In the very near future, Trent McCauley is a 16-year-old in northern England who makes videos by cutting, pasting, and editing movies starring a dead actor he's obsessed with. This isn't just a hobby of Trent's, it's his passion (much like writing Simon Snow fanfic is a passion for Cath in Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl). But it violates copyright and pirating laws, which is why the state cuts off his family's internet access for a year.
Blue lives in a family of psychics, but the only power she has is amplifying the abilities of others. On All Hallow's Eve, she visits the Corpse Road with her aunt. There, her aunt sees the ghosts of everyone in Henrietta who will die in the next year. For the first time, Blue is able to see a ghost. It's a boy about her age. When she asks his name, he says, "Gansy, that's all there is." Her aunt tells her the only way she would be able to see the ghost is if he is her true love, or if she killed him. Possibly both.
Jordan Romero was fascinated by a poster in his elementary school of the Seven Summits, the highest mountain peaks on each of the seven continents. When he was nine years old, he announced to his parents that he wanted to climb the Seven Summits and he wanted to start training immediately. Jordan was familiar with what training involved; his father and stepmother were adventure racers.
I am generous with 4 star ratings, but I don't give out a lot of 5 stars; I reserve those for the most exceptional books. This was an exceptional book!
Another beautiful, intelligent, sensitive teenager has killed her self. The media blames the bullies at Emma Putnam's new school that refused to accept her, that kept her on the fringe. The used words like slut and whore, they left notes and signs on her locker, they found her on social media...they drove her to suicide.
When I was in elementary school, I read many, many books on monsters and the paranormal. Books about ghosts, UFOs, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, mummies, werewolves...and vampires. Outside of books, there wasn't a lot to see with vampires at the time. You might catch classic Universal monster movies or the later, bloodier Hammer horror movies on late night TV (assuming you could convince your parents to let you stay up that late).
If you knew the precise time the moon would collide with a meteor would you pull out your binoculars, pop some popcorn, and pull up a lawn chair for the best show of your life? If you knew the moon would be struck quickly by the meteor but then slowly move closer and closer to the earth would you fear for you life? If you knew the moon's imposing presence in the sky would produce deadly earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes that wipe out millions of people would you still have hope? If you knew the middle of summer would soon turn to a blistering winter would you survive?
The London Eye Mystery is about a peculiar moment in time where a young boy named Salim steps into one of the 32 pods of the infamous London Eye but never steps off. His cousins Ted & Kat saw him get on. He turned around and waved to each of them. Ted and Kat didn't move. The waited, watched, and even counted as the pod slowly made it's way up, up, up, up up then down, down, down, down, down. After 30 stretched out minutes, Salim's pod was back to where it started. The doors opened and people filed out -- everyone except Salim. Vanished into thin air? Abducted by Aliens? Or worse?
Darrow has the most dangerous job on Mars. He is the helldiver of Lycos, running the drill deep underground that mines Mars for valuable natural resources. Helldivers to not generally live long lives, like his father who died when he was a child. But Darrow has other plans, he is going to make something of himself, and his clan. But he can only rise so far, the caste system of society keeps his people down. They are Reds, deemed to be good at nothing but hard labor. They are ruled over by the Blues, Greys, and at the top...the Golds, the apex of human evolution.
The companion novel to Saints, this book looks at the same situation from a different angle. Little Bao has grown up reenacting his favorite Chinese operas and looking up to his father. When his father is hobbled by European colonists, Bao's older brothers take over the family, relegating Bao to the role of little brother. In secret he trains with a martial arts master, and quickly out paces his brothers.
