Teen and Staff Reviews

Matt Damon plays Mark Watney in Ridley Scott’s science fiction film, The Martian, made in 2015. Mark is abandoned on Mars after a big storm comes through the crew’s camp. His fellow astronauts including Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain) and Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), escape Mars safely, but leave him behind after coming to the conclusion that he had died due to debris. Mark makes contact with the crew and with NASA back on Earth and communicates with them to try and get him off the barren planet.

Jules came to New York City with big dreams and hope for the future. But now that her funds have been depleted, she is desperate for any source of income. Luckily, the perfect opportunity presents itself — Jules is offered a job as an apartment sitter at the Bartholomew, one of the most glamorous yet mysterious buildings in the city, for an exorbitant amount of money.

When Fabiola and her mother are trying to move from Haiti to Detroit to go live with their family there, her mother tragically gets detained. Fabiola is presented with an opportunity to get her mother back, but it results in a messy entanglement in crime and dirty family matters.

I enjoyed this book a lot because the character development and plot kept the story surprising. The main development shown is that Fabiola learns to cope with loss and I think the overall moral is to keep good company because she gets involved in things like drug dealing and gang violence.

Princess Talia, who is woken by Jack, comes to the future. She realizes that she has slept for three-hundred years and does not know what the new world is.  Princess Talia believes that she can escape her village and live with Jack, whom she must seduce to fall in love with her. However, she must do so before the witch takes her away.

The Lonely Dead is a thrilling and wondrous mystery novel by April Henry. This book is about a girl named Adele who can see the dead. Adele's grampa takes her to the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist told her that she has a disease where she could see things that weren't there. One day she finds her ex-best friend (Tori) calling out to her and pleading for her to tell her parents that she is dead. When Tori’s body is reported to the police, they lead an investigation to figure out who murdered Tori.

Count Me In is a heartwarming and eye-opening fiction novel by Varsha Bajaj. This book is about Chris and Karina who were not friends until Karina's grandfather started tutoring Chris. On the way back from the tutoring session, Karina, Chris, and Karina's grandfather get attacked by an immigrant hater. That attack left Karina outraged. She and Chris tried to change the world’s perspective to look at immigrants not as terrorists but as good people.

The Line Tender is a sad and heartwarming fiction novel by Kate Allen. This book is about a girl named Lucy, her best friend Fred who dies in a quarry at midnight. Ever since Fred died Lucy’s been a mess, she finishes an assignment in honor of Fred and she suddenly gets interested in her mother's work. She gets her dad, her neighbor, her family friend and her mom's former colleague to help her figure out things about her mom's beloved sharks.

16-year-old Amal Shahid is an artist, a poet, a son, a cousin, a student. But in the eyes of the law, he is a monster and nothing more. After a fight in a gentrified neighborhood sends a white boy to the hospital, knocked unconscious, the world turns to Amal to shoulder the blame. He didn’t do it — but to the world, that doesn’t matter. Convicted of the crime and sent to prison, Amal suddenly finds that the weight of prejudice and racism and despair and rage is unbearably suffocating.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet is a masterpiece of chaos .After Hamlet’s father is killed by his uncle, Claudius, Hamlet must try and avenge his father’s death. After several secret plots come into play, a lot more people end up dead than Claudius. No one in Hamlet makes the most straightforward choice; all of the characters make emotional, rash decisions.

Julian Jackson has lived his whole life in a small town, and now, as the captain of the football team, he is pressured to get scholarships, pursue his dreams, and go to a good college. Then Elijah Vance returns to his town, Elijah was his best friend and teammate.  Will they be able to mend their friendship?