Weekly Reads: Extraordinary Means

Extraordinary Means is the newest book by Robyn Schneider. I loved her last book and recommend it a ton to teens at the library. I received an electronic advanced reader copy of this title to read and review and promote to library customers as I see fit. I really enjoyed this book, and would recommend it to any fans of TFiOS. It has the whole sick kids meet and fall in love, etc. but is awesome in it's own way.

My rating: 4 stars.


Summary from goodreads:

From the author of The Beginning of Everything: two teens with a deadly disease fall in love on the brink of a cure.

At seventeen, overachieving Lane finds himself at Latham House, a sanatorium for teens suffering from an incurable strain of tuberculosis. Part hospital and part boarding school, Latham is a place of endless rules and confusing rituals, where it's easier to fail breakfast than it is to flunk French.

There, Lane encounters a girl he knew years ago. Instead of the shy loner he remembers, Sadie has transformed. At Latham, she is sarcastic, fearless, and utterly compelling. Her friends, a group of eccentric troublemakers, fascinate Lane, who has never stepped out of bounds his whole life. And as he gradually becomes one of them, Sadie shows him their secrets: how to steal internet, how to sneak into town, and how to disable the med sensors they must wear at all times.

But there are consequences to having secrets, particularly at Latham House. And as Lane and Sadie begin to fall in love and their group begins to fall sicker, their insular world threatens to come crashing down. Told in alternating points of view, Extraordinary Means is a darkly funny story about doomed friendships, first love, and the rare miracle of second chances.

Weekly Reads: The Carnival at Bray

I checked out The Carnival at Bray from my library the Friday before the ALA Printz Award was announced, so I was pretty thrilled to have it in my possession once it was announce as a Printz Honor. I tend to stay away from historical fiction because it's just not my cup of tea, but this book was set in the 90s and for some reason that seems like just yesterday! This book was an amazing read that tugged on my heart strings and reminded me of the struggle of just being a teen and trying to grow up. Throw in family tragedy, and it becomes much much harder.

Great book.

My rating: 4.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

It's 1993, and Generation X pulses to the beat of Kurt Cobain and the grunge movement. Sixteen-year-old Maggie Lynch is uprooted from big-city Chicago to a windswept town on the Irish Sea. Surviving on care packages of Spin magazine and Twizzlers from her rocker uncle Kevin, she wonders if she'll ever find her place in this new world. When first love and sudden death simultaneously strike, a naive but determined Maggie embarks on a forbidden pilgrimage that will take her to a seedy part of Dublin and on to a life- altering night in Rome to fulfill a dying wish. Through it all, Maggie discovers an untapped inner strength to do the most difficult but rewarding thing of all, live.

Weekly Reads: Out of the Easy

Out of The Easy is the last book I read as a Printz potential title. It is set in New Orleans in the 1950s, and while I don't normally like historical fiction, I found this easier to follow than most historical fiction. Seventeen year old Josie is the daughter of a prostitute in a brothel that Josie maintains for the madam who acts more as Josie's mother than her actual mother ever has. Josie has dreams of leaving the Big Easy for higher education, but it seems that everything and almost everyone is out to keep her around. When a murder is committed, Josie is compelled to look in to the mystery further. This was a fairly fast read with a full host of compelling characters.

My rating: 4 stars

Goodreads Summary:

It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. 

She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test.

With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.

Weekly Reads: Anna and the French Kiss

Anna and the French Kiss is a Young Adult read that's been sitting on my "to be read" shelf for-ev-er.  I snagged it from the library on audiobook a couple of weeks ago, and thanks to some back and forth driving for the SDLA library conference I got through it quicker than I normally do.

Anna is a senior in high school who is sent to Paris for boarding school for her final year.  Magnifique, no?  Wrong.  She's leaving behind her best friend, her little brother, and her movie theater crush slash pseudo boyfriend.  And to top it all off, she doesn't know any french.

She makes a handful of friends, including an adorable British guy, Etienne St. Claire.  The trials and tribulations she goes through in her senior year are similar to problems every 18 year old encounters, but at least she's lucky enough to go through them in grand Paris!  Oui oui!  But is she able to be lucky in love as well?  Find out in Anna and the French Kiss, either in audio or regular print (an audiobook has to be really good for me to recommend it, FYI.  I usually refer back to the book after a disc because of bad narration), and then pick up the two remaining books in the series!

My rating:  4/5 stars