Daisy Darker's family is the epitome of dysfunctional - secrets, lies and grudges galore. So when they come together at Nana's island home for a rare gathering to celebrate her 80th birthday, tension is to be expected. What isn't expected, however, is murder. But at midnight, Nana is found dead, and father Frank follows an hour later. Unable to leave the island until the tide goes out in the morning, the remaining family members are left in terror, wondering who is to blame for the killings and who will be next. A series of clues left by the killer also forces them to rehash family drama and trauma, including the often isolating treatment of narrator Daisy due to a rare illness. This homage to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None is hard to put down. The family dynamics are gripping and relatable; as secrets are revealed, you alternate between sympathy and contempt for each of the characters. And then as morning approaches, and the number of remaining family members dwindles, the killer comes to light. The stunning disclosure, coupled with a twist that made me re-read earlier parts of the book, left me reeling. The ending was unpredictable and upended my feelings about certain characters to the point where I wondered "did the villain have a good reason?" I recommend this book to anyone who likes a good mystery or is enthralled by stories of difficult families and situations.
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In the mood for a good supernatural thriller? Check out The Honeys by Ryan La Sala. The fast-paced, action-packed story pulled me in from the first page and kept me guessing til the last. Mars, a gender fluid teen, always felt less than his twin sister Caroline, who seemed to have everything going for her. The past few years, Caroline spent all her free time at a ritzy nature camp, one Mars stopped attending after a traumatic event. When his sister dies attacking him - an event his parents try to cover up and blame on a brain tumor - Mars wants to return to the camp to figure out what really happened. What changed for his sister there? Who were her beautiful and strangely influential friends, a group called the "Honeys" because they tended the camp's bees? While searching for answers, Mars finds something even more sinister than the elitism and sexism that pervade the camp. Is there anyone he can trust? Is the "hive mind" of the Honeys more than just a metaphor? Can he escape the fate that doomed his sister? In addition to an engaging story, the book offers an interesting look at class and gender. Mars is a dynamic main character who is easy to root for, and a unique hero in young adult literature. As for the villains, they're not always who you think they are, and the final reveals may take you by surprise.
When an accident at a Vermont nuclear power plant causes a meltdown, and forces people who live nearby to abandon their homes, everyone blames Emily's parents. Her father was an engineer, and her mother was a spokeswoman for the plant, and both were known as big drinkers. Whether drinking played a part in the accident or not, 16-year-old Emily can't handle the accusations and scorn of people who've lost their homes - on top of the pain of losing her parents. So she runs away in the hope of putting distance, and memory, far behind her. She buries her feelings and fears in drugs and other seedy behavior, until she meets a 9-year-old boy who fled a rough foster home. The boy gives her new responsibility, new hope, and eventually heartbreak so big that she risks going back to her radioactive home near the plant to await her fate. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands by Chris Bohjalian has a happy ending, but readers must first endure the pain and fear that Emily goes through. Despite the tragedy, or perhaps because of it, Emily finds a courage and resilience she didn't know she had. I think many of us can relate to the sadness, confusion and fear that Emily goes through, as well as the bravery she shows, even though each of us has our own unique troubles and challenges. This seems to be the era of buzzy fiction thrillers with very dysfunctional characters and wild plot twists. Gone Girl, written in 2012 by Gillian Flynn and released last year as a movie, started the trend with the crazy story of Nick and his “missing” wife Amy. The Dinner, a 2013 book by Herman Koch about two couples in denial about a terrible crime committed by their sons, is another one. Told by untrustworthy narrators, with whole chapters that you later realize were distorted if not outright lies, the reader is unsure what to believe for most of the book. Yet, you keep reading, even though the main characters are kind of jerks, because you just HAVE to know what’s going on. And when you finish the book, usually after a series of late nights staying up reading into the wee hours or long days of not putting down the book except to use the bathroom, you’re haunted and maybe a little disturbed. The Girl on the Train is a similarly messed-up book. In some ways, the comparisons to Gone Girl have created a huge fan base for this 2014 book. But in other ways, the hype has hurt, with some readers feeling that The Girl on the Train was a letdown after Gone Girl shattered expectations as well as norms of the fiction genre. I am not one of those readers. I loved both books, even as I loathed some of the characters. As I read The Girl on the Train, I ignored chores around the house, work I had brought home, even my poor daughter’s pleas for attention just so I could race to the end (Worst. Mother. Ever). Rachel, a divorced alcoholic, fills the void in her life by imagining the lives of the people she sees outside her train window. When something terrible happens, she’s not sure what she’s seen and what she’s done, and the reader struggles along with her to piece things together. The puzzle gets even more jumbled when the author writes from the point of view of two other characters: Anna, who is the new wife of Rachel’s ex-husband, and Megan, one of the people she’d been observing whose disappearance Rachel is trying to unravel. About three-quarters through the book, I got a sense of what was really going on and I had to go back and re-read some earlier parts. I spotted the author’s trickery then and thought it was pretty clever. The comparisons to Gone Girl are apt: very flawed characters that you are drawn to even though you don’t like them, a plot that seems to be one thing but turns out to be something else. And like Gone Girl, after I finished reading, I couldn’t exactly say it was a pleasant experience. But I did enjoy it, the way I enjoy the the combination of fear, disgust and thrill I get from riding a roller coaster. It turned my stomach at times, but it also got my pulse racing. High school senior Ashley may be in the minority, but she hates the idea of prom. The thought of spending all that money and getting all decked out is - to her - not only a waste, but ridiculously fake. But to her best friend Nat and a bunch of other girls, the prom is an event they've been dreaming of, the one good thing in a life of crummy minimum wage jobs, dysfunctional families, and uncertain hopes for the future. When a teacher is arrested for stealing all the money raised to pay for the prom just days before the big event, Nat and her planning committee are distraught. That's when Ashley steps up to help. Tough, no-nonsense Ashley throws herself into planning a new, cheaper prom for her class. With honesty, humor and some well-placed pastry bribes, Ashley works to save the dance. In the process, she changes her mind about the prom, her family and her future. Written by Laurie Halse Anderson, Prom is a fun, quick read. It's not as serious as her most well-known book, Speak, about a student who is raped at a high school party. But the characters are likeable, "normal" kids -- ones who may not get straight As or want to go to college, but ones who may have a reserved seat in detention or are saving pennies from working at McDonald's to buy a car. The plot is simple and moves fast, and the ending is a happy one (unusual for books that I read!). I recommend this book for anyone who doesn't like to read. I think it may change your mind. Many of us, at one time or another, have wished we could be someone else: someone cooler, smarter, better looking, more popular, whatever. But would we be crazy enough -- or, as some people might say, brave enough -- to just walk away from everything we know and reinvent ourselves? After high school junior Christopher Creed disappears, leaving only a cryptic note, the community is left to wonder if he ran away, killed himself or was murdered. Everyone has their own version of what happened. Classmates who saw Chris as an obnoxious weirdo and a target for bullies had no trouble believing he committed suicide even though no body had been found. His parents, certain Chris had been happy and and would never hurt himself or run away, began looking for someone to blame. His neighbor Ali, who saw things from her bedroom window that others didn't know, wasn't sure if Chris was dead or alive but was convinced his parents had played a part. The Body of Christopher Creed by Carol Plum-Ucci explores not just a teen's mysterious disappearance but also how one event can ricochet throughout a community. It highlights how gossip, rumors and a belief in reputation over fact can have dangerous consequences. The main character, Torey Adams, is one of the students who paid little attention to Chris Creed -- except for the time he punched Chris for touching his guitar (seems most of the boys in Chris' class have their own memory of punching him). But after Chris disappears, Torey starts to feel guilty about the careless rumors and insensitive jokes of his friends and their parents. With the help of Ali and Bo, a kid from the "wrong side" of town whose police record makes him a suspect in Chris' disappearance, Torey begins tracking down clues in hopes of solving the mystery. As the belief that Chris may have run away to create a new identity takes hold in Torey's mind, he comes to the realization that everyone, no matter their reputation or differences, deserves some compassion. The climax in an Indian burial ground is as surprising as it is terrifying, but still leaves more questions than answers. I recommend this book to mystery lovers, who will enjoy putting the pieces together as they are revealed bit by bit in flashbacks. But I also think all readers can relate to the gossip mill that is high school, and the pressures from parents and peers on teens that don't fit in. The book is 276 pages long but not a difficult read. Sixteen-year-old Lydia Lee appears to have it all. She spends hours on the phone each evening, talking to friends. She dives into advanced science classes in the hopes of one day becoming a doctor. She's polite to her parents, agreeing to their every request without so much as a grumble or complaint. But, as her family is soon to find out, picture-perfect Lydia is only an illusion. When she goes missing and is found dead, drowned in a local lake, her family struggles to understand what happened. They eventually realize that everything they thought they knew about Lydia was wrong. In Everything I Never Told You, author Celeste Ng explores what it's like to be a minority. Lydia's father was the only Chinese-American student in all of his schools growing up. Her white mother was the sole woman pursuing a medical degree in a time most people thought women went to college only to catch a husband. Their biracial marriage in the 1950s was rare, and in some states, illegal. In the town where Lydia grew up in the 1970s, there is no one outside of her family who looks like her. In all of their experiences, being the minority meant facing taunts, isolation and limited opportunities. Those limited opportunities haunted Lydia's parents, who transferred all of their hopes and dreams onto her. Lydia struggled under the weight of their expectations, creating a public face that masked her unhappiness and insecurity. While readers are shown what is going through each character's mind -- during the current investigation into Lydia's death and in the decades before -- it is clear that the family members never shared their experiences and feelings with one another. If they had, maybe they could have helped one another. Or maybe they would have been further weighed down with guilt and shame. We'll never know. And while readers learn what Lydia was thinking the night she died, her parents and siblings never do. They are left with countless questions that they will never be able to answer. This is not a happy book, but it is an interesting one. Reading about the experiences of Lydia and her family through their eyes brought home the challenges faced by anyone who feels isolated or unaccepted because of their race, religion or sexual orientation. Some of us will never experience this firsthand. Books like this help us better understand what others may be going through. Another plus is that the book is written like a mystery, with the opening line telling us "Lydia is dead. But they don't know this yet." Pieces of the puzzle are slowly revealed as the author alternates between present time and the past. I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes realistic fiction about families or mysteries that aren't necessarily about detectives and crimes. Fans of Ellen Hopkins' books may also like this. Even though it is not written in verse, it is the same kind of story of dysfunctional families and survivors of tragedy that Hopkins often writes about. 'crash and burn': darkly funny, gripping tale of an unlikely hero and an unfortunate villain11/5/2014 Most of us probably know someone like Steven “Crash” Crashinsky: hates school, loves to party, considers himself a player. And in the spring of his senior year, Crash becomes a celebrity when he manages to stop a disturbed classmate from blowing up the school in a massacre styled on Columbine. His heroism sends his popularity skyrocketing (especially among the ladies) and lands him a lucrative book deal to tell his story. So during the last summer before going off to college, while he is determined to live it up with his friends, he begins to recount his story. Since he first met the school attacker, David Burnett, in elementary school, the story must start there.
Between chapters that detail Crash’s exploits that final summer, we learn how he met “Burn,” his sometimes friend/rival/enemy who earned the nickname after an explosive incident when they were young. We come to understand that Burn has been diagnosed bipolar, among other things. He is a certified genius, but also, at times, certifiably insane. We meet Roxanne, Burn’s older sister, who wields sarcasm like a weapon and delves into some dark places in her struggle to deal with her brother’s issues. And we learn about Crash’s own problems: struggles in school because of ADHD, emotional abuse from a father who thinks he’s lazy and worthless, and a reliance on weed and “redcups” to cope with stress. As Crash tells his story, we get a unique glimpse into the minds of teenagers who are learning disabled, dealing with mental illness, disaffected from their families and society, and distracted by the temptations of sex, drugs and alcohol. Written in the irreverent voice of most modern teenagers, Crash and Burn is at times darkly funny, emotionally gripping and violently tense. The characters’ bluntness about their fondness for, um, blunts -- and girls and parties -- makes them realistic. The plot about the school attack is, unfortunately, not that hard to believe. And while Crash is the story’s hero and Burn its villain, neither fits their label quite so easily. I found myself shaking my head at Crash when he uses yet another girlfriend or lights another joint, but ready to defend him from his heartless father. Burn does terrible things leading up to the school attack, but I also understood the feelings of helplessness that led him to some of those actions. The final showdown at the school is intense. As the narrator, Crash at one point tells readers that he’s getting to the good stuff: “If this was a movie, this would be the time to put on your 3-D glasses. Also, if you want to go to the bathroom or if you want a snack, get it now. I’ll wait.” He’s right that once you start that section of the story, you will want to read to the very end. Throughout the book, Crash teases of a secret that Burn whispered to him that ended the siege on the school. Finally, near the end, you learn the secret and, to me, it was devastating. Crash and Burn is Michael Hassan’s first novel, and I highly recommend it. I know some readers will be turned off by the length of the book, just over 500 pages. Since the characters and story would greatly appeal to people who might normally not like to read, I do wish the author trimmed it down a little so those readers won’t be scared away. But I encourage you to give it a try. It is a riveting book -- you’ll laugh and nod approval at some of Crash’s adventures; you’ll shake your head in sadness at other times. This is one of those books that draws you in and keeps a hold on you from the first page to the last. First a preface: When I suggest that students read a book by Ellen Hopkins, their first reaction is often "No way! That book is huge!" And yes, many of her fiction novels are very thick, topping 300 or even 600 pages. But when I flip through the books and show students that they are written in free verse instead of long paragraphs, they perk up. There may be as few as 20 words on a page. That, they feel they can handle. And while I never want anyone to choose a book because it's short, I sell Ellen Hopkins' books this way because too many students would miss out on her great stories if they never cracked one open. Now on to the review: Impulse is the story of Tony, Vanessa and Connor, three teenagers who for different, painful reasons try to end their lives. After their suicide attempts, they are sent to a treatment facility where they are supposed to work through their issues with therapists and family members. As you might imagine, the path to healing is not an easy one. The teens struggle to deal with their troubled past, less-than-ideal present and their uncertain future. The book alternates between the three teens' voices, revealing in agonizing bits and pieces the heartache, abuse and fear that have led them to this point. Despite their different journeys, the teens find a connection with each other that gives them hope that their lives will be better. Unfortunately not everyone gets a happy ending. The book, like all others written by Hopkins, deals with very sensitive issues such as sexual abuse, mental illness, drug use, and depression. Tony, Vanessa and Connor felt like real people, and I quickly became invested in their stories: their triumphs, missteps and especially their falls. While I know they are made up characters, I also know that Hopkins has worked with at-risk youth and struggled through her daughter's heroin abuse (which she writes about in Crank). Meaning, I feel that the author knows what she's talking about. By reading Impulse, I gained a glimpse into the pressures and dangers that can plague teenagers - even the ones who seem to have everything going for them. These kinds of books also remind me that, whatever I'm dealing with, someone else may have it worse and I need to be sensitive to whatever challenges they may be facing. I recommend this book and others by Ellen Hopkins for anyone who likes gritty realistic fiction, especially stories of young people who face and overcome trauma or hardship. The book is riveting and hard to put down, and you'll be impressed by how quickly you get through the 600 pages. |
AuthorMrs. McHugh is a librarian and instructional technology specialist. She loves talking books and pop culture with her students at Hanover High School. Archives
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