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.

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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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A Crooked Kind of Perfect By Linda Urban

Publisher: Harcourt Books
Copyright: 2007

Zoe has a dream of becoming a Prodigy in Piano, but that dream is shattered when her dad brings back a Perfectone D-60, a "wheeze-bag" as Zoe calls it. Zoe tells her dad that she is destined to play the piano but her dad just signs her up for "More with Les" musical lessons at a senior center. Zoe tries very hard at playing the organ, but finds it difficult and almost gives up.

This is a classic story of one girl trying ever so hard to fit in at school, when the worst thing happens. Zoe goes back to school after Christmas Break, all ready to pour her troubles and broken dreams onto her best friend, Emma Dent, when she sees it: her best friend Emma Dent not sitting at their regular table, but, sitting with Joella Tinstella! Zoe begins the long walk over to her so-called friend, but, to her dismay, Emma says: "Me and Joella are best friends now, but you can sit here until you find a new best friend if you want". Zoe, now friend-less and with no piano, has gone over to the "dork side".

After practicing with Mrs. Person, Zoe is told about the Perform-O-Rama. Zoe asks her mom if she can drive her to the event and she says yes, but a few days later on Zoe's birthday her mom calls home and tells Zoe's dad that she cannot drive Zoe anymore to the Perform-o-Rama. Zoe's dad says that he will drive her to the Perform-O-Rama instead of mom. At the Perform-O-Rama, Mrs. Person shows Zoe to Mona and her mom. Mona is another contestant at the Perform-O-Rama and tells Zoe everything she should expect at the show. The Perform-O-Rama lasts for two days, so on the second day Zoe's mom drives her.

Zoe and Mona become fast friends and once the show is over, they stay friends and Zoe even goes over to Mona's house.When Zoe gets home, she is surprised to find a beautiful cake for her belated birthday, that her dad and Wheeler made for her. (Wheeler is a boy that I forgot to mention earlier; he is the one who invited her to sit at the boy's table at lunch when Emma wouldn't). When Zoe finds out that Wheeler made the Marzipan Zoe holding a trophy, she thanks him profusely. Then her mom gives her the best birthday present ever...a piano! Zoe is ecstatic when she hears this and can't wait until it arrives the next day.
So in the end, Zoe gets two new friends, a piano, a fourth place trophy, and a crooked kind of perfect life.

I absolutely loved this book because it told a beliveable story that would probaly happen in real life and I'm sure everybody who reads it can relate to it somehow, be it losing a friend or having your one and only wish be ruined in one day.

Linda Urban Writes just like she is writing in a journal, and tells you day by day how Zoe's life gets worse or possibly better. I could never put this book down while I was reading. I was amost afraid of missing something really important that happened to poor Zoe.
Linda didn't try to slow the story down or speed it up, she just wrote it like it came and wasn't afraid to even put some humorus kids jokes in the story, e.g "The Dork Side..."

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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.

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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.

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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: ****

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Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Copyright: 2006

This novel is about 3 girls: Birdie Darlington, Leeda Cawley-Smith, and Murphy McGowen. They all get sent to Darlington's Orchard to work over the spring break.
As you read further into the book, you find out more about their background and how they deal with problems at the orchard. Each girl has a different yet unique perspective about their ups and downs.

Jodi Lynn Anderson captures the essence of reality, which makes her first book heartwarming and irresistibly hard to put down. This novel really shows you the true binding power of friendship.


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