Mandy's Book of the Week (3/12)

I dig dystopia.  The whole "big bad awful future" stuff is among my favorite thing to read right now, so, of course, I loved this book.

In Beatrice's world, there are four factions: Dauntless, for the brave, Amity, for the peaceful, Candor, for the honest, Erudite, the intelligent, and Abnegation, for the selfless.  The society deems that you must live with your faction of birth until the age of 16.  At that point, you get to decide your faction. Many choose to stay with their faction of birth ("faction before blood" is the motto, so you don't see much of your family if you go into a different one), but many also choose to change factions.

Beatrice loves her family, but she doesn't feel as selfless as the rest of them.  While they truly personify the meaning of the word, she feels more selfish and like she doesn't fit in with her faction.

Before you get to choose your faction, you are put through some mental tests to determine where you might fit the best.  The vast majority of people show a propensity for one faction very clearly.  Beatrice, however, does not.  She is a clear split in three equal directions.  This is known as being Divergent and is terribly dangerous.  Her test administrator tells her to keep this fact a secret because most people who are known Divergents end up dead.

On choosing day, Beatrice chooses to become Dauntless.  They are put through brutal and rigorous training at the Dauntless compound, but Tris, as she's now known, is coming out on top.  As they are nearing the end of their training, political upheaval begins and Tris, because she's a Divergent, is one of the only people who can save her blood family.

This book is simply amazing.  The sequel, Insurgent, is coming out in May.  I promise, you won't be able to put this one down!

Mandy's Book of the Week (3/5)

Happy Monday!

This week is Teen Tech Week and we're celebrating with a contest or artsy workshop after school each day.  For a full schedule of events, go to our website.

In honor of the technology geek in all of us, I present a tech book this week.

Mike and Lindsey are best friends and have been for a long time.  Mike falls for Lindsey.  Just as he's getting the courage to tell her, they have a disagreement, a total misunderstanding, and Lindsey leaves town for the summer.  When she comes back, she is suddenly very popular.  She doesn't even have the time of day for Mike anymore.

Then, at a party, Lindsey gets herself into a very...compromising...situation that is caught in its entirety on a cell phone camera and posted online.  The video goes viral and Lindsey feels as if her life is destroyed.  Mike has to decide if he is a big enough man to forgive Lindsey for everything she's done and be there for her in her time of need.

This book is a teensy little book, but it packs a big punch.  How terrifying, the thought of having something like that posted on the Internet!

Definitely a book for guys and girls, so come snag it today!

Mandy's Book of the Week (2/27)

Snow Day + Presidents' Day Holiday = 2 week hiatus

Glad to be back on this BEAUTIFUL Monday!

One of the great things about the class I'm taking in graduate school right now is that I'm being exposed to a lot of books that I wouldn't have read on my own.  This week's book is a prime example of that.  I'm not a big lover of historical fiction or books about revolution, but I could not put this book down once I picked it up.  (Actually, I read this on ebook, so I had to put it down on occasion because my phone died.)

This story is set in the 1960s in the Dominican Republic where they are ruled over by a dictator that has been in power for 30 years.  Anita is twelve and, as such, wrapped up in things that twelve year olds are wrapped up in.  She wants to be friends with her older sister, who is annoyed with her very existence.  She wants the boy next door to fall in love with her.  She wants to be older and more sophisticated.

Anita's father, however, is in the top ranks among the country's revolutionaries who aim to take down their dictator.  The rest of her family, from her grandparents to her cousins, have already fled to New York.  Once Anita learns of her father's involvement, she gets anxious.  Her sister even ends up having to flee the country because the dictator happened to notice her at a party and takes a special liking to her.

Eventually, the plan that the revolutionaries have been working on is played out, but something goes wrong and Anita and her mother end up having to go into hiding.

It is a small book, not even 200 pages long, but the content is big.  I found it hard to resist!

Mandy's Book of the Week (2/6)

Happy February!  I hope everyone had a great time watching the Super Bowl last night (or watching the commercials, perhaps).  Our Super Bowl party here at the library was super fun.

Every month generally has some sort of theme or celebration tied to it.  This month, we have our display shelving set up to celebrate Black History Month and our glass display case set up to acknowledge Teen Dating Violence Prevention Month.

This book is heart breaking and gut wrenching.  It is the story of Melinda, who was among the most popular girls in her junior high.  She's 15 now and getting ready to go to high school.  The summer before school begins, she and her friends are invited to their first high school party.  They are all super excited to be hanging out with the upperclassmen.  Melinda is pulled aside by one of the most popular senior boys and they go somewhere private and start to make-out.  Only he wants to take it too far and when Melinda says "no," he doesn't listen.

Melinda panics and calls the cops.  And of course because that is what you're supposed to do in the event of a rape.  There is a lot of alcohol at this party, however, so a lot of people get in trouble and, when the cops showed up Melinda was too freaked out to tell them what happened.  Now everyone thinks Melinda is a tattle tale and they make it their mission to see her suffer.

Melinda doesn't tell anyone what happens and spends most of the book not speaking at all.  Her grades drop, she loses weight, she stops washing her hair; basically she does everything she can to become invisible.

When Melinda's former best friend starts dating the rapist, she know something has to give.  Namely, she's going to have to speak.

This book isn't a big thick one, but it packs a huge punch.

Mandy's Book of the Week (1/30)

Hi!  I hope you are all prepared to have an awesome week!  I've been super busy planning a spring full of awesome teen events.  I was on Talk of the Town on KTLO radio last Friday talking about some of it and will go back on the air February 27th to talk about March's events in detail (I'll post a link to the audio for last week when it becomes available).

Anyway, on to book of the week!

I just finished this book yesterday, but it was so good I wanted to go ahead and share it today.

If you like horror stories, this book is right up your alley.  It reminded me a lot of a Stephen King novel.

Alex's parents died when she was 14.  A year later, she was diagnosed with a beast of a brain tumor.  Finally, at age 17, the doctors have decided there is very little left that can be done for her.  Sure, they can do experimental stuff that may or may not extend her life, but nothing is guaranteed.  Alex decides that she's done with treatment and is going to live the rest of her life, however long that is, the way she wants.  Carpe diem, if you will.

One day, Alex skips school and heads into Michigan.  She is taking her parents ashes to sprinkle in Lake Superior, as they wished, but this involves quite a bit of hiking.  Enough that she'll be gone several weeks.

On her second day in the woods, she runs into a little girl, Ellie, and her grandfather and their dog.  Ellie has an attitude as big as she is (her father was recently KIA in Iraq) and the dog was her father's dog during the war.  While chatting over coffee, something happens.  The grandfather drops dead.  The animals go berserk.  Alex's head feels like it is going to explode.  Once the pain subsides, she realizes all the electrical equipment has stopped working.  What is going on?

Eventually, Alex persuades Ellie, who is freaking out, to come with her to the nearest ranger station.  However, on the way they fall near a ledge, causing all their supplies except a few to tumble over the side, and they divert to a nearby camping site for help.

When they get to the site, they cannot believe their eyes: there are two teens eating a person.  And I mean really digging in.  This begins the real journey.  What was that pain (and why did it cause Alex's sense of smell, long ago lost to cancer, to come back?)?  What happened to Ellie's grandfather?  And what the heck happened to those kids?

This is a great story for everyone who likes horror or mystery.  There is a very little bit of a love story, but it is so tiny and secondary to everything else that I probably shouldn't even mention it.

I returned this book today, so it is ready and waiting!

Mandy's Book of the Week (1/16)

This week's book is what they tend to call an "issues book," basically meaning that it is a piece of fiction that deals with some sort of issue that teens could possibly deal with.

Doesn't that cover look romantic?  This book is NOT a romance.  As we learned last week, don't judge a book by its cover!

This book is about Nick and Caitlin.  Nick is that hot popular guy at school who is completely out of reach of your typical girl.  Caitlin used to be fat, but she lost a lot of weight over the summer and now Nick wants to date her.

Being that she is not used to all this male attention, especially from someone like Nick, she goes out with him and they quickly fall in love.  But then he gets controlling.  And eventually verbally abusive.  And soon he starts hitting her.

But here's the thing: Nick does love Caitlin.  He loves her so much that his life is dominated by the fear of her leaving him.  In order to keep her, he thinks that he has to make her feel like absolute crap about herself so that she'll be too downtrodden to leave.

It was a hard book to read, emotionally.  It was hard for me to find sympathy for either Nick or Caitlin.  How many times did my parents tell me that you leave a boy/man that hits you?  And yet, Caitlin stayed and stayed and stayed some more.  She even went back after Nick hit her the first time.  And Nick, in the beginning, just doesn't view any of his controlling or abusive behaviors as a bad thing.  That is, until Caitlin gets a restraining order and he is forced to attend a class for men who beat their girlfriends and wives.

Once this book got going, I couldn't put it down.  It is very engaging and easy to read.

Mandy's Book of the Week (1/9)

I was hesitant to read this week's book.  I was hesitant to read it because I didn't like the cover (I'll hang my head for shallowness now).

The cover is still not visually appealing to me.  I mean, a lighter?  Some words?  There is a reason that book covers have been getting big makeovers and that's because people really do judge a book by its cover.

I regret that I didn't pick this book up sooner.  It is a mystery and a thriller all rolled up into one ugly cover.

Ok, I'll quit talking about the ugly cover now.

Vera's mom took off when she was 12 and she's lived with just her dad ever since.  The one true constant in her life has been her best friend Charlie.  Eventually this childish, best friend love begins to transform, but Vera doesn't admit it to Charlie.  She barely admits it to herself.

Once Charlie and Vera get to high school, things start to change.  Vera is on the academic track while Charlie, who COULD be on the same track, has been convinced by his dad (who beats his mom) to take a different path.  Charlie starts getting detention and eventually falls in with the "detentionheads," the kids who spend practically their whole lives in detention.  One of the girls, jealous of the attention that Charlie gives to Vera, starts spreading rumors, namely things that Vera said about Charlie (like that his dad beats his mom, which is the family's dirty little secret), causing Charlie to start spilling Vera's secret (that her mom used to be a stripper).  There is a huge falling out.  And the downward spiral begins in earnest.

This book reads in a split format; some of the chapters are from the present and some flash back to the past.  Sometimes that can be irritating, but it really works in this book.  It is super easy to follow and there are some really funny chapters written by the dead kid (that'd be Charlie) or Vera's dad.  Did I not mention that Charlie was dead?  My bad.

Ignore the cover.  PLEASE ignore the cover.  This book is so good that it was shortlisted for a major award.  Come get it!