Kate's Tales of Books and Bands

By: Ursula Dubosarsky I have to start by saying that this cover is beautiful.  The golden, orange, and brown tones of the cover melt together and form a watercolor that fits the book perfectly.  While the cover is a rather simple scene -- a path leading to two people off in the distance, the overall picture is beautiful.  The way the leaves border the top make it seem as if we are peering into one single moment shared by the two people off in the distance.  This is exactly what the book is like.  It is a short book with about 150 pages.  It is a glimpse into the life of eleven school girls in Australia during the Vietnam War.  The writing style matches the beauty of the cover.  Ursula Dubosarsky writes from the eyes of the school girls, Cubby in particular.  Cubby seems to be a little scared and confused.  Although it never states her confusion or her fear clearly the writing brought it out so that I felt it rather than saw it in Cubby. ...

by Trish Doller . Available September 2013        I picked up this book feeling wary, because I previously read Room by Emma Donoghue. I found Room to be a masterful, realistic, and respectful way of portraying a kidnapping from the victim's perspective. After reading that book, I didn't know if Where the Stars Still Shine would rise to the challenge and give a unique look at a kidnapping case or if it would disappoint me. More on this later.        When Callie was just in kindergarten, she was kidnapped by her loving yet domineering and slightly off-kilter mother. She's now 17, reunited with the father who she barely remembers, and must transition to her new family and life. She learns independence, new responsibilities, learns to make decisions for herself, and faces the issues from her past. She especially learns what a respectful, loving relationship is all about... By getting hooked up with a boyfriend and having lots and ...

By Blythe Woolston Black Helicopters  is narrated by a girl named Valkyrie.  Her father raised her and her brother, Bo, away from civilization, and they fear other people.  They believe that everyone is out to get them, and, during the "present" chapters of the books - intermingled with flashbacks - Valkyrie goes out with a bomb strapped to her chest to blow something up.  That's pretty much the whole story. This book was one of the most unfulfilling stories I have ever read.  At the end, I knew about as much as I did at the beginning; there was no discovery.  Valkyrie was barely a character.  I could not relate to her in any way.  Her motivations were completely lost on me.  I never really understood what she was trying to do, and even after I finished the book, I still couldn't figure out where it had been trying to go.  Valkyrie was ageless in that anywhere-between-eight-and-eighteen way; it states that she's fifteen, but her characte...

by Elizabeth LaBan       This was hands-down one of the most exciting Galleys I've read this year, and it wasn't even my genre! All of my bookmates in the club agreed with me, and I think together we can say that this book will be big. Enormous. Massive. This is the next thing . Every once in a while a book comes along that makes me supremely grateful I joined YA Galley two years ago, and this is one of them.       The most delicious elements of this book are the quirky and contorted nature of the plot, which is mirrored in the beautiful writing. LaBan's writing has all the obsessively polished charm a debut novel tends to present, but she makes it seem effortless and graceful. Often a debut novel is defensive right off the press, going all out in order to get noticed, but The Tragedy Paper needed none of this posturing. It's fresh, appealing, achingly relatable, and subtly perfect. LaBan creates characters with problems and strengths a...

By: D.J. MacHale When I was reading SYLO I decided it would make a terrific movie.  It is action packed, captivating, and well paced -- for the most part.  The beginning was well written and introduced an island off the coast of Maine, Pemberwick Island.  The town is very close and everyone knows just about everyone else.  Autumn is coming on but the warmth of winter is still holding on.  One evening during an intense football game the team's best player, Marty Wiggins, drops dead.  Tucker, a bench player on the football team, witnessed the whole thing and even heard Marty's last words.  To clear his mind he went on a midnight bike ride with his best friend Quinn.  On this bike ride a mysterious shadow flying over the water makes an elongated sound before exploding knocking both Tucker and Quinn off their bikes as well as someone else off their bike.  The only other witness was someone sitting in a pickup truck that disappeared before the pol...

Teens can be picky readers. We're no longer the passive middle schoolers who accept bad grammar and repetitiveness. When we don't like something, never doubt that we can make a big deal out of it. We've had many a conversation about the little things that can drive us up the wall, so it is only natural that we would have a group meeting solely dedicated to complaining about things we don't like. These literary offenses range from tiny niggling annoyances to poor writing to the point of illegibility. The most common problem is reading about the same things over and over again; reading the same vampire love triangle romances and the same apocalypse dystopia. But no matter the problem, if they are avoided it would probably lead teens (us particularly) to enjoy more books. It's not just the writing that will banish a book to the dusty rejection shelf. Everyone does this even if there's a proverb against it: we judge books by their cover. It can make the difference b...

By: Melina Marchetta I feel like I've been giving a lot of really really good reviews.  After this book there won't be so many from me because every other book pales in comparison to Quintana of Charyn.  It was simply the most beautiful book I have ever read.  It follows Finnikin of the Rock and Froi of the Exiles in the Lumatere Chronicles.  It was beautifully written and clearly portrayed how painful both hate and love can be as well as how strong forgiveness can be.  It was perfectly paced and extremely thought provoking.  This book intricately ties together all the characters from the first two books. Basically, you should read this book.  Finnikin of the Rock is the first in the Lumatere Chronicles and is followed by Froi of the Exiles.  Neither of these books are as good as Quintana of Charyn but they are still good.  Froi of the Exiles left off at a cliff hanger which is where Quintana of Charyn picks up.  I was looking forward to...