Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott

Living Dead Girl By Elizabeth Scott
Published by Simon Pulse, 2008
Pages: 170
Genres: Kidnapping, Rape, Stockholm syndrome

Reviewed by Kate

Summery: Once upon a time, I was a little girl who disappeared.
Once upon a time, my name was not Alice.
Once upon a time, I didn’t know how lucky I was.

When Alice was ten, Ray took her away from her family, her friends her life. She learned to give up all power, to endure all pain. She waited for the nightmare to be over.
Now Alice is fifteen and Ray still has her, but he speaks more and more of her death. He does not know it is what she longs for. She does not know he has something more terrifying than death in mind for her.
This is Alice’s story. It is one you have never heard, and one you will never, ever forget.

Wow, this book was so dark and disturbing, yet so enlightening on a very serious subject. I'm a strong believer in knowledge and learning about things, I think it's very important to be knowledgeable about the world around us, even if it's a really bad dark thing that we do not want to know about, it's still important. This book is one of those books that I believe all "older" teens should read. This book was so well written. The writing flowed very well and the way Scott wrote her characters was truly amazing to me. I think that some of the hardest characters to write are characters like this, Alice, a kidnapped girl forced to be a victim in a sick sexual game and Ray, the sick sadistic man that kidnapped her. Now I'm not sure what went into writing these characters but I feel like they could easily been made not believable, not at all in the case of this book. I really felt Alice and her feelings, I started to understand better what goes into living with an abusive, especially sexually abusive, captor for years and why that "Alice" made the choices she made and felt the things she felt. Once Ray's story is told in the book it's understandable why he is the way he is, it is definitely wrong but you can see the events that lead up his decision to kidnap "Alice". Overall this book was amazingly written, it was a very dark and disturbing book but I would read it again. I really think that all older teens should read this, it does contain sexual references and implies sexual things but does not go into to much detail. It is weir but I actually felt dirty after finishing every time after I finished reading a part, I actually wanted to go wash my hands. I know it is weird but that's the feeling I had. This book is that impacting. A Definite read!

4.5 Kisses!

Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Second Review)

SPEAK (Platinum Edition)
By Laurie Halse Anderson
Publisher: Penguin Group, 2006
198 pages, paperback
Date Finished: 12/1/2011
Genres: Young Adult, Realistic Fiction, Coming of Age, Serioius Issues

Since the beginning of the school year, high school freshman Melinda has found that it's been getting harder and harder for her to speak out loud: "My throat is always sore, my lips raw.... Every time I try to talk to my parents or a teacher, I sputter or freeze.... It's like I have some kind of spastic laryngitis." What could have caused Melinda to suddenly fall mute? Could it be due to the fact that no one at school is speaking to her because she called the cops and got everyone busted at the seniors' big end-of-summer party? Or maybe it's because her parents' only form of communication is Post-It notes written on their way out the door to their nine-to-whenever jobs. While Melinda is bothered by these things, deep down she knows the real reason why she's been struck mute...
~from goodreads.com~

~First Line: "It is my first morning of high school."
~Last Line: " 'Let me tell you about it.' "

Review: WOW! I have to start off with that word. I absolutely love this novel, and I'm glad that I spent my birthday money on it. It truly was worth it.

The main character, Melinda, was my favorite; of course, like every favorite character, there's a few things I would change. Although I understand why she stayed quiet about the whole unfortunate deal, I still would have told someone what happened.

I would say no real adventure, some action that terrible night at the party, and one time later in the novel that I won't spoil. The characters were well-written. My least favorite character -- well, not my least favorite, just one I didn't like all that much -- was Heather. In the beginning I loved her; then she tried to get with the Marthas and began using Melinda. NOT a good friend. Not someone I would hang with once I caught on to the fact that she never talks to me until she needs my help.

Overall -- before I start spoiling -- I really LOVED this novel, and for those of you who haven't read it yet, you really need to!



Quotes from the Book:

"She wears black stockings with runs and doesn't shave under her arms. She waves her hand in the air and you find yourself thinking of young chimpanzees."

"The other guys run drills and pass in to him. Brendan reaches up a skinny octopus tentacle and casually drops the ball through the hoop. Our boys are unbeatable as long as they are the only team on the floor."

"[In middle school] To tell someone you liked them, you had to use layers and layers of friends, as in 'Janet told me to tell you that Steven told me that Dougie said Carom was talking to April and she hinted that Sara's brother Mark has a friend named Tony who might like you. What are you going to do?'
It is easier to floss with barbed wire than admit you like someone in middle school."

"When I was in the sixth grade, my mom bought me all these books about puberty and adolescence, so I would appreciate what a 'beautiful' and 'natural' and 'miraculous' transformation I was going through. Crap. That's what it is. She complains all the time about her hair turning gray and her butt sagging and her skin wrinkling, but I'm supposed to be grateful for a face full of zits, hair in embarrassing places, and feet that grow an inch a night. Utter crap."

Book Review: Impossible

Title: Impossible

Author: Nancy Werlin

Publisher: Speak (division of Penguin Group), 2009

Page total: 376

Date read: April 17th, 2010

Genre(s): Young Adult, (a little bit of) Urban Fantasy

Reviewed by Ginny

On the evening of Lucy Scarborough’s seventh birthday, after the biggest party the neighborhood had seen since, well, Lucy’s sixth birthday, Lucy got one last unexpected gift.

Lucy Scarborough is seventeen when she learns about the curse that lies in the Scarborough women. They are doomed to give birth to a baby -always a girl- at eighteen and then go mad. Lucy knows it from her mother - she, too, went crazy shortly after Lucy’s birth. Now Lucy’s living with foster parents who love her like their own daughter.

When Lucy gets pregnant, a result of being raped by seemingly shy and nice Gray Spencer, who died at the prom night he raped her, and when she discovers her birthmother’s diary, Lucy can’t help but wondering what a coincidence it must be that Lucy is pregnant at age of seventeen with no real father for the baby, just like it was for her mother when she got pregnant with seventeen.

In order to break the curse, Lucy must perform 3 seemingly impossible tasks:

1. Make a seamless shirt without needlework.

2. Find an acre of land between the salt water and the sea strand.

3. Plow that land with a goat’s horn and sow it all over with one grain of corn.

She has time until her baby is born; else she’ll get crazy just like her ancestors. But Lucy is not alone: She has her loving foster parents and childhood friend Zach - or is he just a childhood friend? Could there be more?

I have to say, I'd been a bit wary about reading this book because of the plot. I was worried it would be boring.

Then I opened this book and began to read.

And it was impossible to put down. This book deals with a problem that occurs often in the reality as well -teenage pregnancy-, and also about true love. Lucy is a strong heroine, nowhere near ready to give up and Zach is so caring and protective about her. This book held my attention until the very end, and I couldn’t hide my disappointment that showed up at my face, as I finished the book. But it has a nice ending, a mixture of happy and open end.

4.5 Kisses!

Quotes:

"When you first fall in love, it’s supposed to be awful. Awful, uncertain, scary, wonderful, confusing, all at once. That’s how you know it’s real. You have to care deeply. Passionately. That hurts."

"You’re having trouble being the one who takes, instead of the one who gives. I understand that. But, Lucy, you have to learn to accept. You’ve given plenty to me in the past. So now, you get to receive. From everybody in your life. It’s all right. It’s more than all right."

"What about Frederica?" Lucy mused. "There’d be so many nicknames to choose from. Freddy. Ricky. Reka. Don’t you think it’s pretty? Frederica! It’s so unusual." "Who says unusual is good?" Zach said. "Plus, it’s too long. How about Jenny or Annie? That way, she wouldn’t have the same trouble learning to write her name as, oh, you did. You wrote the letter ‘d’ backward through half of kindergarten. Lucinba."