Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Do you have a second to just listen? My name is Annabel Greene. I’m the youngest of three sisters and am currently starring as “the girl who has everything” in the fall commercial for Kopf’s department store. That’s right, I’m a model as were my two sisters, but that is where our similarities end. My sisters aren’t speaking to each other and I think the only thing that keeps my mother sane is managing my modeling “career”. I’d love to just quit but I don’t want to be the reason she relapses back into depression. My father designed our house and the front wall is made entirely of glass. But the thing about glass houses is that not everything is as it seems. Regardless of how things and people appear from the outside, everyone has their own issues and secrets. Some people, like Owen Armstrong, have learned to communicate and express their feelings. Others, like me, would rather keep their feelings bottled up inside than rock the boat. Maybe I’ll finally be ready to tell the story of my life and what really happened that night at the party that changed everything. “Don’t think, or judge. Just Listen.”

Check out our past review of Just Listen

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Dracula, Bram Stoker's blood thirsty monster who has enchanted our nightmares since 1897. Few know however that Stoker based his fictional villain on none other than real life horror Prince Vlad Ţepeş of Wallachia. Also known as Vlad the Impaler, Ţepeş by the end of his reign not only murdered thousands of his enemies but thousands of his own country men. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova is narrated by a young girl who slowly unravels the truth behind her family's mysterious past. Her father is a learned historian and a very intelligent man and a doting father. however as soon as he begins to retell a haunting tale from his past relating to Vlad Ţepeş and Dracula, mysterious things happen which lead to his disappearance and the ghosts of the research he left behind. It is now up to his daughter, who has a hunger for adventure, to piece together his precarious investigation and pray that it leads to his whereabouts in a journey that will take her all across Europe and which might even lead to the lair of Drakulya. I consider this novel to be incredibly exciting, impossible to put down, and refreashingly addicting.
Q:5 P:4

Audrey, Wait! Written by: Robin Benway

Audrey, Wait! Audrey, Wait! Is the line of this novel.
Audrey is a normal teenage girl who has everything her heart could ever want- or so she's played it out to seem. Just as she gets her prioritites straight- she becomes the girl who cannot be forgotten, and the girl everyone wants to be. Her ex-boyfriend Evan decides that after the break up, to write a song. What Audrey didn't realize, is that with breaking up with her boyfriend she would become the next celebrity of her town. Constantly invaded by paparazzi, random people she has never met, getting the VIP at concerts. All because of a single song performed by Evan. Audrey, Wait! All Audrey wanted was to break up with her self-centered boyfriend, and as a result she becomes an instant celebrity. Audrey's life has been consumed by the press, and her family and friends are just eating it up too. Will Audrey ever feel normal again? Could she ever just be another person working at a local ice cream shop? Could it be possible to find a boyfriend who's less than self-centered to write a song? Reading Audrey, Wait! Will have you busting up, laughing, and help you realize what actually happens with celebrities behind the scenes.

Ratings:
4Q- couldn't imagine a better book
3P- popularity

The Dreaming by Queenie Chan

The Dreaming, by Queenie Chan, is an ultimate pleaser of eeriness in art as well as in plot. Jeanie and Amber, teenage twins with very different personalities, are sent to an all girls school that seems like the epitome of class. But once there they are forced by their aunt, who works at the school, to lie about their ages. According to the rather senile headmistress, twins are absolutely banned from the school, due to something that had happened many years before within its walls. The claim is that twins are bad luck, but the girls know it is something much more. While Jeanie is all for investigating, Amber seems in the slums and sleeps all day. As Jeanie talks to some of the girls in the dorms and learns more of the school's frightening history, it becomes apparent that something is horribly, horribly wrong. For years, girls have been vanishing from the school grounds after wandering into the thick forest that surrounds the building for miles. Jeanie knows it has something to do with the headmistress' past, as well as the haunting paintings posted all about the hallways, all depicting a picture of a women with short hair, dressed in a Victorian style gown. When girls start to go missing again and Amber begins to act like an entirely different person, Jeanie is the only one who can dig up the past. But She may also be swallowed within the mystery and darkness of the school, never to be seen again.

Q4
P3

An Echo in the Darkness by Francine Rivers

An Echo in the Darkness is best selling author Francine Rivers second book in the Mark of the Lion series. Marcus, drawn to the young slave girl, Hadassah, turns away from the distractions of Rome in order to seek out the Living God. Believing Hadassah dead, he searches for answers about her faith in the vacant, deteriorating Jerusalem, and beyond. What he finds is unimaginable, and it may be the answer to his inner darkness that has lasted so long, and is threatening to overtake his spirit.
Francine Rivers has created a beautiful story about what love accurately represents, and how far one can and will go in order to gain it. Once started, an echo in the darkness is fairly impossible to put down.

My rating for this novel:
5Q-hard to imagine a better book
4Q-broad teen appeal

Kitty Kitty by Michele Jaffe

If you came with a warning label, what would it be?

Jasmine’s would definitely be: KEEP AWAY FROM TROUBLE or MAY CONTAIN NUTS or WEARING OF THIS GARMENT DOES NOT ENABLE YOU TO FLY or MISUSE MAY CAUSE INJURY OR DEATH.

Jasmine Callihan has a knack, a superpower per se, for discovering trouble in addition to her bad fashion sense. She should be enjoying the start of senior year with her partners in solving crime: Polly, Roxy, and Tom. Instead Dadzilla has whisked her away to Venice so he can research his book on the history of soap. And though Venice isn’t Vegas, Jasmine may find a way to turn this peaceful working vacation into a crime-fighting fashion fiasco.

Warning: This book may unfortunately contain the Evil Hench cousin and her Best Fiend, currently known as Sapphyre and Tiger’s*Eye (the star is silent!).

Danger: This book includes Little Life Lessons, footnote conversations, and a few of its own warning labels.

One final warning: Reading this book may cause laughter, eye rolling, and use of CSI skills. What Would Mr. T Do (WWMrTD)? He’d say: I pity the fool who doesn’t try Kitty Kitty?

Sequel: Bad Kitty and the manga series: Bad Kitty: Catnipped volume 1 & 2

Check out our review of Bad Kitty, the first Jasmine Callihan mystery.

Peace, Love, and Baby Ducks by Lauren Myracle

Carly has just returned to her Atlanta life of wealth and privilege, after a summer volunteering in the mountains of Tennessee. Besides her new muscled and toned body, Carly has a new outlook on life. She’d rather embrace being different (think 60’s music and hippie clothing) than conform to the cookie-cutter rich girl mold of their prestigious, private school. But Carly isn’t the only one who has changed over the summer. Her younger sister Anna has developed a hot body and undesired attention from everyone around her. And while Carly loves Anna and has been excited about Anna starting her freshman year, sisterly love isn’t always perfect and flawless. Relationships require a lot of work, especially when all you want is Peace, Love, & Baby Ducks.

Shade's Children by Garth Nix

In a not-so-distant future, the world is ruled by Overlords with the help of their minions, including Myrmidons, Wingers, and Ferrets. All the adults have disappeared and children are forced to live in dormitories, where they are often experimented upon. Once they reach their “Sad Birthday” #14, they are taken to the “Meat Factory” where their bodies are dismembered or harvested to create more of the Overlords’ creatures. A few teens have managed to escape. These teens have developed “Change Talents”, a type of psychic gift that assists in their survival. Ella, Drum, Ninde, and Gold-Eye have been able to stay alive thus far based on the help of Shade, the only “adult” to have survived. He has trained these and other escapees, sending them out on missions to acquire information and supplies. But will being one of Shade’s Children really keep you alive?