Book Review: Fever by Lauren DeStefano (The Chemical Garden, Bk. 2)

After successfully escaping her luxury prison of being one of the sister wives of Linden, Rhine thought her life will perfectly fall back into place like a puzzle piece. She finally ran away from her husband whom she did not love, and she now had Gabriel to live with in her new world of freedom. Unfortunately, experiencing only a few days of freedom, Rhine and Gabriel were taken against their will to a broken down carnival where Rhine became the key to getting money of the unpredictable ringmistress there. Rhine and Gabriel were desperate to leave this carnival filled with all kinds of horrors and go to Manhattan to find Rhine’s twin brother. It also seemed to Rhine that Vaughn, Linden’s father, constantly had the ability to be right behind her footsteps all the time. They continuously had to fight obstacles that popped out of nowhere and handle disasters hurled to them repeatedly. Rhine’s vision of a world better than being trapped in her husband’s luxurious home was beginning to crumble, and Rhine knew time was ticking down.

Lauren’s sequel to Wither, Fever, had unpredictable events right around every corner forcing the reader to read page after page. This book is fast-paced and ends with a cliffhanger for the readers. - Hamilton Teen Volunteer

Book Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

In The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight , two teens meet and spend a period of 24 hours together; which leads to an incredible series of events. They share secrets, histories, and family stories. They lose each other and (spoiler alert) find each other again—twice. Statistical Probability shows how being 4 minutes can lead to events that can change two peoples’ life forever, and how through meeting that one special person, you can mend relationships with your estranged father; start a relationship with your soon-to-be stepmother; let go of bad memories of your late father and move forward; and even how, through a wedding and a funeral, two people can find each other and start a relationship that looks like it will last for a while. I saw Statistical Probability in the bookstore a few months ago, and I was initially worried about whether it would live up to my expectations after building it up for weeks, but luckily, this amazing book lived up to and exceeded all hopes I had for it. I absolutely fell in love with Hadley and Oliver and rooted for them and their budding relationship. I hope to read more books by Jennifer E. Smith, and would recommend this to anyone who loves reading a quirky young-adult love story. - Erin (Sunset Teen)

Book Review: The Absolute Value of 1 by Steve Brenzoff

In The Absolute Value of 1, Lily, Noah, and Simon are typical teenage delinquents  at a Long Island high school. Family issues and the pressures of growing up complicate their friendships, and each deals with the changes differently. Lily worries that her love of math will challenge her slacker reputation, Noah retreats to his basement to avoid an abusive father, and Simon joins the track team to get healthy and pursue a girlfriend. The characters each narrate the same events but from their own perspectives. A series of misunderstandings, unspoken truths, and angry outbursts claw away at the group. As they drift apart, they struggle to balance emotional wounds with the need to create their own identities. - Amelia (Downtown Teen)

Book Review: Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Sixteen agonizing years of waiting, wanting, hoping, wishing, and dreaming are spent by all of the uglies in Uglyville. It seems like there is not a single person who cannot wait to get their operation to turn them pretty on their sixteenth birthday. When Tally Youngblood meets Shay, they quickly become friends, and Tally realizes that not everyone wants to become a pretty. Shay disappears, and Tally is given an ultimatum—to turn Shay in, or to never turn pretty at all. What Tally thinks will be a simple task turns out to be an enterprise that unveils the truth… and the truth isn’t all that pretty.

Scott Westerfeld manages to get any reader’s gears turning, bringing up topics worth consideration. Uglies is a fast-paced novel that explores aspects of life that the average middle or high schooler may not yet be pondering. - Hannah (Sunset Teen)

Book Review: Party by Tom Leveen

On the day after school ends for a group of Southern California high school students, everybody is preparing to attend the same end-of-the-year blowout. The events of the day, beginning in the afternoon, are revealed through the eyes of a dozen or so narrators, each with a different reason for attending the evening's party: Some see the event as a chance to hook up, others to let go and one or two see it is a final chance to fit in before the school year ends. Most of the book feels, largely, like an homage to any number of films aimed at teenagers (Dazed and Confused comes to mind), but Leveen manages to bring the tension up a few notches as it becomes clear that these characters' paths are going to cross in a startling way.

The author skillfully writes from multiple perspectives, giving each character a distinct voice. While not terribly original, the novel is a safe bet to have widespread appeal: I would recommend it to both guys and girls looking for stylish, realistic teen fiction. - Nick (Downtown)

Book Review: The Girl Who Became a Beatle

Meet Regina, the protagonist of The Girl Who Became a Beatle and teenage frontwoman of a Beatles cover band, the Caverns. The band is the center of Regina’s life and when they break up, Regina does what any teenager would do: she wishes she were someone else. Regina soon finds herself fronting the most famous band in the world: a world in which the Beatles never existed; a world in which she owns the entire Beatles songbook. While Regina initially embraces her new role in the universe, she quickly comes to realize the drawbacks of fame and being considered a genius, especially when that genius actually belongs to someone else.

Author Greg Taylor keeps the pace fast and the prose simple, making The Girl Who Became a Beatle a good read for late middle-schoolers and high-schoolers alike, not to mention any Beatle fanatic who would enjoy every clever nod to the Fab Four’s career. - Nick (Downtown)

Book Review: Dust of 100 Dogs

Somewhere in the 17-century Caribbean, just as she is about to escape with her true love, feared pirate Emer Morrisey is murdered and mysteriously cursed with the “dust of one hundred dogs.” Three hundred years later, teenager Saffron Adams agonizes over disappointing her overbearing parents with the news that she does not intend to go to college; after all, it would be unreasonable to expect them to understand her desire to seek out buried treasure (much less her desire to torture every typical teenager she encounters). The reader soon learns that Emer is destined to live the lives of one hundred dogs before returning to this world in human form, as Saffron. The Dust of 100 Dogs, by A.S. King, follows the lives of cynical Saffron and (initially) naive Emer in alternating chapters interspersed with anecdotes about what can be learned from living as a dog. The result is a highly original and entertaining YA novel that should appeal to fans of fantasy, historical fiction and more typical young adult “problem” fiction.

In January, 2011, A.S. King was awarded a Printz honor for her most recent novel, Please Ignore Vera Dietz. - Nick (Downtown)