Fantasy

Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows was a great book that I loved! In this book Harry, Ron, and Hermione all set of on a mission that Professor Dumbledore left Harry at the end of his 6th year at Hogwarts; to find and destroy the Horcrux's that Lord Voldermort has made to make himself immortal, or as close as he can get to it. As harry and his friends set out they discover that this will not be as easy as they had thought. As they find out how the Ministry of Magic has been infiltrated by he-who-must-not-be-named their mission just becomes more important. Can Harry and his friends do it and restore the magical community to the way it used to be?
7th grade

Twilight Was a great book! This book is about a girl named Bella who moves to the gloomy small town Forks, she just wants to go back to her mom and the sun. She has her first day of school ahead of her and dose not expect to find anything that she likes, but then she meets Edward Cullen. He and his siblings are strange. they seem different, even flawless. The moment Bella walks into her bio class and is forced to sit next tho Edward she knows that he dose not like her, or as she thinks. As Bella and Edward draw closer and she discovers his greatest secrete, a secrete that could kill her. Bella dose not know it but Edward begins to love her. how far will they go for love?
Grade 7 reviewer.

Wolf by Wolf takes place in an alternate reality where the United States never fought in World War II, and Hitler was left undefeated. The book focuses on a jewish girl named Yael. She had been experimented on while in a internment camp. As a result of being experimented on she can change her appearance . Years after her escape she plans to kill Hitler. Looking and acting as Adele Wolfe Yael enters a race known as the Axis Tour. The Axis Tour was cross continental motorcycle race, with rough terrain, and many other challenges. Yael hopes to win the Axis Tour and have the chance to dance with Hitler. This dance could be her chance to kill Hitler. Will Yael survive the challenges of the Axis Tour? Will she win the Axis Tour? Most importantly, doe shse kill Hitler? All of these questions are answer in Wolf by Wolf.

I was recommended this book by friends so many times I had to read it. Ryan Graudin developed Yael's background slowly, revealing more about her throughout the book. Just when you think you know Yael you discover more of her past, and learn about a new "wolf". While I did enjoy the slow development of Yael's background I disliked the beginning of the book. The Axis Tour didn't start until until a few chapters into the book. Which made the book boring at first. However once the Axis Tour portion of the book began the plot became more interesting and complex. While the book focuses on Yael I also enjoyed Felix Wolfe, and Luka Lowe. Yael's relationships with both Luka and Felix make the book more realistic and the plot more complicated.Once the book reached its climax I couldn't put it down. I had to know how it ended. If you are interested in a book with a balance of good characters and action this perfect for you. If your read this book I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Divergent is part of a 3-book series. It's about a 16 year old girl named Beatrice Prior who lives in a Dystopian society. There are five factions, Candor, Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, and Abnegation, each of which represent and practice one virtue that the government believes to be the causes of war when they are lacking. When each child in the society reaches the age of 16, they must choose one faction to dedicate their lives to. An aptitude test displays to them which faction they would most belong in, however, Beatrice comes out as Divergent, someone who contains the attributes of more than just one faction. Being Divergent is a threat toward the society and the government, and if they find out you're Divergent, you will be killed.

Divergent is a moving story based on the character Beatrice Prior who goes through a series of events that help her to determine who she is and where she belongs. We watch her struggle with insecurity and doubting herself, a common struggle throughout all teenagers, and we see her overcome them. She becomes confident in herself and her decisions, just like we must all learn to do.

This book is honestly one of my favorites. It's packed with action and suspense, while at the same time it inspires and teaches. It's unique and different from other action stories and definitely keeps the reader intrigued. However, I'd recommend it ages 12+. There's a decent amount of violence, some of which might be hard to read for some kids, and a few other scenes and questionable content that might not be age appropriate for children under the age of 12. Overall however, I loved this book and strongly recommend it for teens.

The Fires of Heaven is the fifth installment in the fourteen book series, The Wheel of Time. It is simply incredible how Robert Jordan keeps writing these amazing novels. The Fires of Heaven is certainly not as good as the first three books, but it is still a great book. It contains intrigue, suspense, and one of the longest battle sequences so far. All the characters are still unique and interesting (especially Mat), and the storylines are still fresh. I would recommend this book to anyone currently reading the Wheel of Time series, and would recommend the series to any fans of high fantasy.

A stout story, a rich song, a tale for all times. Tolkien heard the gorgeous music of narrative, with all its valleys and hilltops, with all the grit of the fight, all the glory of overcoming, all the long, drawnout parts of day-in and day-out small faithfulness. He heard a musical narrative and he composed a symphony. But like all great masterpieces, one’s affections and tastes must be enlarged and strengthened to enjoy wine this strong. Such a stout story is not for the faint in heart. In an era where our literary sensibilities are cheapened by bland paperback fiction, reality TV, inane tweets, texts, and Facebook posts, we are a society easily pleased by cultural fast food, and we often can’t appreciate with the robustness of a story told this well. There are answers in this story to questions we’ve never thought to ask. This story explores places in the heart we’ve never thought to search, depths of the human soul we’ve never considered worth pluming. If we don’t resonate with this story it is because there is much that the author wants to tell us that we are not yet ready to hear.

Search the world over, and I don’t believe you’ll find another piece of fiction as epic, as moving, as heart-transforming, as the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. What sets the literary genius of Tolkien above most other authors of fiction is his ability to make his imaginary world shine with such brilliance that the affections of the heart will come to love its shores, its stories, its struggle to stay in the light. Story is one thing that cannot be faked by a shallow writer. Either an author has within him an tale of inspiring beauty, of struggle, of overcoming, of fighting and conquering, of living and dying for what one believes in—or he does not—and what comes out instead is flat, bland, one-dimensional.

But if one is willing to be a patient learner, one can have one’s mind and heart expanded by being a slow and thoughtful reader. If your heart does not sing by the end of the book, if you do not have a new resolve to overcome the evil in your own heart, if you are not transformed to live for truth and beauty by the end, then I wonder that you have a pulse.

The only precaution I give you is the peculiar feeling of sharp disappointment that will pang you as you read the last line of last volume, knowing that the book is over and there will never be another like it. The only solace I allowed myself was the thought that soon my children will be at an age to appreciate it and I can relive the volumes through their imaginations. Be prepared to mourn for the series' finitude even as you enjoy every brilliant page.

Out of the putrid slime of a Florida swamp emerges a tale that is oozing with a sense of place. The reader feels as though a thin line of sweat is trickling down the side of his face while he bakes beneath a relentless Florida sun. As one reads, one can nearly feel the smoke blinding the eyes and burning the nostrils next to a blazing cane field, while cool mud squishes between the toes. Before too long, the reader finds that this obscure, out of the way place, a place he never gave any thought to, a place no one would ever think to visit…is a place he begins to love.

Any skilled author intuitively knows that the setting of a well-told story is so intimately woven into the legend itself, that to rip the tale out of its setting would unravel the very threads of the narrative itself. Can you imagine what would be left of To Kill a Mockingbird if it was removed from a 1930’s Alabama small town? Imagine the Tale of Two Cities not taking place in England and Paris during the French Revolution? Similarly, this glorious story is its place and the place is the story.

But the brilliance of a master storyteller is not only to nurture a sense of place, but to use this backdrop as the means to develop universal themes that speak to the deepest yearnings of all people in all places. This book adeptly portrays true fatherhood as not being a matter of mere biology, but of heart loyalties. One’s affections are moved to esteem the courage of a mother who saves her son from a cycle of violence. But most importantly, the book reminds the reader of the timeless need, in all corners of the earth, no matter how remote, how obscure, how removed—the universal need for a hero.
The true hero faces the danger head on, with no thought of his own skin, purely out of love and loyalty to the helpless who need him. He can arise from an unlikely place, from a checkered past, from outside the “in crowd.” This is the message the world will always long to hear; the message of Beowulf.

THIS IS A MUST READ! Suzanne Collins does a fabulous job on bringing this novel to life. It is an easy read for word choice. The main characters are very easy to love. The Hunger Games is the first book to a 3-part series.
I recommend ages 11+ because it is a longer book with more mature events. I really enjoyed this series so I rate it a 4 Star. Team Peeta!

This book is an adaptation to Bram Stoker’s novel, which was designed to make it an easier read for teens. The art is amazing, but the book did not hold my attention very well because the plot is slow to start. I recommend the age to be 13+ because of the word choice used. It is more of a teen/adult book. The book is in 3rd person which makes it easier to connect with the characters because you can get everyone’s perception of the story.
Beware Count Dracula!

The Book of M is a beautiful dystopian novel about the power and beauty of memories and the pain that comes from losing them.

One day in a market in India, a man loses his shadow for no apparent reason anyone can explain. Shortly after, the man begins forgetting everything he ever knew, but in its place receives a strange and new power. This phenomenon of the lost shadow, soon becoming known as The Forgetting, spreads throughout the world and transform it into a strange dystopian world that is hardly recognizable.

The two main characters, Ory and Max, have escaped The Forgetting so far until one day, Max loses her shadow. Fearing that the more she forgets, the more dangerous she will become to Ory, she flees across a dark transformed world. All the while holding a tape recorder, on which she records her thoughts and feelings of the journey, and her experience of forgetting. Meanwhile Ory, not wanting to give up the little time they have left, follows her, embarking on a strange journey of his own.

The novel swivels back and forth, every other chapter, between his journey and hers. Max’s chapters to me were the most poignant, the most powerful. The recordings of her experiences on her journey, and the emotions she experiences as she fights against this inevitable loss, and slowly forgets everything, made me want to mourn with her for all she was losing. The emotions portrayed by Max’s character came across so real and raw, and anyone dealing with someone who is suffering from Alzheimer’s will be able to sympathize with this very real portrayal of what it’s like for them to forget everything about who they are. This novel is a tear jerker for sure!

Meanwhile Ory’s desperate attempt to find the woman he loves, is a testament to his hope in their survival and his belief in renewal, both for his wife, and I think on a deeper level, the world that was ravaged by the Forgetting. However, as his journey progresses, he is confronted with the reality of this new and dangerous world, and as he begins to adapt to this new world, he realizes that nothing will ever be the same again.

Filled with beautiful prose, strong character development, and peppered with details of a classic dystopian novel, this novel is a testament to the dystopian genre. Peng Shepherd does so much more than just tell a classic dystopian story, though. While it has all the classic elements of dystopian story, her portrayal of Max’s character almost made the novel read like a memoir but feel like a psychological thriller. Yet the existence of magic, and the way it shaped much of the spine of the story, took her novel into the realm of magical realism. The portrayal of war and action took her novel into the realm of an adventure story. Yet the stories focus on the female main character of Max, took the story into the realm of woman’s fiction. However, Max’s musing on her loving relationship with Ory, made the story delve into the realm of a romance. Taking her readers across a large geographic space, different cultures, different people, and different genres, she attempts and succeeds in a telling an ambitious and complicated story that seeks to display the power of the human spirit and ask what it is, to be human.

This story is beautiful, poignant, powerful, dark, filled with adventure, romance, and magic. The long story short, it has something for everyone. This book comes out June 5 but you can put it on your holds list today! If you haven't, please do! You won’t regret it!

Thank you to William Morrow a imprint of Harper Collins Publishers for an ARC of this beautiful novel in exchange for an honest review!