This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

Publisher: Speak
Copyright: 2004

Remy and her best-seller mother Barbara Starr have only about one thing in common: their many relationships. After her father died shortly after her birth, Remy grew up knowing more than five different stepfathers. Remy herself has not been able to keep a boyfriend; she's had over ten. But the summer her mother gets remarried (again!) and she meets Dexter, her perspective on what love really is changes.

Dexter is everything Remy doesn't look for in a guy: messy, disorganized, hyper and worst of all: a musician like her one hit wonder father who wrote the famous song This Lullaby for her on the day of her birth.
The summer before Remy and her friends Jesse, Chloe and Lissa part to go to different colleges in the fall, Remy learns a very important lesson: what love is and how it makes a difference in people's lives. It's the way Remy learns this lesson, though. She learns it by once more bringing her current relationship with Dexter to a screeching stop by hurting him, and getting taught courage by her mother who's sixth husband has an affair with someone else and leaves her.

Having read three books by Sarah Dessen now, I've noticed that it usually takes a few chapters to really start to like the novel, but what I liked about This Lullaby was how it intrigued me from the start. The story opened with some humor and emotion from Remy's point of view, and then quickly introduced the main plot.
Sarah Dessen had a humorous, intriguing beginning, a strong and fast-moving plot for the middle, and a suspenseful, eventful and unexpected ending.
Despite the well thought out plot for This Lullaby, what I did not appreciate was the mature content that happened to play a big part in the story. It gave This Lullaby a few good twists and turns, but did not make the plot seem very attractive. Due to that one attribute in the novel, I would not recommend this book for young teenagers.

Overall, This Lullaby was what I would call a good book. I wouldn't recommend it to all teen readers, but it is definitely To Read.

To Read  Not to Read

Pop by Gordon Korman

Publisher: HarperCollins
Copyright: 2009

Marcus Jordan moves to a small town in the summer and doesn't know anybody there. Marcus wants to be on the football season this upcoming year, so he starts practicing in Three Alarm Park. While practicing, Marcus throws the ball really far, almost to the other side of the park. He suddenly sees something while walking to where the ball landed. It was a person! This guy was running towards Marcus and he just couldn't figure out why. Then when the man was close enough to see his face, Marcus realised that this man in fact had his ball! The man stopped in front of Marcus and explained himself to Marcus. After a few minutes of tossing the ball around the mysterious man said he had to go but would see Marcus tomorrow.

When school starts Marcus immediately navigates himself to the field where the tryouts are held. When he gets there he is told that not a lot of new people get onto the team because it is a very tight-knit group who play. In spite of this, he gets on the team, just not the place he wanted.

Marcus has being seeing Charlie a few times a week; he learned that the guy's name was Charlie when they went to the store together and Charlie didn't pay. After a few more weeks of training with Charlie, Marcus realises that he seems a bit odd. Whenever Marcus tries to talk about the last time they trained Charlie doesn't seem to remember.

Marcus goes on the computer and searches diseases that can happen to football players, because when Marcus is told of Charlie's name he remembers that he used to be a famous football player. Marcus finds a site that talks about some of the symptoms Charlie seems to have and finds out that Charlie has developed early-onset Alzheimer's disease.

Charlie's family knows he has this disease but the rest of the town doesn't. When Marcus confronts Charlie's daughter at school about his disease she threatens him if he dares to tell anybody about it. Marcus drops the subject for a few weeks then goes and finds Charlie's old school buddy and tells him about what happened to him. Marcus had to tell Mac (Charlie's school buddy) about his disease because Charlie and Marcus were making trouble for one of the shop owners and Marcus was getting blamed for it because Charlie would just walk away.

Marcus and Mac also take Charlie to one of their school reunions when they hear that Charlie is going to get an award and will be put into the school's hall of fame. The only problem is that Marcus didn't tell Mac that he hadn't asked the family if he could take Charlie. The next thing they knew, they had lost Charlie in the excitement. The police found him and took Charlie and Marcus back to their town. Marcus was wondering why they were rushing back so he asked the police officer and he replied that the football team was losing and they had to get Marcus back home so that they could win the game.

Marcus was about to throw the ball to the end zone when out of the corner of his eye he saw Charlie walking towards the back of the bleachers. Marcus ran up the bleachers to Charlie but he was already standing on the bar at the back of the bleachers about to set the other team's Mascot hawk free. Marcus could see Charlie standing on the bar then Marcus blinked. When he opened his eyes again there was no charlie standing on the top of the bar. Marcus knew what had happened and ran down the bleachers and around the side to find Charlie while everybody else ran towards where he had been standing.

It was a small funeral for Charlie and some other famous football players even showed up when they heard the he had died. Even Charlie's son Troy was sort of nice to Marcus during the mourning at Charlie's house.

Gordan Korman wrote this book like a movie and made it feel like he was slowing it down when it came to serious parts but in the happy exciting parts, he wrote it like he was telling a story.

I felt that this book was truly telling both sides of the football world or any sport for that matter, that a sport can be fun and very fulfilling if you honestly love it but on the other side they can also be dangerous and a horrible experience if you don't really love it.

To Read  Not to Read