Donovan Curtis is not what you call “gifted.” However, his genius friend, Noah Youkilis, is Supergifted, with one of the highest IQs. After spending many years at the Academy for Scholastic Distinction, Noah looks for the chance to fail and to become normal. He lands at Donovan’s school and finds himself in trouble with cheerleading captain Megan Mercury and jock Hash “Hashtag” Taggart. Donovan sticks up for Noah but gets caught in his own feud and has to stay away from Hashtag. Noah believes that Donovan was mistreated and goes to Hashtag’s house to give Hashtag a piece of his mind.
The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather is the story of a seemingly ordinary person rising up achieving greatness. Born in the small town of Moonstone, Colorado, Thea Kronborg faces the realities of life and comes to know her true self as she fights for a place in the world of opera.
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le. Guin is the classic tale of how Ged, a young wizard, comes into his powers and repairs the mistakes of his youth, restoring balance to the land of Earthsea. Along the way he attends a school of magic, battles a dragon, and faces true evil. I really wanted to love this book. It’s high fantasy with a cult following and I wanted it to capture my heart the way that it has for so many people over the years.
Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery is a beautifully told coming of age story. Anne Shirley is an orphan mistakenly brought home by the Cuthberts living in Avonlea on Prince Edward Island. This story narrates Anne’s life as she grows up and learns to navigate her feelings, relationships, and life. Anne is a nearly perfect character because of her imperfections; she’s always making mistakes or getting into trouble, which makes her relatable to the reader.
It gave me chills. The setting/tone of this book was eerie and spooky and I kind of felt like a character in the story myself. The ending was unexpected. It's a definite read for those who like thrillers or mysteries.
Beatrice Clayborn is a young, powerful sorceress secretly practicing magic in a patriarchal world that doesn’t allow women the freedom of sorcery. Beatrice’s greatest dream is to become a Mage, but her family is relying on her to secure an advantageous marriage in order to avoid financial ruin. There’s only one problem with this — once married, she will be locked into a collar that will cut off her magical powers to protect the children she will inevitably bear.
Lovely War, written by Julie Berry, is a historical fiction romance novel narrated by the Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite, as a defense for her infidelity to her husband Hephaestus with Ares, god of war. She speaks of two couples whose stories intertwine with each other, both of whom met during the first World War, and recounts their tragic yet beautiful tale to explain why love and war are attracted to each other and to demonstrate how love requires vulnerability.
After sixteen-year-old Alice Prewitt’s French grandmother passes away, she finds out that she has inherited an abandoned apartment in Paris. Alice travels to Paris in order to see the apartment for herself, but she makes a shocking discovery — her grandmother had a sister: Adalyn, a resistance worker during WWII. However, Alice has no idea about her great-aunt’s work, and what’s more, Adalyn’s old photos and diary suggest that she was a Nazi sympathizer. With the help of Paul, a handsome French teenager, Alice starts to uncover the truth that Adalyn took to her early grave.
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho is a fiction novel that deals with a boy around eighteen years old named Santiago who wants to complete his Personal Legend/dreams. He starts off by telling readers a dream that he often gets and goes to a Gypsy lady to interpret it. She tells him to go to the pyramids in Egypt where he will find treasure. He wants to travel, and after meeting a stranger, who knows too much about him, he decides to go on this adventure.
After her mother dies in a car accident, 16-year-old Bree Matthews enters an Early College program at UNC-Chapel Hill. During her first night on campus, she witnesses a demon attack — one that she shouldn’t be able to see. When a mage’s attempt to erase her memory backfires, her own magical powers are awakened and she uncovers an erased memory from the night of her mother’s death.
