Review: Summer Days, Starry Nights by Vikki VanSickle Source: Paperback, Published June 1, 2013 by Scholastic Canada Verdict: Excellent Book Description: A famous rock star, a family secret and a boy with a great smile make for one unforgettable summer. It’s 1962, and thirteen-year-old Reenie Starr comes alive the minute guests begin to arrive at her family’s summer resort. She […]
Review: Jewel of the Thames (Portia Adams Adventure #1) by Angela Misri, illus. Sydney Smith Source: ebook, Published March 25, 2014 by Fierce Ink Press Co-op Ltd Verdict: Good/Very Good Book Description: There’s a new detective at 221 Baker Street Set against the background of 1930s England, Jewel of the Thames introduces Portia Adams, a budding detective with an interesting […]
Review: Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson Source: Hardcover, Published May 6, 2014 by Simon & Schuster Verdict: Very Good Book Description: The Pre-Sloane Emily didn’t go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn’t do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell. But […]
Review: A Mad, Wicked Folly by Sharon Biggs Waller Source: ARC from Goodreads First Reads, provided by Penguin Group. Thank you! Verdict:Very Good/Excellent Book Description: Welcome to the world of the fabulously wealthy in London, 1909, where dresses and houses are overwhelmingly opulent, social class means everything, and women are taught to be nothing more than wives and mothers. Into this […]
Review: All the Truth That’s In Me by Julie Berry Source: Hardcover, Published September 26, 2013 by Viking Juvenile Verdict: Very Good/Excellent Book Description: Four years ago, Judith and her best friend disappeared from their small town of Roswell Station. Two years ago, only Judith returned, permanently mutilated, reviled and ignored by those who were once her friends and family. […]
Review: Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight Source: eBook, Published April 2, 2013 by Harper Verdict: Good/Very Good Book Description: Litigation lawyer and harried single mother Kate Baron is stunned when her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn, calls with disturbing news: her intelligent, high-achieving fifteen-year-old daughter, Amelia, has been caught cheating. Kate can’t believe that Amelia, an ambitious, levelheaded girl who’s never been in trouble would do something like that. But by the time she arrives at Grace Hall, Kate’s faced with far more devastating news. Amelia is dead. Seemingly unable to cope with what she’d done, a despondent Amelia has jumped from the school’s roof in an act of “spontaneous” suicide. At least that’s the story Grace Hall and the police tell Kate. And overwhelmed as she is by her own guilt and shattered by grief, it is the story that Kate believes until she gets the anonymous text: She didn’t jump. Sifting through Amelia’s emails, text messages, social media postings, and cell phone logs, Kate is determined to learn the heartbreaking truth about why Amelia was on Grace Hall’s roof that day-and why she died. Reading like a cross between a contemporary- and cautionary- teen tale and an adult mystery title, Reconstructing Amelia held my attention pretty tightly from beginning to end. The novel, a solid debut from McCreight, was on my to-read list for some time; I had pretty high expectations for it…and for the […]
