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Book Review: Hate List
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Hate List Author: Jennifer Brown Publisher: Little Brown Pages: Hardcover; 405 Release Date: September 1, 2009 Source: Library ======================= Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Violence HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart Five months ago, Valerie Leftman’s boyfriend, Nick, opened fire on their school cafeteria. Shot trying to stop him, Valerie inadvertently saved the life of a classmate, but was implicated in the shootings because of the list she helped create. A list of people and things she and Nick hated. The list he used to pick his targets. Now, after a summer…
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Book Review: Mercy
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Mercy Author: Rebecca Lim Publisher: Harper Collins Pages: Paperback; 281 Release Date: October 28, 2010 Source: NetGalley ======================= Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild language; violence HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart An electric combination of angels, mystery and romance, MERCY is the first book in a major new paranormal series. There’s something very wrong with me. I can’t remember who I am or how old I am, or even how I got here. All I know is that when I wake up, I could be any one. It is always this…
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Book Review: Don’t Stop Now
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Don’t Stop Now Author: Julie Halpern Publisher: Feiwel & Friends Pages: Hardcover; 224 Release Date: June 7, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Language HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart On the first day of Lillian’s summer-before-college, she gets a message on her cell from her sort-of friend, Penny. Not only has Penny faked her own kidnapping, but Lil is the only one who figures it out. She knows that Penny’s home life has been rough, and that her boyfriend may be abusive. Soon, Penny’s family, the local police,…
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Book Review: The Final Alice
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: The Final Alice Author: Alycia Ripley Publisher: Trafford Publishing Pages: Paperback; 196 Release Date: October 19, 2010 Source: Publisher ======================== Intended Reading Group: Adult Genre: Fantasy HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart A lysergic head trip of a novel, The Final Alice is the rare tale that possesses equal measures of heart, wit, and inspired demented madness. Alycia Ripley’s fine novel deserves to be read, re-read, analyzed, debated, and perhaps become the sacred text of a passionate cult.’ -James Ponsoldt, writer/director of Off the Black and Junebug and Hurricane Add it on: Goodreads /…
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Book Review: Stupid Fast
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Stupid Fast Author: Geoff Herbach Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire Pages: Paperback; 320 Release Date: June 1, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ===================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild suggestive humor HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart Fifteen-year-old Felton Reinstein has always been on the smallish side, but in his sophomore year he starts growing…and growing. During gym one day he smokes the football jocks in a 600-yard race. Felton has never been interested in sports, but there’s no doubt-he is “stupid fast.” As he juggles his newfound athletic prowess, his mom’s sudden depression, an annoying…
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Book Review: Hourglass
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Hourglass Author: Myra McEntire Publisher: Egmont USA Pages: Hardcover; 397 Release Date: June 14, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild language HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart One hour to rewrite the past . . . For seventeen-year-old Emerson Cole, life is about seeing what isn’t there: swooning Southern Belles; soldiers long forgotten; a haunting jazz trio that vanishes in an instant. Plagued by phantoms since her parents’ death, she just wants the apparitions to stop so she can be normal. She’s tried everything, but the visions keep…
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Book Review: Thoughts Without Cigarettes
Media Type: Book Title: Thoughts Without Cigarettes Author: Oscar Hijuelos Publisher: Gotham Pages: Hardcover; 384 Release Date: June 2, 2011 Source: TLC Book Tours ——————————— Genre: Memoir HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart Recommended to: Readers looking for an honest look at this author’s life, peppered with great stories. Add it on: Goodreads / Shelfari / Librarything / Amazon / B&N Oscar Hijuelos has enchanted readers with vibrant characters who hunger for success, love, and self-acceptance. In his first work of nonfiction, Hijuelos writes from the heart about the people and places that inspired his international bestselling novels. Born in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights to Cuban immigrants in 1951, Hijuelos introduces…
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Book Review: Ashes, Ashes
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Ashes, Ashes Author: Jo Treggiari Publisher: Scholastic Pages: Hardcover; 343 Release Date: June 1, 2011 Source: Publisher ===================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Violence HDB Rating: 5 Keys to My Heart A thrilling tale of adventure, romance, and one girl’s unyielding courage through the darkest of nightmares. Epidemics, floods, droughts–for sixteen-year-old Lucy, the end of the world came and went, taking 99% of the population with it. As the weather continues to rage out of control, and Sweepers clean the streets of plague victims, Lucy survives alone in the wilds of Central Park.…
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Book Review: Cursebusters
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Cursebusters Author: Julie Smith Publisher: Bold Strokes Books Pages: Paperback; 264 Release Date: May 17, 2011 Source: Author/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild Violence HDB Rating: 3 Keys to My Heart Budding-psychic Reeno is the most accomplished teenage burglar in California, but one tiny screw-up and poof!—she’s sentenced to Bad Girl School. And that isn’t even her worst problem. Her sister Haley’s dying of an illness no one can diagnose, and now she can’t even help. But wait, maybe she can! The school psychics have found each other and formed their…
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Book Review: Nightspell
Tweet Media Type: Book Title: Nightspell Author: Leah Cypess Publisher: HarperCollins Pages: Hardcover; 336 Release Date: May 31, 2011 Source: Publisher/TBS ==================== Intended Reading Group: Young Adult Content Screening: Mild violence HDB Rating: 4 Keys to My Heart Here be ghosts, the maps said, and that was all. In this haunted kingdom, ghosts linger—not just in the deepest forests or the darkest caverns, but alongside the living, as part of a twisted palace court that revels all night and sleeps through the daylight hours. Darri’s sister was trapped in this place of fear and shadows as a child. And now…