Book Review: Robot Dreams

Robot Dreams by Sara Varon

I loved this story. Because it has no words, it is perfect for all you "lower intellect" people.  It is the most emotional picture book I have ever read. It has a wonderful plot and the art in it is great.
I highly recommend it to anyone.

--Funky Alpaca Trey W.

Book Review: The Hobbit

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The tale of The Hobbit begins in the quiet land of the Shire, where Bilbo Baggins is whisked into a perilous Journey by many dwarves, a mysterious wizard, and many other (possibly) mythical characters. Throughout the book, Bilbo is looking for lost gold, little did he know, he would find the greatest treasure of all...
This book filled me with images of dwarves, wizards, elves, and dragons. I highly recommend it to anyone.

--Funky Alpaca Trey W.

Book Review: The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

This book is kind of a retelling of The Jungle Book, but with ghosts! It tells of Nobody Owens, a boy raised by ghosts. It kept me entirely entertained the whole time. It was interesting to learn about when Bod learned to fade and do things that usually only ghosts an do. My favorite character in the book was Silas, mainly because of his mysterious countenance.

I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a good story.

--Funky Alpaca Trey W.

Book Review: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird, at first, struck me as another stupid classic. I didn't think I would enjoy it. I enjoyed the storyline and random comedy thrown in. I love the character development of Atticus, Jem, and Scout. Though the ending was sad, I think it was realistic.

--Bookymonster Zach M.

Book Review: Catching Fire

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire is probably one of my favorite books. It was an amazing page turner. I love the suspense and the feeling this author gives that makes you feel as though you're right beside the main character. This time, Suzanne collins took a whole new turn, more like twelve turns. I started reading this book in the mind set that it would be boring. I was extremely wrong. Not only was it not boring, it was better than The Hunger Games. I'm very excited for the final book in the series to come out.

--Bookymonster Zach M

A Conglomeration of Reviews!

YA Book reviews turned at The Great Teen Book Swap by the fabulous Magdalen:

Jennifer Murphy's Toad by Bruce Coville
      -A delightful combination of humor and "soppy stuff," Jennifer Murphy's Toad is a must-read!

Welcome to the BSC, Abby by Ann Martin
      -I loved these books when I was younger, and I recommend them for ages 8-10.

Turning Up the Heat by Diane Muldrow
     --One thing I enjoyed about this book was that although I had not read its predecessor, I had no trouble following the events of this book.

The Book of Three by Lloyd Alexander
     --I disliked this book mainly because of the violence and how it was presented. The storyline would have been good, but it struck me as unoriginal.

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
     --This book is very good. It combines romance seamlessly with the struggles of daily life, creating a book that would suit many.

Fantasy Stories
     --A charming collection of past and present day fantasy, this would be found on many bookshelves.

Sammy Keyes and the Sisters of Mercy by Wendelin Van Draanen
     --A good point of this book was that even though religion was involved, it did not overly intrude in the book.

What Katy Did Next by Susan Coolidge
     --I did not particularly enjoy reading this book. A flaw taht I might point out is that it shifted from topic to topic too much, and if you had not read its predecessors, there would be things you did not understand.

Book Review: Strange Angels

Strange Angels by Lili St. Crow

Despite it’s somewhat misleading title, Strange Angels has no angels, in it, well, not officially. It does, however, have werewolves, zombies, vampires, and a host of other paranormal oddities. The book is about a girl, Dru Anderson, who is something like that kid off of the Sixth Sense, only instead of ghosts following her around, she has one freakish werewolf and a vampire. Unless you’ve been asleep the past few months, you’ve noticed the recent swarm of paranormal romance books, mostly due to the very popular Twilight series. In my opinion, both books have a lot in common: whiney accident prone female, check. Two hot mortal enemies fighting for said female’s affection, check. A very poorly written book, check. The author goes from trying to make the main character a tough/sarcastic/takes-no-crap girl, to a lost little girl just looking for a friend in the world. Unfortunately, this attempt only succeeds in making the chick extremely annoying , leaving me wishing she would just make up her mind already.

As in Twilight, she has an overly protective werewolf at her side, Graves, who is pretty much useless. He’s not even funny, though the author tries very hard to achieve this. Albiet he tries his hardest, in my opinion, he’s nothing more than a piece of dead weight that the girl should have ditched sometime immediately after the first 100 pages, i.d. right after he was bitten by a werewolf. Now, I haven’t been hunting monsters for most of my life, and I haven’t got some freaky and uncontrollable sixth sense to depend on like Dru, but I think that once a guy has been turned into something that could potentially kill you, it’s a good idea to get as far away from that thing as possible. But, then, that just might be my sense of self preservation talking. What do I know?

The third main character, and perhaps the one who the majority of females will find the most intriguing, is the vampire Christophe. Amazingly enough, I’ve decided to skip over this character’s flaws and yes, sorry, but there are quite a few. Instead, I am going to point out his scary perfection…ice cold baby blues, a wicked smile…like he’s some kind of angel with a bad streak.1 However, he’s too blatantly perfect way too soon in the book. Though, in truth, I don’t really think that 160+ pages are as much ‘too soon into the book’ as they are ‘way too many pages for nothing to have happened by now’. Basically my point is that he’s utterly predictable, like a typical teenage girl’s dream wrapped up in an amazing package. Though I think his character introduction was badly concocted, he is a perfect motivation to continue reading the book. In the end, gorgeous guy or no, it turned out to be more of a mistake than anything else.

Basically, this book is extremely run-of-the-mill. I found it boring and repetitive. It has nothing that makes it stand out from all the other teen vampire/werewolf romance novels out there. Like all other books, it had the potential to be something that was somewhat enjoyable, but this one in my humble opinion, seems to have failed miserably. The author seems to be suffering from schizophrenia, as all of her characters, and even the plot appears as if she herself hasn’t figured where she wants any of this to go. Not only is it confusing, but even after I’ve read the book for the second time, I’m not exactly sure how any of the events during the first 200 or so pages mattered All in all, I give this book a two out of vie. One point because the guy is hot, and I think that should be appreciated, and another…because I kinda feel sorry for the author. I didn’t really mean to bash your book, it just kinda happened. It’s nothing personal, but…well…go ahead and call me a cynic, you won’t have been the first.

1 He’s the dangerously powerful bad boy, yet he lets a little girl and a newly turned wulfen beat the crap out of him. He gives orders but takes none; yet ask how high as soon as he thinks Dru wants him to jump…Well, I wasn’t going to point out his flaws; but I just couldn’t seem to help myself.

--The Marvelous Niah