She’s So Dead To Us

After that very serious and difficult to write review of Lois Lowry’s Son, I need a fun brain break. And the perfect book for a fun brain break? Kieran Scott‘s She’s So Dead To Us. Now, that’s not to say that this is a dumb book. It’s not. It’s full of great stuff to think about… but it’s also just really enjoyable.

http://www.amazon.com/Shes-So-Dead-Hes-Trilogy/dp/1416999523/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1352508305&sr=1-1&keywords=she%27s+so+dead+to+us

In this book, the first in a trilogy, protagonist Ally is forced to move back to the town where she grew up – and is now an outcast. Why? Because her dad pretty much screwed the families of her very wealthy friends out of a lot of money, so all of her old friends totally hate her for what her dad did. Plus Ally has moved back with just her mom, her dad having left the family out of his own shame, and they’re living on the poor side of town.

As if this isn’t all hard enough to deal with, there’s a new family living in her old house, and their son, Jake, is downright dreamy. And he’s now friends with all of Ally’s old friends. While there are undeniable sparks between the two of them, all of these social issues are bound to come between them. Luckily they each give their own POV in the narrative, so we get insight into what they’re both thinking throughout the trilogy. It’s pretty awesome.

These books are great for the high school crowd and enjoyable for the rest of us, too. As I was doing some research for this post, I discovered that Kieran Scott also writes under some pen names, and I’ve actually read TONS of her books when you take the pen names into account. But it brings me to ask this question: WHY would an author write under a pen name if it wasn’t a secret??? Any thoughts?

Anyway, ENJOY this trilogy! It’s so fun.

~Melissa

From What I Remember…

I’ll just be super honest – my expectations were not real high for this book as I thought this was basically going to be a teenage version of The Hangover. I’m happy to say that I was proven wrong from the very first page, as I was instantly pulled into Kylie’s story.

This book chronicles the events of a few days in the life of a “good girl”at the end of her senior year. Desperate to save her graduation speech when her laptop falls into peril, Kylie puts herself into that same perilous situation and pulls several of her classmates along with her. The story is so exciting and well paced that you don’t even realize it’s close to 500 pages long until you look up and realize it’s 2:00 am and you’re still reading.

If you’ve read my other blog posts, you know I love a good multiple POV story, and this one has FIVE. The numerous points of view were a little distracting in the beginning, but by the time I was really into the story they were a total asset. I love getting to see how other characters are thinking and reacting to various events in a novel. In this case, we get so many opinions of the same events that the story feels more rounded and complex even though it takes place over a short time period of three days.

The authors, Stacy Kramer and Valerie Thomas, both have backgrounds in film – this would explain why the book has a movieesque feel to it as it moves beautifully from scene to scene. The book would make a great movie, actually. I’d go see it.

This book is definitely for the 10th grade and up crowd, I think. The characters engage in some behaviors that I wouldn’t really condone, but every action has a very real consequence in this story. My only slight criticism of this is that the authors kind of beat you over the head with the homosexuality of one of the characters. I mean, it’s good to have diverse, well rounded characters, but this one seemed pretty stereotypical and over the top.

All in all, From What I Remember is GREAT FUN and well worth reading. Enjoy!

~Melissa

Funniest Books I’ve Ever Read…

A few years ago, I read Louise Rennison’s Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging. I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I didn’t realize it was part of a ten book series. Then, this summer, I happened to notice a film version of it available for rent on Netflix. I put it in my queue and prepared myself for yet another disappointing book-inpired movie. I was pleasantly surprised by how good the movie version was, and it inspired me to check into Rennison’s other books. Imagine my surprise when I found another nine books featuring the Angus protagonist, Georgia Nicolson! It was pretty exciting. (I know I’m a book nerd, ok?)

I put all of the books on hold at my local library and waited until I had them all to start reading. Then, when they were all finally in, I tore through all nine books following Angus… in a matter of ONE WEEK. Several times, as I was reading in the evenings while my husband was watching TV, I would seriously laugh out loud at the sheer hilarity of the books. I’m seriously considering buying all of the books so I can reread them whenever I need to have a good laugh.

A note about content – some of the titles sound a bit risque sexually… but the content is not. Though all of Georgia’s friends are preoccupied with boys and the constantly rate themselves on a “Snogging Scale” (snogging is British for kissing), the girls never do anything beyond kissing with their boyfriends, and there’s very little inappropriate language in the books. Out of all the young adult series I’ve read, this one is pretty clean.

Basically, in the series, (don’t worry – no spoilers – this is VERY general) Georgia Nicolson and her group of friends navigate their way through a year or so of school at Stalag 14, an all-girls high school. The group calls themselves the Ace Gang, and they are absolutely hilarious together – constantly trying to pull little pranks, getting in trouble, and torturing the school’s staff. Georgia’s family is crazy (maybe certifiably) and full of funny situations, and Georgia’s love life is, well, complicated but constantly interesting and exciting.

I’d recommend this series to teenagers… mature upper grade middle school girls through high school and adult readers (especially if you work with or have teenage girls). Here are all ten books of the series, in order: