Fresh off the Book Carts...Take One!

Our library just a slew of new books. Here's a first crack at the brand new books! Enjoy!

An Island Like You by Judith Ortiz Cofer

Twelve stories about young people caught between their Puerto Rican heritage and their American surroundings.

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Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan

Ten stories that take place in worlds not quite our own and yet each one illuminates what it is to be human.

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Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie

One day legendary bluesman Robert Johnson appears on the Spokane Indian reservation, in flight from the devil. When he passes his enchanted instrument to Thomas-builds-the-fire a magical odyssey begins.

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The Perfect Shot by Elaine Marie Alphin

Brian uses basketball to block out memories of his girlfriend and her family who were gunned down a year ago, but the upcoming murder trial and a high school history assignment force him to face the past and decide how far he should go to see justice served.

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Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson

After finally getting noticed by someone other than school bullies and his ever-angry father, seventeen-year-old Tyler enjoys his tough new reputation and the attentions of a popular girl, but when life starts to go bad again, he must choose between transforming himself or giving in to his destructive thoughts.

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Demon in My View by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Seventeen-year-old Jessica Allodola discovers that the vampire world of her fiction is real when she develops relationships with an alluring vampire named Aubrey and the teenage witch who is trying to save Jessica from his clutches.

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Funny Little Monkey by Andrew Auseon

Arty, an abnormally short fourteen-year-old boy, enlists the help of a group of students, known at school as the "pathetic losers," to take revenge against his abusive, tall fraternal twin brother.

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The Sari Shop by Rupa Bajwa

When Ramchand is sent to a new part of the city to show wares to a wealthy family preparing for their daughter's wedding, he gets a glimpse into a different world.

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The Ghost Road by Pat Barker

The Ghost Road is the culminating masterpiece of Pat Barker's towering World War I fiction trilogy. The time of the novel is the closing months of the most senselessly savage of modern conflicts. In France, millions of men engaged in brutal trench warfare are all "ghosts in the making.".

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Harley Like a Person by Cat Bauer

Fourteen-year-old Harley, an artistic teenager living with her alcoholic father and angry mother, suspects that she is adopted and begins a search for her biological parents.

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My Lost and Found Life by Melodie Bowsher

When her mother is accused of embezzling a million dollars and vanishes, spoiled, selfish Ashley must fend for herself by finding a job and a place to live.

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Evolution, Me and Other Freaks of Nature by Robin Brande

Following her conscience leads high school freshman Mena to clash with her parents and former friends from their conservative Christian church, but might result in better things when she stands up for a teacher who refuses to include "Intelligent Design" in lessons on evolution

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The Last Summer of You and Me by Ann Brashares

Alice and her older sister Riley have been coming to their parent's vacation home on Fire Island all their lives, but things change the summer Alice turns twenty-one and their island neighbor and friend Paul, who has been away several years, returns to sell his family's house and finally act on his attraction to Alice.

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Lucky T by Kate Brian

Carrie gets upset when her mother gives her lucky T-shirt to Help India. Now to stop her bad luck, she only has to travel around the world to get her lucky shirt back. No problem, right?

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Sophie by Guy Burt

Matthew's search for answers about his childhood and his family lead him to kidnap his own sister and demand she reveal what she knows, no matter what the cost is.

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Seventh Son by Orson Scott Card

Alvin, the seventh son of a seventh son, is born with a destiny to become something great, perhaps even a Maker.

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Dragon's Keep by Janet Kee Carey

In 1145 A.D., as foretold by Merlin, fourteen-year-old Rosalind, who will be the twenty-first Pendragon Queen of Wilde Island, has much to accomplish to fulfill her destiny, while hiding from her people the dragon's claw she was born with that reflects only one of her mother's dark secrets.

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Daniel Half Human by David Chotjewitz

In 1933, best friends Daniel and Armin admire Hitler, but as anti-Semitism buoys Hitler to power, Daniel learns he is half Jewish, threatening the friendship even as life in their beloved Hamburg, Germany, is becoming nightmarish.

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One whole and perfect day by Judith Clarke

As her irritating family prepares to celebrate her grandfather's eightieth birthday, sixteen-year-old Lily yearns for just one whole perfect day together.

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One Mississippi by Mark Childress

When Daniel Musgrove's troubled family moves to Mississippi just before his junior year, he is appalled. On top of the usual teenage humiliations, he now has to learn to say "y'all" and "Co-Cola" or risk being ostracized as a Yankee. But Daniel's loneliness fades when he meets fellow outsider Tim Cousins. They commit a small crime that grows larger and larger, and threatens to engulf the whole town.

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Foe by J.M. Coetzee

Susan Barton, having lived for over a year on a desolate island with fellow castaways Crusoe and his mute servant Friday, approaches author Daniel Foe upon her safe return to England to write of her adventures, but he sees a very different truth in her story.

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I, Tituba by Maryse Condé

From the warm shores of Barbados in the seventeenth-century to the harsh realities of the slave trade, and the cold customs of Puritanical New England, Tituba, the only black victim of the Salem witch trials, recalls a life of extraordinary experience and mystical powers.

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Bass ackwards and belly up by Liz Craft and Sarah Fain

When one of four best friends lies and says she will pursue her dream of writing a novel rather than start college, two others join in, one by going to Los Angeles to become an actress and one by backpacking through Europe to find herself, while the fourth goes to college, joins her hero's ski team, and tries to fall in love.

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Storm Thief by Chris Wooding

With the help of a golem, two teenaged thieves try to survive on the city island of Orokos, where unpredictable probability storms continually change both the landscape and the inhabitants.

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Poison by Chris Wooding

When Poison leaves her home in the marshes of Gull to retrieve the infant sister who was snatched by the fairies, she and a group of unusual friends survive encounters with the inhabitants of various Realms, and Poison herself confronts a surprising destiny.

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Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini

Badly in need of self-confidence and a change of image, high school nerd Jeremy Heere swallows a pill-sized super computer that is supposed to help him get whatever he wants.

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Off the Books by Sudhir Venkatesh

The author takes the reader into Maquis Park, a poor black neighborhood on Chicago's Southside, to explore the desperate, dangerous, and remarkable ways in which a community survives. We find there an entire world of unregulated, unreported, and untaxed work, a system of living off the books that is daily life in the ghetto.

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Gang Leader For a Day by Sudhir Venkatesh

The story of the young sociologist who studied a Chicago crack-dealing gang from the inside captured the world's attention when it was first described in Freakonomics.

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Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson

One man's campaign to build schools in the most dangerous, remote, and anti-American reaches of Asia.

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Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx

The co-founder of the rock band Mötley Crüe presents a candid account of his own descent into the hell of drug addiction, describing the impact of heroin on his life and the band.

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Cromartie High School by Eiji Nonaka

Takashi Kamiyama enters Cromartie High, where he struggles to fit in with the school's tough student body, and turns to a book to help him adjust to his new environment, but the book's advice causes more harm than good.

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God's Bits of Wood by Sembene Ousmane

A fictionalized account of the workers' strike against the Dakar-Niger railway in West Africa in 1947-48

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You'll be Okay by Edie Kerouac-Parker

Edie Kerouac-Parker chronicles her relationship with Jack Kerouac, discussing how they met and fell in love, the years they lived together in New York, their friendships with other prominent figures in literature, and other related topics.

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Save Me from Myself by Brian "Head" Welch

Former lead guitarist of Korn Brian "Head" Welch discusses his experiences touring with the band and his addiction to drugs, and provides insight into his journey to seek a higher power and how his newfound Christian beliefs have changed his life.

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The Red Azalea by Anchee Min

Red Azalea is Anchee Min’s celebrated memoir of growing up in the last years of Mao’s China. At seventeen, she was sent to work at a labor collective. Miraculously selected for the film version of one of Madame Mao’s political operas, Min’s life changed overnight.

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Book Reviews!

Page Turner is very happy to present student book reviews!

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Dexter, just an ordinary lab rat working for the Miami police department’s blood spatter unit. Wrong! Living a double life has never been so easy, Dexter Morgan seems like an average guy but that’s where things turn different. He is a murderer on the side, killing people he believes truly deserves it. The author Jeff Lindsay creates twists and turns throughout the book to keep you guessing. If your interested in books that become television shows, Dexter is airing on Show-time and CBS. Have you ever wondered what the people you’re around all the time do in their free time? If you’re into thrilling mysteries, then Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay is the book for you.

Reviewed by Jonathan Perellis

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Eat Pray Love is a story about a woman in her mid-thirties who has just been through a depression, a backfiring rebound romance, and a severe bout of depression. After deciding to make a fresh start for herself, she embarks on a journey to Italy, India, and Indonesia. In Italy she learns the art of pleasure, indulging herself in both the rich language and food. Then in India she learns the art of devotion. She enables herself to sit for hours at a time, clearing her mind and contemplating how both her troubled past and her hopeful future. In Indonesia she learns the art of balance, and sees how to juggle both pleasure and devotion while staying true to herself. She learns that life must be lived and not calculated every step of the way. She learns the same thing about love, in that love must be unexpected and is something that just happens, not always for a reason. Love is not something that can be controlled, and neither is life- these lessons are very crucial to the main character’s discovery of herself. The author's sarcastic form of writing and the honesty in her voice make you want to savor every second you have while reading the book.

Reviewed by: Lindsey Faucher and Lauren Geschke

A Child Called It by Dave Pelzer

This is a very sad autobiography about a little boy’s struggle to survive the abuse of his alcoholic mother. He is brutally beaten, starved and ostracized from society from the age of four up until his rescue at the age of twelve. The rest of the world didn’t realize what was happening on account of the mother’s clever lies to cover up the truth. The truth was better covered because of David’s near perfect childhood as well. His mother was a loving woman who slipped into alcohol eventually dragging his father into the addictive drug as well. His father, once David’s hero, became a frail coward allowing his son to continue to be a target of abuse. As this happened in the 70s, it was not something common and not something to make a big deal about. David was a part of the third worst child abuse case recorded in California history and thanks to his teachers, who eventually made a big deal about it, David was saved. He was able to escape his mother’s wrath and live a normal, but somewhat scarred, life. Lost Boy and A Man Named Dave are continuations of his story into adulthood sharing David’s stories of foster care and learning to find the love of a family. Although this is a very graphic book, it’s a very touching story showing you that you have a lot to appreciate. We really recommend this book to anyone looking for a quick but moving read.

Reviewed by: Kathryn Bro, Amanda Mattson, and Kristen Decker

When the world was steady by Claire Messud

This book displays the relationship between two estranged sisters. Each sister has their issues and handles them separately. The book takes place in three places: Bali, London and the Isle of Skye. Emmy Simpson goes to Bali in the search to find herself after her husband leaves her for her best friend. Her sister, Virginia Simpson lives In London with her mom Melody Simpson. Her mom is losing her mind, she doesn’t like to leave the house anymore ever, a basket that she lowers down to the street is her only outside communication. Melody and Virginia also take a trip to the Isle of Sky and many interesting things happen between the two. In the end the two sisters increase their communication and better their relationship.
This book in general is not a great one. It has had great reviews; however we did not enjoy this book in the least. The story really has no point, nothing is resolved in the end, and it is really frustrating to read. The plot is truly lost on the reader and the detail is overly rich.

Reviewed by: Amanda Jimenez, Brielle DeFlippis, and Caroline Kurzydlo

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

We read the murder mystery by Gillian Flynn called Sharp Objects. This book was riveting and often disturbing. The plot has several twists to it regarding a journalist returning to her home town where two murders have recently taken place. The journalist, Camille, in more ways than one, becomes a detective. For Camille and her twisted family these murders hit close to home. We both thought this book was a very addicting read and had trouble putting it down. At times it can be scary and disturbing but remained enthralling all the while. We would recommend this book to anyone looking for a good, quick read.

Reviewed by: Corey Sharman and Kylie Barrie

Go Ask Alice by Anonymous

A girl who just turned 15, who the novelist refers to as Alice, keeps a diary of her everyday observant life, from her first crush to her dad getting a new college professing career that starts on a fresh page of her life in a new state. As she struggles through her new school to fit in, as every teenage girl would do, she attends a party were she unknowingly begins her winding path of destruction. I definitely recommend this book for high schoolers mainly, because young teens can relate their lives to the many different obstacles she induces. The novel’s themes of peer pressure, vulnerability, coming of age, and many more allow the reader to connect with Alice and relate her struggles to their own whether or not it be and LSD addiction or experiencing a new school atmosphere. We highly recommend this heart-wrenching tale of a girls’ life she can’t control.

Reviewed by: Mareena Good and Libby Jaekel

Snow Falling on Cedars by David Gutterson

Snow Falling on Cedars takes place on a small island off the Northwest Coast. One morning, a fisherman named Carl Heine is found dead, drowned next to his fishing boat. The accused is a Japanese-American named Kabuo Miyamoto.

From information given on the back of the book, I started reading this book with the impression that it would be a courtroom drama.
How wrong I was.
While the main plot itself takes place over a couple of days and follows the court proceedings, the real meat of the book is in flashbacks. These flashbacks explain the lives of all the main characters, their childhood years, and in some cases even begin to delve into their parents’ lives.

The flashbacks serve the purpose of illustrating the characters’ motivations and desires. From a narrative point of view, they drag the book down. As a reader, I wanted to know whether or not Kabuo actually was the murderer, not intimate backstory about the defendant’s mother.

The narrative could be described as “calming and beautiful,” but it really feels more like “meandering” and “listless.” It goes nowhere fast, instead it arbitrarily scrolls from flashback to flashback, most of which aren’t even in chronological order. By the later chapters, I was ready to just skip to the last chapter and find out the ending and be done with the book. I was convinced that this author wanted to torture me with slogging through backstory. Even the ending was completely unsatisfying in light of what I had to suffer through to get to it.

It can’t be called a courtroom drama because it lacks the drama. It can’t be called a murder mystery, because most of the book doesn’t even take place in the “present.” It can’t be called a slice-of-life story about the characters, because their situation often feels contrived and a little too convenient. One thing that does happen is a lot of commentary on racism, particularly with the Japanese internment during WWII.

In conclusion, while the writing itself isn’t bad, the lack of a coherent narrative and the writer’s preference for flashbacks over advancing the plot really drag this book down. If you’re looking for a slow, quiet, relaxing book, you may want to pick this up. If you’re looking for an interesting, engaging read, I suggest you look somewhere else.