Monthly Archives: August 2015

Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler

Book Reviews, ,

You know when Immaculateyou are promised a really awesome surprise and then when you get the surprise it’s brussels sprouts or something?  That’s how I felt when I finished this book.  Now don’t get me wrong, it was a great story, the ending was just disappointing.

Mina is the top of her class; straight A’s, most popular boyfriend in school, the two best friends a girl could ask for, a great job, and a pretty great family.  Then this creepy old lady comes into her work one night talking about protecting Mina and her baby.  A few weeks later, Mina finds out she’s pregnant…except she’s a virgin.  The story gets out and people start telling her she is going to Hell if she keeps the story up and they keep getting angrier when she won’t give it up.  You’re probably thinking what I was thinking when I was reading it, why is Mina pregnant, is this a modern day Jesus?  Unfortunately we never find out.  Spoiler alert: Mina tells everyone the baby dies, moves to New York, and that’s the end of the book.  WHAT?!?!  I read this whole thing and that’s how you’re gonna end it Detweiler?!?!  I mean, come on, really?

If you like reading books that have no answers to them, this ones for you.

Taking Flight by Michaela DePrince with Elaine DePrince

Book Reviews,

If you really wantTaking Flight to feel like you can do anything in the world you put your mind to, read this book.  Michaela DePrince came from a small village in war-torn Sierra Leone and become a world class ballerina…by the time she was seventeen years old.  Let that sink in for a minute.  Oh, and she also finished high school and kept time to travel with her family while achieving this goal.  Seriously, if you need some inspiration to get up and go for your dreams, read this book.

All The Rage by Courtney Summers

Book Reviews, ,

This is a diffiAll the Ragecult book to read.  It’s dealing with a lot of heavy stuff that people don’t like to talk about and hope never happens to them or anyone they know.  At the same time, it’s very eye-opening to how something like this feels and what kind of person it leaves behind.  It’s about a teenage girl, Rumy, living in a small town who is sexually assaulted by the sheriffs son.  Can you guess what happened to the boy who did it?  He lives in a big city now after the sheriff claims the girl is just looking for attention.

There are two main plot lines going on throughout the book and Summers does a fantastic job of navigating between the two smoothly.  The main storyline in my opinion was when Penny went missing.  Penny was Rumy’s best friend when she was sexually assaulted but she didn’t believe her when she found out.  This year they are not friends but Penny still sticks up for Rumy when she is being bullied by everyone at school.  By the end Rumy realizes that even if they weren’t really friends anymore, Penny looked out for her until the end, which is a very powerful thing to think about.  If you’ve ever gone through something and don’t know how to be friends after, this is understandable to you.  You’ll always care about that person, even if you can’t show it.  Rumy dealing with her assault and the aftermath of it is the other big plot story.  She starts dating a boy, Leon, who works with her at the diner on the outskirts of town.  She has trouble getting close to him and telling him what happened because she sees another girl when she is with him.  Throughout the book, Rumy talks about two different girls, the girl she was before the assault, and the girl she is after.  The girl before is dead to her, another extremely powerful image that helps understand the tragedy that is sexual assault.

I honestly stayed up all night finishing this book.  It pulls you in and makes it hard to put down.  This is an important book to read if you want to understand how girls in these situations feel and how to treat them.

The Last Good Day of the Year by Jessica Warman

Book Reviews, , ,

I wanted to liThe Last Good Day of the Yearke this book, I really did.  It had a lot of potential…that was not achieved unfortunately.  The first chapter and the last chapter were excellent, everything else was confusing and hard to follow.

The book opens on New Years Day 1986 in the basement of a suburban townhouse.  Sam, Remy, and Turtle have been sent there so their parents could celebrate upstairs.  Turtle being the youngest is fast asleep in her sleeping bag when a creepy santa shows up in the backyard.  He slowly comes towards the house, looking in the basement for a minute before coming in and taking Turtle.  Sam and Remy were awake but too scared to do anything while santa was in the house.  The kids assure the police it was Steven Handley, Sam’s older sisters boyfriend.  Then you get to the second chapter, ten years later and the family is moving back to the house where it all happened.  Nothing else really matters until the last chapter.  This could have been a short story and probably been more successful.

The last two pages you find out what happened ten years ago and what happened to everyone when the truth was revealed.  The story was interesting, but it was hard to get through.