in real high school life and almost every other YA fiction book you pick up. As I pushed through though more chapters, it mostly moved past that topic, throwing in a few twists that at I personally didn't see coming. So I gave it three stars because it was overall a book that I'd enjoyed reading, but isn't anything that will stand out on its own in recent YA standards, nor something I would go back to read again. The author, Jennifer Brown, has also written a couple other books, called Hate List and Bitter End. The topics of those are more angsty than this one, which is the reason I preferred them over Thousand Words. Still, if you enjoy drama, and learning-to-cope-with-your-problems type books, then you will definitely like this one.

Fury reviewed by Molly Varney

Fury by Elizabeth Miles ****

Em was just a normal teenage girl. She had two bestfriends, Gabby and JD. She was also in love with Gabby's boyfriend, Zach. It was winter break in Asvension, Maine when he finally started to notice her. With Gabby on vacation with her family Em and Zach had all the time to be together. However, when Sasha, a girl from Em's school, tried to kill herself, Em started to notice weird things happening, like the same girl that kept appearing out of nowhere. She started to see that something was wrong.

On the other side of town, Chase was also having problems. His social life was slowly falling apart when he met Ty, a mysterious, beautiful girl. Although he could feel something off about Ty, he couldn't help but stay with her and try to get closer to her. He was still haunted by the horrible thing he had done, the one thing the perfect guy he pretended to be would never do. He knew it was only a matter of time before he was completely exposed. Three beautiful girls went to Ascension to choose who would pay and how, and Em and Chase were chosen.

I gave this book four stars because I didn't like Em and Chase's characters, and I liked the storyline and how the book ended. Fury is part of a Trilogy, that I really hope to finish. I got really into this book and some things that happened near the end surprised me. Overall, I thought Fury was a really good book.

Wake -- a review by AJ McCracken

Wake

by Lisa McMann

3.5 out of 5 stars

I would suggest this book to friends because it is an easy read and very interesting

This girl by the name of Janie who has abilities that nobody she knows has. She has the ability to enter other people's dreams. Janie has no control over this and doesn't know what to do when she is pulled into another dimension of someone's dreams...or nightmares.

Janie is a lower middle class teen who lives with her alocoholic mom. Her mom barely knows she is there and nobody knows where her dad is.

Janie has episodes when someone around her has fallen asleep. She will pass out and not be able to move until the dream is over. If it's a nightmare, she becomes paralyzed and goes numb.

Helping her along this journey is her strange friend Cabel, her best friend Carrie and whatever dreams she gets pulled into. She will find out that there is good in being able to do this and that there is also bad things that come along with this, especially deep dark secrets. Will Janie, Cabel, and Carrie find out what's going on with their friend? Will Janie be able to stop getting pulled into unwanted dreams? And how will this affect her future, her love life, her carrier, her life?

My response to this book is how did the author come up with all these good ideas to put into a book. She made it easy to read and interesting at the same time.

Your dreams are not your own!