Throne of Glass - Review

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Mass

The Throne of Glass is a historical fantasy in war-torn world.   It begins with a young girl named Celaena in a horrible prison mine walking along corridors with a guard.  The girl has apparently been at the prison for a year and has been summoned to speak with the prince of the nation.   You find out that the girl is in fact the best assassin in the land or at least she was before she was put into the mine.  The prince has come to ask her to be a champion for the King, to pose as his assassin and do his bidding for a period of time, after which she will be freed.  In order to get this role she must compete with other champions across the land.  Whoever is left at the end of the competition will be the king’s champion.  Even though she despises the king, she agrees so she can earn her freedom.  Once she gets to the castle and begins to get her strength back other events begin to happen.  There are 23 other competitors in the beginning.  After the first couple of weeks of the competition competitors begin to die in gruesome manors.   Soon Celaena realizes that magic is causing the deaths and that someone is summoning a horrible beast to murder the other competitors.  Celaena tries to solve the mystery, win the competition and keep herself from killing anyone who provokes her.  This book is full of adventure, mystery, danger, and heartbreak, with a little added romance thrown in for good measure.   I hope this is a series, I would love to read more about Celaena.   I will be ordering this for my library.  I give this one 5 out of 5. 

The Moonstone Series - a review

The Moonstone Series by Marilee Brothers

Moonstone, Moon Rise, Moon Spun, Shadow Moon

The Moonstone series is about a 15 year old girl named Allie Emerson who begins to experience psychic abilities after an accident.   She confides in a friend and learns that she has been destined to receive a special necklace called the moonstone.  This necklace enhances her new-found powers and eventually puts her in danger.  There are others who are looking for the necklace called Trimarks.  The Trimarks are a deadly gang that wants to use the magic of the moonstone for evil.  This one is a great read for teens who like fantasy and adventure with a splash of romance thrown in.  I will be ordering it for my library.  I’ll give this one a 4. 

New Review: Lulu and the Duck in the Park (A J level chapter book)

Lulu and the Duck in the Park by Hilary McKay

Lulu and the Duck in the Park is a very cute chapter book.   It’s about a girl named Lulu who loves animals so much that she has a house full of them.  One day when her class goes to the park to feed the ducks, a disaster happens.  Two dogs are loose and running around scaring the ducks during their nesting season.  One particular duck, Lulu’s favorite has one egg that isn’t destroyed.  Lulu saves it by catching it before it rolls to the concrete and breaks.  She takes it to school and keeps it warm throughout the day.  At the end of the day the egg hatches.   Lulu, her teacher, and her cousin/best friend return the duckling to the mommy.  This is a great book for those beginning to read chapter books. 

Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

Breaking Beautiful by Jennifer Shaw Wolf

A Librarian’s Review

Trip and Allie are the perfect couple in small town Pacific Cliffs, until the night when a terrible accident takes the life of Trip and scars Allie for life.  Allie doesn’t remember much about what happened but slowly things come back to haunt her.  Maybe their relationship wasn’t as perfect as everyone thought.  As the story unfolds, the reader finds out that Trip was an abusive boyfriend and Allie hid everything from almost everyone.  Only a few people knew that Trip was abusive, a couple of Trip’s friends, Allie’s childhood friend turned bad boy, Blake, and her twin brother Andrew.   Breaking Beautiful was a great mystery.  Just when you think you might have it figured out, it changes on you.  I really loved reading this one and the ending was great.  I had a very hard time putting it down.  It was really nice getting to read a ‘one of’ book instead of the beginning to a series.   I’ve already ordered this one and can’t wait to see how it does in my library.   This one is a solid 5 star book!

Another Review: The Gift by Andrea J. Buchanan

The Gift by Andrea J. Buchanan

A librarian’s review

Spoiler Alert**

The Gift is a paranormal story about three friends who begin to have encounters with a ghost who calls himself Patrick.  At the same time, two of the friends begin having the same dream about previous lives.  They learn that all three of them were friends in a past life.  The dreams are violent and scary, but drive the story forward.  The main character, Daisy, has special electrical powers and has learned to control them throughout her life.  The second character, Vivi is a shell of a girl who has had contact with Patrick since she was a child.  The third friend is Danielle, and she doesn’t really have any powers or ghostly contacts.  This makes her jealous and leads to problems between her and her friends.  Daisy has a love interest named Kevin who also has issues, but his are more normal, epilepsy.   The ghost, Patrick, is able to feed off Daisy’s electrical energy and allows him to possess one of the girls.  He wants to possess Vivi, since he’s been grooming her for her entire life, but Danielle is so jealous that she makes an easier and stronger target so he ends up possessing her.   Long story short, the girls find out that the ghost was actually murdered during their past lives and he’s there to take his revenge on Daisy who killed him in his previous life.   I won’t tell you more about how it ends, but it’s a decent read.  I enjoyed the book and it kept my attention from the beginning.  There were parts of the book that were predictable, but that didn’t ruin it.  The only part I had a bit of a problem with was at the end when Kevin was suddenly able to communicate telepathically with Daisy.  I wish the author would have explained that part a little more.   This one will be popular and will circulate well.  I’ll be ordering it for my library and, as for a rating, I would give it a 3.5. 

This is not a Test by Courtney Summers - another review

Wow! This one is so creepy and is such a great story. It’s very dark, very suspenseful, and has some unexpected twists. The main character, for starters, is going to kill herself, and then the end of the world happens. Sloane Price is physically and mentally abused by her father and is planning to end her life that very day. She’s getting ready to leave for school when there’s a commotion outside. Her father goes to see what’s going on and zombies tear through her front door and windows. They come after her and her father and he tells her to run and fights them off, but is overwhelmed. She runs and ends up in her high school as the sixth in a group of ragtag teens who, until that day wouldn’t have had the time for each other. They barricade themselves in and wait for help to come. The teens who end up inside the school do not like each other. The only teens there who don’t hate each other are a set of twins who in turn hate another one of the teens because they feel it’s his fault for the death of their parents. Sloane continues to think about killing herself, but she can’t figure out a way to do it without putting the others in harm’s way, so she waits. After weeks of being in the school and fighting with each other, someone new arrives, but it isn’t help. It’s a teacher they once had. He’s almost dead, but he’s not a zombie, at least not that they can tell, and from there things get worse.

This is not a Test is action packed and never slows down. It grabs readers from the first page when the zombies break through the glass in Sloane’s house and she runs from her father. It was not very predictable at all, and I hope there will be a sequel. This one is a great addition to any collection.

Starters by Lissa Price, another review

Starters is a futuristic novel in which the world only has kids, teens, and senior citizens. The Starters are the kids and teens, and the enders are the senior citizens. The government developed a vaccine for a particular kind of germ warfare that would probably be used on their people. There weren’t enough vaccines for everyone so they started with the weak. They vaccinated the young and the old first and left the others until last. Before the others could be vaccinated however, the bomb goes off and wipes out anyone who hasn’t been vaccinated, which is pretty much any adult between the ages of 18 and 70. In Starters, we meet Callie and her little brother Tyler. They are both on the run and squatting in houses that have been abandoned. There are two choices for ‘unclaimed’ children such as Callie and Tyler, who have no living family: they can live on the streets, or if they are caught they are institutionalized and used as slaves, though they aren’t called that. They never have enough to eat, never get enough clean water and Tyler, who had health problems before the bomb, is getting worse.

Callie is sixteen and hears about a new procedure that guarantees fast money with no consequences. She leaves Tyler with her best friend Michael and goes to check it out. It’s called Prime Destinations and it is a way for the very old senior citizens to ‘rent’ the bodies of the teens and use them for a period of time to have fun. They offer Callie lots of money and initially, she refuses. When she returns to her brother, his illness has gotten worse and that night their safe house is raided by the wardens. They barely escape. This pushes Callie to accept the offer at Prime Destinations. To begin with, things go smoothly and it seems that Callie will be finished and have her money soon. Then Callie finds out that she has to let someone live in her body for an extended period of time, a month, and Callie balks at the idea. Prime Destinations has her signed contract and she’s trapped and forced into it. After a couple of weeks into the rental there’s a problem. Callie wakes up, in her own body, even though she’s supposed to still be unconscious and the ‘renter’ is supposed to be in control; from there things get complicated.

There are assassination attempts, political intrigue, murder, suspense, mystery, romance, and much more. Prime Destinations has plans for the Starters and for Callie. Starters was impossible to put down and if I could have read it in one sitting I would have. This one is going to be very popular and I think it’ll be a great series. It ended on a huge cliff hanger, and I can’t wait for the next one. This one is a 5 out of 5 and all public libraries should get it.