By Marlow Tracy        I picked up My Best Friend’s Exorcism by Grady Hendrix in the library thinking it would be a pretty bad book but fun to read nonetheless. It turned out to be an awesome, eccentric horror novel full of detail and creepy descriptions. Bizarre things start to happen to the main character, Abigail Rivers, when her best friend Gretchen jumps into shallow water and disappears for a night. Abby already has her hands full managing her school, social, and family life, but when Gretchen starts acting strange, she knows she has to find a way to put a stop to her friend’s erratic and eventually dangerous behavior before it’s too late. My Best Friend’s Exorcism is the weirdest book I’ve picked up in a while, but it was totally worth the read.        The story takes place in the 1980s town of Charleston, South Carolina, and it is jam-packed with detailed world building, well-written characters, and lots of references to...

By Kate      In the past couple decades, ebooks and audiobooks have become more popular and accessible. Many people prefer reading paper books, while others use the electronic alternatives to real books. There are reasons to read each form of book, and, depending on what you look for in a book and where you are planning to read, one of the three options will probably work better for you.      Ebooks are a concise, portable alternative to physical books. They are easy to use for travel because they are small and can store thousands of books at once instead of carrying just a few paper books at a time. Ebooks also allow you to highlight parts of text and take notes, which many people don't like to do in physical copies. I recommend using ebooks if you are traveling and don't want to carry heavy paper books. However, I find it easier to get distracted while reading an audiobook, so if you have trouble focusing or are easily distracted, it is prob...

To say the least, reading, thinking about, and understanding   The Old Man and the Sea  is... a unique experience.  I have been recommended this book multiple times but never really took it upon myself to read it. From what I had heard about the novel, it sounded like a very linear and stodgy read. I finally decided to give it a try and confirmed my hunches: "This book is just an old man fishing, but I guess it's a little sad in the end," I thought. I knew something with my claim was wrong. After all,  The Old Man and the Sea  is one of the best-known books of a man who won the Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for his writing.  The Old Man and the Sea  is a short read, about 130 pages. I decided to reread the novel, and  this  time, I understood things that were invisible to me before, picked up new details, and got an idea of the theme. You see,  The Old Man and the Sea  is not a book to read for its action, drama, or humor...

    In this blog post, I will be reviewing Cinder , by Marissa Meyer.             The Lunars are a race of humans who live on the moon. When humans colonized the moon, the people who lived their were changed, do to the different conditions. When they had children, the children became almost another species.     Cinder follows the story of 16 year old Linh Cinder, who is treated badly because of her being a cyborg. When she was a young girl, she was taken in by a family, who horribly mistreats her because of her disability. Her only friend in the family is Linh Peony, one of her stepsisters. The book starts with Cinder, who is a talented mechanic, meeting Prince Kai, the heir to the throne of the Commonwealth. He asks her to repair his android. He takes the android, and tells the prince that he should return later to pick it up. It is obvious that she has a crush on him. When she gets home, she watches the news and finds out that K...

By Marlow Tracy           After reading Anna and the French Kiss and being absolutely blown away, I just had to pick up the sequel, Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins. Although my impressions of romance books were changed for the better by Anna and the French Kiss , I didn’t know if I would be able to say the same about its sequel. Luckily, it turned out to be just as much of a page turner as the first one, and I may or may not have stayed up until midnight finishing it the same day I picked it up.           The book follows the story of Lola, a 17-year-old costume fanatic with a 22-year-old boyfriend named Max that her dads do not approve of, a detective-loving best friend named Lindsey, and a mysterious history with the Bell twins living next door. Lola navigates through family troubles, guy troubles, costume troubles, friend troubles, and more on a coming-of-age/slice-of-life journey. Although the plot line...

By Kate A The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge is a Victorian murder mystery that takes place on a fictional island called Vane. Faith Sunderly and her family, which consists of her brother, her parents, and her Uncle Miles, are leaving England temporarily so her father can join an excavation on Vane. Her father,  Erasmus Sunderly, is a well-known natural scientist, but there are some rumors in England that he has committed fraud. After a few days on Vane, it becomes clear by the way the locals are treating the Sunderlys that the rumors about Mr. Sunderly have spread to the island. Many people seem to despise her father and the rest of the Sunderly family. When her father turns up dead, she suspects that he was murdered by someone on the island and is determined to prove it. After her father's death, Faith comes across one of her father's journals that explains one of his specimens, which he calls the Lie Tree. When a lie is whispered to the tree, it bears a fruit that, when e...

When I began reading  Magisterium  by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black with  The Iron Trial , I thought that I was going to experience a  Harry Potter  knock-off. While the basic premise of  Magisterium  sounds similar to  Harry Potter , what with the story revolving around three friends that go to a magic school unknown to ordinary humans as they conquer their fears, go on adventures, etc., it is definitely a series,  Iron Trial  in particular, that has some of its own unique moments. The Iron Trial  Callum Hunt is a 12-year-old without any knowledge of the existence of magic. He has a whole family of mages, but his father wants to protect him from the various dangers of the magic world. His mother died before he ever got to know her. Call lives a normal life that is changed one day when he receives an invitation to attend the trials of Magisterium, the secret underground mage school where his father and mother went. Call d...