Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Moxy Maxwell Does not Love Writing Thank-You Notes

Moxy Maxwell and her twin brother Mark are supposed to spend the last week of Christmas vacation with their father in Hollywood. They are supposed to go to a big Hollywood party, with big Hollywood stars. But first Moxy has to write twelve thank-you notes for the Christmas presents she received the day before. This task is a lot harder than it seems.


Moxy Maxwell Does not Love Writing Thank-you Notes is short and fun. It did not have the charm that I expect out of a children's book though. The photographs were a nice touch, but in many of them it was hard to tell what was going on, because they were shot in color, but copied in black/white. I felt the chapters were much too short, and I didn't really enjoy the dialog. It tried to be funny but just didn't work out. I would have enjoyed the narrative better if it had been from Moxy's point of view instead of an unknown third person. While the book is OK, I wouldn't recommend it.

(An actual review) The Crazy School

Madeline Dare is a reformed Debutante from Syracuse, New York. In the fall of 1989 she moves to the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts with her husband Dean. She takes a job as a history teacher at the Santangelo Academy, a “therapeutic” boarding school for outcast teens. One night a student named Mooney punches his fist through a window, and then revels in secret to Madeline that his girlfriend Fay is pregnant. Madeline vows to tell no one but her best friend and fellow teacher, Lulu. When Fay and Mooney are poisoned at Fay’s birthday party, Madeline is arrested for murder. She must then uncover the secrets of this “crazy school” and clear her name at the same time. The Crazy School is a follow-up to 2006’s A Field of Darkness.

The Crazy School is a somewhat accurate portrayal of damaged teens. The Santangelo Academy is a place my parents would most definitely send me if it were real. In fact I’m pretty sure my three brothers would’ve been sent there as well, though they would’ve ran away. The story does not divulge too much into the lives of the mentally-ill and drug addled teens, but instead focuses more on the murder mystery at hand. While I would’ve preferred a deeper look into their lives, I definitely enjoyed this story. Having not read the synopsis or the first book, I was very surprised when the two teens turned up dead, especially since the characters Fay and Mooney were so easy to relate to, I really felt sad for them. Though the book quickly turns into a darker more serious novel, it is filled with dry humor and silly characters like Madeline’s lawyer Markham and the stuffed-toy obsessed Mindy. It is nicely balanced out with the heartbreak felt within the character of Dhumavati, who is the school’s Dean of Students. This novel tackles hot topics such as teen pregnancy, without the political narrative being too overpowering, which I really liked. The ending was definitely not predictable, in fact I was a little shocked when the murderer was finally revealed. Actually I was very shocked! Though at times the book was a little slow-moving, The Crazy School is a good read filled with lots of mystery, a little suspense, and a dash of silliness good for those nights when you just can’t sleep.

I wrote this review a while ago, in fact it was one of the first I did. To sum it up, I love this book, and highly recommend it.

Freeze Frame Review

Heidi Ayarbe’s debut novel, Freeze Frame is certainly very exciting. It’s fast pace, short sentences and back-and-forth timeline makes it almost TOO exciting. Reading this book just nearly drove me into panic attack mode. The novel stars Kyle Caroll, a 15-year-old from Nevada. On a cold Winter morning Kyle and his best friend Jason decide to into the shed. The next thing Kyle knows, Jason is lying on the floor bleeding to death. Kyle has apparently shot his best friend. He then wakes up in police custody, not knowing where he is or that Jason is even dead. The novel is set up like a movie, some scenes are re-shot, and it is filmed out of order. It may seem confusing but it was really easy to get into. I felt really bad for the characters Jason and Kyle. Being a huge movie nerd, I loved all the Pop Culture references. The story’s format makes it all the more heartbreaking, since you only get bits and pieces of the story at a time and it’s up to you to piece them together. This made it a very unique read and though it’s a hefty 300+ pages, I read it in one day. I would definitely recommend this novel for the teen who likes darker stories, but it’s probably not for the Gossip Girl crowd.

A very short review of Emmaline and the Bunny

Emaline lives in the very tidy town of Neatasapin, where Mayor Orson Oliphant has banned everything untidy. Spaghetti is a no-no, and all the wild animals had to go! But the one thing Emmaline longs for most is a wild bunny companion. She finally meets one! But her parents think it's just a dream. What can Emmaline do to convince her parents to give the wild bunny a home?

Emmaline and the Bunny is an adorable book. It's a perfect bedtime story, or anytime story. It'd be good for new readers. I really enjoyed the pictures also, they were simple but very cute.


Yeah I know this is short, IDC it was for the Firstlook thing and they don't care how much you write, OK?

Lion Eyes review

Claire Berlinski is the author of a spy novel called Loose Lips. She lives in Paris and begins exchanging emails with an Iranian man whom she calls the “Lion”. When Claire takes a visit to Istanbul to meet the Lion , she finds herself in the middle of a real-life spy novel, and realizes that not only is the Lion not who she thinks he is, but she isn’t who the Lion thinks she is.



The plot of this book is a little more than confusing at first. In real life, there is an author named Claire Berlinski, and she really did write the 2004 novel Loose Lips. So you could consider Lion Eyes sort of a memoir of another dimension. Now, besides the fact that Lion Eyes was pretty much just a long advertisement for Berlinski’s first novel, Loose Lips, I did enjoy it. The main plot with Claire’s adventures in Istanbul was indeed thrilling, but the ending was kinda blah, and I actually enjoyed the subplot with Sam and Lynne more. Their love story was really sweet, and the ending for them was adorable. Claire’s story didn’t seem to really have an end though, and it kind of left me even more confused then when I started reading the book. I think it does well for a romance/spy novel though, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes those genres.

 
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