King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table by Roger Lancelyn Green

King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table

by Roger Lancelyn Green

• Classic, Fiction, Fantasy, YA
• 13+ for violence and complex plots
• Published March 1st, 1995 by Puffin
• ★★★★★

Escape From Asylum by Madeleine Roux

Escape From Asylum

by Madeleine Roux

• Fiction, Horror, YA
• 13+ for mild violence
• Trigger Warning: violence, homophobia, transphobia
• Published June 14th, 2016 by Harper Collins
• ★★★★★

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

 13 Reasons Why

by Jay Asher

• Fiction, Realistic Fiction, YA
• 13+ for complex themes and mature content
• Trigger Warning: suicide, sexual assault, rape, self-harm, bullying, adult content 
• Published October 18th, 2007 by Razorbill
• ★★★★★

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

• Classic, Fiction, Gothic, Romantic
• 16+ for complex themes and vocabulary
• Published September 5th, 1847 by Thomas Cautley Newby
• ★★★★★

The Cursed Child by J.K. Rowling (Spoilers Included)

*I have not seen the onstage version. This review is based completely on the script.*
The Cursed Child

by Jack Thorne and John Tiffany

• Children's Fiction, Fantasy, Time Travel
• 9+ for dark themes
• Published July 31st, 2016 by Scholastic Inc. and Little Brown
• available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Books
• ★★★★★ 

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

Elsewhere

by Gabrielle Zevin

• Fiction, Coming of Age, Utopian, Sci-Fi
• 10+ for complex themes
• published May 15, 2007 by Square Fish
• available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks
• ★★★★★

Summary

     "Welcome to Elsewhere. It is warm, with a breeze, and the beaches are marvelous. It's quiet and peaceful. You can't get sick or any older. Curious to see new paintings by Picasso? Swing by one of Elsewhere's museums. Need to talk to someone about your problems? Stop by Marilyn Monroe's psychiatric practice.

     Elsewhere is where fifteen-year-old Liz Hall ends up, after she has died. It is a place so like Earth, yet completely different. Here Liz will age backward from the day of her death until she becomes a baby again and returns to Earth. But Liz wants to turn sixteen, not fourteen again. She wants to get her driver's license. She wants to graduate from high school and go to college. And now that she's dead, Liz is being forced to live a life she doesn't want with a grandmother she has only just met. And it is not going well. How can Liz let go of the only life she has ever known and embrace a new one? Is it possible that a life lived in reverse is no different from a life lived forward?

     This moving, often funny book about grief, death, and loss will stay with the reader long after the last page is turned."-Goodreads

Opinion

     I loved this book! It was so original and I've never read anything like it. I feel the theme of the story is learning to adapt and love yourself. At the beginning of the book Liz finds herself depressed and struggles until finally she overcomes it. Although I completely detest classic romances, (girl meets boy, boy changes girls life, they fall in love, they live happily ever after) I think that Zevin did this expertly. The novel is a coming of age, ironic considering the main character dies right? Liz is a great role model for any young girls struggling with their life. It shows that you can overcome anything with the right people helping you.

     I recommend Elsewhere for anyone who enjoys coming of age stories, alternate realities, or complicated love stories. Also, anyone fighting depression should really read this, it could do a lot of help. The novel could also be helpful for people suffering after a death of a loved one. It may be fiction, but it gives hope that there can be life after death, and it can be great. I couldn't wait to finish the book, but now I wish I could read it again for the first time. As someone who doesn't really care for religion I loved this book, however if you're really religious, this may not be your book seeing as it replaces heaven.

Author Bio 

     "Gabrielle Zevin is the New York Times Best Selling author of eight novels. For adults: The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (2014), The Hole We’re In (2010), and Margarettown (2005). For young adults: Elsewhere (2005), Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (2007), and the three books in the Anya Balanchine series, All These Things I’ve Done (2011), Because It Is My Blood (2012), and In the Age of Love and Chocolate (2013). Her books have been translated into over thirty languages.

     The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry has spent over four months on the New York Times Best Seller List, reached #1 on the National Indie Bestseller List, and has been a bestseller in multiple countries. The Toronto Globe and Mail called the book “a powerful novel about the power of novels.”

     Her debut, Margarettown, was a selection of the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. The Hole We’re In was a New York Times Editor’s Choice title. Publishers Weekly called The Hole We’re In “a Corrections for our recessionary times.”

     Her best known young adult novel is Elsewhere, an American Library Association Notable Children’s Book. Of Elsewhere, the New York Times Book Review wrote, “Every so often a book comes along with a premise so fresh and arresting it seems to exist in a category all its own… Elsewhere, by Gabrielle Zevin, is such a book.”

     She is the screenwriter of Conversations with Other Women (Helena Bonham Carter, Aaron Eckhart) for which she received an Independent Spirit Award Nomination for Best First Screenplay. In 2009, she and director Hans Canosa adapted her novel Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac (ALA Best Books for Young Adults) into the Japanese film, Dareka ga Watashi ni Kiss wo Shita. She has also written for the New York Times Book Review and NPR’s All Things Considered. She began her writing career at age fourteen as a music critic for the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel.

     Zevin is a graduate of Harvard University. She lives in Los Angeles."-Gabrielle Zevin's Website

The Undead Gatekeeper

     So recently I had a writing prompt in English and we had to write a story. The prompt was you were leaving the movies and you don't have enough time to make it home by your curfew. I really enjoyed writing this, and I hope you enjoy reading it!

Diary of a Teenage Zombie by Kristy Berridge

Diary of a Teenage Zombie

by Kristy Berridge

• Fiction, Horror, Dystopian, Mature YA
• 15+ for mature content, violence, and cussing
• published September 8, 2014 by Shadow Ink Press
• available on Amazon, MineEye, Barnes & Noble, AbeBooks, etc.
• ★★★★★

Summary

     "Dear Diary. Today I ate the mailman. My bad.

     Being seventeen is hard―Katie Palmer has to deal with school, pimples, hormonal boys, and malicious cheerleaders. After the Zombie Apocalypse, though, she no longer sweats the usual teenage drama.

     Athletics star by day and flesh-eater by night, Katie’s done well to hide her transformation from friends and Zone-sanctioned security, but now someone or something’s onto her secret and if she doesn’t feed soon she’ll start falling apart.

     Dead bodies are piling up and all the evidence points to Katie’s blood-stained hands. Will she end up killing the competition before security discovers she’s rotten underneath?"-Kristy Berrige's Blog

Strengths

     Characters

     The characters are strongly built and realistic. (Besides the whole zombie thing!) Katie acts like a normal teenage girl struggling to fit in. Haven't we all had rumors spread about us? Or been teased? I know I have! Berridge brings these fictional characters to life.


     Intensity

    Diary of a Teenage Zombie is the perfect blend of action and description! Berridge knows when to keep the action going and when to slow down and describe the scene a little more. This is a quality that more authors should use in their writing.


     Originality

     I've never read anything like this book! A soda infecting a whole race, almost to extinction. Who could've guessed that? Not to mention the way that the zombies live among them unknown!

     Writing

     The writing is good throughout the whole book. I did find a couple of errors, but they were barely noticeable. The reading level changes as Katie goes along, I believe this is to show how she ages and her knowledge expands.

Weaknesses

     The Ending

     The ending was MY weakness! It had nothing to do with Berridge. She completed a great book with a perfect ending. A cliffhanger again! Why do these authors keep doing this? I really hope there's a next book. If there isn't, I might cry!

Author Bio

    "Born in Perth, Western Australia in 1982, Kristy Berridge was ushered into the world in a decade of bad hair, parachute pants, and blue eye shadow. Fortunately, she managed to avoid all three influences by immersing herself in the business of growing up, and hitched a ride with her fun-loving and adventure-filled parents to the sunny state of Queensland. Here she completed most of her education.

    Besides learning that boys don't have cooties, and that algebra wouldn't kill her, she pointedly set the path of her high school career towards success in Art and English-based subjects, and won numerous awards for her efforts.

    After high school she went on to study Graphic Design and Illustration at James Cook University, and then furthered her studies at the local TAFE College with an Interior Design course. With this knowledge under her belt, she also decided to undertake a three year Design course at Rhodec International in London, to complete her education and propel her towards the successful career she now enjoys.

    She currently resides in Cairns, procrastinates constantly, and tries desperately to avoid the delicious temptation that is the peanut butter aisle at the supermarket."-Amazon

Also by Kristy Berridge

• The Hunted
• The Damned: Volume 2 (The Hunted) 
•  The Aligned: Volume 3 (The Hunted)

Book Beginnings & The Friday 56: Magnus Chase

     I'm currently reading Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan! He's my auto-buy author so when I saw this book in the store I bought it immediately! Enjoy!

Book Beginnings by Rose City Reader

"YEAH, I KNOW. You guys are going to read about how I died in agony, and you’re going be like, 'Wow! That sounds cool, Magnus! Can I die in agony too?'"- Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. Sounds interesting right!

Friday 56 by Freda's Voice

"Hunding grunted 'No one brings luggage anymore. Don't they put anything on your funeral pyre?'"- Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. I honestly don't understand this. As of right now, I haven't read to this point, so I'm extremely confused at the moment.

*If you do this tag, comment below so I can see! Also, there are linkys at both websites to add your url for whichever tag you do.*

Wonderland: Classic Fairytale with a Sci-Fi Spin

*I got this book from the author for free, this in no way affects my opinion of the book.*

  Wonderland

by Robert McKay

•  Book one of the Intergalactic Fairy Tales series
• Science Fiction, Coming of Age
• Includes violence and mild humor.
• Published by McKay Manor August 20, 2015
• 13-25 interest level

    All Alice wants to be in life is a pirate. She wants to do what she wants, when she wants with no one to tell her otherwise. One night after sneaking out, Alice finds the perfect opportunity, a talking space ship. She gets on, claiming it as her own, and rides to Wonderland. However, Wonderland isn't all smiles, it's mildly inappropriate people lose their head for disagreeing with the queen, and animals can talk, which isn't always a good thing. On her adventure, Alice makes new friends, some new enemies, and learns many valuable lessons. How far will Alice go for an adventure?



      "Robert McKay is a clever nerd, who feels uncomfortable being called such. He believes in the Oxford comma, puns, and true love. Stories that wrap all of these things together, along with some outer space adventure, make his heart go pitter-patter and his days a whole lot brighter. When he’s not writing, he’s probably reading, but if he’s not doing either of those things, he may be found bowling, playing tabletop games, or researching how much it costs to rent a space shuttle."-Robert McKay
     

      I believe that the story and all it's assets were very well written. My favorite part was Alice, as almost anyone can relate to her. Even if you haven't accidentally gone to another planet, you've probably gone against your parents just out of spite. Another thing I like is how everything seems realistic. The setting is well described, the characters are complete, and the story is unique. McKay provides a realistic story, including a main character with quirks and flaws.

     Wonderland also features a unique twist on a classic story. Ever since I read Cinder I've loved fairy-tale retellings, and this one didn't disappoint. I recommend Wonderland to any fans of Cinder ages 13-25. Also, if you like space adventures, then this is the book for you. In the end, I loved everything about Wonderland and can't wait for Beauty and the Fleet, the next book in the Intergalactic Fairy Tales series. 

*Unfortunately at the moment Amazon.com is the only place to purchase Wonderland.*

The Blood of Olympus

     The awesome Heroes of Olympus series has ended and I am sad to see it go. Blood of Olympus, the last book, was published October 7, 2014.

     I loved this book Riordan tied up all the loose ends very neatly. He also didn't kill off as many characters as he could have, which masked me happy. It all ended the same way as it started and he made sure to end the series well. I'm glad he didn't just get lazy on the last book and make it sloppy. He stayed true to his fans and made sure the series ended well. This is why I give the book 5 stars.

"Though the Greek and Roman crew-members of the Argo II have made progress in their many quests, they still seem no closer to defeating the earth mother, Gaea. Her giants have risen—all of them—and they're stronger than ever. They must be stopped before the Feast of Spes, when Gaea plans to have two demigods sacrificed in Athens. She needs their blood—the blood of Olympus—in order to wake.       The demigods are having more frequent visions of a terrible battle at Camp Half-Blood. The Roman legion from Camp Jupiter, led by Octavian, is almost within striking distance. Though it is tempting to take the Athena Parthenos to Athens to use as a secret weapon, the friends know that the huge statue belongs back on Long Island, where it "might" be able to stop a war between the two camps.       The Athena Parthenos will go west; the Argo II will go east. The gods, still suffering from multiple personality disorder, are useless. How can a handful of young demigods hope to persevere against Gaea's army of powerful giants? As dangerous as it is to head to Athens, they have no other option. They have sacrificed too much already. And if Gaea wakes, it is game over."-goodreads.com

     I recommend this book to anyone ages 11-16 that like Greek and Roman mythology. Anybody above the age of 16 might think the book is stupid and anybody below 11 might get scared or confused. Before reading this book try read the first four books, The Lost Hero, The Son of Neptune, The Mark of Athena, and The House of Hades. Also, to be clearer about what is going on in the series, read the Percy Jackson series that this series was based off of.

The Fire Within

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to meet a real dragon? Well,  The Fire Within by Chris D'Lacey is the closest you will ever get.

David Rain was just looking for a place to live while he went to college, but when he moves in with the Elizabeth Pennykettle and her daughter Lucy he gets more than he bargained for. He ends up trying to rescue squirrels, write a book and much more. Is he up for the challenge? Read the book for more.

David is just an ordinary 20 year old guy. Going to college, finding a place to live then he meets the Pennykettles. The Pennykettles look like any other person but once you get to know them you find out they are not. Talking to clay dragons, treating them like they are real. The Pennykettles  are unusual, but how. You would have to read the book.

The Pennykettles live at 42 Wayward Crescent in Scrubbley, Massachusetts. The house is full of clay dragons and the "Dragon's Den", where the dragons are made is off limits. David rented a room in the house and grew to like it he even got his own"special dragon" for his room. There is something weird in this house, but what? I don't know, you have to find out for yourself.

Chris D'Lacey was born December 15, 1954 in  Valletta, Malta, Europe. He is married and has no children. D'Lacey didn't always want to be a writer. In fact when he was a teenager he wanted to be a rockstar. He now lives in Devon, England.

The Fire Within is a good book with lots of adventure. I would recommend this book to people who like dragons, fantasy and fiction. The Fire Within is the first book in The Last Dragon Chronicles. It was first published in 2001 by Watts Publishing Group in Great Britain. It was first published in the U.S. by Orchard Books in 2005.

IL: MG - BL: 4.1 - AR Pts: 7.0