Freak by Marcella Pixley

2007, Douglas & Mcintyre ltd.

I tried to make sure Artie could see my tongue when I brought the spoon to my lips. Sometimes I licked the rim of the spoon all the way around and breathed heavily so my breath would fog up the silver. 
"What's wrong with you?" said Deborah.
"I like the texture of the spoon," I panted. "It feels good in my mouth."
"Jenny Clarke is right," she muttered. "You are a FREAK." (51-52)

Miriam Fisher is about the world's least popular girl, according to how the "watermelon girls" treat her. With glasses, greasy hair, and pimples, Miriam is named a freak by the kids at her school, and even her own sister.

One year, Artie, friend of Miriam's family and her supposed "soul mate" comes to stay with them for his senior year while his parents are off digging wells in some third-world country. The big thing that Miriam and Artie have in common is their passion for poetry. Artie reads romantic poems at the table to Miriam's sister Deborah, and Miriam herself is an aspiring poet with an over sized vocabulary for her age.

All year long, Jenny Clarke and her crowd of popular friends target Miriam for liking Artie and for writing in Clyde, her personal poetry book and diary. Miriam has Rosie, her only friend by her side, but everything seems to get worse and worse.

When Miriam is pushed over the edge, she is forced to unleash a side of herself that nobody else knew before, and pay Jenny back for all the wrong that was done to her, only to discover that she and Jenny have more commonalities than differences.


Freak was, like few others, one of my favorite novels. It consists of everything teen readers will look for in a book: vivid and easy-to-relate-to situations and characters that are debatable, and heartbreaking, and a unique ending with a twist.

Many kids and teens have been bullied, and Freak showcased some very accurate problems in a normal child's life. Written heartbreakingly from the perspective of Miriam Fisher, the main character tells us about her experience being bullied and the effect it has on herself and her family. While narrating her novel, Marcella Pixley writes in such a way that tears will nearly be brought to her readers eyes.

Some of the events in the book cause the readers to ask themselves the following questions: "Is Jenny good or bad?" "Has Artie really been trashing our innocent protagonist behind her back?" Nobody hates a book that leaves you pondering over what you will read next long after it's lights out.

The best thing about Freak, linking to its questionable happenings, is the very twisted and kinky ending. The problems in the story are wrapped up all together in an extremely satisfying way that instead of begging the author for a sequel you will shift to your next novel and look back on this one fondly.

I strongly recommend Freak to any girl around 11-14 years old, and I hope fellow readers will enjoy the book as much as I did.

To Read  Not to Read

That Summer by Sarah Dessen

For fifteen-year-old Haven, one ordinary summer turns into an epic journey as the days go by. It all starts with her father's remarriage to the "Weather Pet": Haven's mother's nickname for the local weather lady. Then Haven's sister Ashley's old boyfriend turns up at a pasta restaurant one day and at almost every other one of Haven's haunts, sparking her memory of the past. The biggest part of all is that Haven's sister is getting married to a guy who seems to hardly suit her and everything begins to revolve around Ashley.  On top of everything, Haven's best friend Casey thinks she's met her soul mate and Haven herself is six feet tall and still growing. It's all way too much this summer for Haven, and she is pushed over the edge to breaking point very quickly.

I know that you might think my summary for That Summer was a little choppy, but if you thought that, you must have thought the same thing about the book itself. Even though That Summer is Sarah Dessen's first novel, I have obviously read other books of hers before. I believe I've said this in the past, but I find that Sarah Dessen's novels are always slow and too descriptive for the first few chapters and turn out to be amazing later on. Naturally, I expected the same from this book, and got even less. That Summer was one of the slowest books I have ever read and I was greatly disappointed in it.

Normally in a book the characters are somewhat vivid and easy to relate to, the problems of the plot are all solved by the end, and most occurrences in the book seem to foreshadow the conclusion or support other happenings. In That Summer, the characters actually weren't so vivid. I found when Haven was narrating the story from her point of view, it was told rather drone-like. The characters were just there. The events just happened in a way that it didn't seem there should be a necessary order for them. When Haven actually reached "breaking point" in the story, it was surprising to me that she actually had feelings; the characters were so mediocre.

I know that Sarah Dessen is a terrific author otherwise, so if this is the first book you've read by her, don't be turned off. But all in all, this book disappointed me. I really would not recommend it to anybody. My final decision for That Sumer may shock you, or you may agree with me. Please comment on this post , or vote on the book below.

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Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

Ruby and her mother have been constantly moving around together, ever since her parents got divorced and her sister left for college. Although it may seem strange, it's normal for Ruby to be left alone for weeks at a time by her mother. But when Ruby's mother leaves for the final time and does not return, she has to illegally fend for herself in the small yellow house she loves so much without heat or running water.

When the landlords discover the absence of Ruby's mother, she is sent to her sister Cora's mansion to stay until she can legally and comfortably be on her own. Ruby hasn't seen her ten-year-older sister for a decade, but after settling in, Ruby and her sister learn that they are still as close as they were before.

In the months that Ruby stays with her sister and brother-in-law, she is befriended by Nate, the rich boy next door, tutored by a twelve-year-old genius in calculus, and is taught how to accept help when she needs it and the true meaning of family.

With a stunning plot, well-crafted world readers will lose themselves in, and yet another batch of vivid, believable characters, Sarah Dessen presents to teen readers one more book you will be incapable of putting down.

What exactly is so good about Lock and Key? Despite the reference to drugs in the novel, the story is just so unpredictable you simply have to find out what happens next in the story. It's impressing how Sarah Dessen could gracefully switch the mood of the novel from serious and a bit depressed to warm and humorous.

If you have read any other of Sarah Dessen's novels and enjoyed them, then I guess you already know what to expect from her eighth book. If you haven't read any of her novels, then pick this one up and brace yourself for your new favorite author!

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Chat Room by Kristin Butcher

 Linda is a lonely ninth grader with one friend: Janice "Beastly", the school bully and least popular girl. When Linda's high school introduces chat rooms to the school website, she is sucked into chatting and is soon addicted to the computer, despite Janice's persistent warnings. In the school chat rooms Linda (aka Roxane on the Internet) meets another anonymous student nicknamed Cyrano; a character from her favorite move. The two quickly get to know each other while chatting online.
When Cyrano finds out who Roxane really is, Linda receives flowers, poems, chocolates and finally a ticket to the school dance, and assumes that Cyrano is her secret admirer and he has invited her to the dance. But when Linda misses her bus and is walking home from school in the pouring rain and a twelfth-grader offers her a ride home, she finds out that this guy is Cyrano. He mentions nothing about liking her or the gifts he sent, so Linda still thinks he likes her.
The night of the dance, Linda finds out that it was not Cyrano ( Marc Solomon in real life) who has been sending her gifts, but the shy, younger and less popular Chad Sharp. That night, the two learn the hard way how the Internet can trick people; or get them into some serious situations. Linda is forced to tell Chad she does not like him, and Chad has to convince Linda that he is her secret admirer.

I can't say I completely enjoyed this novel. I never expected it to be so good when I picked it up in the first place, but I found many things wrong with it.

The first thing I'd like to mention about Chat Room is how unrealistic it was. Sure, lots of people participate in chatting online and find themselves caught up in some serious issues even greater than the ones addressed in the novel, but Kristin Butcher made Linda into a character who hadn't ever really been interested in the computer. Linda had to psyche up just to join a chat room on the school website, where these days basically everybody has Facebook and/or Twitter and doesn't give a second thought to signing up. And I know that if my school website had chat rooms and forums on it, nobody would take part in them because by the time you're twelve and older, it's not cool to visit your school website unless absolutely necessary. I think the story should have been based on something involving more peer-pressure and a more popular social networking website.

Another thing I saw wrong with Chat Room was how it was written. The characters were constantly talking about the dangers of the Internet, blah blah blah. No teenager and/or child wants to read something they already have to sit through their parents telling them. Chat Room was the kind of book your parents tell you to read and hope that you'll obliviously learn something and recommend it to your friends. The characters were phony, and the dialogue was too mature for their ages. I support these two opinions of mine with the following quote: "Chat rooms are nothing but hangouts for perverts. Anybody who visits them is asking for trouble." -Janice (8)

So now after stating and supporting my opinions that Chat Room is unrealistic, too educational to be attractive to the average teen reader, and phony, my final conclusion is that I will not recommend this novel to anybody I know, for I believe it is not by far the best book I have ever read.

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Along for the Ride by Sarah Dessen

Publisher: Speak
Copyright: 2009

Auden expects a long, hot, boring two months, when she chooses to spend her summer with the stepmother she isn't too fond of, and her dad's selfish attributes. Not to mention a constantly crying half - sister that's just been born.
But this particular summer, Auden gets way more than she expects to. She gets a job bookkeeping at her stepmother Heidi's store, meets new friends, and is helped to catch up on the childhood she never had.

Ever since Auden's parents divorced when she was little, she never slept at night from having to listen to their fighting. When Auden lived with her no-fun, nagging mother nearly all her life, she was expected to be the little adult, never doing anything fun, never having many friends, and never doing anything as basic in her childhood such as learning to ride a bike.

But all that changes when she meets Eli in the small town her father, stepmother and half-sister calls home. Eli is a former BMX star that quit doing what he loved when he and his best friend Abe were in a car accident and he was the only one of the two that survived. When Auden and Eli become friends, they change and teach each other what they both need to learn. Eli to come out of his grief and trauma; Auden to come out of her shell and experience some simple things included in a childhood, much less learning to live a proper social and academic life. Overall, they both learn the value of taking risks and living life.


I loved Along for the Ride, Sarah Dessen's latest novel published in 2009. From the beginning, I found the characters and storyline attractive, despite the sluggishness in the plot during the first few chapters. Sarah Dessen put everything into this novel that I expect from a good book: humor, vividity, attractiveness, and most importantly, an interesting and gripping, dramatic plot.

I have only read a few of Sarah Dessen's books, but this one inspired me to embark on my 'quest' to read all of her novels, if people who have already read this book know what I mean. I think a lot of other teenagers who read this book will be able to relate to many of the themes and parts in the story of this masterpiece. Anybody who is looking for a good book to read, I strongly recommend it; it will be one of my favorites for years.

Another reason to read Along For the Ride was that it was also clean. I have read a few books before that had mature content, etc. in them that made me question whether or not I should continue on to the next chapter. Readers will find Along for the Ride a satisfying, appropriate, recommendable adventure.

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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.

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The Truth About Forever by Sarah Dessen

Publisher: Speak Books
Copyright: 2008

Macy's summer is based on a boring library job and studying for the SAT's. For the past year and a half, Macy's family has been grieving the loss of their father and husband, who passed away right before Macy's eyes.

Running was Macy's passion. Every Saturday morning, Macy and her father would go for a run, and that's where it all ended. Macy's father collapsed from a heart attack right in front of her.

Now Macy, her sister Caroline, and her mother Deborah, continue to grieve. Deborah and Macy's lives are organized and quiet. Caroline is the only one able to resume her life and help her family do so, too.

But when Macy accepts a job offer at Wish Catering, along with her job at the info desk, she makes five new friends: Delia, Kristy, Bert, Monica and Wes, and her life begins to return to what it was.
Macy's mother is scared of a real life without her husband, hides behind her work, and prevents Macy from having one, too, by later banning her from her catering job and seeing her friends. Together, Macy and her sister must support their mother in fixing up the old beach house, letting Macy move on, and finally grieving.

Will Macy's forever be returning to her old, boring boyfriend and mother; her calm, quiet life, or be a regular life with friends and jobs and fun? Has Macy changed for the better, or worse?


Getting into the first few chapters of The Truth About Forever, I expected that I'd enjoy the novel as much as any other of my favorite books. Sarah Dessen creates such vivid characters that if anybody told me this was a true story, I could have easily believed it. Sarah Dessen narrates her story from Macy's point of view in such a way that the reader will become the character, experiencing the same emotions and thoughts as Macy herself.

Due to the reality in the plot, the deepness in the story, and the vividity of the characters and their opinions and how they tie in to what the character is experiencing in the story, the novel proves the amount of thought and work Dessen put in to her sixth novel.

Delia, the owner of Wish Catering where Macy works, always does her jobs in a disorganized fashion, so that the reader believes her to be a very disordered person. But Delia herself justifies her unmethodical way in the dialogue of the book, by explaining to Macy: "If everything was always smooth and perfect, you'd get too used to that, you know? You have a little bit of disorganization now and then. Otherwise you'll never really enjoy it when things go right." (94)
And Macy keeps working at her library job, with the other two girls who hate her, Bethany and Amanda. The reader wonders again when or if the heroine will quit her job, despite how much Jason, her boyfriend wants her to do well in it for him, and how much her mother believes she should complete the summer job for her resume. But as Macy is changed by her new friends at Wish, the job is no longer the least bit good enough for her.
"In so many ways, I was realizing the info desk was a lot like my life had been before Wish and Kristy and Wes. Something to be endured, never enjoyed" (198)
Aside from the characters, Dessen puts out a very real and possible story. The grounding, boring summer job, breaking up with Jason, and meeting Wes, are all things that would happen to the average teenage girl, "smushed", into one summer, all happening to one person. The Truth About Forever presents several situations where the reader will debate over which character has the right opinion, or who in the book is most agreeable with. The Truth About Forever is truly an amazing and remarkable novel.

To Read   Not to Read

The Summer of Cotton Candy by Debbie Viguie

Publisher: ZonderVan
Copyright: 2009

Candace Thompson is looking forward to a delightful summer, every day fun-filled and spent with her best friend, Tamara. Instead, her father has her apply for a job at The Zone, the local amusement park. Candace is stuck with selling sticky cotton candy outside in the blazing sun eight hours a day, six days a week. Not only is her free time totally consumed by work, but she can no longer attend church and youth group, or hang out with her only real friend.

It isn't long before the first perk to the job comes up, though. Candace meets Kurt, the masked man in the History Zone who she soon has a huge crush on. It's not before the end of her working week yet when she makes another friend, Josh.

Despite Candace's new circle of friends the days at The Zone are getting hotter, and her hours are getting longer. Candace's summer is getting worse and worse including almost getting run over by the park train, her best friend mad at her, failing a drug test, getting stalked for cotton candy by Becca, a fellow park ref with a sugar allergy, and the fact that her new boyfriend is really a high school dropout who lives hours away from his parents and has no ambitions whatsoever.

Is this really the worst summer ever, though? By the end of it, Candace and Tamara make up, her circle of friends has broadened, her team won the end of the year scavenger hunt, she and Kurt, the masked man get together, and a new Zone in the theme park is named after one of her ideas.

In the end, all of Candace's problems are solved, and her new friends invite her back to work at the Scare Zone in the fall. This summer has gone from the worst to one of the best in Candace's life.

The Summer of Cotton Candy is Christian novel. In the first couple of chapters, I thought the book was had a little bit of a strange sense of humor, and was definitely thinking: Ugh! SO not to read! But I decided to stick with it, because something about The Summer of Cotton Candy pulled me in. Later, I realized it was the humor of the book that intrigued me so much to read on. The jokes were different and dramatic, somewhere along the lines of a kid imagining their history teacher being a blood-thirsty monster. Debbie Viguie herself is a bit of a drama queen, I think. She makes work seem so cruel, and the part about Becca, desperate for a taste of sweetness despite her sugar allergy, was definitely weird.


But The Summer of Cotton Candy is different, and funny. Like what it says on the novel back of the book: The Summer of Cotton Candy is a fun, quirky, alternate novel. Debbie Viguie's style of writing is natural and creative, which makes her first novel in the Sweet Seasons series so unique and remarkable. 

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Radio Fifth Grade by Gordon Korman

Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright: 2006

In Radio Fifth Grade, Benjy Driver's dream is to become a professional radio broadcaster, just like his hero, Eldridge Kestenbaum. Benjy, Mark, and Ellen-Louise are all involved in the school's radio show, 'Kidsview'. To Mark and Ellen-Louise, 'Kidsview' is just something else to do, but to Benjy, it's the start of his career.

The radio show 'Kidsview' has one sponsor: Mr Whitehead, owner of Our Animal Friends pet store. Every week on 'Kidsview', Benjy and his friends present the Mascot of the Week, a pet from Mr Whitehead's store that he is trying to sell. The three producers' problems begin when Winston Churchill, a parrot who is supposed to talk but doesn't, comes on the show as Mascot of the Week. When he doesn't talk on the air, he doesn't sell. And when Winston Churchill does learn how to say something, his chances of selling are cut even slimmer.

Ms. Gucci, Benjy, Mark and Ellen-Louise's teacher, wins the lottery and moves to somewhere in Hawaii, so the three's class get their new teacher, Ms. Panagopulos, who turns the class into a seminar. Getting more homework than ever, Benjy can't seem to find the time to work on the script for 'Kidsview', and he and his friends hatch a plan to get their homework done by turning the questions on their papers into radio-show quiz questions.

Not only is fifth grade turned into a seminar and 'Kidsview' at a risk of being canceled, but Brad, the Venice Menace, comes along onto the show with a story that nobody wants to hear, although his teacher encourages him to share it. The Monday after, the hilarious story of Fuzzy and Puffy is laughed at and mocked behind the author's back. Brad is mistaken and intimidates the entire school to start a Fuzzy and Puffy fan club.

Problems at the radio studio escalate, until Benjy and his friends must prevent their new teacher from tuning in and discovering how they all get 100% on their homework. Not only are Benjy and Mark nearly caught stealing Ms. P's radio and returning it to the store for the complaint 'I hate this radio', but Winston Churchill gets loose in the radio studio and sabotages it.

Benjy, the main character of Radio Fifth Grade, is a serious, hard-working person; when it comes to the radio and his future career. His best friend, Mark, can be bone-headed and impulsive, and the two boys' partner in producing 'Kidsview', Ellen-Louise, is a goody two shoes straight A student whose main goal is to be the smartest, best, and perfect. Gordon Korman takes serious, ignorant, and smart to create three characters that together make Radio Fifth Grade a hilarious and clever plot.

With Gordon Korman, you can't go wrong. I never had my doubts about Radio Fifth Grade. Every novel I have read by Gordon Korman, be it adventure or comedy, I have enjoyed. So when I picked up this book, I didn't know what to expect: comedy, adventure, drama, or all three. From this novel, I'm positive I got comedy and drama, and in its own way, Radio Fifth Grade delivered a magnificent adventure.

Radio Fifth Grade is a timeless novel, first printed in 1989, and brought back into print in 2010. No doubt Radio Fifth Grade will be in print for a while, and might even grow in popularity. Radio Fifth Grade is aimed at elementary students or early high school students, but in my opinion anybody will enjoy it.

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Sniper by Theodore Taylor

Sniper is a different novel about 15-year-old Ben Jepson who is left alone to tend to his parents' wild cat preserve in South California. It's not the responsibility of the big cats that burdens Ben, but the responsibility of keeping them safe from somebody who stalks the night armed with a sniper waiting to kill the next of his cats.

Sniper is set in South California, around the 80's. For a novel set in South California, you would expect a happier feel to the plot, although the reader feels what emotions the characters experience : grief and anguish.

The story begins when Ben and the hired hands on the preserve are awakened by the sound of panicking peacocks, and they go outside to find Helen and Daisy, The Sisters, shot dead and bleeding on the ground, and most of the other cats released from their compounds. This isn't the last assault on the preserve, though. Despite Ben's and the hired hands' efforts to protect the cats, Rachael, one of the cheetahs, is shot dead one morning, followed by Rocky, a lion Ben raised right from the earliest stages. Now, along with the challenge of keeping most of the cats alive, Ben must work with Deputy Metcalf to discover who the culprit is, and why they have any reason to shoot the most gentle cats on the property.

The main characters in Sniper are Ben, his girlfriend Sandy, Luis Vargas, and Deputy Metcalf. The story, told from Ben's perspective, lets the readers express their grief and concern for the events in the book.

Theodore Taylor's style of writing is slow and gradual, yet exciting and intriguing. Theodore Taylor not only provides readers with an excellent story, but  expresses his characters' emotions so well that readers sort of turn into his characters, and live their parts in the story.

Theodore Taylor was born in North Carolina on June 23, 1921, and passed away more recently on October 26, 2006. He is the author of over fifty novels, including The Cay and The Bomb. He is the winner of eleven literary awards.

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Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Copyright: 2002

In a world where families can only have two children, Luke Garner struggle to live like an ordinary child, despite his being illegal. Luke is an illegal third child, living silently and secretly. The only people who know about him are his parents and older brothers. He’s never been off of his property. Never been to school, never had a friend. But what Luke does not know: there are others like him.

When the woods behind Luke’s farmhouse are deconstructed, Luke is forced to stay indoors at all times. Eventually, he can’t look out a window, eat breakfast with his family, or even leave his room in the attic, due to the worry of people working outside seeing him.
One day, though, Luke discovers vents in the roof of his attic room, where he can see out. During his time inside, Luke can see the houses that replaced his woods, and in a few months, he can watch the new neighbors going about their daily business. Peculiarly, when all of the neighbors are at work or school, Luke spots a light left on in one of the rooms of the houses, and shortly after that, the blinds fluttering. Assuming that there is another third child in the house, Luke plots for weeks in his room how and when to escape his house for the first time in months to meet them.

The day Luke manages to escape, he meets Jen, the other third child, who teaches him about Shadow children, and why they are illegal. Jen and Luke become fast friends, and Jen shares her plans with Luke about the Rally, a scheme to stand up to the Government and free all third children.

When the rally fails, Luke narrowly escapes the Population Police with his life, and with the help of Jen’s father, without his name.

When I first picked up this novel, I never expected it to be so good! Usually, I find that the first novel in a sequence is always the slowest, and the author takes their time to introduce all of the main characters and the major conflict or plot. Fortunately, this rule did not apply to Among the Hidden! Every chapter kept me hooked. There was really no part in the novel that dragged on, and each sentence, I wanted to read more. It was always a bother to put the book down, or even to finish a chapter. I think the author chose a very interesting and possibly realistic view of the future, and gave the readers a good picture of this conflict’s consequences, if it were one day to happen. When the novel narrated from Luke’s point of view, it really made me put myself in Luke’s ‘shoes’, because I could actually imagine what it felt like to be cooped up inside for months, and finally breathe fresh air; that is how well the author described things. I would recommend this novel to almost anybody, or whoever is interested in reading a gripping novel that they can’t put down. I look forward to reading the rest of the series, and hopefully the novels following Among the Hidden are as good as itself.

To Read   Not to Read

The Summoning by Kelly Armstrong

Publisher: Random House
Copyright: 2008

When Chloe gets stalked by a gory-looking ghost janitor and tries to run away from school, she is diagnosed with schizophrenia and is put in Lyle House, a home for unstable teens. Chloe finds out from her new friends that she is not a schizophrenic, but is a necromancer and can actually hear the dead speaking to her.
Chloe and her new friends discover that Lyle House is not what it seems, and they must escape with the biggest mystery of their lives.

When I picked up The Summoning, I expected a really good read, judging by the dramatic cover and the New York Times Best Selling Author statement at the top. But judging this book by its cover, however, was one of the worst book wise mistakes I have made.

 First of all, the plot was not at all well thought out. Kelly Armstrong wrote as if the events of the novel were just popping into her head, and she didn't bother to really connect the events throughout the book, either. Not only was the plot scatterbrained and out of the blue, but it was bizarre. The Summoning wasn't the happiest book I've read, either. Just reading it made me feel weary and untrusting of the characters.
 Besides the strange plot to The Summoning, Kelly Armstrong mixed in a bit of uncalled for mature content, used in a twisted and strange way, like the story itself.

 Despite all of the good reviews I have read for this book, I believe it is a matter of opinion whether The Summoning is a good read or not, but still, I have learned the hard way from this novel never to judge a book by its cover. My final opinion for The Summoning is that it's overrated and strange.

To Read  Not to Read

Smile by Raina Telgemeier

Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright: 2010

Raina's life is topsy-turvy, beginning with her need for braces. Right before she gets them, though, Raina knocks out both of her front teeth while racing her friends home, and needs much more dental and orthodontic work than before.
Not only does Raina have to endure surgery, pain, and more treatment, but she survives a major earthquake, and finds friends who actually care about her.

This was one of the novels I could not put down, and read it all in one afternoon. Smile is a graphic novel with a happy and fun-to-read edge to it. This is kind of a girl's book, but I was touched to learn that it was actually a true story that the author herself lived through. I'd definitely recommend this one, and look forward to reading it again one day.

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Leap by Jane Breskin Zalben

Publisher: Yearling Books
Copyright: 2007

Krista and David used to be best friends, until they got to the age when it wasn't cool to be friends with a girl or a guy any more. When David is temporarily paralyzed from oxygen deprivation, he and his family begin having problems. David's mom leaves for a while to stay with her sister, and David and his father have trouble cooperating.
Since David is paralyzed, his hopes for joining the swim team this season are crushed, but his father encourages him to work out in the pool daily to regain his strength.

Meanwhile, Krista is confused about her friendships and growing up. She still wonders who gave her the candy box in grade 3, and if her crush likes her back. Slowly, David and Krista become even better friends than they were before, and everybody learns to go their separate ways; even the tadpole Krista and David raised for a class project.

I thought this novel was AWESOME all the way through. Told form David's and Krista's perspectives, Jane Breskin Zalben creates vivid and realistic characters that are easy to relate to. The story is symbolic in parts, amazing in others, and even touching in more. This novel kept me hooked all the way through. The novel is perfect for people who are not a fan of fantasy or action, or for lighter readers. I would definitely recommend it.

Rating: ****

To Read  Not to Read

On My Honor by Marion Dane Bauer

Publisher: Yearling Books
Copyright: 1986
On My Honor is a quick, snappy, ninety page novel without a happy ending. The novel is about two boys who go bike riding to Starved Rock, and one of them wants to climb it. Tony, the reckless one of the two, insists that they stop to swim in a river on the way there. Tony knows he can't swim, but accepts Joel's dare to swim out to the sandbar.

When Tony drowns, Joel does his best to conceal the awful truth with his own lies and stories, but in the end he is forced to confess how it was partially his own fault of his best friend's death.

This story was predictable, and focuses on the grief of the characters. It resembles the effect of one careless act or one silly mistake. The author really makes you feel the emotion of the characters as they must face the truth about they're son and friend. On My Honor is a timeless story reminding people to think twice.

Despite the emotion in the novel, its predictability is way too high, and the plot is depressing, so that you expect a sad ending. The novel was clearly not the best I have ever read.

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