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Fred Hiatt‘s Nine Days is so much more than an action-packed thrill ride.  Don’t get me wrong, it is an action-packed thrill ride: a story that zips along at a breakneck speed, fueled by a cliff hanger at the end of every short chapter, rife with danger, and near death scrapes. But at the same time, Nine Days is also a story that explores freedom, social justice, human rights, and complex, real world problems.   I found it completely engaging and unexpectedly thought-provoking, enjoying the successfully executed thriller inspired by Ti-Anna Wang, the real daughter of a jailed Chinese dissident. 16 year old Ethan has beenRead More →

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How would you feel if you had to constantly move, change your name, appearance, and high school? Sadly, this is a feeling that Anna Boyd and her family know all too well. Anna’s parents and little sister are in Witness Protection and have had six identities in less than one year. Moving around is hard enough, but Anna has no idea why she and her family are in Witness Protection to begin with. Not only does Anna have to pick a new name and memorize her “childhood memories”, she is constantly being placed and taken out of various high schools during her senior year. HerRead More →

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Dylan, a junior at a rough, south-side Oklahoma City high school, who doesn’t figure he’ll amount to much, is the butt of jokes at school because of his weight, and with only a couple friends and no hopes of getting a girlfriend, seems an unlikely hero, even in his own life.  When he discovers the body of a classmate in a dumpster behind the school, Dylan gets a taste of popularity; too bad it only lasts a day or two.  Realizing that his life is nothing more than “a zero in the scheme of the universe” (28), Dylan decides that what he needs is toRead More →

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“Forgetting who you are is so much more complicated that simply forgetting your name. It’s also forgetting your dreams. Your aspirations. What makes you happy. What you pray you’ll never have to live without. It’s meeting yourself for the first time, and not being sure of your first impressions.” (8)  There’s only one thing you can count on in a world without memories, and that’s your heart.  The feelings that flood you, the warmth or the chill that envelopes you, that’s the only barometer you have when nothing else makes sense. Learning that you must let it guide you to those you can trust andRead More →

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Duncan Meade is a senior at Irving School, a prestigious, private high school that allows students to live on campus during their rigorous course studies. Not only is Duncan worried about the upcoming “Tragedy Paper” that his senior English teacher, Mr. Simon, has assigned, Duncan has to deal with the tragedy that happened at school last year. When Duncan is assigned the same room that the infamous Tim Macbeth had last year, Duncan knows that his school year will be anything but ordinary. Tim has followed the “tradition” of leaving Duncan a gift in his room. Most students receive “survival kits”, books, or even alcohol. Tim hasRead More →

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Imagine if the living could see and experience the energy left behind by departed human beings.  Similar to television shows like Ghost Whisperer and movies like The Sixth Sense, Kim Harrington’s latest book, The Dead and Buried explores this notion of spectral visitations.  Five-year-old Colby can both see and communicate with the ghost of Kayla Sloane, whose bedroom he now occupies after his family purchased the home at6 Silver Road where Kayla died and may have been murdered. Determined to save her brother from the ghost and its threats of harm, Jade Kelley—a seventeen year old senior at Woodbridge High—promises the spirit she’ll solve the mystery surroundingRead More →

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It was, I’m sure, pure coincidence that the two books I recently read had main characters named Jane whose death seemed all but inevitable.  Loosely connected by the thread of “Janes in constant danger”, Helen Keeble’s campy, funny debut  Fang Girl and Graham McNamee’s spooky Beyond took me from the dark nights in a British suburb to the even darker, rainy nights in a small village on Canada’s “rain coast.” Waking up disoriented, in a small dark space, to the sound of a mobile phone ringing, Xanthe “Jane” Greene, realizes very quickly that she is dead. No, actually, she’s not dead, she’s undead. As in vampire undead.Read More →

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I’ll admit, it took me two readings to get into Gina Linko‘s Flutter.  The first time through I just couldn’t connect with the story, the characters, or the premise.  So I took a break from it and after coming back to it recently, find that the second pass yielded a somewhat more interesting story and perhaps a more patient, attentive reader.  Which is fitting, in a way, since 17 year old Emery has spent her entire life revisiting a past or discovering a yet-as-lived future, when she “flutters” away from reality into a seizure-induced alternate state.  While she finds a calmness and peace in herRead More →

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“You know what?” Minnie said with a dramatic pause. “This is how horror movies start.” (58) And so it is in Gretchen McNeil’s Ten.  A seemingly innocent weekend house party on exclusive Henry Island turns deadly in less than 100 pages where best friends since middle school, high school seniors Meg and Minnie, are two of 10 guests invited to the most popular girl in school’s private party.  Other guests come from 2 other high schools in town and while the hostess is delayed on the mainland, the group of 10 make themselves at home.  Predictably, a torrential storm sets in, knocking out the power,Read More →