So so so so good! I wasn’t sure I would love this book when I picked it up, but it only took about 2 minutes for me to fall in love with it. As soon as Grace recalled the first time she noticed Mandarin (right after seven-year-old Grace turned her appearance in a local pageant into a bit of a dirty dance show) I was hooked.

Mandarin is every bit the girl I would have fallen for in high school. I’m not sure why I find myself so drawn to these damaged girls, but I do. (It’s clear enough with plenty of my main characters. Heck, Dylan and Mandarin would have a field day together) Mandarin is wild, seemingly carefree, and ready for any sort of excitement. Grace is a lot more like I was in high school. While I was never as quiet as Grace, I had the same longing to be everything I saw in someone like Mandarin. If I had read this book fifteen years ago (Oh God I’m getting old) I think I would have utterly lost myself in it and probably read it until the pages fell out.

Hubbard has written something beautiful here. She’s captured every moment of high school torment without ever making it obvious. It’s awesome because for so many of us that’s what high school was. It wasn’t that we were targeted and picked on by our peers, we just felt lost, invisible, and filled with a longing to be more. She’s stuffed Grace so full of those feelings that she’s about fit to burst by the time Mandarin befriends her. Of course, while Mandarin comes off as the most confident girl ever, it’s not long before it becomes clear she is even less sure of herself than Grace. A lesson we’ve all learned at some time.

This was just a great book, one I would recommend to any teenage girl who thinks she’s the only one feeling this way. I’d also recommend it to anyone who loves a beautifully written story, which this for sure is. The characters are all expertly drawn and you feel like you’re walking the streets of their small town with every word.

This book has a lot going for it. It’s a pretty good coming of age mystery that reminds me a little of Stand By Me. However, it falls just short of that book’s greatness.

On a hot summer night, Charlie’s reading is interrupted by Jasper Jones at his window. Much to his surprise and excitement, Jasper needs him to sneak out and help him. The excitement turns sour when Jasper leads Charlie to a girl’s dead body hanging in a tree. Fearing that Jasper will be blamed, they get rid of the body and swear to find the real killer.

The base story is really good. Charlie is a fantastic main character, just a little dorky and eager to please, while Jasper is the perfect bad boy with a heart of gold. The two characters play off each other well in the book. The rest of the characters are filled in nicely, rounded out to be more than background pieces. The mystery and the fear it generates within the town are compelling and you really want to know what happened to the girl just as much as the boys do.

One of the highlights of the book is the dialogue between Charlie and Jasper as well as the dialogue between Charlie and his friend Jeffery. It just smacks of adolescent boys in such a way that you feel like the author must have sat around eavesdropping and used real conversations he heard. By far the best dialogue I’ve read in a long time.

The only real downside to the book was Charlie’s internal monologues. They just went on a little too long and happened a little too often. At least once a chapter Charlie was rehashing everything to himself and I wanted to skip ahead because I already knew everything he was saying. However, that’s really my only complaint about the book. Oh yeah, and insanely long chapters!

Worth a read if you like mysteries and a good coming of age story, which who doesn’t?

I’ve never read a book I didn’t like by Neal Shusterman, and this book is more of the same. He does such a great job mixing just a little bit of mystery and magic into an otherwise normal book. With Bruiser it’s the same thing. What starts out as your typical girl meets bad boy, girl’s brother doesn’t want her to date bad boy kind of story quickly turns into much more. You don’t have to get very far into the book before you realize there’s something different about this bad boy.

Tennyson doesn’t like Bruiser, like most of the school he think’s he’s a troubled loser. However, Tennyson’s twin sister Bronte sees something more in Bruiser. Turns out she’s right. It soon becomes apparent that when Bruiser let’s himself get close to someone, he ends up taking on their pain as well. From skinned knuckles to break-up sadness, Bruiser gets it all.

While Bruiser’s strange ability is a big part of the story, there is much more. The family stories of boy Bruiser and the twins are both interesting enough to not be overwhelmed by the special powers part of the story. Tennyson and Bronte’s parents are going through a rough divorce, while Bruiser and his little brother, Cody, live with an abusive uncle. The family issues and the relationship between the twins and Bruiser would be enough of a story for any book, by adding Bruiser’s powers, it takes the story to another level. Told in the alternating POV of Tennyson, Bronte, Bruiser, and Cody, Shusterman has worked a lot of different voices into the book and each one stands out as it’s own. All four of them are likable, but not without faults.

Give this book a shot, and if you like it then try Unwind (sequel coming soon, and a movie!), The Skinjacker Trilogy, and Downsiders.

Wasn’t sure what I was expecting from this book, but it was better than I expected. Apparently I’m the only person in the world who never read Ella Enchanted, so I read this without associating it with that.

This is the tale of a young girl setting out on her first adventure with the dream of becoming a mansioner (actor) in the big city of Two Castles. Of course that doesn’t work out as planned and she is instead taken in by a dragon and soon finds herself trying to solve the mystery of a missing ogre.

It’s a magical little book, Elodie is a strong, brave girl who thinks for herself and tries very hard not to let other people’s thoughts and opinions sway her. All the people and places in the book come to life in the way only the best fantasy worlds can. Both the dragon and the ogre are very interesting characters, given different powers and characteristics than I’ve seen before.

Though this book is aimed at a younger audience, I had no trouble reading it. At no point did it feel like the book was being dumbed down for kids. The mystery involved didn’t have a solution that was obvious the whole time, and the relationships all felt natural. I’d recommend it to anyone who likes fantasy.

Be aware that the person who read the audio book was kinda annoying. The way she made the dragon laugh made me grit my teeth each time.