Grade: B

Synopsis:

If Naomi had picked tails, she would have won the coin toss. She wouldn't have had to go back for the yearbook camera, and she wouldn't have hit her head on the steps. She wouldn't have woken up in an ambulance with amnesia. She certainly would have remembered her boyfriend, Ace. She might even have remembered why she fell in love with him in the first place. She would understand why her best friend, Will, keeps calling her "Chief". She'd know about her mom's new family. She's know about her dad's fiancee. She never would have met James, the boy with the questionable past and the even fuzzier future, who tells her he once wanted to kiss her. She wouldn't have wanted to kiss him back.

Rating:

Character Development: 6/10
Originality: 8/10
Overall Enjoyment: 6/10
Ending: 9/10
Voice: 7/10
Setting: 8/10
Plot: 6/10
Total Score: 50/70

Obtained: Library.

Age Appropriate? PG-13

Cussing: Some throughout.
Drugs, Alcohol, etc: Teen drinking and drunkenness, teen smoking and drug use.
Sexual Content: No actual scenes, but a lot of discussion/narration/etc.
Disturbing Images/Violence: Teen depression and attempted suicide.

Review:

I have heard both great things and terrible things about this book. As it turns out, it falls directly between the two for me. While I enjoyed reading it, I was disconnected from any kind of emotional feedback through the whole story. I didn't care what happened to Naomi. I hated both of her love interests, Ace and James. I hated her.

The writing style was very accessible and smooth, mimicking the voice of a teenage girl perfectly. Naomi's troubled seemed realistic enough, but her actions and emotions seemed false. She was pretty bipolar, moody, unfaithful with her feelings that it made keeping up with her rather difficult.

However, there were some good points to the story. Her past, her history, the amnesia--these things added depth and insight and made reading it not only bearable but acceptably interesting. While I was expecting the amnesia to be slightly more important, it certainly added to the book. Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac turned out to be a charming modern-day love story with lots of quirks.

Grade: A+

Synopsis:

Poor and plain, Jane Eyre begins life as a lonely orphan in the household of her hateful aunt. Despite the oppression she endures at home, and the later torture of boarding school, Jane manages to emerge with her spirit and integrity unbroken. She becomes a governess at Thornfield Hall, where she finds herself falling in love with her employer--the dark, impassioned Mr. Rochester. But an explosive secret tears apart their relationship, forcing Jane to face poverty and isolation once again.

Rating:

Character Development: 10/10
Originality: 10/10
Overall Enjoyment: 7/10
Ending: 8/10
Voice: 9/10
Plot: 9/10
Setting: 10/10
Total Score: 63/70

NOTE: As this book is a 19th century classic, these scores aren't entirely reliable.

Obtained: Bought from Barnes & Noble Booksellers

Age Appropriate? G

Cussing: Very limited.
Drugs, Alcohol, etc: Some drinking and drunkenness, but not much.
Sexual Content: None.
Disturbing Images/Violence: Some time-period child abuse (meaning, we consider it abuse, they don't), etc. Small amount of violence and some graphic imagery.

Review:

Jane Eyre is a classic for a reason. I was shocked at the ease of reading. Charlotte Bronte writes with a voice and a diction that, while somewhat archaic, is not yet incomprehensible (like, say, Charles Dickens, etc). This is a masterfully crafted novel that I believe everyone should read whether they like classics or not (generally, I hate them).

The characters of Jane Eyre were a fascinating lot. Jane herself has become one of my favorite protagonists of all. She is strong, likeable, and flawed, and her thoughts and decisions are clear and sensible. Mr. Rochester--wow. He is the perfect foil to Jane's easy calm and inferior, modest attitude. His sarcasm and wit were hilarious, and their conversations will make you fall in love with him. I thought it was a nice touch (and a big statement) that both Jane and Edward were ugly people. Yet Bronte doesn't write with scorn for the beautiful or any kind of prejudice. Indeed, she writes with intimacy and truth, much like our authors today.

If you fancy a novel full of beauty of the heart and mind, intelligence, and grace, read Jane Eyre--but be prepared for a slightly tedious undertaking (it has taken me a week of non-stop reading just to read 500 pages! Gah!). But it is completely worth it.

Sorry for the recent lack of posts, everyone. School has been keeping us busy with reading classics (Jane Eyre, Tess of the D'urbervilles), if only we were reading warped classics instead...

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies



Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters
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And here is a quite entertaining rap trailer for Perfect Chemistry
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Eternal
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A Curse as Dark as Gold
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Elise and I have conferred, and we have decided to revamp our reviewing style. The number and letter ratings are staying, as well as the Age Appropriate stuff, but we're just adding in things that we think are necessary. If you agree, let us know! If not, let us know that too so we can perfect this thing. Thanks! :-)

EDIT 11/5/09: We are removing the "Recommendation" portion of our number reviews to keep our number ratings consistent and easy to deal with. Besides, with Overall Enjoyment as a category, Recommendation is somewhat superfluous. And it's what the review is for, right? :-)

Synopsis:

It's been three months since everyone under the age of fifteen became trapped in the bubble known as the FAYZ. Three months since all the adults disappeared.

Gone.

Food ran out weeks ago. Everyone is starving, but no one wants to figure out a solution. And each day, more and more kids are evolving, developing supernatural abilities that set them apart from the kids without powers.

Tension rises and chaos is descending upon the town. It's the normal kids against the mutants. Each kid is out for himself, and even the good ones turn murderous.

But a larger problem looms. The Darkness, a sinister creature that has lived buried deep in the hills, begins calling to some of the teens in the FAYZ. Calling to them, guiding them, manipulating them

The Darkness has awakened. And it is hungry.

Rating:

Character Development: 9/10
Originality: 9/10
Overall Enjoyment: 10/10
Ending: 10/10
Voice: 10/10
Setting: 10/10
Recommendation: 10/10
Total Score: 68/70

Grade: A+

Age Appropriate?

Cussing: Some
Alcohol, Drugs, etc: Teenage alcoholism, child drug use.
Sexual Content: Nothing explicit; some speculation.
Disturbing Images/Violence: Lots of blood, murder, graphic images, child-against-child violence, and psychopathy/sadism (in one disturbing character). Teen bulimia and anorexia.

Review:

If possible, I loved this second installment in the GONE series even more than I loved the first one! HUNGER is a very different book than its prequel--darker, more depressed, more internal, a different kind of struggle all together. Where the battle in GONE is one against disorder and chaos, HUNGER's struggle is based on the hopelessness of the situation, the overwhelming task of being a leader in this strange world. So much stuff happens in these pages, and it is enough to shatter your expectations.

I was surprised to find how little this story has to do with Sam. Of course, he plays a huge role throughout, but the length of time we actually spend in his head is very limited. There's more jumping around between the many intertwined storylines and less focus on Sam himself. Caine even had a larger role in this book than in the previous one, and now I'm surprised to say that I like him. Wow. Did I actually say that? But it's true. He's more human, less...despicable. Even if he does make some stupid decisions.

With heavier content and lots of high-stress high-emotion situations, Michael Grant has created yet another brilliant and fascinating novel in HUNGER. The world he created is unbelievably vivid and real. It's easy to believe that if the a world of under-fifteens existed, this is exactly how it would play out. Grant's writing has a way of infecting the reader with fear, tension, and dread, but at the same time with hope, and laughter, and beauty. It's fantastic--read it.