Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie is the first in a trilogy.  It is along the lines of The Giver, 1984, Brave New World, and The Hunger Games.  Cassia lives in a dysophia society where they choose everything for her and just tell her what to do.  But when you turn 17 you can choose to be matched, and the Society will match you with your perfect mate.  Amazingly Cassia gets matched with her best friend Xander, but then later when she gets home another name and face flashes on her screen of who she should be matched to--Ky--who is someone she also knows.  Cassia is torn by this "mistake" and who is her real and true match?  In a society with no choices, she now has one, and it is the biggest one of her life.  This is a great read.  Thought provoking--how lucky are we with our choices and our lives--even when we don't always make the right choices.  What is true love and how do you really show it?  How can you show freedom and make your life your own if you never have any choices?  My 10-year-old daughter picked this up right after I put it down, and she is also enjoying it.  We can't wait for the 2nd to come out in November 2011 and the 3rd set for November 2012.  Does it have to take that long????

Heist Society by Ally Carter

Heist Society by Ally Carter was the first book picked for my local book club.  Ally Carter is known for her Gallagher Girls books, but this was the first book of hers that I had read.  Katarina's family has a business, but it is not your typical family business, and she wants out.  Her family are professional thieves, and she has been in the business helping since she was three, and now she is 15.  She decides she wants out and wants a normal life and tries to go to a boarding school, but her family has an emergency and needs her back.  Her dad has been falsely accused of stealing some paintings from a very bad guy, but Katarina knows he is innocent.  The only way she can prove he is and get her dad out of trouble is to steal the painting back from whoever really stole them, and that is what this book is about.  Katarina puts together a teen group of top of the line thieves and tries to steal the paintings back from the most secure art museum in the world.  A good, fun read.  The story is fiction, but it is actually based on the real fact that during WWII the Nazi stole many works of art from whoever they wanted and then kept them or sold them, and there are people working today trying to return those stolen pieces of art to their rightful owners.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley is a mystery set in 1950's England in a small village.  Flavia is an 11 year old girl who has a passion for chemistry in general and poisons specifically.  One early morning at her big house she hears something in the garden and goes to investigate.  It is a man lying in the cucumbers, and he breathes his last breath in her face.  She should be scared, but she isn't.  This is the most exciting thing to happen in her whole life.  She has a mission to solve the mystery.  I used to think that mysteries were not really my thing, but I loved Josi Kilpack's culinary mysteries, and I really enjoyed this.  Flavia is a great character.  The book is written from her perspective and from her mind.  She will make you smile, laugh, and really think.  This is an adult book even though the main character is 11, but it is highly entertaining and a very "clean" murder mystery.  I love the Inspector who is assigned to the case.  You can just tell how he is trying to restrain himself and deal with this 11 year old who keeps butting into his case.  A great read.  Check it out.

The Crossing by Jim Murphy

I read The Crossing by Jim Murphy last week to my 10 year old daughter who was home sick from school one day.  We finished the whole thing in one day, and we both really enjoyed it.  Jim Murphy writes non-fiction historical books for kids.  The Great Fire, The Blizzard, An American Plague,  and Truce are some of his works.  I read Truce  last year which was about a WWI Christmas along the front lines.  It was very good.  He has a great way of making history very accessible to children.  Having read 1776 by David McCullough and loving it, I was anxious to check this "kids" version out.  It didn't disappoint.  He has pictures and diagrams on almost every page to help you understand where the armies were and what was happening.  It was fun to read out loud to my daughter because we discussed a lot of the circumstances where "lucky" things happened--like the wind changing so British ships couldn't get up the river to attack the Americans and heavy fogs suddenly developing so the British could not see the Americans retreating as they left New York.  I kept asking my daughter, "Do you think that was an accident?  Do you think they were just lucky?"  "No, mom.  God was helping them."  And Jim Murphy mentions in the book that so many of the men, including Washington, felt that God was leading, guiding, and directing them.  It was great.  George Washington is a hero, is one of my heroes, and after reading this with my daughter, he is now one of her heroes.  Can't ask for anything better from a book than that. 

The Exiled Queen by Cinda Williams Chima

The Exiled Queen is book two in the Seven Realms Novel series.  Book one is called The Demon King.  I read book one last year and really enjoyed it.  Hans is a street thief, the head of a street gang, but who really wants to do more with his life.  Then there is the Princess who Hans meets as Rebecca.  It is a fantasy novel but set in a middle ages type world with wizards and magic.  I was excited when the second came out.  The Princess has run away from home and is disguising herself as a normal woman and heading to school to become a soldier.  Not the first place you would look for a lost princess, so a good place to hide.  Hans has gone to wizard school right across the river, and they meet up again.  Hans still doesn't know that Rebecca is really his soon to be queen, and their friendship grows until both are forced to leave at the end.  Anxiously awaiting book three. . . This is a very good fantasy, magic, romantic series that I would recommend.

Dragonfly by Julia Golding

Dragonfly by Julia Golding is a book my 13 year old read last year, and she said it was one of her absolute favorites.  She read it last summer and kept saying "Mom, you need to read this!   Mom, you need to read this!"  She got it for Christmas and put it on my nightstand.  Can you tell that my nightstand is where people put things so I can read them?  Anyway, after reading this I wished I would have picked it up sooner.  I loved it!  Tashi is the Fourth Crown Princess of the Blue Crescent Islands and Prince Ramil is from Gerfal.  Two very different people from two very different nations that have been forced into an arranged marriage so their countries will not go to war and be united against an evil warlord.  The two start out hating each other, but life quickly changes as they are kidnapped by the evil warlord and strive to deal with their difficulties and escape and try to save their two countries which they love and each other.  A great classic adventure and romance.  It is very clean and uplifting.  Both characters must exam their faith, what they should stand up for and what keeps them going.  A very good read for teenage girls (or for anyone for that matter).  I stayed up way too late reading it because it is a book you can't put down.  It is not a series, which is amazing to find a stand alone book now days, and that is nice.  Golding is from the UK and has several other books out that I would really like to read now.  She does have another book set in the same world as this book called  The Glass Shadows but this is not supposed to be available in the US until later this year.  I read that is does have Ramil and Tashi in it, but they aren't the main characters.  Definitely a 4 star book.  Check it out.  

For One More Day by Mitch Albom

For One More Day by Mitch Albom was a gift my husband got for his birthday 4 months ago.  After his finished reading it he promptly placed it on my nightstand for me to read.  It took me a while to get to it, but I did enjoy it.  I had read Tuesdays with Morrie by Albom previously and also enjoyed it.  This book is about Chick who has lived a life that he is not proud of.  His parents divorced when he was young and his father disappeared, and his mother he took for granted.  He gets his priorities mixed up and has really messed up his life (divorced, only daughter didn't invite to her wedding, no job) and is ready to take his life when suddenly he is given a whole day with his mom who had died several years earlier.  Who wouldn't want just one more day with someone that they loved who had already passed on?  So many things to say and do.  This is a short read and gives one lots to think about--mainly we should never take our loved ones for granted and try to live our lives so when a loved one does leave us, we have as few regrets as possible because we cherished them and took advantage of the time we had with them.