Suspense
Code of Honor by Alan Gratz
Kamran Smith has it all. He's the star of the football team, dates the most popular girl in school, and can't wait to enlist in the Army like his big brother, Darius. Although Kamran's family hails from Iran, Kamran has always felt 100% American. Accepted.
And then everything implodes.
Darius is accused of being a terrorist. Kamran refuses to believe it, but the evidence is there — Darius has been filmed making threats against his country, hinting at an upcoming deadly attack. Kamran's friends turn on him — suddenly, in their eyes, he's a terrorist, too.
Kamran knows it's up to him to clear his brother's name. In a race against time, Kamran must piece together a series of clues and codes that will lead him to Darius — and the truth.
But is it a truth Kamran is ready to face? And is he putting his own life at risk?
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Romance
Dream Things True by Marie Marquardt
What did it mean to be free, she wondered, when she lived in constant fear that the people she loved would go to jail?
Evan and Alma have spent fifteen years living in the same town, connected in a dozen different ways but also living worlds apart – until the day he jumps into her dad's truck and slams on the brakes.
The nephew of a senator, Evan seems to have it all – except a functional family. Alma has lived in Georgia since she was two, surrounded by a large, sometimes smothering, Mexican family. They both want out of this town. His one-way ticket is soccer; hers is academic success.
When the two fall in love, they fall hard, trying to ignore their differences. Then Immigration and Customs Enforcement begins raids in their town, and Alma knows that she needs to share her secret. But how will she tell her country-club boyfriend that she and almost everyone she's close to are undocumented immigrants?
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Fantasy
Throne of Glass Series by Sarah J. Maas
When magic has gone from the world, and a vicious king rules from his throne of glass, an assassin comes to the castle. She does not come to kill, but to win her freedom. If she can defeat twenty-three killers, thieves, and warriors in a competition to find the greatest assassin in the land, she will become the king's champion and be released from prison. Her name is Celaena Sardothien. The Crown Prince will provoke her. The Captain of the Guard will protect her. And a princess from a foreign land will become the one thing she never thought she'd have again: a friend. But something evil dwells in the castle–and it's there to kill. When her competitors start dying, horribly, one by one, Celaena's fight for freedom becomes a fight for survival, and a desperate quest to root out the source of the evil before it destroys her world.
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The series continues in the following volumes:
Alternative History – Fantasy
When HMS Reliant captures a French frigate and seizes its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon egg, fate sweeps Capt. Will Laurence from his seafaring life into an uncertain future – and an unexpected kinship with a most extraordinary creature. Thrust into the rarified world of the Aerial Corps as master of the dragon Temeraire, he will face a crash course in the daring tactics of airborne battle. For as France's own dragon-borne forces rally to breach British soil in Bonaparte's boldest gambit, Laurence and Temeraire must soar into their own baptism of fire.
Book one in the Termeraire series by Naomi Novik.
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Romance
Bright Lights, Dark Nights by Stephen Emond
Walter Wilcox has never been in love. He just wants to finish high school under the radar with his 2.5 friends and zero drama. And then there's Naomi Mills, an adorably awkward harpist with a habit of saying the wrong thing at the right time.
It's inevitable that they're going to get together . . . but they're also on the unavoidable path to being torn apart.
When Walter's cop dad is caught in a racial profiling scandal, Walter and Naomi, who is African American, are called out at school, home and online. Can their bond (and mutual love of the Foo Fighters) keep them together?
It's a story about first love, first fights, and finding yourself in a messed up world, from the acclaimed author of Happyface.
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Military, Science, Nonfiction
Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War by Mary Roach
Take a tour of duty with Roach, and you'll never see our nation's defenders in the same way again!
Grunt tackles the science behind some of a soldier's most challenging adversaries – panic, exhaustion, heat, noise – and introduces us to the scientists who seek to conquer them.
Mary Roach dodges hostile fire with the US Marine Corps Paintball Team as part of a study on hearing loss and survivability in combat. She visits the fashion design studio of US Army Natick Labs and leans why a zipper is a problem for a sniper. She visits a repurposed movie studio where amputee actors help prepare Marine Corps medics for the shock and gore of combat wounds. At Camp Lemonnier, Djibouti, in east Africa, we learn how diarrhea can be a threat to national security.
The author samples caffeinated meat, sniffs an archival sample of a World War II stink bomb, and stays up all night with the crew tending the missiles on the nuclear submarine USS Tennessee. She answers questions not found in any other book on the military: Why is DARPA interested in ducks? How is a wedding gown like a bomb suit? Why are shrimp more dangerous to sailors than sharks?
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Science Fiction
The Uplift Novels by David Brin
David Brin is a Hugo and Nebula award winning science fiction author. His Uplift series is set in a future world where humans have been joined by genetically enhanced dolphins and chimps as they explore a universe full of superior alien races, many hostile to those from Earth.
Sundiver
In all the universe, no species has ever reached for the stars without the guidance of an alien patron – except perhaps humans. Circling the sun, in the caverns of Mercury, Expedition Sundiver prepares for a journey into the broiling inferno of the sun to find out more about humans' place in the cosmic order. But mysterious ghosts and murderous passengers threaten the ship's mission.
Startide Rising
The Terran exploration vessel Streaker has crashed on the uncharted water world of Kithrup, bearing one of the most important discoveries in galactic history. Above, in space, armadas of alien races clash in a titanic struggle to claim her. Below, a handful of her human and dolphin crew battles armed rebellion and a hostile planet to safeguard her secret – the fate of the Progenitors, the fabled First Race who seeded wisdom throughout the stars.
The Uplift War
As galactic armadas clash in quest of the ancient fleet of the Progenitors, a brutal alien race seizes the dying planet of Garth. The various uplifted inhabitants of Garth must battle their overlords or face ultimate extinction. At stake is the existence of Terran society and Earth, and the fate of the entire Five Galaxies.
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Memoir
On Two Feet and Wings by Abbas Kazerooni
Abbas Kazerooni is not yet ten when, during the Iran-Iraq War, her is forced to leave his parents, his friends – his entire world – and flee from Tehran.
On his own in the often frightening city of Istanbul, Abbas grows up fast with little more than his wits to guide him. Here, in a city where he doesn't speak the language, he must determine who is a friend and who is an enemy, walking a tightrope of survival.
His quick thinking, entrepreneurial spirit, and the unexpected kindness of of strangers allow him to make the best of his dire situation in surprising ways. But does he have what it takes to achieve his parents' ultimate dream for him: a visa to England – and safety?
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Friendship, Teen Life
Goldfish by Nat Luurtsema
I am Lou Brown
Social outcast, precocious failure.
5' 10" and still growing.
I was on the fast track to Olympic Superstardom.
Now, I'm training boys too cool to talk to me.
In a sport I just made up.
In a fish tank.
My life has quickly become very weird.
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The Trouble in Me by Jack Gantos
This fiery autobiographical novel captures a pivotal week or two in the life of fourteen-year-old Jack Gantos, as the author reveals the moment he began to slide off track as a kid who in just a few years would find himself locked up in a federal penitentiary for the crimes portrayed in the memoir Hole in My Life . Set in the Fort Lauderdale neighborhood of his family's latest rental home, The Trouble in Me opens with an explosive encounter in which Jack first meets his awesomely rebellious older neighbor, Gary Pagoda, just back from juvie for car theft. Instantly mesmerized, Jack decides he will do whatever it takes to be like Gary. As a follower, Jack is eager to leave his old self behind, and desperate for whatever crazy, hilarious, frightening thing might happen next. But he may not be as ready as he thinks when the trouble in him comes blazing to life.
This book is the prequel to Hole in My Life, Gantos' story of the events in his life that result in his time in federal prison.
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Teen Life
Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner
Brynn has been writing – but never sending – emails to Rachel Maddow about personal problems for a long time, about her brother's death, her awful stepfather, and why she is thinking about dropping out of school.
When she's confronted with a moral dilemma in the form of an ex and an archnemisis, she has to ask herself: What Would Rachel Maddow Do?
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Winter by Marissa Meyer
The Lunar Chronicles' final chapter is the story of Winter, the scared princess whose beauty rivals that of her stepmother, the Queen.
Winter despises her stepmother, and has been undermining her wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that's been raging for far too long.
Other titles in the series:
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Biography – History
Lincoln's Spymaster: Allan Pinkerton, America's First Private Eye by Samantha Seiple
Without Allan Pinkerton, Abraham Lincoln might never have made it to the presidency. This story highlights Pinkerton's efforts to uncover the details of an assassination plot designed to stop the newly elected Lincoln from ever taking office, as well as the detective's other adventures as America's first private eye.
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Mental Illness, Teen Life
Challenger Deep by Neal Shusterman
Caden Bosch is on a ship that's headed for the deepest point on Earth: Challenger Deep, the southern part of the Marianas Trench.
Caden Bosch is a brilliant high school student whose friends are starting to notice his odd behavior.
Caden Bosch is designated the ship's artist in residence, to document the journey with images.
Caden Bosch pretends to join the school track team but spends his days walking for miles, absorbed by the thoughts in his head.
Caden Bosch is split between his allegiance to the captain and the allure of mutiny.
Caden Bosch is torn.
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Diamond Boy by Michael Williams
My father says that a journey should always change your life in some way. Well, when you have nothing, I suppose a journey promises everything.
"Diamonds for everyone." That's what fifteen-year-old Patson Moyo hears when his family arrives in the Marange diamond fields. Soon Patson is working in the mines along with four friends, pooling their profits for a chance at a better life. Each of them hopes to find a girazi , a priceless stone that could change their circumstances forever. But when the government's soldiers come to Marange, Patson's world is shattered.
Set against the backdrop of Zimbabwe's brutal recent history, Diamond Boy is the story of a young man who succumbs to greed but finds his way out through a transformative journey to South Africa in search of his missing sister, in search of freedom, and in search of himself. A high-stakes, harrowing adventure in the blood-diamond fields of southern Africa.
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The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
Felicity Montague is through with pretending she prefers society parties to books about bonesetting – or that she's not smarter than most people she knows.
Felicity has returned to from a whirlwind tour of Europe spent evading highwaymen and pirates. She has two goals in mind – avoid marriage with a persistent suitor and enroll in medical school. But the administrators who see men as the sole guardians of science thwart her second goal, requiring a trip to Germany where a more forward thinking physician might be willing to take her on.
But making the trip involves impersonations and secrets that threaten not just her plans but her life.
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Dystopia, Short Stories
UnBound by Neal Shusterman
Set in the world of the UnWind Dystology, this collection of short stories by author Neal Shusterman shares more of what happens to Connor, Risa, and Lev after the destruction of the Proactive Citizenry. Will they be able to live freely in a peaceful future? Or will the dark forces of society that found it acceptable to "unwind" out-of-control teens by using them as transplant sources rise again? Find out what is left for those once destined to be unwound.
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Romance, Supernatural
Every Day and Another Day by David Levithan
These two books tell the same story from two different perspectives.
In Every Day, A wakes each moring in a different person's body, a different person's life. There is never any warning about where it will be or who it will be. A has made peace with that, even established guidelines by which to live:
Never get too attached.
Avoid being noticed.
Do not interfere.
It's all fine until the morning that A wakes up in the body of Justin and meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon. From that moment, the rules by which A has been living no longer apply. Because finally A has found someone to love – day in, day out, day after day.
* * *
Rhiannon's side of the story is told in Another Day. For Rhiannon, every day is the same. She has accepted her life, convinced herself that she deserves her distant, temperamental boyfriend, Justin, even established guidleines by which to live:
Don't be too needy.
Avoid upsetting him.
Never get your hopes up.
Until the morning everything changes. Justin seems to see her, to want to be with her for the first time, and they share a perfect day – a perfect day Justin doesn't seem to remember the next morning. Confused, depressed, and desperate for another day as great as that one, Rhiannon starts questioning everything. Then one day, a stranger tells her that the Justin she spent that day with, the one who made her feel like a real person . . . wasn't Justin at all.
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Memoir
Hidden Girl: The True Story of a Modern-Day Child Slave by Shyima Hall
Shyima Hall was eight years old when her parents sold her into domestic slavery.
One of eleven children, Shyima lived with her family in poverty in Egypt. When an older sister, a domestic servant in Cairo, was dismissed from her job for stealing, Shyima's parents made a deal with her sister's employers. In order to repay the debt, Shyima would take her sister's place.
This began Shyima's life as a slave. Her captors, a wealthy couple, referred to Shyima only as "stupid girl" and forced her to wait hand and foot on their family. Any money she was paid for her work went directly to her parents, with whom she had very little contact. Two years into her bondage, Shyima's captors moved to the United States, and illegally trafficked Shyima in with them, keeping her enslaved.
This is Shyima's harrowing true story of life as a child slave, and her long, inspiring road to freedom.
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Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent white father, Michael, who is being released from prison; his grandfather Big Joseph, who won't acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his uncle, Given, who died as a teenager.
When his father is released from prison, Jojo's mother packs her kids and a friend into her car and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and and Parchman Farm, the state penitentiary. At Parchman, there is another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He, too, has something to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about love.
In Jesmyn Ward's first novel since her National Book Award-winning Salvage the Bones, she brings the archetypal road novel into rural twenty-first century America.
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Friendship, Loss, Violence
The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis
Alex Craft knows how to kill someone. And she doesn't feel bad about it. When her older sister, Anna, was murdered three years ago and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best. The language of violence. While her crime goes unpunished, she relegates herself to the shadows, unremarkable in the high school hallways.
But Jack sees her, and so does Peekay. Their lives are set on a collision course that will change them forever.
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Very in Pieces by Megan Frazer Blakemore
A straight-A student in a family of free-spirited artists must face the hard truths about those she loves most. Very has always been the dependable, responsible one–until her grandmother becomes terminally ill, causing all of the pieces of Very's once-structured life to come crashing down. Now she's cast aside her steady boyfriend and started an unexpected fling with Dominic, a rebellious art student with a bad reputation. Things at home have also taken a turn. Very's mother drinks all day, her father is never around, and her sister Ramona is constantly skipping school. And that's when the sculpture appears. Out of nowhere, a bottle cap design starts climbing up the stucco walls of the Sayles-Woodruff house, mysteriously growing by the day. With her grandmother nearing death and things heating up with Dominic, Very is tired of always being the responsible one. If everything else can fall to pieces, why can't she?
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Family relationships
Gem & Dixie by Sara Zarr
Gem has never know what it is to have security. She's never known an adult she can truly rely on. But the one constant in her life has been Dixie. Gem grew up taking care of her her sister when no one else could: not their mother, whose issues make it hard for her to keep food on the table, and definitely not their father, whose intermittent presence is the only thing worse than than his frequent absence.
When their dad returns home for the first time in years and tries to insert himself back into their lives, Gem finds herself with an unexpected opportunity: three days with Dixie, on their own in Seattle and beyond.
But this short trip soon becomes something more, as Gem discovers that to save herself, she may have to sever the one bond she's tried so hard to keep.
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Mystery
Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig
His girlfriend has disappeared.
How can he uncover her secrets without revealing his own?
Flynn's girlfriend, January, is missing. The cops are asking questions he can't answer, and her friends are telling stories that don't add up. All eyes are on Flynn — as January's boyfriend, he must know something.
But Flynn has a secret of his own. And as he struggles to uncover the truth about January's dasappearance, he must also face the turth about himself.
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Nonfiction
Bella Alexander provided this student review of the non-fiction memoir Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich.
Fickle and Timed
What is there to do when the living wage can’t actually be lived on? For most working Americans, it’s finding ways to cut back, even if that means making the decision between paying the rent or feeding their children. But for Barbara Ehrenreich, author of Nickel and Dimed, it resulted in a whole lot of complaining, some relatively minor stress, and an eventual return to her cushy upper middle class life. This book had an intended message that I found to be quite powerful, that is, the wages around the country that we expect working Americans to survive on, even utilize to pull themselves out of poverty, are extremely inadequate. However, although I commend Ehrenreich’s efforts regarding her going out and attempting to experience the life of a wage slave-might I add, when the economy was perhaps a better place for minimum wage workers than it is now-her writing style continually exuded a very detached, almost “holier-than-thou” perspective on what she went through. Even though Ehrenreich and I walked away with the intended message of her toils, what stood out to me more than the purpose of the composition itself was the attitude of upper class citizens towards those lower than them on the socio-economic ladder, represented by the subtle quips and snarky comments made throughout the book. Ehrenreich was set on proving that the living wage is not livable. That is what she accomplished. But in my mind, Nickel and Dimed is not only a testament to how skewed our take on the minimum wage really is, but also a testament to the bias that the wealthy have towards the poor and the severity of social stratification between classes in our country, as told by someone who embodies the aforementioned phenomenon.
In Nickel and Dimed, Ehrenreich embarks on a mission to prove that the minimum wage simply isn’t enough. From serving in Florida to scrubbing in Maine to selling in Minnesota, we follow Ehrenreich on her pilgrimage through the life of a working class citizen and are with her as she experiences almost first hand the struggles and realities of situations simulated by her own. She pays special mind to the documentation, analysis, and observation of people she encounters throughout her brief time making it in the world of the working, and overall comes away with a reinforced understanding that the living wage is truly unlivable.
Ehrenreich makes it clear within the first few pages of her memoir that she did not want to do this experiment, stating that it was meant for “someone younger” than herself, “some neophyte journalist with time on her hands.” It is with this sentiment that Nickel and Dimed begins, and also with this sentiment that the entire book is written. Ehrenreich gets a taste, similar in fashion to how a child who does not like broccoli tastes broccoli, of the life of a working class citizen. Despite setting rules for herself regarding finances, jobs, and housing, she self-admittedly smashes each of these rules to pieces at one point or another, sometimes even more than once, which in my mind all but demolishes the scientific validity of her experience, which is ironic because she out rightly states in the beginning of her book that she wanted to make this as scientific an experiment as possible, and this is fitting that she should want this, I suppose, as she does have a PhD in biology that she refuses to let the reader forget.
In addition, Ehrenreich’s writing is chalk full of contradictions. For example, she states "The 'working poor' are in fact the major philanthropists of our society. They neglect their own children so that the children of others will be cared for; they live in substandard housing so that other homes will be shiny and perfect; they endure privation so that inflation will be low and stock prices high. To be a member of the working poor is to be an anonymous donor, a nameless benefactor to everyone else." However, she still, in my mind, fails to fully grasp this concept herself while she continually resents and reproaches all those who she was forced to serve. Another flaw within Ehrenreich’s writing is her at times too humanitarian based actions, as if she were some savior come to rescue her lower class work mates from their depths of despair, as when she was working at WalMart and talked with a fellow employee about improving their situation that perhaps they could have done it had she been able to afford working there any longer.
All in all, Ehrenreich is very aware that she has no place or right to be telling this type of story from the perspective of people she will never fully understand because she chooses not to. Her brief escapade into the world of the working poor was limited in both will and true insight, therefore making her personal experiences essentially irrelevant. However, despite her nauseating personality and upper class slander, the point was delivered with some rather valuable content to accompany it.
There is a saying that goes something like, “Don’t judge someone till you’ve walked a mile in their shoes.” In Ehrenreich’s case, she reluctantly decided to make the tumultuous journey into the world of the poor in their beat up sneakers, shuffled along for several steps or so, decided that her feet hurt too much and that the shoes were ugly, then sprinted back to her cushy life. If this attitude is commendable in our society, save for the overall message which in my mind could have been portrayed almost as effectively from behind a desk considering the overall invalidity of Ehrenreich’s little adventure, then what really is there to do for those trying to get by on the living wage that clearly can’t be lived on? If they’re not Barbara Ehrenreich, all there is to do is survive.
Memoir
Rock 'N' Roll Soldier by Dean Ellis Kohler
During a time when none of us knew for sure if we would live or die, I came to know the true power of music.​
Dean Kohler is about to make it big–he's finally scored a national record deal! But his dreams are abruptly put on hold by the arrival of his draft notice. Now he's in Qui Nhon, Vietnam, serving as a military policeman.
He keeps telling himself he's a musician, not a killer, and that he's lucky he's not fighting on the front lines. When Captain orders him to form a rock band, it's up to Dean to find instruments and players, pronto. Ingenuity and perseverance pay off and soon the band is traveling through treacherous jungle terrain to perform for troops in desperate need of an escape–even if it's only for three sets.
And for Dean–who lives with death, violence, and the fear that anyone could be a potential spy (even his Vietnamese girlfriend)–the band becomes the one thing that gets him through the day. During one of the most controversial wars in recent American history, this incredible true story is about music and camaraderie in the midst of chaos.
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Teen Life, Grief/Loss
The Five Stages of Andrew Brawley by Shaun David Hutchinson
Andrew Brawlely was supposed to die that night. His parents did, and so did his sister, but he survived.
Now he lives in the hospital. He serves food in the cafeteria, he hangs out with the nurses, and he sleeps in a forgotten supply closet. Drew is in hiding from his past, his guilt, and those who are trying to find him.
Then one night a boy named Rusty is wheeled into the ER, burned on half his body by hateful classmates. His agony calls out to Drew like a beacon, pulling them together through all their pain. In Rusty, Drew sees hope, and a future.
But Drew knows that life is never that simple. Death roams the hospital, searching for Drew, and now Rusy. Drew lost his family, but he refuses to lose Rusty, too, so he's determined to bargain with Death and settle his debts once and for all. But Death is not easily placated, and Drew's life will have to get worse before there is any chance for things to get better.
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Nemesis by Brendan Reichs
It has been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown – alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the horrifying crime erased.
On her sixteenth birthday, as she cowers in her bedroom, hoping not to die for the fifth time, Min has had enough.
Across the valley, Noah just wants to be like everyone else. But he's not. Nightmares of murder and death plague him, though he does his best to hide the signs. But when the world around him begins to spiral toward panic and destruction, Noah discovers that people have been lying to him his whole life.
For the planet has a bigger problem – an enormous asteroid threatening all life on Earth.
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Graphic Novel, Teen Life
Original Fake – written by Kirstin Cronn-Mills, with art by E. Eero Johnson
A tale for anyone who's ever felt invisible.
An escalating sibling rivalry train wrecks and vengeance is a street-art act of war in this illustrated novel.
Frankie Neumann's always felt like the black sheep of his family. compared to his tutuwearing nightmare of a sister and his parents, Bridget and Brett – Frank sinatra and Dr. Frank-N-Furter impersonators – he's the odd man out in a very odd family. He's the introvert nobody ever sees.
But Frankie's got his own secret artistic aspirations, and they're about to get him swept up in the art adventure of a lifetime.
When Frankie's approached by David and Rory, cousins and errand runners for the notorious and anonymous street artist Uncle Epic, they make him the offer of his dreams, giving him the chance to strike back at his sister and to hang out with the hottest girl in school.
But soon, the lines between art and real life start to blur, and Frankie has to find a way to rein in the chaos before things spiral out of control.
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Historical Fiction – Mystery
The Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries by Lindsey Davis
Ancient Rome under the rule of Emperor Vespasian is a dangerous place for Marcus Didius Falco, a private investigator with a knack for trouble, a tendency for bad luck, and a frequently incovenient drive for justice.
Book 1 – The Silver Pigs
Marcus Didius Falco encounters the young and very pretty Sosia Camillina in the Forum and senses immediately that there is something amiss. When she confesses that she is fleeing for her life, Falco offers to help her and, in doing so, he gets himself mixed up in a deadly plot involving stolen ingots, dangerous and dark political machinations, and, most hazardous of all, one Helena Justina, a brash senator's daughter connected to the very traitors that Falco has sworn to expose.
Book 2 – Shadows in Bronze
Informer and occasional imperial agent Marcus Didius Falco is miserable. The high-born woman he fell in love with, Helena Justina, has broken off their stormy, impossible affair. So when Emperor Vespasian assigns Falco a task that will take him out of Rome, he can't wait. Disguised as vacationer in the company of his comrade Petronius Longus, captain of the Aventine Watch, Falco travels south to Neapolis, Capreae and Pompeii where he discovers a conspiracy involving the Egyptian grain shipment to Rome. He also stumbles across Helena Justina, conveniently also on a trip out of town, who might, unwittingly, be enmeshed in this dangerous, treasonous scheme.
Book 3 – Venus in Copper
Marcus Didius Falco is deperate to leave the notorious Lautumiae prison – though being bailed out by his mother is a slight indignity… Things go from bad to worse though when a group of nouveau riche ex-slaves hire him to outwit a fortune-hunting redhead, whose husbands have a habit of dying accidently, leaving him up against a female contortionist, her extra-friendly snake, indigestible cakes and rent racketeers. And, all the while, trying to lure Helena Justina to live with him, a dangerous proposition given the notorius instability of Roman real estate.
Book 4 – The Iron Hand of Mars
When Germanic troops in the service of the Empire begin to rebel, and a Roman general disappears, Emperor Vespasian turns to the one man he can trust: Marcus Didius Falco, a private informer whose rates are low enough that even the stingy Vespasian is willing to pay them. To Falco, an undercover tour of Germania is an assignment from Hades. On a journey that only a stoic could survive, Falco meets with disarray, torture, and murder. His one hope: in the northern forest lives a powerful Druid priestess who perhaps can be persuaded to cease her anti-Rome activities and work for peace.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Memoir
Jeffrey Liao provided this student review of the non-fiction memoir Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard.
Scratch Beginnings
If you’re a teenager who is wondering what it’s like to be poor, read this book.
If you’re a liberal and believe the American Dream doesn’t exist, read this book.
If you’re a conservative and believe the homeless are just lazy, read this book.
If you haven’t heard or read Scratch Beginnings by Adam Shepard, you’re missing out.
Shepard’s memoir of his journey from “rags-to-fancier-rags” is a very enlightening book that I, admittedly, had trouble putting down.
Will you receive cultural insider knowledge on how the other half lives after reading this book?
Yes. Will you become a financial guru? Probably not. The point is, the purpose of this book is to prove two things: 1) that the American Dream does exist. 2) People who complain about what they don’t have are just whiners.
The book begins with Shepard providing context to his little social experiment. He states the motivation behind his wanting to do this (which was to prove the American Dream does exist), and how he made sure his experiment was controlled and unbiased. He chose a random city, only took an initial amount of $25 to spend, a sleeping bag and the clothes on his back. He establishes that his goal is to get a place to live in, own a car, and become a regular citizen of society, all within a year. Shepard then takes the train to Charleston, where he soon finds a homeless shelter called Crisis Ministries, but not before having several tense encounters with homeless people. At Crisis Ministries, he’s able to get a job, however, it pays very little, and it isn’t even a secure job (as every day is a new job somewhere else). While he still looks for ways to get closer to achieving his goal, he starts to form friendships with the people at Crisis Ministries, often hanging out with them and watching movies together. He discovers more about the personal lives of the homeless, and how they ended up in their poor situation.
As Adam progresses, it is very interesting to see how his attitude changes. See, in the beginning, Adam was absolutely determined to keep a low profile. He did not want to attract attention to himself, either by fighting or doing something illegal. However, after he finishes a stressful and abusive shift at a clothing store, he gets tired of Planet Plump’s (the manager of the store) mistreatment of Adam and his friends and decides to confront her. He transitioned from a very cautious man to a person who just did not care anymore. Adam wanted to just be himself.
Later, Adam discovers that he has a solid opportunity to land himself a job at a carwash, but declines since the wage was slightly smaller than he had wanted. Still though, it was a significant step towards official employment. In the end, he does get hired as a mover for furniture, and considered himself lucky that he got paired with “one of the best movers on the planet.”
In the end, Shepard succeeds in finding a secure job, a place to live, and fitting into society. He also accomplishes more than that, and in lesser time than he had expected.
So, with that summary in mind, I think that Adam’s journey to find the American Dream was very fruitful and was filled with revelations. It may have had its flaws, as Adam himself points out in his book, but I believe that while he may have gotten lucky at times, his story cannot just be ignored. It does have a lot of merits. He did as much as he could to keep his experiment random and as close to a regular homeless man’s situation as possible. And yet, he was still able to get a job and home in less than a year. In general, I recommend this book for anyone. The American Dream theme relates to everyone in different aspects. Like I said at the beginning of this review: If you think the American Dream does not exist, read this book. Adam provides a relatively concrete case that the A.D. is within America’s reach. You will be thoroughly intrigued by how he got so far with so little. If you’re a conservative who believes homeless people just can’t get a job because they’re lazy, you will be surprised when you read how much Adam’s homeless friends eagerly talk about getting a job. You will discover that they don’t spend all their money on drugs. Some of them were just a victim of circumstance.
This book is certainly comparable to Ehrenrich’s Nickel and Dimed, where she concludes that the American Dream does not exist. Adam’s purpose, as he stated in the beginning of his book, was to prove her wrong, essentially serving as a rebuttal to her book. These two authors were people who were trying to discover if the illusive America Dream truly existed. Personally, I think that Adam has a better argument, since his process of starting low and coming out high was a lot more controlled and more realistic than that of Ehrenrich, who allowed herself to use her credit card. Ehrenrich didn’t really have a consistent, legitimate process, so I do not believe her conclusion is supported by her experiment.
But that is all just my opinion. Everyone has their opinions. For me, Adam’s book made quite an impact on how I see the unfortunate victims of circumstance, who are out there in the world, trying to become better people but just can’t seem to find the right chances to do so. Adam has also boosted my confidence that the American Dream could actually be tangible, if not already tangible. Therefore, after considering that he started out with so little, and came out with a lot, I proudly give this book a 4 out of 5 stars.
Mystery
Who Killed Christopher Goodman? by Allan Wolf
Everybody likes Chris Goodman.
Sure, he's kind of weird. He wears those crazy bell-bottoms and he really likes the word ennui and he shakes your hand when he meets you, but he's the kind of guy who is always up for a good time and is happy to lend a hand. Everybody likes Chris Goodman, which is why it's so shocking when he is murdered.
A multi-voiced narrative that includes the perspective of the killer and is inspired by a true and shocking crime from the author's own past, the book endeavors to answer the first question that comes to mind in moments of unthinkable tragedy:
How could a thing like this happen?
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Biography
Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross
For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die — Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter.
Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak — and his identity — and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom — wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price . . .
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Teen Life
We Are the Ants by Shaun David Hutchinson
Henry Denton has 144 days to save the world.
Henry Denton knows his family is struggling to stay together. He knows his boyfriend committed suicide last year. What Henry doesn't know is why the aliens chose to abduct him when he was thirteen, and why they keep coming back to take him again. Henry is informed by his erstwhile captors that they will end the world in 144 days unless he stops them by deciding that humanity is worth saving.
The problem is, Henry isn't sure if he wants to save the world.
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Memoir, CHS Author
Aspergers and Other Superpowers; The Autobiography of an Oddly Blessed (and Cursed) Child by Maximillian Marciel
A memoir written by a graduate of CHS about his experiences growing up in Hawaii, in Camas, and with Asperger's.
What awaits the curious reader who ventures into these strange pages is a coming-of-age sort of thing – a story about a young boy and his mental disability, Asperger's Syndrome. It can be sad at times, and perhaps happy at others, but I at least guarantee that it will somewhat entertain you. But hey, who am I to judge? See for yourself, you crazy animal.
– Maximillian Marciel
Graphic Memoir
Tomoby: A Graphic Memoir by Liz Prince
Liz Prince tells gender norms to eat dirt
Growing up, Liz Prince wasn't a girly girl, dressing in pink tutus or playing Pretty Pretty princess like the other girls in her neighborhood. But she wasn't exactly one of the guys either, as she quickly learned when her Little League baseball coach exiled her to the outfield instead of letting her take the pitcher's mound. Liz was somewhere in the middle, and Tomboy is the story of her struggle to find the place where she belonged.
Tomboy is a graphic novel about refusing gender boundaries, yet unwittingly embracing gender stereotypes at the same time, and realizing later in life that you can be just as much of a girl in jeans and a T-shirt as you can in a pink tutu. A memoir told anecdotally, Tomboy follows author and zine artist Liz Prince through her early childhood into adulthood and explores her ever-evolving struggles and wishes regarding what it means to "be a girl." From staunchly refuting anything she perceived as being "girly" to the point of misogyny, to discovering through the punk community that your identity is whatever you make of it, regardless of your gender, Tomboy is as much humorous and honest as it is at points uncomfortable and heartbreaking.
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Author Terry Pratchett, who died in 2015, chose an unusual method of ensuring his unpublished novels would remain unpublished.
Mental Illness, Teen Suicide
A World Without You by Beth Revis
Seventeen-year-old Bo has always had delusions that he can travel through time. When he was ten, Bo claimed to have witnessed the Titanic hit an iceberg, and at fifteen, he found himself on a Civil War battlefield, horrified by the bodies surrounding him. So when his worried parents send him to a school for troubled youth, Bo assumes he knows the truth: that he's actually attending Berkshire Academy, a school for kids who, like Bo, have "superpowers."
At the academy, Bo falls in love with Sofia, a quiet girl with a a tragic past and the superpower of invisibility. But even the strength of their love isn't enough to help Sofia escape her deep depression. After she commits suicide, Bo is convinced that she's not actually dead, that she's stuck somewhere in time – that he has somehow left her in the past, and that now it's his job to save her.
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Teen Life, Friendship
The Incredible Adventures of Cinnamon Girl by Melisa Keil
Alba loves her life living behind the bakery and waking up in a cloud of sugar and cinnamon, drawing comics and watching bad TV with her friends.
But high school has officially ended and everyone else seems to be making plans to move on. Meanwhile, a long gone guy has reappeared, her best friend is going off the rails, and her latest comic book creation is misbehaving.
Also, the world might be ending. Awkward.
Alba's life has been upended, and Armageddon might turn out to be the least of her problems.
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Graphic Memoir
Prison Island by Colleen Frakes
The story of a perfectly ordinary childhood in a perfectly extraordinary place.
McNeil Island in Washington state was the home of the last prison island in the US, accessible only by air or sea. It was also home to about fifty families, including Colleen Frakes's. In this graphic memoir, Colleen tells her story of growing up on McNeil Island, where regular teenage activities like ordering a pizza or going to the movies became extremely complicated endeavors, and the small-town dynamics were amplified by living on the edge of a prison, in an isolated place where if you broke a rule, your family could be kicked off the island.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Renegades by Marissa Meyer
The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies – humans with extraordinary abilities – who emerged from the ruins of a rumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone . . . except the villains they once overthrew.
Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adreian, a REnegade boy who believes in justice, and in Nova. But Nova's allegiance is to a villain who has the power to end them both.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Supernatural Horror
The Suffering by Rin Chupeco
Not all that is lost should be found . . .
Seventeen-year-old Tark knows what it is to be powerless. But Okiku changed that. A restless spirit who ended life as a victim and started death as an avenger, she's groomed Tark to destroy the wicked. But when darkenss pulls them deep into Aokigahara, known as Japan's suicide forest, Okiku's justice becomes blurred, and Tark is the one who will pay the price.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Mystery – Fantasy
"Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps – gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever."
Eighteen-year-old Finn, an outsider in his quiet Midwestern town, is the only witness to the abduction of town favorite Roza. When she disappears, the people of Bone Gap aren't surprised. After all, it wasn't the first time. That's just how things go, they say.
Finn knows she was kidnapped, but no one believes him, and Finn's face blindness, which makes him unable to distinguish between faces, makes it difficult for him to help with the investigation, and subjects him to even more ridicule and bullying. Finding Roza means exploring the gaps between what is real and what is unseen, the gaps between worlds.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters.
Child Slavery, Fiction
Fifteen-year-old Amadou counts the things that matter. For two years what has mattered are the number of cacao pods he and his younger brother, Seydou, can chop down in a day. This number is very important. The higher the number the safer they are because the bosses won't beat them. The higher the number the closer they are to paying off their debt and returning home to Moke and Auntie. Maybe. The problem is Amadou doesn't know how much he and Seydou owe, and the bosses won't tell him.
The boys only wanted to make some money during the dry season to help their impoverished family. Instead they were tricked into forced labor on a plantation in the Ivory Coast; they spend day after day living on little food and harvesting beans in the hot sun–dangerous, backbreaking work. With no hope of escape, all they can do is try their best to stay alive–until Khadija comes into their lives.
She's the first girl who's ever come to camp, and she's a wild thing. She fights bravely every day, attempting escape again and again, reminding Amadou what it means to be free. But finally, the bosses break her, and what happens next to the brother he has always tried to protect almost breaks Amadou. The old impulse to run is suddenly awakened. The three band together as family and try just once more to escape.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters
Gender Identity, School Life
Symptoms of Being Human by Jeff Garvin
The first thing you're going to want to know about me is:
Am I a boy, or am I a girl
Riley Cavanaugh is many things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is . . . Riley isn't exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and having a congressman father running for reelection, the pressure — media and otherwise — is building up in Riley's so-called "normal" life.
Just settling in to a new school, and developing feelings for a mysterious outcast, Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell the truth of what it's really like to be a gender fluid teen. But the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter discover's Riley's real identity, threatening exposure.
Riley must make a choice: walk away from what the blog has created — a lifeline, new friends, a cause to believe in — or stand up, come out, and risk everything.
Want to know more? Use the Destiny Catalog to search for the title – click on the title and look for the Title Peek logo below the cover image to get more plot details, read reviews, and preview chapters
Jan 30
Running With Lions by Julian Winters
As the Lions' star goalie, Sebastian Hughes should be excited about his senior year: his teammates are amazing, and he's got a coach who doesn't ask anyone to hide their sexuality. But when an ex-best friend shows up at summer training camp, Sebastian realizes he needs to …
Jan 30
Dear Rachel Maddow by Adrienne Kisner
Brynn has been writing – but never sending – emails to Rachel Maddow about personal problems for a long time, about her brother's death, her awful stepfather, and why she is thinking about dropping out of school.
When she's confronted with a moral dilemma in …
Nov 19
A Blade So Black by L. L. McKinney
The first time a Nightmare came, Alice nearly lost her life. Now, with magic weapons and hard-core fighting skills, she battles these monstrous creatures in the dream realm known as Wonderland. Yet even warriors have curfews.
Life in real-world Atlanta isn't always so simple, as Alice …
Nov 19
The Lady's Guide to Petticoats and Piracy by Mackenzi Lee
Felicity Montague is through with pretending she prefers society parties to books about bonesetting – or that she's not smarter than most people she knows.
Felicity has returned to from a whirlwind tour of Europe spent evading highwaymen and pirates. She has …
Jan 08
Nemesis by Brendan Reichs
It has been happening since Min was eight. Every two years, on her birthday, a strange man finds her and murders her in cold blood. But hours later, she wakes up in a clearing just outside her tiny Idaho hometown – alone, unhurt, and with all evidence of the …
Jan 08
Renegades by Marissa Meyer
The Renegades are a syndicate of prodigies – humans with extraordinary abilities – who emerged from the ruins of a rumbled society and established peace and order where chaos reigned. As champions of justice, they remain a symbol of hope and courage to everyone . . . except the …
Jan 05
The Man Who Couldn't Stop: OCD and the True Story of a Life Lost in Thought by David Adam
What might lead a school girl to eat a wall of her house, piece by piece, or a man to die beneath an avalanche of household junk? . . . At what point …
Jan 05
Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
Jojo is thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He doesn't lack in fathers to study, chief among them his black grandfather, Pop. But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent white father, Michael, who is being …
Aug 30
Author Terry Pratchett, who died in 2015, chose an unusual method of ensuring his unpublished novels would remain unpublished.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/aug/30/terry-pratchett-unfinished-novels-destroyed-streamroller
Apr 27
Who Killed Christopher Goodman? by Allan Wolf
Everybody likes Chris Goodman.
Sure, he's kind of weird. He wears those crazy bell-bottoms and he really likes the word ennui and he shakes your hand when he meets you, but he's the kind of guy who is always up for a good time and …