Passion Flower

Passion Flower is a very interesting, cool, and, funny book written by Jean Ure. It was first published in Great Britain by Collins 2003. Passion Flower is realistic fiction that explores love between a dad and his daughters, and how a couple can be separated.

The plot is this. Passion and Afterthought are sisters; their parents are always fighting and arguing until one day they divorced. They didn’t live together anymore. Their dad went to live in Brighton. Later Passion and Afterthought had vacations, so they went to visit their dad. Their dad was living very poorly in a very small apartment and sometimes he had very little money and sometimes he had a lot of money. The girls started to think that their dad was a thief! They noticed that their dad didn’t pay much stuff such as, the apartment, clothes, food and many other expenses. He also lied to his daughters telling them that they will never see their mum again. This story is told in the first person. Passion Flower is also a well paced story.

Passion Flower is a very interesting story which includes believable characters and a plot that keeps the reader’s interest. When you read the story you’ll understand how Afterthought and Passion had been in a very hard situation. The message of the story is that you can’t trust anybody that you don’t know very well. I recommend this book to teenage readers.

A Gathering Light Jennifer Donnelly

Mattie is a pleasant young girl. Like any other ordinary girl Mattie has a desire that possesses her. Mattie dreams of going to college and becoming a writer. These dreams cannot be pursued when her familial responsibilities are taking up her majority of time. Her dilemmas and choices are then reflected in the life of a young woman drowned in a lake, a woman that Mattie only gets to know through reading her letters. When finally the tales of Mattie and the mysterious path of the drowned girl merge, their stories beautifully combine in a brilliant and perfect conclusion.

I'd recommend this book to people who are interested in learning new vocabulary because every chapter of this book introduces a new word, Mattie's word of the day. in my opinion I think that this book is extremely touching because this book describes things to you in the most detail. This book can also relate to other peoples life including mine.

The Knife of Never Letting Go - By Patrick Ness

At first glance, The Knife of Never Letting Go appears to be another coming of age story. Todd Hewitt, the last boy in Prentisstown, is one month from entering manhood. Sounds normal, right? Add in the fact that there are no women in Prentisstown and everyone can hear each other's thoughts. Not normal at all.

After finding something Todd never expected to find- a girl, his life changes entirely. Before long, Todd, his dog, Manchee and Viola, the girl, must escape Prentisstown. With only a knife and some vague directions from an old map, he must embark on a perilous journey to uncover the truth of Prentisstown and what it really takes to be a man. He discovers that what he knows might not always be true and the truth can be false.

The creation of Todd's world is very cleverly done. The author created Noise, the term used for men's never ending stream of thought. The fact that Todd's thoughts cannot be hidden form other's allows the book to build up the element of surprise and suspense.

After I finished the book, I was emotionally exhausted. The ending was very unexpected; it was like a punch in the stomach when I finished. I anxiously await for the next book to come out

Plain Truth By Jodi Picoult

This book is about how a dead infant found on an Amish farm shakes the entire community. An eighteen-year-old, unmarried Amish girl, Katie Fisher, is accused of murdering her newborn baby. As the police investigate the death, they discover that the baby was not stillborn, but died shortly time after birth. Katie Fisher is charged with murder of her new-born son. Ellie Hathaway, a distant relative of Katie, reluctantly accepts the case. If you want to know the rest of the story, you will have to read the book.

I think the book Plain truth has a very surprising plot. The author Jodi Picoult understands a lot about the Amish people to make us understand the irony and the impossibility of Plain folk facing our legal system. It is a great story about values and choices and cultural assumptions. I highly recommend this book. It's a good legal drama with keen psychological study of a unique culture. Jodi Picoult's novel is very readable and you can’t stop reading it after you started. There is so much more about this story than what I wrote in the paragraphs, so you got to read it!

Jumping the Scratch ~ Sarah Weeks

Do you ever get the feeling that whenever something bad happens, there are worse things to come? Well that was what Jamie Reardon assumed when his cat Mister died and his father left his mother for another woman. Most importantly, his aunt Sapphy had a huge accident in the cherry factory that caused her to be unable to store new memories. She was like a scratched record that kept on repeating the same line over and over again, but unlike everybody else, Jamie wanted to help his aunt "Jump the scratch" and carry on with her life.

Unfortunately there is one more bad thing in store for Jamie-something he'd give anything to be able to forget, and this one leaves himself feeling like a complete stranger in the world. One of Jamie's neighbors is a girl in his class called Audrey. She is smart like him, and slowly they become friends. She said that she could hypnotize people, and he wondered whether she could help him with forgetting his secret. However, thinking about what happened to him just made him want to tell someone else about it.

Jamie tries in vain to find the magic trigger that would help Sapphy's memory 'Jump the scratch', like the needle on her favourite Frank Sinatra record, but in the end it is aunt Sapphy and Audrey who helps him unravel the mysteries of memory and jump the scratch in his own life. Jamie never thought that Jamie's horrible secret would be the key for his aunt to jump the scratch as well.

I would recommend this book to anybody from the age of eleven to one hundred and one because it will completely soften your heart and let you know what bad luck really is!

This miraculous book tells a story of a young teenage boy who has gone through a lot of obstacles to overcome what he has gone through. I found this book very interesting and memorable. The part of the book is that you find out what Jamie's horrible secret is at the very end of the book. This develops a cool twist that leaves your mind spinning. Want to know the ugly secret Jamie has to lock up in his heart and cover? Want to know why he would do anything to forget it? There is only one way you can find out. Read the book and uncover his heart-breaking story!

The Other Sister-S.T Underdahl

Josey Muller's regular life of homeowork, guys, and gossip was blown away when her parents dropped a bomb: she has an older sister that she never knew about. Her parents were overjoyed to reunite with Audrey, the baby they were forced to give up in high-school. Everyone was cool with this. Somehow, this was just not so easy for 16 year old Josey, to accept this fact. She had been playing along well, until one day. She finally cannot hold this anymore, and suddenly, a torrence of uncontrollable words came out of her mouth. Tears started to roll down her cheeks. How are her parents going to react? Read this book and find out.
I really enjoyed reading this book, because of how the tension was built. The way Josey dealed with things were sometimes not very mature, but she certainly got to her point, and made sure that everyone knew how she felt. Some parts of this book was emotional and I recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading about family issues.

The Lovely Bones- Alice Sebold

When we first meet Susie Salmon, she is already in heaven. When she looks down from this strange new place, she tells us, in the fresh and spirited voice of a now fourteen year old girl, a tale that is haunting and full of hope.

Following her death, Susie watches life continue without her from above. Her school friends are trading rumors about her disappearance, her family holding out hope that she'll be found, and her killer is trying to cover his tracks. As months pass without leads, Susie sees her parents' marriage being contorted by loss, her sister hardening herself in an effort to stay strong, and little brother trying to grasp the meaning of the word gone.

As she explores heaven, it looks a lot like her school playground, with the good kind of swing sets. There are counselors to help newcomers adjust and friends to room with. Whatever she wants appears before she thinks of it-except the thing she wants most: to be back with the people she loved on earth.

With compassion, longing, and a growing understanding, Susie sees her loved ones pass through grief and begin to mend. Her father embarks on a quest that is very risky to ensnare her killer. Her sister takes undertakes a feat of remarkable daring. And the boy Susie cared for moves on, only to find himself in the middle of a miraculous event.

This is one of the most unusual books I have ever read before. The descriptions of heaven may be a bit unrealistic, but it was a great book for the most part.

Three of Diamonds by Anthony Horowitz

Three of Diamonds is an excellent series of books written by Anthony Horowitz. This is a three books in 1 which are 3 different books written by Anthony Horowitz. All 3 books are a mystery series that happen to 2 diamond brothers.

The first book is about a French confection, where the 2 brothers go to France where they have to encounter some illegal drug dealers and escape there alive

The second book is about a picture of a blurred man who is said to be dead. The brothers have to prove if he actually is dead, and what is the mystery behind it

The third book is honestly the best of all the 3 where they go to a remote Scottish island with their old friends, and they start getting killed 1 by 1. The 2 brothers have to find out the mystery behind all this

I really recommend this book to anyone who likes suspense, and mystery books

loser

Loser, by Jerry Spinelli is a heart touching story about a young boy, Donald Zinkoff, and why people are called “losers.” This story is about how Zinkoff was one of those people, and how he also got noticed. In this story, you first meet Zinkoff when he is about three or four years old, and are introduced into the world of kids competing and racing. Zinkoff soon enters first grade, and goes to school. He plays soccer and other sports. He loves to just play and has no regard for the rules of the game. His teammates think it's weird that he doesn't mind losing. He keeps a positive attitude and doesn't make many friends, although he tries.He is first noticed when his fourth grade teacher, instead of placing him in the back of the classroom, like all the rest of his teachers had, places him in the front of the classroom. Kids start to notice him. A quote from the book is an example of how little they really thought about him beforehand:
"Zinkoff has always been clumsy, but now they notice. Zinkoff has always been messy and atrocious and too early and giggly and slow and more often than not wrong in his answers. But now they notice. They notice the stars on his shirts and his atrocious hair and his atrocious way he volunteers for everything. They notice it all. Even the dime-sized birthmark on his neck below his right earlobe.

Skin- Adrienne Maris Vrettos

Donnie's life is put in a position that is impossible for him to live the life he had, before his sister started dying of her illness and before his parents marriage started to unravel. To top that off, he unconsciously starts a rumor at school that hurts someone he cares about and leaves him struggling even more to fight back to his old joyful life.

Consequently Donnie does the only thing he knows how to do: He tries to fix things, to make everything the way it was like before. Before his parents stopped loving each other, before his sister lost her grip to life, before he was alone. But somethings just can't be fixed. So Donnie summons all his strength to stop making his future his past and look beyond the future and start moving forward again.

Lion Boy by Zizou Corder

What would you do if you came home one day and suddenly discovered that your parents have been kidnapped? Well as for Charlie Ashanti, he made a brave decision and decided to go look for his parents. Since his parents are scientists and know the cure to asthma, that would probably explain why they were a kidnapping target.

As a little boy, Charlie has had a special gift possessed in his soul. He has the ability to communicate with cats. With his gift, he finds himself working at a floating circus heading to France (where his parents are), and soon makes friends with a family of lions longing to get out. Being the lion tamer's helper, he plots a way to arrange the lions' return to Africa while following his parents, who are now headed towards Venice. But Rafi, who is helping with the kidnap, is closing in.

Do you think Charlie will succeed? Or will he never get to see his parents again. The only way to find out is to read it! So what are you thinking? Hurry up and go read Lion Boy. I strongly recommend this book to everybody from age 9 to 99. This action-packed book will send your imagination spinning and have your eyes glued to the pages. This trilogy has two more books as its sequals. They answer to the name of 'The Chase' and 'The Truth'. I once again recommend this to anyone interested because not only does it have an intense plotline, it also teaches you many valuable lessons bound to stick with you for a long time.

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

The kite runner, a book about friendship, family and trust but at the same time about hostility, salvation and betrayal. One decision, one betrayal, was all it took to destroy everything.

This story portrays the life of Amir, who grew up in Afghanistan. Showing a series of events, it shows how Amir's life totally messes up just because of a few minor changes that could have gone in an better way. More importantly it shows the one fatal mistake Amir did - to betray his best friend. Things went for the worse and Amir regretted forever for what he had done, however in his 30s an old friend of him called on the phone and said the following words, "There is a way to be good again." Read the book to find out what happens.

This book shows the beautiful side of something as well as the dark side; it showed the kind and loving Amir as well as the traitor deep within him; the friendly Afghanistan and the hostile Afghanistan it became; the love and friendship of humanity contrasted to the hate and discrimination.

The Memory Keeper's Daughter -By Kim Edwards

This story starts in 1964 in Lexington, Kentucky when a rare sudden storm occurs. Dr.David Henry is determined to get his wife Norah to deliver his first child. His son (Paul) is perfectly healthy but he immediatly recognizes his daughter (Phoebe) has Down's Syndrone. For motives, he tells himself to make a split secimd decision that will haunt their lives forever. He asks his nurse(Caroline) to take Phoebe to an institution, and tells Norah that their daughter died when she was born.

Caroline is 31, unmarried and secretly in love with David. She has always been a dreamer, waiting for her real life to begin. From the moment she decided to raise Phoebe as her owm, she feels as if finlly has. From that second forward, the families started their new and seperate lives.

I think "The memory keeper's daughter is an extraordinary book about familial secrets, parallel lives and the power of love. Istrongly recommend this book to people who likes to read realistic novels which are different from others. I hope you will like it!

Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson

This is a good book. Its one of those tiny amounts of English books that I read. I got interested to this because of the movie, but the book is really good, too. "Bridge to Terabithia" is not a funny book, but touchy. In this story, Jesse is the boy who runs the fastest in the fifth grade, he had been practicing running the whole summer. However, a new girl came.

Leslie is very different from other girls: dresses not that tidy, doesn't gossip a lot, more over, she even runs faster than all the boys in her year.

Normally people think that boys should be good at PE, and girl should do those art and music stuffs. Even though that was just a stereotype, all the students in that school believe in it. And this became a rule for those students, who ever against to this rule, is going to be isolated. However, in this story, Jess is intelligently good at art. And on the other hand, Leslie has the better PE abilities not only the best of all the girls, she is better that every student in her grade. Jess never had the courage to tell any one about his drawings except a few people who accept boy to have "girly" abilities. Luckily, he met Leslie and found a secret spot, their tree house.

They run through the trees, tell each other many fairytales, these two young people are a part of that land. But later on something happened... I don't like that part because it is a bit sad (especially when you watch the movie). But i still have to admit that: this is a great book. It touches me by the words appropriate and the difficult vocabularies (it was hard for me but not that hard to understand for other people, I have to admit that my vocabs are really poor... Na, not that poor, just a tiny bit bad at remembering many different words). Listen to the whisper from the old trees (please don't quit and jump to the other book when you are in the sad part or the scary part. That might cause nightmares, I guess... Ha ha, just kidding)

Enjoy it !

Flower for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

Charlie Gordon is the main character and he was borned with an unusually low IQ. A group of doctors and experts of brain jad done a surgery on him. It made him become very smart and brilliant. He had been through all normal people's lives and normal people's emotions. He became a genius. But after a few months, he slowly became what he was in the beginning, a malfunctioned development person. Neverless, the return to the original state made him feel happier because he thought sometimes being a retaded one, would make his life easier, better than being a very smart and brilliant guy, who would have to face thousands of problems anad a nervous life.

This book is kind of funny at the beginning because the author write it in the way that Charlie Gordon will write before he becomes a genius. The whole book is very interesting and there are many surprises when im reading it. And this book also teaches people that being smart isnt good all the time. Being retarded isnt bad at all because you wont know the dark side of the human hearts. I hope you guys can enjoy this book!!

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

The author of this book is Jeff Kinney. He wrote a diary about a kid in his middle school life. Many funny things and terrible things happened in this story, like trick someone by dangerous way.

Planet Janet by Dyan Helson

Janet planet is a fun book though it might have some swear words in the text but is really funny

Janets family only talks about her her her her she tries to talk normally but it turns out that it is V.dramatic and weird sometimes she wonders if her family is normal.Her brother is 4 weeks old and thinks he can be litter train as a dog and often he pretends to read CLOVER magasines while ketchup is dripping from his mouth .

She goes to a party with her boyfriend her mom said she should wear a pink dress but she said no mom i choose and wore a black dress . Her mom was so sad she said then wear pink lip stick and janet said no and wore black lipstick.

OK OK i get it then have a pink rose n0 ill paint it black.

Janet and the group made up this rule that when they turned 17 they would join the dark fase which means they will become Emo,Gothic or punk.

She can wait because when you entered the dark fase you care about nothing

MADCOW or female parent =janet's mom

SIGMUND or male parent=Janet's dad

The Blurb

Meet Janet.She's determined to explore Life's true Essence.Despite the countless hurdles in her way (i.e.her mom the madcow a tragiclly lost mobile the trails of romantic love).But while she smashed around the deep end of the pool life .Could Janet be missing what's happening on the dry land?

Crash by Jerry Spinelli

John 'Crash' Coogan didn't get his nickname by being the sensitive, touchy-feely type. He always wins first place in everything; the blue ribbon in every race and highest number of tackles in every football game. He loves how he looks in shoulder pads and he has to have the most expensive sneakers at the mall. So when he meets Penn, a scrawny, four-eyed, new kid with a pet turtle, he does what comes naturally - he torments him.

What I love about this book is that it is many stories rolled into one. As these stories play out, you watch Crash grow up and reevaluate his life. It's a story about aging grandparents and traditions; Crash's beloved, scrumptious-food-cooking, story-telling grandfather is dying and Penn wants to run a race that his own grandfather proudly ran when he was a kid. In the background of the story is Crash's little sister who is passionately organizing an environmental rally against a building project that her own mother is heading up! Also, Crash is so confident that he expects, in fact demands, that his love interest like him back, but she doesn't. Worse, she is friends with Penn and she despises how Crash treats him. John 'Crash' Coogan might not be the center of the universe after all.

If you love fiction that is very realistic and takes on pressing life issues you'll love this book. But it's not all serious either; you will definitely laugh at the dialogue and the antics of Crash's sister. This really is a novel that will make you think and I hope you read it, especially if you're a bully.