Shift, by Jennifer Bradbury

This is part mystery, part road trip, and all about friendship, both the good parts and the not so good stuff. Chris and Win have been friends since the 3rd grade. The day after high school graduation they take off on a cross-country bike trip from their homes in West Virginia to the West coast. But Win has a private agenda that Chris is unaware of until the day in Montana that Chris gets a flat tire and Win doesn't stop riding. That is the last time Chris sees Win, who completely disappears. Back home, Chris starts college in the fall when an FBI agent shows up courtesy of Win's manipulative father. It becomes clear to Chris that no one is going to find Win unless Win wants to be found, and Chris is the only one who has any chance to find out what happened to his best friend. Bradbury clearly is a biker - no one could write so well about it unless they had put some road miles on a bike. The mystery at the center of the story is intriguing, and her insight into the relationship between friends rings true as well.

Avalon High, by Meg Cabot

This one is fun to read if you like the King Arthur tales. It is set in modern times at a high school in Annapolis, Maryland, where many of the students bear uncanny resemblances to the characters in the Arthurian stories. Ellie (whose real name is Elaine), moves to town and even before school begins she meets and is instantly drawn to Will (Arthur William Wagner), and he is attracted to her too. Will is dating Jennifer (modernization of Gueneviere), and best friends with Lance (Lancelot). The old triangle has just become a foursome, and things don't work out like in the middle ages, but it's lots of fun to figure out just how things are going to go this time around. Meg Cabot (author of The princess diaries) keeps this re-telling fresh and quick-paced, and a fun romance.

Graceling, by Kristin Cashore

Katsa was born with eyes of two colors, which means that she has been "gifted" with a grace - an extreme skill, and must live in the palace and serve the king as he sees fit. At the beginning of the book Katsa is feared and despised - her skill is killing. The king uses her skill as a weapon to torture and execute his subjects and his enemies alike. Katsa is wild and willful and unhappy. When she meets Po - prince of a neighboring kingdom and another graceling, and her life is about to change. She begins to see that she can take charge of her own life, and soon she and Po set off on a mission full of political intrigue and personal danger.

This is fantasy that will keep the reader guessing what is coming next and is full of action and touched with romance. There will be sequels, and I hope they are as good as this 1st book promises.

Wintergirls, by Laurie Halse Anderson

Laurie Halse Anderson doesn't shy away from tough topics, and Wintergirls tackles the subject of anorexia with characteristic grit and understanding. The story concerns Lia and her friend Cassie who have competed to lose weight, spiraling into the winter of the illness and obsession that characterize anorexia. As the book opens Cassie has died of anorexia, and her death adds the burden of guilt and loss to Lia's already fragile hold on life. This is tough reading, and the author does a great job of exploring the problems of anorexia with understanding.

The last exit to Normal, by Michael Harmon

Ben Campbell is angry and rebellious after his dad announced that he was gay and his family blew apart. Ben has gotten in some serious trouble with the law, and as a result Dad and his boyfriend Edward move with Ben to live in Rough Butte, Montana with Edward's mother. Rough Butte isn't friendly toward gays or skateboarders either. The reader knows where this is going with Ben coming to terms with life, but the book is well written with both attitude and insight.

Hood, by Stephen R. Lawhead

Stephen Lawhood has taken the Robin Hood legends and set them in medieval Wales, where Norman invaders are picking off tiny kingdoms one by one. Bran ap Brychan, heir to the throne of Elfael, has gone into hiding after the ambush and massacre of his father, the king, along with most of the able-bodied men of the kingdom. Pursued and hunted, Bran makes his way deep into the ancient forest where he finds others who have also found safety there. And from hiding he finds ways to secretly help the people of his kingdom who are suffering under the heavy yoke of the Norman invaders. This is a fresh re-telling of the old legends, and a compelling adventure story too.

Aftershock, by Kelly Easton

In a state of shock, 17-year-old Adam walks away from the scene of the car accident that has killed his parents. Stranded on a lonely road in rural Idaho, he heads east, on foot, as random snippets of memory wander in and out of his mind. Too traumatized to speak, his silence is misinterpreted by the succession of characters he meets on the odyssey home to Rhode Island. Stumbling upon a Wiccan meeting in a forest, he is taken in by one of the chatty young women and takes a job as a dishwasher in a local diner, where he is treated as deaf. Weeks later, he hitchhikes with a trucker and finds backbreaking work in Colorado fields with Mexican migrant farmers. He struggles to survive as he devours a frozen pizza found in a taxidermist's cabin, sleeps in a Dumpster, crashes a picnic, and steals a car. The adventures intertwine with thoughts about his girlfriend, locker-room antics, his parents, their bookstore, and his autistic cousin–spontaneously, as if his mind has short-circuited from the crash.
Adam, before the crash, is a normal and likable young man. His cross-country journey home from the scene of the crash parallels his emotional journey back to sanity, and the reader hopes that at the end of that journey he will find a life that feels like home.

The Heretic's daughter, by Kathleen Kent

Andover, Massachussets is a tiny village just a few miles from one who's name resonates down the years through American history - Salem. In The heretic's daughter, Kathleen Kent tells the story of her ancestors Thomas and Martha Carrier and how they were caught up in the witch-hunt hysteria of the 1690s, told through the eyes of their daughter Sarah. The depiction of life in early, plague swept New England is fascinating in itself. But the emotional drama builds slowly to it's inevitable hysterical storm and we see the Carriers trapped by family ties, by economic realities, and by the Puritan faith itself. This is a strong story well told. The author makes us care about these people and understand both their lives and the forces that eventually bring tragedy to them. One of the best historical fiction books I can remember reading.

City of bones, by Cassandra Clare

15 year old Clary and her friend Simon are in a New York club when Clary witnesses a murder committed by three teens covered with strange tatoos and using bizarre weapons. But she is the only one who can see the 3 murderers, and the body disappears. Clary soom finds herself deeply involved in a clan of Shadowhunters - warriors dedicated to hunting and killing demons who stalk the earth. And the Shadowhunters are interested in finding out why Clary has the sight that allows her to see them and the demons. Clary soon finds that her life up to now has been a falsehood, and almost everyone she knows is not who she thought they were. Her friend Simon is her only constant friend, tho she is soon drawn to a handsome Shadowhunter named Jacy, who is equally drawn to her. There are plots and counterplots, twists and turns on every page. Fantasy readers won't want to miss this one and it's sequels.

The Good guy, by Dean Koontz

Timothy Carrier, a quiet stone mason having a beer in a California bar, meets a stranger who mistakes him for a hit man. The stranger slips Tim a manila envelope containing $10,000 in cash and a photo of the intended victim, Linda Paquette, a writer in Laguna Beach, then leaves. A moment later, Krait, the real killer, shows up and assumes Tim is his client. Tim manages to distract Krait from immediately carrying out the hit by saying he's had a change of heart and offering Krait the $10,000 he just received. This ploy gives the stone mason enough time to warn Linda before they begin a frantic flight for their lives. (Amazon)

This thriller grabs the reader from the first page and doesn't let go. I could barely put it down until I had it finished, when I could finally resume my life.

Feed, by M.T. Anderson

This story is set in the future, where large corporations have taken advertising and consumerism to extremes. Humans have "feeds" implanted in their brains almost from birth, feeds that are part Internet, part advertising. The ability to read and write and even to think for ones self has been almost completely obliterated. Titus, who narrates the story in his frighteningly simple voice, is leading a contented life of partying and shopping until he meets Violet. Violet didn't get her feed until she was in grade school, thus her brain retains developed thought processes independent of the feed. Violet is doing the unheard of - she is fighting the feed. Through Violet, Titus begins, dimly, to realize that his thoughts are not his own but are implanted for commercial purposes.

This is scary reading, especially in the light of current brain research that is working on identifying a person's thoughts through brain scans. If your thoughts can be scanned, is it a big leap till can they be altered? Today Channel One (brought to you by Coca Cola) - tomorrow, who knows.

Gym candy, by Carl Deuker

Carl Deuker is one of the best sports fiction writers working today. I have read so called "sports" books where all the action takes place off field. Not Deuker. The reader gets a lot of football in this book, and it's written so that even a non-athlete can find it interesting and understandable. The title of the book refers to steroids. Gym candy is an inside look at the motivation for a high school athlete to get involved in steroid use, and the problems that go along with it.
High Heat (baseball) has been my favorite Deuker book for a long time, but this one is just as good and well written.

Life as we knew it, by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Miranda is a typical sophmore in high school - anxious for her driver's liscence, hanging out with her friends, arguing with Mom, and looking forward to Prom. An interesting astrological event has her neighbors in lawn chairs viewing the moon on the evening an meteor is predicted to hit the moon. The meteor hits, and life on earth is changed forever as the collision shifts the moon closer to the earth causing violent earthquakes, erupting volcanoes, huge tsunamis, and millions of deaths. All that Miranda has taken for granted suddenly begins to disappear. Food and gasoline are in short supply, and winter is coming on without heat or electricity. This is hard to put down, and hard to forget.

Princess Ben, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

When Princess Benevolence's parents are killed, she finds herself under her aunt, the queen's, thumb, being groomed as a royal princess. The plump princess is starved, corseted, and forced to attend endless tedious lessons for dancing, conversation, card playing - things the queen believes she needs to learn. But Princess Ben is independent and smart. When the queen locks her in the tower in a fit of rage, Ben finds a secret and magical hidden room where her real education begins. Her secret education pays off when Ben learns the kingdom is about to be overtaken through the queen's treachery. and only Ben (and her magic) can save her kingdom. The story is entertaining - funny and clever. Princess Ben's transformation from a sulky girl into a dedicated leader is an entertaining journey.

This author writes warm and funny stories, and Princess Ben is one more. If you like her humor, try Dairy Queen and The off season too.

Pride of Baghdad, by Brian K. Vaughan & art by Niko Henrichon (Graphic Novel)

"In April of 2003, four lions escaped the Baghdad Zoo during the bombing of Iraq. The starving animals were eventually shot and killed by U.S. soldiers." These are the final words in this moving graphic novel that tells the lions' story. The author and illustrator imbue the lions with majesty, dignity, and pride. We follow the story of the lions from their captivity in the zoo, through their struggle to survive in the middle of the bombing, their search for food and shelter in the bombed out city, and if their death does not move the reader, the reader doesn't have a heart.

Odd hours, by Dean Koontz

This is the fourth book Koontz has written about Odd Thomas - a well named young man who has the ability to see ghosts and other supernatural beings and has visions of the future. Odd is one of the most endearing and quirky characters you are ever likely to meet as he sets out like a modern day knight to rescue the innocent and fight the forces of evil. Odd's self-depreciating sense of humor, his compassion, and his calm acceptance of his bizarre world make these books hard to put down.

We have all four books in this series at CHS, and I would recommend reading them in order, beginning with the first one, Odd Thomas.

The haunting of Alizabel Cray, by Chris Wooding

This horror story takes place in a Victorian England haunted with evil supernatural creatures bent on taking over the world. Thaniel, seventeen, is a wych-hunter. Together, he and Cathaline--his friend and mentor--track down the fearful creatures that lurk in the Old Quarter of London. It is on one of these hunts that he first encounters Alaizabel Cray. Alaizabel is half-crazed, lovely, and possessed.Whatever dreadful entity has entered her soul has turned her into a strange and unearthly magnet--attracting evil and drawing horrors from every dark corner. Cathaline and Thaniel must discover its cause--and defend humanity at all costs.

This story gets off to a slow start, but once I got into it a couple of chapters I was hooked by the dark mystery and suspense. Fantasy lovers shouldn't miss this one.

City of thieves, by David Benioff

City of thieves is a World War II story that takes place in Russia during the Siege of Leningrad. The Germans have Leningrad cut off, and the people still surviving are starving and desperate. Two young men, one an army deserter and one arrested as a looter, are about to be executed when they are given a reprieve. Lev and Kolya can find a dozen eggs for an NKVD colonel to use for his daughter's wedding cake and live. Or fail, and die. So the two set off on an impossible 4 day quest that takes them through the frozen city, through the surrounding countryside, and eventually behind German lines in search of the eggs that will save their lives.
This is part war tale, part coming of age story, part adventure and love story. It is brutal and funny, touching and always entertaining.

Voss : How I came to America and am hero, mostly, by David Ives

This is funny, light reading - an extended Saturday Night Live skit kind of book that lampoons American culture. Vospop Vsklzwczdztwczky comes to America and gets in dip dip trobble.................

A complicated kindness, by Miriam Toews

This book sounded interesting because it is set in a Mennonite community in Canada and I was interested in gaining insight into what that life is like. BUT, the characters are so seriously disturbed that I ended up disappointed. The downward spiral of family disfunction, substance abuse, and most of all clinical depression just got to be too much for me and I didn't finish the book, which almost never happens.

Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan

The beginning chapters of this book are brutal as the main character is abused, raped, and struggles to survive in a cruel existance. Cornered in a hopeless existance, she finds sanctuary in magic when she is whisked into an alternate reality. Here the story gets interesting. She is raising two very innocent daughters in her safe but tiny world when reality begins to intrude in the form of visitors from the real world, some who are decent people, and some who are not. Eventually the bolder daughter escapes back into the real world, and her mother and sister follow. The story has a message about how life is full of brutality and evil existing side by side with love, integrity, and good. Does the existance of evil make the existance of good more precious?

Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow

Marcus is computer wise, and outwitting school security is his ticket to a day off to play the real world component of his favorite online game. But Marcus and his friends pick the wrong day to escape school when they find themselves near ground 0 of a terrorist attack similar to 9/11. Picked up by the Department of Homeland Security and whisked away to a secret prison (think Guantonimo), they are subjected to merciless interrogation for days. When finally released, Marcus discovers that San Francisco has been turned into a police state with every action watched, every move monitored by a DHS gone mad. His computer is bugged, he's under police surveilance, and he's on a mission - bringing down the DHS.
The author of Little Brother is a tech guru in his own right, and the story has implications that should make us all stop and think about where technology can lead us in the not that distant future.

The graveyard book, by Neil Gaiman

After the grisly murder of his entire family, a toddler wanders into a graveyard where the ghosts and other supernatural residents agree to raise him as one of their own. The story of Bod's childhood is a fresh story with surprises on every page. I liked Gaiman's Coraline, but I like this one even better. The illustrations add to the spooky atmosphere and help make this one just plain fun to read. The Newbery award folks got it right this year!

An abundance of Katherines, by John Green

I love guy humor, and this book has it in spades. Always being dumped by girls named Katherine, Colin Singleton, a washed-up child prodigy with a Judge-Judy obsessed best friend, embarks on a quest to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will impact all of his future relationships and change his life. By the same author as Looking for Alaska, but this time John Green trades in the drama for humor, and does it every bit as well. And what is more fun than a road trip?

Lament, by Maggie Stiefvater / Wicked lovely, by Melissa Marr

These two books have essentially the same conflict, but the two authors have dealt with it in two very different ways. In both stories, a teen girl is chosen by the Summer King of Faerie to be his queen. How the girls react and respond to the situation makes for good romantic suspense. Both are engaging and fun to read. Wicked lovely has sequels that we will have to be getting, though we don't have them at CHS now. The author of Lament is working on a sequel, so we will be watching for that to come out next year.

Dishes, by Rich Wallace

Summertime out East - Straight Danny spends the summer working aa a dishwasher in a gay bar, running, hanging out at the beach, getting to know his Dad who has never been a big part of his life, checking out the girls, softball, the GIRL. It's a summertime story. No tough issues, no drama, no angst. It's ok to be straight seems to be the message.

A Northern light, by Jennifer Donnelly

This historical fiction story takes place in rural Maine at the turn of the last century. Life was slower, more agricultural, and a young woman had to make a choice between love or a career. Love in a time before birth control meant marriage, babies, and backbreaking labor to keep a house and farm going. So seventeen year old Mattie is resisting the growing pressure she feels to marry the young man who loves her. Her father needs her to help raise her younger brother and sisters and to stay at home. Her teacher at school is trying to show her the possibility of a college education in New York. Girls in 1906 decided their lives early, and Mattie has already stayed in school long past the time most girls quit school and married.

This is an introspective, quiet story. Well written, and one that will stay with me for a long time I think.

A great and terrible beauty, by Libba Bray

I recently re-read this book. It is a mysterious and compelling story that follows a Victorian girl who has been brought up in India until the murder of her mother on her 16th birthday forces her father to send her back to England. In England she is sent to a boarding school for upper class young women. Gemma soon discovers that a mysterious young man she saw in India has followed her, and he has explanations for the haunting visions that begin to plague her. But are his explanations truthful, or is there another, darker explanation? Gemma is thrown into a world where she doesn't know who to trust or who to turn to for help. The book is a combination of fantasy, horror, historical fiction, and a little romance.

Impossible, by Nancy Werlin

"Are you going to Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme....." The old folk ballad is at the heart of this modern tale of a 17-year-old high school Junior whose ordinary life is ended with a date to Prom, a rape, and the discovery that she is one of a long line of women doomed to bear a child and live the rest of her life insane. The fairie king responsible for her fate has her in his sights and is looking forward to breaking her fighting spirit. Lucy has nine months to fullfill the terms of the curse or fall prey to her magical stalker.

Nancy Werlin is an author that I enjoy reading, and this newest book is as good or better than anything I've read of hers. Impossible to put down.

Gossip Girl, by Cecily von Ziegesar

I guess I have too high expectations, even for chic lit. This one was a dissapointment for me. Full of people who if not for their fabulous wealth, good looks, and designer clothes, would be in trouble with the law.

The absolutely true diary of a part-time Indian, by Sherman Alexie

Native American 14 year old Junior is a classic underdog - poor, weak health, humiliated daily by even his best (and only) friend. But sometimes there is a spark of courage that just IS, even in the most unlikely people. That spark leads Junior to leave the poverty, alcoholism, and hopelessness of life on the Spokane reservation and seek an education 22 miles away in an all white school. Junior faces the challenges with stoicism and with humor - balancing his home life on the rez with his school days where he is the only Indian except for the school mascot. It's about the redemptive power of sports and of friendship. It's irreverent, tragic, funny, and a deeply moving story that had me laughing through tears.

The missing girl, by Norma Fox Mazer

Told from alternating points of view, this is the story of a family of five sisters and the stalker who is choosing which one of the five to abduct. It would have helped if the chapter titles indicated which of the five girls narrates each chapter. The stalker on the other hand is easy to distinguish and creepy.

The adoration of Jenna Fox, by Mary E. Pearson

Jenna wakes after a car accident has left her in a coma for a year to a world she barely understands. Gradually her memory returns, and gradually she learns the extent of her injuries. The body she is now in is not her own, and in fact very little of her brain is original. The issues of organ transplantation are explored well here, but I was reminded of Peter Dickinson's Eva, which I think does a better job with a similar premise.

Burned, by Ellen Hopkins

A powerful story about a girl from a religious yet abusive family who in one magical summer discovers life free from the narrow confines of her ultra conservative life. Pattyn blossoms under the loving guidance of her Aunt J and the budding romance with neighbor Ethan. But even as Pattyn's eyes are opened to new possibilities in life, the seeds of her destruction are being sown, and the reader is swept along for the roller coaster ride with growing fear. After all, we know the title of the book.

The free verse poetry means lots of white space on each page, and 532 pages fly past very quickly. I was intruiged with the placement of the words on many of the pages that if read vertically revealed alternate messages.

The ending of the book disturbed me - I would like to have seem a postscript letting us know that tragic loves are survivable in the end, as some of us know that they are.

Cherry Heaven, by L.J. Adlington

Cherry Heaven is the name of the property where Kat and her sister Tanka have moved with their parents. They are settlers in a new, frontier community far from the big cities where a race war based on one's DNA is raging. Based on DNA tests, everyone has one of three colors of tattoo on the back of their hand. Here on the frontier there is peace, but the girls soon discover that peace hasn't come without a price, and DNA discrimination has not really been eliminated in the frontier as they have been told. In fact, the "lowest" caste has been turned into slave laborers, and a revolution is about to be ignited right in their own backyard when a slave escapes and tries to return to her former home of Cherry Heaven. The story reads like a mystery as the girls discover the truth about Cherry Heaven and just how powerful and ruthless the politicians in charge truly are beneath their charming ways.

Bonemender, by Holly Bennett

This has been one of the Abe books that goes out often, and after reading it folks usually want to go on to read the Bonemender's oath and Bonemender's Choice, the third book in the trilogy. I enjoyed reading it, but didn't find anything unique about it - nothing that hasn't already been done by the Inheritance series in particular. Now if I hadn't already read that series fairly recently maybe I would have enjoyed this more...

Exodus, by Julie Bertagna

This was a terrific book - a futuristic view of our civilization a hundred years from now, when the polar icecaps have melted and the world is flooded. There are still islands with people living on them on former mountaintops. Mara is living on an island she knows as Wing. It took me a while to figure out that Wing is all that is left of Scotland. Her village is about to be swallowed by the rising sea and Mara, after researching on her handheld computer, has devised a plan to save the villagers by traveling by fishing boats to a "sky city" built above the ocean to withstand the storms that lash the earth. But the sky city of New Mungo is a closed society to refugees. So Mara must find a way in, and find a way to rescue the refugees she meets there. The futuristic New Mungo society is interesting, as are the different bands of refugees. All are believable, as is the dilemma posed by how to deal with refugees when to take them in means to overwhelm the available resources.

What my mother doesn't know/What my girlfriend doesn't know by Sonya Sones

What my mother doesn't know (2002) is a love story told from the girl's point of view. Sometimes a girl's heart and her head disagree about a guy. When that happens the girl has a tough decision to make. Sophie thinks she is in love with Dylan, so why is she thinking about Murphy...the guy who's very name is synonymous with dork, nerd, wimp? Sophie is in for some surprises when her heart starts paying attention to Murphy.

What my girlfriend doesn't know (2007) starts where the 1st book left off, but is told from Murphy's point of view. Having Sophie for a girlfriend is better than anything he's ever imagined. But how much abuse is she willing to stand as everyone in school laughs at her and Murphy together? He loves her, and watching her lose her friends over him hurts.

I really couldn't put this book down till I finished it and found out how it ended.

Dairy Queen, by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

It's too bad the cover of this book has that cow with the tiara....This book IS funny, but not cow in a tiara kind of funny. It's the kind of funny where you recognize the characters and what they are going through and it makes you smile - you KNOW people like this. D.J. Schwenk, the main character, is from a family that does not talk about the stuff that's going on in their heads. At the opening of the book she is working like crazy to keep the farm going while her dad is laid up with knee surgery, and trying to keep up at school, and maybe finding a little time to have a life of her own. This was fun to read, and I laughed out loud.

The God box, by Alex Sanchez

Sanchez makes a valid point about homophobia and how destructive it is to gays and straights alike. But in this book the gay main character's doubts and confusion and unhappiness seemed neverending. I thought the moral of the story was a little heavyhanded, and would have benefited from lightening up a little. The other books by this author are better.