Amazing Grace by Megan Shull

2/5 Stars

B&N:Gorgeous teen superstar Grace Kincaid has it all- an electric smile, million-dollar endorsement deals, and blond cover-girl looks. But what happens when America's "It" girl doesn't want "It" anymore? With the paparazzi stalking her every move, Grace quietly slips out of a TEEN PEOPLE photo shoot, ducks the press, and call s her mom from the boiler room of the fabled USTA National Tennis Center. And right there, in her custom-made Nike warm-ups, tears streaming down her face, Grace says the three magic words that her mom told her she could say anytime, anytime this whole crazy life wasn't fun anymore. Three simple words-and her new life begins. For the hottest girl on the planet, life's about to change. Grace gets a make-under, a new identity, and a new life in a rugged little town on the edge of nowhere, population 813 (including one cute boy: one very cute boy).

My Review: Ehhh... I've read better. I picked this up to see if I wanted to put it into my class library, and it did seem interesting. I think it has the potential to be really good- but the author just misses the mark. It's a cute story and I read it in a day, but I just wanted more. It was too neat of an ending. There needed to be more of a conflict. I'll still put it in my class library for the kids who need a quick read.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

4/5 Stars

B&N:
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:
Debate Club.
Her father's "Bunny Rabbit."
A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:
A knockout figure.
A sharp tongue.
A chip on her shoulder.
And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston.

Frankie Laundau-Banks.
No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer.
Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society.
Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.
Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them.
When she knows Matthew is lying to her.
And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.

Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:
Possibly a criminal mastermind.

This is the story of how she got that way.


My Review: I really enjoyed this book. I read it in one day and really didn't want to put it down. It kept me wanting to know more. Although, I must admit- there was one piece of the ending I wish was different- but that's just me. I'll also be putting this on in my class library.

Geek High by Piper Banks

3/5 Stars

B&N:
At this school, everyone's a geek. And Miranda Bloom still can't fit in...

Miranda is a math genius with divorced parents, an evil stepmother, and no boyfriend in sight. She can't even fit in with the other geeks at the Nottingham Independent School for high-IQ students, because they actually have useful talents. Miranda, on the other hand, is known as "The Human Calculator," which doesn't amount to much when people have, you know, their own calculators.

Then Miranda gets stuck planning the school's Snowflake Gala. And as she struggles to find a date and drum up some school spirit at Nottingham-aka "Geek High"-she finds that who you are means more than where you fit in.

My Review: This was again, a cute quick read. I'm a sucker for stories of geeks falling for guys etc... and this one was just that. It was a pretty typical teen book. There's another book after it hat picks up the day after this book ends...Geek Abroad. I'm starting that one tonight. Cute- mindless read. :)

Shattering Glass by Gail Giles

4/5 Stars

B&N:"Simon Glass was easy to hate....I guess, really we each hated him for a different reason, but we didn't realize it until the day we killed him."

Fat, clumsy Simon Glass is a nerd, a loser who occupies the lowest rung on the high school social ladder. Everyone picks on him — until Rob Haynes shows up. Rob, a transfer student with charisma to spare, immediately becomes the undisputed leader of the senior class. And he has plans for Simon.

Rob enlists the help of his crew — wealthy, intellectual Young, ladies' man Bob, and sweet, athletic Coop — in a mission: Turn sniveling Simon from total freak to would-be prom king.

But as Simon rises to the top of the social ranks, he shows a new confidence and a devious side that power-hungry Rob did not anticipate. And when Simon uncovers a dangerous secret, events darken. The result is disquieting, bone-chilling...and brutal.

My Review:

I really liked this book for some reason. I get really into my books and at first- it made me feel horrible. Some of the characters were just evil- BUT I needed to know how everything happened. The author does a really neat thing with at the beginning of each chapter, there's a short interview from different characters in the book about what happened. You get pieces of the ending- but never enough to put everything together. After I was done reading I went back and reread all the little interviews on every chapter. It was neat seeing how it all worked together.

One thing I didn't really like was how there were a few things not wrapped up as neatly as I'd like. I needed to know a bit more information about 2 of the characters and what happened to them "after."

Overall- worth the read due to the neat way the author chose to write the book.

Willow: It's Hard to Keep a Secret When it's Written All Over Your Body... by Julia Hoban

B&N:

Seven months after killing her parents in a car accident, 16-year-old Willow Randall has moved in with her married older brother's family in New York City, where she grapples with her overwhelming emotions, as well as her brother's silent anguish, by cutting herself with razors. When Guy, a fellow student, learns Willow's secret, they develop a tentative intimacy. The stark clarity of the present tense, third-person narration echoes the numbing effect that Willow achieves through cutting-"Of course any sharp edge could do in a pinch, and Willow has used them all: nail scissors, a steak knife, a man's razor.... But Willow is a purist." Despite explicit descriptions of Willow's wounds, the narrative steers clear of moralization-cutting is characterized as part of Willow's fractured sense of self, rather than part of a larger epidemic. Though Guy mainly serves as a means for Willow to rediscover human connection, and is never as fully realized as she is, his need to understand the girl whose favorite book is Tristes Tropiques but who carries razors in her backpack, is authentically tender. A credible depiction of a grieving girl's struggle toward self-forgiveness.

My Review:

I liked this book. I found myself needing to stay up so I could continue to read. I actually went through the entire next day, while I was supposed to be working, thinking about the book and how it was going to end. But now for the bad part....I think it would make someone not emotionally stable- or a cutter want to actually cut more...

Also... I didn't like the ending. And this is why...

****Spoilers!*****



There was like no consequence for Willow and cutting. Nothing "bad" happened to her. It didn't show anything bad happening to her (besides getting scars- which cutters don't really care about). Her brother who she lives with never finds out- and they actually start having a good relationship. She also gets the guy. The guy stays with her through her cutting- and only towards the last few pages of the book does she decide to stop...but it's not strong enough. It really doesn't show anything bad coming from her cutting.

Quad by Carrie Gordon Watson

4/5 Stars

B&N:
Everything led up to this moment—the point when the teasing, the cruelty, the pressure all became too much. And someone finally snapped.

Now six students, from six different cliques, are trapped in the student store while a shooter terrorizes their school. The shooter's identity is teased out through the students' flashbacks until the reader breathlessly reaches the final page. It's only there that he discovers the shocking answer to the question: Who is shooting out in the quad?

This gripping thriller by educator C. G. Watson is inspired by observations made in her own high school. Quad examines in heartrending detail how even the most casual cruelties can tear people apart.


My Review:

This is a book about a school shooting. It's pretty neat how the author takes you back and forth to the day of the shooting and then earlier in the week with events that lead up to it. You also get to hear from a bunch of different characters. I was trying to guess who did it the entire time. There are 3 people that seem to be obvious...it's interesting to see if it really is those 3 or someone totally unexpected.

Secret Santa by Sabrina James

3/5 Stars

B&N:

Noelle, a hopeless romantic, just knows that her gifts have to be from her senior crush! And geeky Froggy thinks the game is the perfect way to get super-popular Celia to fall for him...except she thinks his gifts are from Jake, the school's resident bad boy, and starts to crush on him!Romantic mishaps abound, but all is revealed the night of the Winter Dance, where there's more than one surprise waiting under the mistletoe!

My Review:

This was a cute read. It was another 8th grade "chick-lit" book that I read to see if I could put it in my classroom. The characters were cute, weren't very "deep," but over all it was an enjoyable read...I read it a few weeks ago- but I think I remember one character being wicked annoying...either way, not a bad read for kids.

Funny thing was a few days after I read this, I looked in the Scholastic book orders and there it was!