Third Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

The Secrets of Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. Harper Collins Publishers, 2006. Genre: Realistic Fiction This sequel to the book Peaches begins right where the first one left off; the last days of summer before Murphy and Leeda start their senior year of high school and Birdie her last year of homeschooling before college. Leeda has just been nominated as Pecan Queen for the annual Thanksgiving parade, and agrees to hold the position reluctantly because of her mother's pleading. Murphy and Rex are still going strong, until Murphy asks him if he would be willing to come with her to NYU if she gets accepted. Birdie is very excited because Enrico has invited her to come spend the New Year with him and his family in Mexico; before she leaves, though, she is starting to see a drastic change take place with her housekeeper and second mother, Poopie, who lived in the same town as Enrico until moving to Georgia to help out on the Darlington Peach Orchard. Birdie initially thinks that it has something to do with homesickness, but then she makes a startling discovery about the relationship between Poopie and Birdie's recently divorced father. "This year, Murphy, Leeda, and Birdie discover that bitter endings can lead to sweet new beginnings . . . and that the orchard that brought them together will always be a part of them— even if they leave it behind." Borders website After reading this book, I think that the author's strongest point in writing is making everything very suspenseful for the reader, especially since so many things are happening in the book over the course of one school year. For example, she has effectively used foreshadowing and allusions to help the reader either understand whats going on or to keep a vital secret from us until the right moment; I like this because then the reader can be surprised right along with the characters when something big happens. The author also wrote from the perspectives of all three girls, and it was nice to see how an event in the eyes of Leeda could be seen differently or hold more importance when it is revisited by Murphy or Birdie. "Poopie was staring at Birdie as if she was frozen. How much had she seen? Did she know about her and Enrico in the shed? Would she tell Birdie's father?" (157) Initially, I had meant to read the original book Peaches by this same author on a recommendation from a classmate, but found myself instead with its sequel. Despite this little mix-up, I still thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I certainly am interested in reading the first book to find out how all of these girls met each other. I think that this author has a very intriguing writing style, and she is able to make the reader feel compassion towards the main characters quickly and get us to care about their problems.

Second Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

Rebel Angels by Libba Bray. Delacorte Press, 2005 Genre: Historical fiction Rebel Angels, the sequel to Bray's first novel A Great and Terrible Beauty, picks up where the story left off, with Gemma, Felicity, and Ann all at Spence Academy for girls, a few months after Pippa's death. Its Christmastime now, and the girls are going to London to celebrate with their families and all of the interesting new people that they meet, such as Simon Middeton and Ms. McCleethy, the newest addition to the Spence faculty who Gemma doesnt trust in the slightest because of her possible connection to the realms and her latest visions. The girls also run into Ms. Moore, their former teacher who seems to know more than she is tellin about the realms and the Order. As always, Kartik is following Gemma on order from the Rakshana, and their relationship as friends has the potential to turn into something more, leaving Gemma caught between him and Simon, her official courter. Now, to make matters worse, the mgic that Gemma unleashed by smashing the Runes is loose in the realms, and Gemma has to figure out how to bind it before something else does. "The sumptuous companion to the New York Times bestseller A Great and Terrible Beauty teems with Victorian chills and thrills." Book jacket Rebel Angels is written in much the same manner as Bray's previous novel, as a very discriptive and intriguing style, with the constant allure of scandal on every page. You can see the conflicts between Gemma and Ms. Moore, Ms. McCleethy, her friends at times, Kartik, Simon, and even coping with her father's ever-changing addictions. Bray continuously shows the reader that many of the social and emotional problems that we face today are not specific to only this generation, and that they were present long before many percieved them to be in existance. Through Gemma's eyes, we see the world as a sometimes cruel and ironic place, but somehow she can always manage to be able to take charge in tough spots and have the confidence to know that a better time is coming. "Ms. Moore. Ms. Moore is Circe. She has found the Temple. I have failed. I have lost everything." (509) After reading the second part of this trilogy, although the writing style and suspense have been very abundant, I can honestly say that the topic has started to become slightly redundant. I felt like everything that was happening to the girls was turning out too complicated or too intricate to be realistic, even if there hadn't been the prescence of a parallel universe with our own. I have just been noticing that there are several books and series of books that all have some connection to magic or fictional creatures of some sort, and I just feel like I'm getting tired of fantasy, and want to return to actual events or even possible events and not complete fiction.

First Quarter Outside Reading Book Review

A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. Delacorte Press, 2003. Genre: historical fiction A Great and Terrible Beauty tells the story of sixteen-year-old Gemma Doyle, who is an Englishwoman living in India in 1895. The book begins on her sixteenth birthday in India, the same day that her mother is murdered and she discovers that she has supernatural powers. After her mother's death, she is sent back to England to attend a finishing school, Spence Academy. Here, she learns about many different things that women are supposed to be for their husbands, and also about all of the gossip that girls her age talk about. She soon makes friends, and together they try to solve the mystery of her strange visions and her mother's murder, who turns out to be her former best friend when she attended Spence. "A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy--jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel," says Patty Campbell from Amazon.com. After reading this book, I have observed that the writing style is not like any others that I have seen before. For instance, the main character, Gemma, seems to always have a negative attitude about her no matter what she is doing, and this seems to be a very odd tone to choose when writing a book like this. I also noticed that the author goes into very deep topics that most people would think only partain to today's society, such as when she mentions that Ann cuts herself because she needs to reassure herself that she can feel. That overall seems very graphic and not quite what you would expect out of a novel set in the 19th century. "Why do you do that to yourself? Cut yourself the way you do?" There's no answer fo ra good long minute, and I think that perhaps she has fallen asleep after all, but then it comes. Her voice, so soft I have to strain in the dark to hear it, to hear the faint cry she's holding back. "I don't know. Sometimes, I feel nothing, and I'm so afraid. Afraid that I'll stop feeling anything at all. I'll just slip away inside myself." There's a cough and a sniffling sound. "I just need to feel something."(177) Personally, I think that the book is in some ways sort of a different way of telling my life, because I go through the pressures of fitting in with people as a hard thing, too. Just like Gemma, I sometimes feel like no one really understands what I'm going through, but then I remember that I have my friends there to guide me, and I feel much better. I also really am fond of historical fiction books because I think it's interesting to see how history would unfold itself with all of the real drama put back into it, and not just the facts like a history text book would give you.