Word Out 2011

Blog down your fines posts! See what other teens are reading.

Earn $2 in library bucks towards your fines when you share your favourite reads.

Gail reviewed Bitten by R.L. Stine

Well first, this book is about vampires. Shocker there.  Secondly, the vampires aren't like the ones from Twilight that sparkle in the sun or the ones that have to drink immortal elixer, no.  These vampires are the ones that live forever, suck blood and terrorize people.  In the book  there are twins, Destiny and Lizzy who end up being bitten by the same vampire while they are camp.  The reason why the vampire bit them? Well the looked like the girl he loved that got killed. To be with her again, the vampire attempts to make them immortal but is interrupted in the process. That starts this whole crazy adventure.  This book is made up of two parts, so in the first part, the girls are confronted with the truth that they are becoming hungrier and hungrier and that they thirst for blood.  The other thing is that the vampire that bit them, well he can't continue the job unless it's a full moon so he ends up stalking them…kind of creepy in my opinion.  Destiny (Dee for short) also starts to get stressed about finding a cure when the twins stumble upon another vampire that told them "The Restorer" could cure them if there was enough time left.  So begins the hunt for the Restorer.  Along the way, the girls also realize that there are vampire hunters in town and that their dad and the entire baseball team is a part of it.  SO now they have to run for their lives as well as trying to save them. At the end of the first part, the twin's dad tells them that he is actually the Restorer and he saves Dee but Lizzy chooses to stay immortal, even turning someone else too.  Well in the second part, it's completely about the psychological harm Lizzy does to her family by leaving her home.  We also see Lizzy constantly homesick and wondering around at night finding people to drink.  It gets serious later on when people start dying and the twins both think that the other twin had something to do with it…
Bitten reminds me alot of the Vampire Diaries, without the witches, werewolves, angelic blood and hot romances.  It's sort of the sample of it. I'll be honest, at first i thought this book was horrible.  There's no depth in the plot and the girls are just constantly chasing some made up tale.  It got better when people actually started to die and the plot deepend.  What i did like abut this was the characters really expressed their emotions well. It was also a really easy read.  I read the entire 480 page book in a little bit more then two hours.  So i guess if you like books about vampires then give it a try but don't expect much.

Ayesha reviewed Ordinary People by Judith Guest

The book, Ordinary People symbolizes the life of an ordinary family that consists of two paren'ts and two sons. You'd probably think of the book as the story of just another normal family (from a first glance at its title); however, I was in for a thriller once I began reading it.Guest entertains the readers with a heart-warming plot, with many surprising events and unexpected revelations. The story is of a family who has experienced the grief and sorrow of losing one of their sons in a fatal accident. This tragic death arises a conflict between the protagonist Conrad and his mother.
The main characters portrayed in the novel are Conrad Jarrett, Calvin, Beth, Jeannine, Karen, Lazenby and Dr. Berger. Conrad is described as a teenage boy, who is very depressed and in serious distraught because of fatal accident that occurred, two summers ago that had taken his elder brother, Jordan Jarrett away. Throughout the story, Conrad struggles with depression and feelings of guilt over his brother's death. Calvin and Beth are the paren'ts of Conrad and Jordan. Calvin is a successful and determined father and husband, while Beth is an efficient, perfectionist and beautiful wife. Jeannine Pratt is girlfriend of Con, Karen is a girl who was also in the hospital with Con after his accident, while Lazenby is Con's best friend. Dr. Berger is Con's psychiatrist tries to enhance his psychological condition after his brother's death. Beth is unable to accept the changes in her family and accuses others for the changings. However, the communication gap and the issues within the Jarrett's family is resolved when Conrad recovers and is able to grieve for Buck (Jordan) and to realize that he is not responsible for the guilt.
I would recommend the novel Ordinary People to all readers, also my friends and peers because this book illustrates the reality of most families and communicates the central theme of the patience and courage needed when adversity strikes.

Gail reviewed The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima

The Exiled Queen is the second book in the four book, Seven Realms series.
In the second book, the two main characters, Hans Allister (formerly, Cuffs Alister) and Raisa Ana'Marianna (who goes by Rebecca Morley to keep her identity a secret) both end up at Oden's Ford for school. As revealed in the last book, Hans starts training as a wizard while attempting to stay alive from the two Bayer twins.  Along the way, Hans make some deals he could regret especially when he meets a mysterious wizard named Crow who seems seems to have his own ulterier motives.  Raisa stays with Amon Bryne while training as a cadet.  At Oden's Ford she stays hidden away but what happens when she gets found and kidnapped back to the one place she is running from? Well, the Exiled Queen is definitely not short of drama.  We have a romantic relationship sproat between Hans and Raisa but for an heir princess, nothing always happens the way you think it does.
Chima does it again in this sequel to her first book, The Demon King.  Although i will admit, this book lacks the action and life threatening moments that i enjoyed from the first book.  I found this book was more focused on the character's relationships.  Like i said, there's no shortage of drama, not just from Raisa but from Hans as well.  What i really liked when reading this book was that it really is like you're reading two different stories that somehow entangle at some part in the middle and then seperate again.  I also started to hate Amon for what he did to Raisa.  His reasoning in the story is also absolutely horrible, but understandable and yet, at the same time completely ridiculous but what's to be done about that.  If you didn't read the first book, Amon and Raisa love each other but because of certain oaths and rules, Amon can't be with Raisa otherwise he gets punished.  It's the Bryne legacy to always act in a way that protects the Grey Wolfe line (that's Raisa's royal line) and since they have to protect the line, Amon, as a Bryne, can't love the princess. 
This book was also really hard to get through at the end.  Not because it was boring but because i didn't want to know what would happen.  I wanted to stop reading and hope the character's happiness would last but of course, my curiosity got the best of me and i read it.  Well all i can say is i'm glad the third book is coming out in a couple of weeks.  If you love fantasy and action and possibly romance, give this book a try.

Sabrina reviewed Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa M. Klein

Lady Macbeth's daughter was a wonderful story putting an interesting twist to and old tale. It is bringing both a new character and perspective to the story letting you see it through many eyes and ways with Albia the main character's special gift "the sight". Albia was sent away at the mere age of one month when she was born a girl with a bad foot. Macbeth denied her both his title and the gift of living by sending to be killed and accusing Lady Macbeth of addultary. Though Lady Macbeth's loyal ladyinwating saves the child and Albia to her sister's. At the age of 16 when Albia's "mother"  is sick she is sent to the kind Banquo's house house to be their foster daughter where she soon falls in love with her foster brother Flance while he teaches her the secrets of combat. A yeear later blia is sent home to her dying mother and her death bed she tells her daughter the truth about her paren'ts. Ablia returns to her foster family to Macbeth himself there visting her father, to see where is aligenec lies. After her father tries to rape her he realises it his daughter and return to the Queen, Lady Macbeth sounding like a mad manshe ignores it.  Soon a rebelion forms to impeach Macbeth the rest you mus' read to find uot!