The thing that I liked the most about this book is that some of the people are paired with different magical creatures that are not supposed to exist. Like unicorns, storm-birts, and dragons. The main character, though, is the only one through the whole book who is paired with all the creatyres and has powers the rest of the people don't have. I like how Col and Connie save each other from Kullervo the evil shape-shifter. I liked it also when Connie got another specific companion other than the shift-shaper. Her other specific companion is Argans the golden undefeatable dragon. It made me angry when her great-aunt took her away to her prison-like house where she forbid Connie to talk to or have anything to do with the society.
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Huzzah for new reviewers, thanks to Kristi for her first (of many, I am sure) contribution! You, too, can review for this blog. Send us your reviews today and next thing you know, they'll be up here on the blog. Kristi submitted her review as part of our amazing summer reading program, by reviewing a book she has a chance to win an amazing prize in our end of summer BIG PRIZE BONANZA. YOU still have time to be part of summer reading. For more information, come in to the library today or visit our website.
This series, The Companions Quartet by Julia Golding, is one of my favorites and a great read-alike for Percy Jackson fans! Click here to check our catalog to see if The Gorgon's Gaze is on the shelves.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells (reviewed by Joe Stradling)
The hero of I Am Not A Serial Killer by Dan Wells is John Wayne Cleaver. His main struggle is that he is dealing with a set of problems that stem from his uncanny emotional resemblance to other serial killers at his age, with symptoms up to and including arson, animal cruelty, and sociopathy. He lives in a mortuary with his single mother and his name is eerily similar to the name of the infamous murderer John Wayne Gacy plus the iconic implement of butchery and horror flicks. His (apparently entirely reasonable) belief is that the universe is aligning circumstance so that he will become a full-blown serial killer, however unwillingly. His goal is to prevent this seemingly forgone conclusion.
Regrettably, his will is tested when he oversteps the rules in which he has encased himself out of fascination for a murderer who is striking in his town. The draw to this like-minded celebrity is too much for him to handle and he starts to use his vast and, in some cases, personal knowledge to track down the killer and hopefully bring him to justice. His efforts start to prove successful but the task vastly different than it appears and, perhaps, impossible.
I liked this book. The character found in John Wayne Cleaver is engaging and unique, there was good narrative drive, and the plot was surprising. It had an unorthodox view on the thoughts and feelings that accompany the emotionally blind and deaf. It was graphic and bloody and interesting. It was a story of destiny and redemption, and was overall a good read.
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Huzzah for new reviewers, thanks to Joe for his first (of many, I am sure) contribution! You, too, can review for this blog. Send us your reviews today and next thing you know, they'll be up here on the blog.
Joe reviewed a book that wasn't yet added to the library's collection to let us know if he thought it was worth adding to the shelves. Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy or add books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be a pre-reviewer for certain titles!
Regrettably, his will is tested when he oversteps the rules in which he has encased himself out of fascination for a murderer who is striking in his town. The draw to this like-minded celebrity is too much for him to handle and he starts to use his vast and, in some cases, personal knowledge to track down the killer and hopefully bring him to justice. His efforts start to prove successful but the task vastly different than it appears and, perhaps, impossible.
I liked this book. The character found in John Wayne Cleaver is engaging and unique, there was good narrative drive, and the plot was surprising. It had an unorthodox view on the thoughts and feelings that accompany the emotionally blind and deaf. It was graphic and bloody and interesting. It was a story of destiny and redemption, and was overall a good read.
--
Huzzah for new reviewers, thanks to Joe for his first (of many, I am sure) contribution! You, too, can review for this blog. Send us your reviews today and next thing you know, they'll be up here on the blog.
Joe reviewed a book that wasn't yet added to the library's collection to let us know if he thought it was worth adding to the shelves. Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy or add books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be a pre-reviewer for certain titles!
Impossible by Nancy Werlin (reviewed by Alanna Cover)
Another spoiler-tastic and FANATASICAL review from Alanna, turn away if you don't want to be spoiled, but read on if you want a great review!!
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Impossible is amazing. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY AMAAAAZING!!!~
The book starts out with little Lucinda Scarborough at age six finding a compartment. Nancy perfectly describes the amazement of a child when she finds something seemingly magical and secret. Her hiding place for anything. She finds a letter inside, but since she cannot read cursive, discards it, hides it in her older friend's birthday gift to her: a Yastrzemski Red Sox shirt. She hopes it'll fit her the next year, on her seventh birthday, but she completely forgets about both the letter and the T-Shirt. Thus ends the awesome prologue.
Lucinda Scarborough, 17 years old, wants to be normal. But how can she do that when her birth mother, Miranda, is mentally ill and decides to follow her around? She sings this song over and over, it's a haunting song that her foster father, Leo, taught Lucy, having been taught by Miranda before she went beserk. But how can she tell any of her friends that that crazy homeless lady that wanders around the school with a shopping cart is really her mother? She doesn't. Why would she? But, despite that, she IS a normal girl, with everyday problems. Her best friend, Sarah, has so many boyfriend problems, she's a pretty average student, and is on the hurdling team for her school's track team. Life couldn't get any worse, or better, really... but could it?
Her childhood friend, Zach, is coming home that summer to live with them from college, and Lucy is going to her first prom... with a guy! A real life guy! All's well until Miranda shows up at her house and throws glass and plastic bottles at them. Hurting her date's car. The guy drives off, and Lucy feels terrible. Miranda is picked up by the cops, Soledad, Lucy's foster mother and Miranda's best friend, is hurt (more about the fact that Miranda doesn't seem to listen to her, but also because Miranda elbowed her in the nose.) and their guest is oddly fine with it. Lucy's date drives back and picks her up, to Lucy's glee, and takes her to prom after all. Where, simply and something you actually wouldn't expect, he rapes her. Then crashes into a tree.
Whoah... WHAT?!
Back track: yes, after he raped her, he drove off and smashed into a tree... THIS BOOK IS INTENSE!!! ^-^
Anyways, Zach picks her up and takes her home, and he is not happy. Not happy at all. They don't tell the police about what happened, when they are questioned about the way the boy crashed into the tree.
Things start to happen after that... they find out that Lucy is pregnant with Gray Spencer's baby, they find Miranda's journal, they find the letter in the hidden compartment again, and they learn of the three tasks. They learn of her curse. Lucy's maternal family has the same fate: Give birth and go crazy. And the funny thing? They all got pregnant at the same age: 18. And they were all unmarried. Whoah... creepy. After researching more into this (after Zach proclaims his undying love for Lucy (awww... sweeet!! ^-^)) they have no choice but to try to complete the three impossible tasks: make a seamless shirt without needles, find an acre of land between the land and sea, and plow it with a goat's horn and sow it with one grain of corn.
Ouch much? How do you make a seamless shirt? Without needles? What the..? I've been kinda obsessed with my own sewing machine, I know how to make clothes, and seamless? Without needles? Impossible!! Hah! Not for them... They someone used felt and a washing machine to fuse the felt together to make a shirt. As Lucy makes the dummy for the shirt using Zach as a model, he asks her to marry him (^-^) she accepts, it's the best thing for her daughter if she goes crazy.
Then, they have trouble on the second task: I mean, how do you find an acre of land between land and sea? Is there such a thing? And an acre? I was thinking of something related, but it wouldn't ever be an acre anyways.
Anyways, so Zach and Lucy get married as soon as possible, and they fight to get the last two tasks, buying goat horns and wheelbarrow, she figures out how to do the third task... but where is the land? Several of the chapters was trying to find the land, which she soon finds after she meets the Elfin Knight, the man whom put the curse on her family. It is one of Soledad's colleagues: the drop-dead handsom Padraig Seeley. Anyways, they get to the land in Canada, where at high tide is saltwater, and low tide is land. And Lucy begins to plow. She fights as hard as she can with a due date in the next couple of days, and plows as hard as she can, sowing what she plowed with tiny corn particles mixed into sand. On her last three rows, she meets again with the Elfin Knight who gives her a new option: Stop working, and I'll get rid of the curse, if you come with me, if you be my true love.
Lucy gives up! She walks away to stand with her husband, who pushes her back, and helps her push the wheelbarrow again. They finish it right before the tide comes in. And Lucy is in labor. She went into labor three quarters of the way through. And their baby girl is on the way.
Zach rushes his wife to a nearby house and delivers the baby, they give her the name Dawn Greenfield. Not Dawn Scarborough Greenfield. Dawn Greenfield. Simple as that. The Elfin Knight comes to take her. Zach steps in, when he finally sees him, and gives him something the other two did not think of. Lucy did not voice her give in... therefore, it doesn't count. The Elfin Knight, in a fit of rage, leaves.
Lucy is free, the Scarboroughs are free. HAPPY ENDING!!!
But wait!! What happens to the other women who were previously mentally ill? Miranda shows up to a celebratory party... perfectly fine. Goodbye illness!! ^-^
Amazing ending! I was not expecting that!! I thought the Elfin Knight would keep them =/ BUT THIS IS BETTER!! ^-^
Nancy, you are an amazing author!! ^-^ Now I'm gunna read your other books that are lying on my bed ^-^
--
Soooo true, Alanna, Nancy IS an amazing author and Impossible is very, very good!
Click here to check our catalog to see if Impossible is one the shelves.
--
Impossible is amazing. ABSOLUTELY POSITIVELY AMAAAAZING!!!~
The book starts out with little Lucinda Scarborough at age six finding a compartment. Nancy perfectly describes the amazement of a child when she finds something seemingly magical and secret. Her hiding place for anything. She finds a letter inside, but since she cannot read cursive, discards it, hides it in her older friend's birthday gift to her: a Yastrzemski Red Sox shirt. She hopes it'll fit her the next year, on her seventh birthday, but she completely forgets about both the letter and the T-Shirt. Thus ends the awesome prologue.
Lucinda Scarborough, 17 years old, wants to be normal. But how can she do that when her birth mother, Miranda, is mentally ill and decides to follow her around? She sings this song over and over, it's a haunting song that her foster father, Leo, taught Lucy, having been taught by Miranda before she went beserk. But how can she tell any of her friends that that crazy homeless lady that wanders around the school with a shopping cart is really her mother? She doesn't. Why would she? But, despite that, she IS a normal girl, with everyday problems. Her best friend, Sarah, has so many boyfriend problems, she's a pretty average student, and is on the hurdling team for her school's track team. Life couldn't get any worse, or better, really... but could it?
Her childhood friend, Zach, is coming home that summer to live with them from college, and Lucy is going to her first prom... with a guy! A real life guy! All's well until Miranda shows up at her house and throws glass and plastic bottles at them. Hurting her date's car. The guy drives off, and Lucy feels terrible. Miranda is picked up by the cops, Soledad, Lucy's foster mother and Miranda's best friend, is hurt (more about the fact that Miranda doesn't seem to listen to her, but also because Miranda elbowed her in the nose.) and their guest is oddly fine with it. Lucy's date drives back and picks her up, to Lucy's glee, and takes her to prom after all. Where, simply and something you actually wouldn't expect, he rapes her. Then crashes into a tree.
Whoah... WHAT?!
Back track: yes, after he raped her, he drove off and smashed into a tree... THIS BOOK IS INTENSE!!! ^-^
Anyways, Zach picks her up and takes her home, and he is not happy. Not happy at all. They don't tell the police about what happened, when they are questioned about the way the boy crashed into the tree.
Things start to happen after that... they find out that Lucy is pregnant with Gray Spencer's baby, they find Miranda's journal, they find the letter in the hidden compartment again, and they learn of the three tasks. They learn of her curse. Lucy's maternal family has the same fate: Give birth and go crazy. And the funny thing? They all got pregnant at the same age: 18. And they were all unmarried. Whoah... creepy. After researching more into this (after Zach proclaims his undying love for Lucy (awww... sweeet!! ^-^)) they have no choice but to try to complete the three impossible tasks: make a seamless shirt without needles, find an acre of land between the land and sea, and plow it with a goat's horn and sow it with one grain of corn.
Ouch much? How do you make a seamless shirt? Without needles? What the..? I've been kinda obsessed with my own sewing machine, I know how to make clothes, and seamless? Without needles? Impossible!! Hah! Not for them... They someone used felt and a washing machine to fuse the felt together to make a shirt. As Lucy makes the dummy for the shirt using Zach as a model, he asks her to marry him (^-^) she accepts, it's the best thing for her daughter if she goes crazy.
Then, they have trouble on the second task: I mean, how do you find an acre of land between land and sea? Is there such a thing? And an acre? I was thinking of something related, but it wouldn't ever be an acre anyways.
Anyways, so Zach and Lucy get married as soon as possible, and they fight to get the last two tasks, buying goat horns and wheelbarrow, she figures out how to do the third task... but where is the land? Several of the chapters was trying to find the land, which she soon finds after she meets the Elfin Knight, the man whom put the curse on her family. It is one of Soledad's colleagues: the drop-dead handsom Padraig Seeley. Anyways, they get to the land in Canada, where at high tide is saltwater, and low tide is land. And Lucy begins to plow. She fights as hard as she can with a due date in the next couple of days, and plows as hard as she can, sowing what she plowed with tiny corn particles mixed into sand. On her last three rows, she meets again with the Elfin Knight who gives her a new option: Stop working, and I'll get rid of the curse, if you come with me, if you be my true love.
Lucy gives up! She walks away to stand with her husband, who pushes her back, and helps her push the wheelbarrow again. They finish it right before the tide comes in. And Lucy is in labor. She went into labor three quarters of the way through. And their baby girl is on the way.
Zach rushes his wife to a nearby house and delivers the baby, they give her the name Dawn Greenfield. Not Dawn Scarborough Greenfield. Dawn Greenfield. Simple as that. The Elfin Knight comes to take her. Zach steps in, when he finally sees him, and gives him something the other two did not think of. Lucy did not voice her give in... therefore, it doesn't count. The Elfin Knight, in a fit of rage, leaves.
Lucy is free, the Scarboroughs are free. HAPPY ENDING!!!
But wait!! What happens to the other women who were previously mentally ill? Miranda shows up to a celebratory party... perfectly fine. Goodbye illness!! ^-^
Amazing ending! I was not expecting that!! I thought the Elfin Knight would keep them =/ BUT THIS IS BETTER!! ^-^
Nancy, you are an amazing author!! ^-^ Now I'm gunna read your other books that are lying on my bed ^-^
--
Soooo true, Alanna, Nancy IS an amazing author and Impossible is very, very good!
Click here to check our catalog to see if Impossible is one the shelves.
The Eternal Ones by Kirsten Miller (reviewed by Bear Schacht)
Have you ever fallen in love at first sight? Do you long for places you've never been? Do you often experience the sensation of dejavu? If you've answered yes to any of these questions, you may have experienced a previous life.
Haven Moore is a girl trying to survive a few more months until she turns eighteen so she can go to New York to find Ethan. Just a few problems, namely that the has not been to New York, or met someone named Ethan, but she knows a lot about both. She knows this stuff from the visions she has had since a very young age.
Nevertheless she escapes from her grandmother, goes to New York and finds the guy she thinks is Ethan. He whisks her off to Rome, which is where they met in a previous life.
I enjoyed this book, and it was written well enough that I changed my mind a few times about wether or not this Ethan guy (now called Iain) was a good guy or a murderer. I also thought that the idea of people who retain memories or skills from their past lives was pretty interesting. I think that it would come in handy to have some skill, without the hassle of actually learning it :)
I would recommend reading The Eternal Ones, but it actually coming out until August, so you might have to wait...
(Haha!)
(I mean, that is really too bad for you.)
---
I have to agree with Bear, this is one of my favorites of the year so far. Such cool past-lives stuff going on. The author, Kirsten Miller, has an amazing blog for the book that has these really neat "Who Were You?" past life vignettes. Go read!!
Bear reviewed an ADVANCE READER'S COPY (ARC) of this book, meaning he got a chance to read it before it was published (six months before it was published, that's why Bear was laughing...) and he had a chance to let the library know if it he thought we should purchase it for our shelves or not.
Do YOU want a chance to read and review books before they're published? Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy these books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be an advance reviewer.
Haven Moore is a girl trying to survive a few more months until she turns eighteen so she can go to New York to find Ethan. Just a few problems, namely that the has not been to New York, or met someone named Ethan, but she knows a lot about both. She knows this stuff from the visions she has had since a very young age.
Nevertheless she escapes from her grandmother, goes to New York and finds the guy she thinks is Ethan. He whisks her off to Rome, which is where they met in a previous life.
I enjoyed this book, and it was written well enough that I changed my mind a few times about wether or not this Ethan guy (now called Iain) was a good guy or a murderer. I also thought that the idea of people who retain memories or skills from their past lives was pretty interesting. I think that it would come in handy to have some skill, without the hassle of actually learning it :)
I would recommend reading The Eternal Ones, but it actually coming out until August, so you might have to wait...
(Haha!)
(I mean, that is really too bad for you.)
---
I have to agree with Bear, this is one of my favorites of the year so far. Such cool past-lives stuff going on. The author, Kirsten Miller, has an amazing blog for the book that has these really neat "Who Were You?" past life vignettes. Go read!!
Bear reviewed an ADVANCE READER'S COPY (ARC) of this book, meaning he got a chance to read it before it was published (six months before it was published, that's why Bear was laughing...) and he had a chance to let the library know if it he thought we should purchase it for our shelves or not.
Do YOU want a chance to read and review books before they're published? Do YOU think you could give your opinion on if the library/other people should buy these books? If so, you can ask at youth services or send us an e-mail for more information on how you can get a chance to be an advance reviewer.
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