No Place by Todd Strasser

No Place by Todd Strasser
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Todd Strasser's book are awesome and No Place will resonate with teens who have unending horrendous daily problems due to parents losing their jobs and then their homes. I really liked Dan who begins the book as a popular jock dating the most popular girl, playing baseball and thinking about college plans. Pretty quickly Dan's life spirals out of control when his parents who have been unemployed for 5 years inform him they have lost their home and are moving into Dignityville. Dignityville is a tent city that houses many who are struggling with homelessness and unemployment. There are residents in the town who see this tent city as a blight on their neighborhood and want it gone permanently. Dan is a solid teen who wants to get a scholarship to college and now finds himself embarrassed and increasingly angry. His life with his parents has always been loving but deep inside, Dan begins to wonder why they have not found jobs and are they really trying hard to find employment? It is a difficult journey for Dan but he has supporters and people like Aubrey, Meg, and Noah who help him keep his perspective and build a future that he can hopefully attain. Another ripped from the headlines books that will really speak to teens and parents.

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Torn Away by Jennifer Brown

Torn Away by Jennifer Brown
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and LittleBrown Books for Young Readers! What a riveting and engrossing book about family, finding yourself, and daring to believe after a tornado rips your life apart. Jennifer Brown’s description of the tornado as it affects Jersey Cameron’s life is so riveting. Jersey is a teen who unequivocally loves her mom, tolerates her stepfather, and finds her little sister very annoying. But all that changes when a tornado takes away her home, her mother, and little sister. As Jersey tries to understand why her mother is gone and her little sister, Marin, will never bug her to dance the East Coast Swing together ever again, her stepfather sends her to live with her father, Clay’s family, where she is unwelcome, taunted, and lives on the back porch. What crushes her even more is that Jersey is beginning to learn things about her mother; things she never told her, and things she kept from her. When she can no longer tolerate Clay’s family, she runs. Imagine her surprise when she learns her mother’s parents exist and bring Jersey to live with them. How will Jersey make this transition? Jennifer Brown does a great job building the tension, anger, and abandonment that Jersey constantly feels and while you root for Jersey building a lasting relationship with Grandpa Barry and Grandma Patty; it is the way Jersey hangs tough and does not give up on her hopes that will bring tears to your eyes and a warm place in your heart for her wonderful, simple, loving grandparents.

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The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Wow, if you love the Barry Lyga books about serial killers, Libba Bray's The Diviners, and Ripper by Stefan Petrucha, Acceleration by Graham McNamee, you will totally love this book!!! The title is great too; the teens who are Naturals can read emotions, profile people (killers), etc. Cassie is a natural at profiling people, her mother was a psychic and trained Cassie until she was murdered five years ago. After living with relatives and not really feeling the love; she is approached by the FBI to become part of their Naturals team that helps solve cold cases. But when bodies start turning up that mimic her mother's murder, Cassie and the Naturals jump in to try and stop the next murder, will it be Cassie? I could not put this book down. It has the perfect amount of suspense, and crazy to keep you turning the pages, it took me one day to read this book! I am looking for a sequel!

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The Journey of Hannah Woods by Helene Forst

The Journey of Hannah Woods by Helene Forst
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I was so happy to receive this book from the author; what a compelling, satisfying read. Hannah Woods is the kind of protagonist the reader will enjoy getting to know. When we meet first meet her, she is inwardly freaking out at her father’s funeral. As a fourteen year old, Hannah lets the reader know she is suffering from panic attacks, hears voices cruelly putting her down, and relies heavily on drugs. After the funeral, this Hannah will leave the only home she has ever known and go to live with grandparents she didn’t realize she had. It is in this “new” home with down-to- earth grandparents, and a very strong, knowledgeable network of doctors where Hannah begins her epic journey. We learn from Hannah that she did not have a loving father or mother (they were very neglectful), was constantly under the care of nannies, home-schooled by tutors, and had only one person she could count on as a child, the head housekeeper, Winnie. Nothing was normal in her life; Hannah grew up alone, afraid, and always anxious. What I really loved about Hannah as I read this book was her positive attitude. She may have been terrified, but she did not give up hope. On the cusp of adolescence, she must attend high school, participate in class, and meet friends while she withdraws from heavy duty drugs and lives a normal life. It is this Hannah who learns how to surf, play volleyball, ice skate, become active in a Save the Earth Club, and begin to heal, express herself (through poetry) and learn how to savor life and love. I enjoyed the authentic characters Forst provides in Hannah’s loving, working grandparents, high school friends Emma and Eli, and remarkable Drs. Weinstein and Hope. This book was a journey for the reader and Hannah, and one I am very happy I made. As Hannah explores her new life in Crystal Cove, the reader is learning what it is like to have Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, fears, and anxieties. The reader roots for Hannah as she fights valiantly to control her life without drugs and learns to welcome the real Hannah Woods, “perfectly balanced” and “courageously dreaming.”

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The Collector of Dying Breaths by M.J. Rose

The Collector of Dying Breaths: A Novel of Suspense by M.J. Rose
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and Atria Books for this advance e-book which traverses between the worlds of Catherine de Medici and her perfumer of the 1500s and present day. Jac has just lost her brother, Robbie, to a quick, devastating death. She is not sure if her brother has been murdered or died due to some other cause. Before Robbie died, he was living with stepsiblings, Serge and Melinoe, working together with them on how to take one’s last breath and reincarnate them. Jac is approached by the stepsiblings to continue Robbie’s work. Jac worked with her brother in his perfume business for the last two years even though she also has her own career and TV show in mythology. She has an uncanny nose for smells and an ability where she can “become” people in the past; she lurches out of the present and flashes into the famous perfumer’s (René le Florentin) life of intrigue in the 1500s. As Jac and Griffin, the love of her life, try to authenticate Robbie’s formula (based on René le Florentin’s diaries and notes) time and circumstances begin to close in on Jac, ; is her life in danger? Spanning two time periods, the lush and harsh world of Catherine de Medici’s reign and the present where everything is in chaos, Jac wants to bring her brother back, but will she succeed in making the elixir? For a sumptuous read of gothic proportions, The Collector of Dying Breaths, offers passion, beauty, love, hate, murder and much, much more.

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The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz

The Ring and The Crown by Melissa de la Cruz
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Thank you to NetGalley and Disney Hyperion for this advance ebook! The Ring and the Crown is a grand sweep of magic, nobility, power, love, death, and lots of longing. Even though the book is chiefly about two childhood friends, one a princess and one a daughter of the Queen’s Merlin, it revolves around a the London season where a grand ball takes place deciding many lives and which empires will come together to live in peace. There is a very large cast of characters and there were so many dramas taking place behind closed doors and in plain sight. Since nobility and riches reign, the stories of have new wealth, old wealth, and families looking rich but are almost poor, make for salacious reading. Princess Marie doesn’t want to rule or marry Prussian Prince Leopold but wants to run away with her guard. Aelwyn, her best friend and like a sister to Marie, has just returned to London and will join an order of mages and practice magic for the rest of her life, like her father, the Queen’s Merlin. When Marie entreats Aelwyn to help her like she has her whole life, Aelwyn can’t say no to her friend. Does Marie know what she is asking of Aelwyn? The brothers, Leopold and Wolf, are princes from Prussia. Marie is to marry Leopold so their kingdoms can forge peace, but Marie has never liked Leopold since childhood; she has always been better friends with Wolf. And it is Wolf who meets Ronan Astor on a ship sailing from New York to England and they become very close indeed, without ever revealing their names to each other. Ronan is coming to England to find a wealthy husband and save her family from becoming paupers back in New York. There is so much depth to this book, the pages just keep turning as the London Season bursts forth with secrets, trysts, and devious machinations in the castle and hidden dungeons of the royal monarchy. I can’t wait for the next book in this series; I want to know more about the characters, their world and the future that magic will play in their worlds.


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The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson (audio book)

The Boy on the Wooden Box by Leon Leyson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I loved the voice of the person who narrates this audiobook as the main character, Leon Leyson, who is saved from death (and others in his family) as a result of OsKar Schindler's compassion during the Holocaust. Even though this is a child's book, it will appeal to all readers, young and old. Highly recommended!

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