Genre: Mystery

The Sonic Breach

Tom gets to take all sorts of cool classes at the Swift Academy of Science and Technology, but robotics may be the one excites him the most. His teacher is holding a battling robot tournament, and Tom and his friends have to build a machine that will come out on top.

With the final battle coming up, Tom and his friends need as much time as possible to refine their masterpiece. But the rest of their teachers have been giving so many pop quizzes that they can barely focus in class, never mind concentrate on the tournament. Naturally, everyone is frustrated with the trend. . . until a mysterious new phone app appears. If students get pop quizzes during first period, they can warn everyone else about it by getting their phones to emit a high-pitched sound—a mosquito alarm—that adults can’t hear.

Tom is unsure about the whole thing, but it technically isn’t cheating, right? But when someone changes the app to break all the rules, the ethics aren’t debatable anymore. The longer the perpetrator remains unknown, the more harshly teachers treat all the students, and the pressure won’t stop until Tom and his friends track down the person behind the app takeover.

Like the first book in the series, The Sonic Breach incorporates mystery and technology. However, unlike The Drone Pursuit, The Sonic Breach doesn’t have as much interaction between Tom and his friends, which takes some of the enjoyment out of the story. Book two is also told from Tom’s point of view, and the story has an easy-to-read, conversational tone which allows the readers to understand Tom’s thinking process.

As Tom and his friends solve the mystery of who hacked the Pop Chop app, the readers will learn the importance of perseverance and helping others. At one point, Tom thinks, “Mistakes are ways to learn, overcome, and move forward. I would much rather have had our robot fail during a sparring match than during the final battle. This way we can learn from our design mistakes and make it better than it was before.”

The cover of The Sonic Breach shows two students battling their robots. However, the battle bots take backstage to the moral question of using a new app—Pop Chop. The story focuses on Tom’s moral dilemma: is using Pop Chop a form of cheating? Although the topic is relevant to students, readers may quickly become bored with the lack of action. In the end, Tom and his friends discover who hacked the Pop Chop app, but the mystery’s solution is unrealistic and comes too easily.

Readers looking for non-stop action and an in-depth mystery may want to leave The Sonic Breach on the shelf. However, readers who enjoyed the first Tom Swift book and are interested in technology will find The Sonic Breach entertaining. Tom Swift is an intelligent, likable character who models good communication skills. Plus, parents will appreciate the story’s positive relationships and messages.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Tom and his friends build a robot that says the phrase, “Get to za Choppa.” The phrase comes from an Arnold Schwarznegger movie, and the kids at the school often repeat it. One of the students “was creative with his altered Arnold phrase, ‘Get to the crappa.’”
  • When a news crew shows up at the Swift Academy, the reporter walks over to the fencing team. A student wonders why the reporter is covering the fencing team when there “are two perfectly good robots over there beating the crap out of each other.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Top Secret Smackdown

Ravens have been stolen from the Tower of London! Mac B.’s top-secret mission? Travel to Iceland and retrieve the ravens. . . or Britain is ruined!

In Iceland, Mac discovers secret submarines, hungry polar bears, mysterious blueprints, and his old archnemesis! Is the KGB man behind this birdnapping? Can Mac get the ravens to safety? It’s time for an epic, top-secret smackdown between these two secret agents!

The third installment of the Mac B. series continues the punny fun. Mac learns more about the United Kingdom’s history as well as the difference between dolphins and porpoises. Mac discovers how a simple story can become an important legend. The queen of England orders Mac to travel to Iceland and solve the mystery. Even though the majority of the story focuses on the mystery of the missing ravens, Mac’s difficulties with his mother’s boyfriend also plays a part in the story.

The queen’s outlandish behavior will make readers giggle. Readers will enjoy the conclusion because it ties all of the events together in a unique way. Top Secret Smackdown mixes humorous puns, a mysterious enemy, and wrestling to create a fun story that will entertain even the most reluctant readers. Short sentences and simple vocabulary will help readers build confidence. Large purple and orange illustrations appear on almost every page, which helps readers envision the story’s events.

Mac tells his own story with humor and puts a spotlight on the absurd. Younger readers will love the adventure, intrigue, and interesting characters. Although Top Secret Smackdown can be read as a stand-alone book, for maximum enjoyment the books should be read in order. Readers who enjoy silly, illustrated stories may also want to read Two Dogs in a Trench Coat Series by Julie Falatko.

Sexual Content

  • The story implies that Mac’s mother’s boyfriend stays the night when he thinks, “usually on Saturday mornings, my mom’s boyfriend, Craig, was camped out in front of the TV watching WrestleFest.”

Violence

  • When Mac goes to Iceland, he looks for clues, and “someone hit me on the head with something very heavy and knocked me out.” When he woke up, Mac was tied to a chair.
  • The president of Iceland is telling Mac a story. She acts out part of the story when “she punched me lightly on my arm. When I tried to block it, she punched me harder in the ribs.”
  • The KGB man ties Mac to a chair. Mac breaks out of the ropes and pretends he is a wrestler on WrestlingFest. Mac “jumped onto the KGB Man’s back. He shook me off. . . I jumped on his back again. The KGB man stood up and threw me to the floor. He tore off his shirt.” During the scuffle, Mac throws a chair, accidentally sparked TNT, and “something exploded. The camera zapped. Its wires fried. The submarine was filling with water.”
  • When Mac escapes the sinking submarine, “there was another blast. . .pieces of metal came flying and knocked my legs out from under me.” Mac falls into the river but is saved.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The KGB man calls a group of people “fools.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Mac is afraid that he might drown, he thinks about Father Thames. “Some people say there is a river god named Father Thames who lives in the waters that run through London. They say he has lived there for a long, long time.” Mac thought he saw Father Thames, but then he realized it was a dolphin.

 

 

Following

Alden likes to follow people, especially his high school classmates. He’s not trying to be a creep—he wants to be an investigator! Following others is a good way to practice the skills he will need. Alden tries spying on his classmates for practice, but he isn’t expecting to find any dark, dangerous secrets.

That all changes when he follows the popular kid Greg Matthes to an abandoned park on the bad side of town. From a distance, Alden sees Greg kill his girlfriend, Amy. Alden soon finds himself looking for evidence to prove that Greg is a murderer. But the more he searches, the more questions Alden must answer. Without a body, Alden isn’t sure if Amy is dead or alive. Is there any way for Alden to discover Greg’s secrets or will he become the next victim?

Alden is a complicated, creepy character with a host of problems. Both of his parents were shot and killed in front of him. Filled with grief and guilt over his parent’s death, Alden hopes to one day use his investigative skills to save someone’s life. Told from Alden’s point of view, Following flashes back to the day that Alden’s parents died. Although the death of Alden’s parents helps explain his actions, Alden’s snooping is disturbing. Readers will often wonder why Alden makes such bad decisions when it comes to solving the crime.

Alden’s best friend Charlie is also not a very relatable character. Charlie helps Alden with his investigation because she likes taking risks. Because Charlie’s father is a police officer, her willingness to help Alden investigate a murder doesn’t quite ring true. Charlie clearly has a good relationship with her father, but she chooses to keep important information from him. At one point, Charlie decides that she needs space from Alden and ignores him. Unfortunately, Charlie isn’t the greatest friend, and she doesn’t add much to the story.

Even though Following is not a character-driven story, the mystery behind Amy’s murder will keep readers hooked. The dramatic conclusion contains several twists but leaves many unanswered questions. Although Alden isn’t the most likable character, he does learn that “we make decisions every day and often we don’t know the full consequences of those decisions until later. Maybe the key is to keep trying to do the best we can. If we can teach ourselves to do that, maybe it’ll make it easier to live with our choices. And their consequences.” This fast-paced story will keep readers guessing until the very end. Following will entertain mystery buffs who enjoy trying to piece clues together.

Sexual Content

  • As part of the narration, Amy and her boyfriend Greg are introduced. Because of Amy’s religious beliefs, “If Greg hopes for anything more than a kiss from her, he’s going to have to wait until after marriage, I’m sure.”
  • A year ago, Alden was at the county fair with his best friend, Charlie. Alden “had known her all my life, had grown up with her, but, for the first time, I was noticing how beautiful she was. . . For the first time, I was wondering what she would say if, after we got our snow cones and took a walk to eat them, I asked her if I could kiss her.” Alden and Charlie teased each other, and then Charlie “surprised me with a kiss on the cheek, and before I could react, she was running off in the opposite direction.”
  • Alden finds a phone with pictures of Greg and Alycia. “The first one shows them kissing. . .In the next picture, they had their hands around and all over each other while dressed in only their underwear. In the sixth and last picture, they’re lying in bed. The photo is not completely revealing, but it shows just enough to indicate they’re not wearing underwear. They’re not wearing anything at all.”
  • When Alden asks a girl to come over to his house, she says, “Is this some kind of cheap trick to get me alone with you in your house –”
  • When Amy finds out that her boyfriend was cheating on her, she yells, “Sex was more important to you than what we had?”
  • Amy tries to convince Greg to kill Alden. “Amy moves in behind him, wrapping both arms around his waist, her hands hanging tantalizingly close to the front of his jeans, below his belt buckle. ‘If you really want to, I’d even be willing to . . . you know.’”
  • Alden almost trips, but Charlie puts her hand out to steady him. “Her fingers on my skin. . . sent a tingle shooting through me. We’ve been friends forever, but I’d been noticing that tingle more and more lately.”
  • Alden and Charlie discuss Amy and her boyfriend. They wonder if Amy might have been pregnant because “they’ve been together a long time. How much longer can they just kiss and hold hands?”

 Violence

  • Alden thinks back to when his parents were killed at the county fair. After his parents were shot, they were taken to the hospital where “a doctor took us to another room. I didn’t need her to tell me that my father had died on the way in the ambulance, and that my mother had made it into the hospital before she died.”
  • Alden thinks back to the day his parents died. The shooter “had gotten off eight rounds, with six of them finding their targets. The whole thing took less than a minute. Within seconds there were people crying, calling for help, and police shouting orders.” The shooter “blew the back of his head off.” Alden walked over to look at the shooter’s body. The shooter “was lying on his back, uncovered, on the ground. Blood and brain matter formed a pattern on the grass at his head, but I was staring at his eyes, which were wide open, and his mouth was frozen in a half smile, as if, even in death, he was glad about what he’d done.” The scene is described over four pages.
  • Alden is talking to Amy on the phone when “a sudden slap cuts her off.”
  • The news talks about the death of a girl. The girl’s body was thrown in a lake and “the body had been weighted down. . . Early indications are that, though there was evidence of a head wound, the sixteen-year-old girl may have died of strangulation. . .”
  • Alden goes to a park and finds Greg restraining Amy. “In his other hand, he holds a gun, which he has pressed against her head. His grin is jagged and sharp.” Greg has Alden burn the evidence, then bury it in a hole. “All at once, I move, swinging the shovel over and up, the dirt hitting him perfectly in the face. He cries out, bringing one hand to his face, the gun still in his right hand. ‘Run, Amy!’ I shout as I swing again, the spade hitting him just above the right wrist.” Greg still has the gun, so Alden swings “the shovel once more, letting go of it this time. He grunts as it connects and I leap for the gun.” The gun falls out of Greg’s hand and Alden tries to grab it. “Just as my fingers encircle the gun, something slams into the back of my head. I go tumbling to the ground. . . Before I can get back up my head explodes again, and this time, I black out.” The scene is described over seven pages.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Greg goes to an abandoned park, Alden wonders if “he’s here to buy drugs. He’s an athlete, so maybe it’s steroids, and he comes all the way out here so no one he knows will see him. Or it could be worse than steroids. Could perfect Greg Matthes be a secret drug addict?”
  • Alden mentions several times that after work his uncle sits in front of the TV with “beer in hand.” Alden says, “There have been times when, on the nights he’s had an extra beer or two, I’ll hear him mumbling to himself.”

Language

  • Profanity is used occasionally. Profanity includes crap, damn, hell, pissed, and shit.
  • When a man walked into Alden, the man calls Alden an asshole.
  • “God,” “Oh God,” and, “Oh Christ” are used as exclamations.
  • Alden hides a backpack in a closet. When someone goes towards the closet, Alden thinks, “Oh, crap. I should say something to make him stop. . .”
  • When Charlie tells Alden that she needs space, he wondered “if I want to beg her to stay or tell her to get the hell out.”
  • Alden and his uncle go to a movie, but Alden wants to go home. He thinks, “Oh God. I have to get out of here. I glance at my uncle; he’s not going to want to leave unless he’s given a damn good reason.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Amy attends church and “while she’s not a Jesus freak who goes out of her way to convert everyone she talks to, she makes it pretty clear the silver cross she wears around her neck is more than just jewelry.”
  • Alden attends a church service. While there, he thinks about how the churchgoers treat him. “They want to be compassionate. And they’re doing their best. What’s worse are those who look at me as if they’re grateful. Grateful that what happened to me didn’t happen to them. Thank God they didn’t lose any loved ones that day. Thank God it was my parents who died that day and not them.”
  • Alden thinks about his parents’ death. “I once read about a scientific theory that says because human consciousness consists of energy, and since energy never dies, we don’t die. That the universe we live in is part of a larger multiverse, and when our physical bodies end, our conscious energy travels to an alternative universe where we get to live our lives again, but this time we make different choices, causing our lives to move in different directions than before.”
  • When Amy is having boyfriend trouble she says, “I guess sometimes God gives us challenges.”
  • When Alden thinks about Alycia’s death, he wonders, “Had her parents spent those days waiting for news on their daughter hoping and praying she would be okay? What were they feeling now, with those hopes dashed and their prayers unanswered?”

Six Months Later

In May, Chloe fell asleep in study hall. When she wakes up, snow covers the ground, and she can’t remember the last six months of her life. In the six months she can’t remember, her life has been transformed. Before, she was a struggling student, and college was out of her reach. She also had a hopeless crush on popular jock Blake. Now, Chloe’s SAT scores have given her a chance to attend a top college, and Blake is her boyfriend.

Instead of being disapproving, her mother smiles at her. Instead of hiding a crush, the boy of her dreams is in her arms. Instead of sharing her secrets with her best friend Maggie, Maggie won’t even look at her. Instead of feeling thrilled when Blake wraps his arms around Chloe, she feels revolted. How can Chloe figure out what happened to her? As she looks for the truth, Chloe realizes that remembering the past comes with hidden dangers.

The mystery behind Chloe’s new world will draw the reader in as they follow Chloe’s attempt to discover how she changed so much in just six months. The mystery will capture readers’ attention, but they will keep turning the pages because Chloe is a relatable character who struggles to understand who she is. Chloe and her mother have a turbulent relationship, and although Chloe wants to make her mother proud, she isn’t sure if that is even possible. Teens will understand Chloe’s parental dilemma. Even though Chloe loves her parents, her life’s path cannot be carved out by them.

Six Months Later isn’t just a great mystery, it also has hot romantic scenes. Now that Blake is Chloe’s boyfriend, she doesn’t understand why kissing him feels so wrong. And even though Chloe doesn’t ever remember talking to bad boy Adam, when she looks at him she knows that there is something there. Although a love triangle isn’t a new concept, Six Months Later perfectly weaves the love triangle into the mystery.

With relatable teen conflict, a unique mystery, and a peculiar love interest, Six Months Later will keep readers guessing until the very end. As Chloe unravels the past, she realizes that people’s motives are often complicated and misunderstood. This book will entertain as well as teach about the importance of forgiveness. Six Months Later is a fast-paced story with likable characters that will keep readers up late into the night.

Sexual Content

  • When Blake picks Chloe up for school, she forces herself “to kiss him when he leans in. It’s still stiff and awkward, but it will get better.”
  • When Blake and Chloe kiss, she tips “my head, letting him catch my lips. It’s soft and warm and so damn weird. I feel my shoulders tense, my hands like dead weights at the end of my arms.”
  • Blake and Chloe kiss, but she doesn’t think it feels right. Once when Blake kisses her, she thinks, “I’ve been kissed enough to know when someone’s doing it right. And Blake is technically doing it right, tilting my head just a little. Urging my mouth to open for him. And he’s pressing into me just enough to make things interesting, without mashing his kibbles and bits against my thigh or anything.” When Blake kisses her, Chloe thinks about Adam. “And God, it’s wrongity-wrong-wrong, but for one second, I close my eyes tight and pretend I’m with him. I think of blue eyes and a low laugh and all the things I should never think of now.”
  • After Chloe breaks up with Blake, she kisses Adam. “His lips are soft and hard together, sending electric shocks through every inch of me. I’m heavy and trembling under his kiss, my half-frozen hands fisting in the front of his shirt, soaking in his warmth. My mouth slides open with a sign, and the kiss goes on and on. . . I can’t think about a single thing outside of the feel of his arms and the taste of his mouth against mine.”
  • Adam and Chloe kiss several times. While they are talking, Adam “leans in, kissing me once, long and soft and deep enough that I almost forget where I am.”
  • At lunch, Adam and Chloe sit in his car. Adam “pulls me toward him on the bench seat. And then his lips are trailing along my jay wand I couldn’t spell distracted if someone paid me it feels so good. We kiss until we’re running dangerously close to second base during school hours.”
  • Adam tries to get Chloe to stay away from him. When he does, she tugs “him hard by the lapels of his coat because he’s so tall that going up on tiptoes isn’t going to be enough. I kiss him, and at first his lips are hard and unrelenting. . . I ignore it. . . Adam’s hands drop to my shoulders and then he’s kissing me like he’s absolutely starved for it.”
  • Because of her memory disturbance, Chloe is afraid that she might have had sex. “My stomach does an ugly barrel roll. I take a breath and press my lips together. Could I forget something like that?”
  • When Chloe tells Adam that she loves him, he “pulls me in. His kiss is sweet and lingering, his hands trailing up my back and into my hair. It pushes out all of the cold and the fear of this night, leaving me warm and strong.”
  • When Chloe’s dad stands up for Adam, she thinks, “it’s strange. My dad defending a boy I’m making out with on a regular basis is pretty much a portent of impending apocalypse.”

Violence

  • When Chloe was in elementary school, Ryan teased Chloe’s friend and Chloe hit Ryan in the nose. “I can still practically feel that moment; the sharp, shocking pain in my knuckles and the sickening feeling that went through me when Ryan’s nose spurted blood.”
  • Chloe finds her psychiatrist “slumped over the desk. There’s a giant red-black puddle beneath her, all over the pretty desk planner.”
  • A girl hits Adam. Chloe sees “something flying by my face and then I hear the sickening smack of flesh against flesh. Adam’s jaw whips back, and I cry out as I see blood bloom on his lip.”
  • When someone threatens to hurt Chloe’s friends, she grabs a syringe and explains, “I pull the cap off and lunge. I stab the closest thing I can find and push the plunger hard and fast. . . He roars and slams his hand against my arm, batting me away. The needle still dangles from his neck when he punches at me again. This time I’m faster. I dodge left.” The man is not seriously injured.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Adam’s grandmother is an alcoholic. When Chloe goes to Adam’s apartment, she sees “the row of liquor bottles” on the back counter.
  • When Adam’s grandmother answers the door, Chloe wonders “if the smell of booze coming off her is any indication of how she’s spent her evening.”
  • In the past, Adam broke into a pharmacy and stole drugs. Adam stole drugs for his grandmother because “she gets confused a lot. She had a period when she flushed her medicine down the toilet all of the time.” The insurance wouldn’t pay for more, so he stole more.
  • While making dinner together, Chloe’s dad grabs a Samuel Adams.
  • As a secret study, some teens are given a drug called benzodiazepine, which causes “vivid dreams. Increased cognitive ability. Dry mouth. Excessive thirst. Sleepwalking. Headaches. Paranoid delusions. And my personal favorite—memory disturbances.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, crap, bitch, damn, pissed, hell, freaking, and shit.
  • Fucking is used once. Adam says, “He sold it to me as my only way out of this shit-hole town and I bought it, Chloe. I bought it hook, line, and fucking sinker.”
  • “Oh God” and “God” are frequently used as exclamations.
  • Chloe calls someone a “twisted bastard.”
  • A girl asks Chloe, “Do you think only sluts wear red?”
  • When Chloe wakes up confused, she wonders if a boy is playing a joke on her. Then she thinks, “Blake isn’t into that kind of juvenile crap. He’s on the Bully Patrol, for God’s sake.”
  • When a boy questions Chloe, she thinks, “Oh my God, I’m like a freaking parrot. Words, Chloe. Find some and spit them the hell out!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Chloe says “Thank God” occasionally. For example, when she wakes up confused and finds her cell phone, she thinks, “Thank God.”
  • Chloe and Maggie have a fight and don’t talk for months. Chloe goes to Maggie’s house to talk and says, “I follow her out of the kitchen, praying my knees will stay strong and I will not start trembling like the nervous wreck that I am.”
  • Chloe refers to God occasionally. For example, when Chloe is on an airplane she thinks, “I’m flying two thousand miles, hoping to God to end up right back where I started.”

 

The Fugitive

In The Fugitive, Theo Boone’s class trip to Washington DC goes from normal to interesting in a matter of minutes after he spots the most wanted man in Stratten County: Pete Duffy. Duffy had gone to court in the past for murdering his wife but had escaped due to a mistrial. Theo spots him on their trip and trails the fugitive before talking to his uncle and getting the FBI involved.

The rest of the story takes place in Strattenburg, the same city where Duffy was originally tried. Theo works with his friends, his two lawyer parents, and the FBI to figure out a way to make sure Pete doesn’t get away this time. The only person who saw Duffy is an illegal immigrant, who is scared of what might happen if he shows up in court. Theo has to convince the witness of the need for justice in spite of his fear because nobody else witnessed the crime, and the trial is resting on his testimony. Also, Theo himself also has to get over his fears of Pete Duffy’s accomplices who are known to be violent and brutal, just like the criminal in question. And he has to do all of this while managing his time with school, his friends, and his family.

The Fugitive is aimed at a younger audience but still contains a few adult themes, especially violence and even murder. Grisham doesn’t go into extreme detail when describing these events, but his choice to include a violent crime paints a more believable story. Theo’s story is an exciting thriller but also manages to include the less-exciting parts of crime that take place in the courtroom, such as having to repeat a trial multiple times due to legal errors like a late witness. After tracking down a notorious fugitive, it’s ironic that the only thing keeping him from imprisonment is a mistrial. Boone and the other characters acknowledge this, and much of the story consists of them creating a strong enough case to put Duffy behind bars.

An important lesson that the book conveys is an appreciation for laws and justice. As much as Theo or anyone else would like to just imprison Duffy because they know what he did, doing so without enough evidence would be a violation of due process. In addition, Theo and his parents do a number of good deeds for society, including volunteering at a homeless shelter, opening up free law practices, and just practicing law.

Theodore Boone provides a funny and relatable character for younger audiences. Besides helping capture one of the FBI’s most wanted, Theo is pretty much an ordinary kid. His character design in addition to the enticing thriller that John Grisham has written results in a captivating crime novel that isn’t filled with violence and gore. Theodore Boone: The Fugitive is an excellent read for any aspiring detective.

 Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • A character recounts how John Wilkes Booth “shot the president once in the back of the head.”
  • Pete Duffy was “accused of murdering his wife.”
  • Theo’s uncle Ike tells the story of Joel Furniss, “the first boy from Stratten County to be killed in Vietnam.”
  • Bobby Escobar “saw Pete Duffy sneak into his home at the exact time his wife was killed. And he found the golf gloves Duffy was wearing when he strangled his wife.”
  • Mr. Tweel, a farmer, explains how “About an hour after I get rid of the boys, after I get their names and address, I go back down to the goat pen to check on things. That’s when I saw that Becky was dead.”
  • As evidence, “a large photo was displayed on the screen, and the jurors got another look at Myra Duffy as she was found on the carpet. She was wearing a pretty dress; her high heels were still on her feet. . . the next one was a close-up of her neck, and the detective noticed a redness and slight puffiness on both sides of her neck. He immediately suspected strangulation.”
  • As Theo is marched down the hall by two officers, he compares it to “a man being led to the electric chair, or the gas chamber, or the firing squad.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ike “was sipping on beer and listening to old Motown tunes” when Theo talked to him.
  • Bobby Escobar “likes to drink beer and brings it home.”

Language

  • “Two bozos—Jimbo Nance and Duck DeFoe dropped water balloons from a fifth-floor hotel room.”
  • “Woody and a couple of other clowns booed and hissed as Theo sprinted from the room.”
  • Judge Gantry says to Theo, “Nice work, Theo. Now get your butt back to school.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The bailiff asks, “May God bless this Court,” before proceeding with Pete Duffy’s trial.

by Dylan Chilcoat

 

Pretend She’s Here

Emily can’t believe that her best friend Lizzie is gone. Every day she misses Lizzie now that she’s dead and her family has moved away. When Lizzy’s parents and her sister come back to town to visit Lizzie’s grave, Emily is happy to see them. Emily thinks that they are the only people who can understand her pain.

Emily doesn’t think twice about getting into the vehicle with them. After all, they are her second family. But soon, Emily realizes that Lizzie’s parents aren’t in town for a quick visit. Instead, they have come on a desperate attempt to bring Lizzie back to life. Soon Emily is trapped by the desperate parents, and she’s afraid there is no escape.

Pretend She’s Here is a unique story that has a major creep factor to keep the pages turning. The story focuses on Emily, who is kidnapped at the beginning of the book. Much of the story is told through Emily’s memory, which unfortunately eliminates much of the suspense. Emily’s large Catholic family is difficult to keep track of, and the many flashbacks of the seven siblings become confusing. There are simply too many characters to keep track of and many of them do not have a distinct personality.

Lizzie’s mom, Mrs. Porter, clearly wants to turn Emily into a replacement for Lizzie. The fact that Mrs. Porter’s family goes along with the plot allows the reader to see how desperate Mrs. Porter has become. However, Mr. Porter fades into the background, and readers will miss seeing how he fits into the family dynamic. The ending of the story is also a bit frustrating because Emily has so many chances to tell people who she really is, and yet she stays silent. At one point, she faints and is taken to the doctor, who sees many clues that Emily is in a desperate situation, but the doctor doesn’t act on her suspicions. Even though the author manages to make this unlikely scenario with the doctor believable, the ending of the book stretches the imagination too far.

Pretend She’s Here isn’t just a frightening kidnapping story; it also has themes of alcoholism, grief, friendship, and the power of forgiveness. While some readers may enjoy the kidnapping story, others may be frightened by it, especially because Emily is taken by someone who she considered her second family. Readers looking for a frightening story that examines the desperation that grief can cause will enjoy Pretend She’s Here. However, readers who are easily frightened should leave this book on the shelf.

Sexual Content

  • Emily’s friend says that she sees “stars” when she kisses her boyfriend.
  • Emily thinks back to her sister who would go up to the church steeple with her boyfriend “to kiss.”
  • Emily thinks about Casey and imagines “the feeling of his lips on mine.”
  • While at school, Emily sees Casey, and “all I wanted was for him to kiss me right there, that exact moment.”
  • While sledding, Emily and Casey’s sled crashes. They started laughing. “Then all at once the laughter stopped, I looked into his eyes, and he kissed me. The world fell out from under me, and I was floating in space, held up by Casey’s arms. . . His lips were soft and the kiss was hot, and I forgot I had a body and a life—and I was part of Casey and he was part of me.”

Violence

  • Emily is kidnapped and her hands are bound behind her back. She tries to escape. Emily “crouched as if about to bar, then used my legs as springs and smashed into Mrs. Porter, knocking her down, making her cry out. I turned and ran as fast as I could into the trees.”
  • In order to get Emily to behave, Mrs. Porter videotapes herself walking with Emily’s mom. Emily sees, “Mrs. Porter’s red plaid jacket and then, in her other hand, a knife with a thick, sharp silver blade. She made a jabbing motion.” After she watches the video, Emily “slapped her in the face as hard as I could, fumbled for the phone. Cloe (Mrs. Porter’s daughter) charged at me, clawed the phone out of my hand. We kept fighting for it, but then she shoved me.”
  • Emily sees her family and tries to get out of the car, but “Mrs. Porter wriggled between the two front seats and pulled my hair so hard my head smashed the headrest. She slapped my face. . . Mrs. Porter had now wriggled her way into the back seat beside me. Fingers still tangled in my hair, she tightened her grip, shaking my head, making every nerve in my scalp scream with pain.” Emily stops struggling when Mrs. Porter tells her, “I’ll kill your mother here and now.”
  • Mrs. Porter stops Emily from leaving. “I started to jump up. But she clawed my wrist, nails digging into my skin, pulling me back down. . . Then I saw the other hand. Her fingers were closed around the knife with the silver blade. . .” Mrs. Porter tries to kill Emily, but Emily “fought her. I hit her as hard as I could, heard my fist crack her cheekbone. I tried to kick her, but she’d leapt up from the bed, gripping my wrist, and my foot missed. She was waving the knife, stabbing the air, but I kept ducking, trying to pull away.” Mrs. Porter stabs Emily, who is rushed to the hospital in critical condition.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone kidnaps Emily and gives her drugs so she will sleep. “A bottle clinked. I turned my head, saw her lift a small vial in front of her face, insert a syringe into the rubber cap to withdraw liquid, and lightly pump the plunger so a tiny clear stream squirted into the air. . . I felt the needle prick, then a slow ache in my bicep. Almost instantly, I felt light-headed.” Emily falls asleep.
  • Emily’s mother is an alcoholic, and Emily thinks back to a time when her mother missed her play because she was drunk. Emily’s mother, “had been sober over a year now. Since the last horrible fight that had sent her to rehab. . .” Emily thinks about her mom not being at the play, and when she got home, “I found my mother passed out in bed. The fumes left no doubt that there’d been alcohol involved.”
  • Casey’s mom was prescribed oxycodone. She became addicted and died of an overdose. Casey says, “One day she took too many. She never woke up.”
  • A doctor gives Mrs. Porter a prescription for Xanax.
  • While Emily is in the hospital, she is given Morphine which puts her in a “sick, sleepy twilight state.” She is also given opioids.

Language

  • Oh god is used as an exclamation twice; oh my God and OMG are used as an exclamation once.
  • Damn is used once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Emily’s family is Catholic and attends church. Emily thinks about all of her siblings’ names and how they were “Catholic to the max. My mom had gone to St. Joseph’s College; my dad had gone to Holy Cross.” She and her siblings were given saint’s names and were baptized. Emily thinks, “even though we skipped Mass a lot, we did our best. We believed in the sacraments and had all made our first communion and confirmations.”
  • Emily’s mother says, “By the grace of God, I haven’t picked up a drink since.”
  • Casey, who was blind, tells Emily about his mother. “. . . She never stopped hoping I’d be able to see better someday. . .I had the best doctors, but her real faith was in St. Anthony.”
  • When Emily is in the hospital, she thinks about her mother. “I prayed you wouldn’t drink. I just wanted everything to be okay.”
  • While Emily was missing her mother, she “tried to pray, but I felt there was no one listening. I couldn’t hear God talking back to me. The priest from All Souls Church came, but I told your father not to let him in.”

Fragments of the Lost

People blame Jessa for her boyfriend Caleb’s death, but most of them don’t know about the breakup. Instead, they focus on the day he died. The last time Jessa saw Caleb was standing in the bleachers during a track meet. When her good luck dragonfly necklace broke, she ran to him, handed him the necklace. And then he left.

Jessa knows that the teens at school aren’t the only ones who blame her for Caleb’s death. His mother thinks the accident was Jessa’s fault. But when Caleb’s mother asks Jessa to pack up his things, Jessa agrees. She’s hoping that it will help her work through her grief, take away her guilt, and lessen her depression.

But as Jessa begins to box up the pieces of Caleb’s life, every item she touches brings back memories. As the memories flood over her, she thinks that maybe she didn’t know Caleb at all. Each fragment of his life reveals a new clue that propels Jessa to search for the truth about Caleb’s accident. Can she put the pieces together to reveal what really happened on the day he died?

Fragments of the Lost, which is told from Jessa’s point of view, gives a unique perspective on the life of a person. As Jessa reflects on Caleb, her memories are mixed with other people’s memories of Caleb. Each person, each object, each memory shows a different fragment of Caleb, which adds mystery. The story is broken into two parts, with the second part ramping up the action. Although the ending of the story is action-packed, the beginning of the story is character-driven and readers must emotionally connect to Jessa or they will not enjoy the story.

The main part of the story is about Caleb’s death; however, Fragments of the Lost also gives a glimpse into Jessa’s home life, where she often feels overshadowed by her older brother. As Jessa recounts the past, she learns valuable lessons about love, life, and the importance of being honest with others. Although the story has mystery, the clues fall into place too easily which allows the readers to correctly guess what will happen next. This will not make the story less enjoyable for those who enjoy character-driven stories such as E. Lockhart’s We Were Liars. Fragments of the Lost will leave readers wondering what fragments they leave behind.  

Sexual Content

  • Jessa and her boyfriend kiss. The first time they kiss, Caleb “stepped even closer, so his body brushed up against mine. I could feel his breath, the tremble of his hand, smell the salt and sunscreen and summer air as he leaned in to kiss me. I kissed him back, my hands sliding around his waist. . .”
  • After a dance, Caleb and Jessa sit in the car. “My fingers on the buttons of his white button-down shirt. His hands on my bare shoulders when he kissed me.” Nothing else happens. Jessa and Caleb kiss 4 more times, but it is not described.
  • Once Mia’s sister walked into Caleb’s room and saw Jessa and Caleb. Caleb “was easing my shirt over the sunburn when the door opened. . . I yanked my shirt back down.”
  • The story implies that Jessa and Caleb had sex. Someone finds condoms hidden in Caleb’s room.
  • Someone catches Caleb in Jessa’s room when “Caleb wasn’t supposed to be in my room. We were only doing homework. And okay, his hand was on the small of my back, under my shirt, but still. Homework.”
  • Jessa wonders if Caleb talks about their sex life. “I had always thought Caleb was like me, keeping those details to himself. But suddenly I wasn’t sure, and I couldn’t stand the thought—that I might be a secret, to be shared.”
  • As part of school spirit week, someone wrote on the school flag and “they’d added a line in black marker about their opponent. Specifically referring to how badly, and what, they sucked.”
  • While at school, Caleb and Jessa sneak into the “locker room to fool around in the ten minutes before their pregame warm-up.”
  • Jessa kisses a boy that is not her boyfriend. When he “finally lowers his lips to my own, I think I have never felt something so real.” Jessa contrasts how the two boys kiss. One boy’s “kisses more tentative, unsure. My first thought down by the riverbank, when he finally lowered his lips to mine, was frustration that he was pulling away and stepping back, until something tipped and he pulled me closer, our clothes cold and clinging to our skin, my body trembling against his. . . where Caleb was all anticipation and surprise.”
  • Jessa kisses Mas. “I close the gap between us, and I kiss him. I feel him smiling in the second before he kisses me back. His hand at the side of my face, his fingers in my hair.”

Violence

  • Caleb and his step-father had a fight. Caleb said, “Sean was hurting me. He was choking me.” Caleb’s mother pushes a man out the window, and he falls to his death.
  • While in a forest, Caleb’s mother finds Jessa and pushes her over a waterfall.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Caleb doesn’t answer Jessa’s calls she wonders if he had a hangover.
  • At a graduation party, “an ice bucket of cheap beer” went missing. The teens play beer games with it.

Language

  • Badass is used once.
  • Ass and damn are used twice. Jessa’s friends Hailey “could transform from ‘girl in a dress with red lipstick’ to ‘girl who can kick your ass in red lipstick’ in the time it took to slip on running shoes.”
  • Crap is used occasionally.
  • Oh God and oh my God are occasionally used as an exclamation. Jesus is used as an exclamation once.
  • Hell is used four times. For example, when someone grabs a paper out of Jessa’s hands, she gets a paper cut and says, “What the hell?”
  • “Dick move” is used twice. Jessa thinks about telling someone something “just to watch him squirm, but that would be a dick move too, so I don’t.”
  • A girl calls someone a jerk.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Game

In this second installment, the basic setup of the story has not changed. It is Jasper hunting a serial killer, this time the Hat-Dog killer who has been terrorizing New York. Jasper is brought on as a consultant by the NYPD. Outside of that story arc Jasper also has to deal with the fact that his famous serial killer dad, Billy Dent, has escaped from prison and is now on the loose!

Seventeen-year-old Jazz, the son of the world’s most prolific serial killer, is called to New York. The NYPD needs Jazz’s help finding the Hat-Dog killer, who has been terrorizing New York. Along with finding the killer, Jazz also must help find his father, Billy Dent, who has escaped from prison.

Jazz brings his girlfriend Connie to help with the case. Soon, Connie is receiving mysterious information about Jazz. Connie drags in Jazz’s friend, Howie. All three teens are trying to help find the killer. To solve the murders, Jazz must work with a hardened New York cop and an FBI agent seeking revenge on Billy Dent. By the end of the novel, Jazz and his friends have only just begun unraveling the mystery of his father, the killing game, and everything involved with the killings in New York.

Game keeps readers’ attention better than the first book in the series, I Hunt Killers. The engaging story gives the perspective of the people tracking the killers as well as the perspectives of the killers themselves. Even with all this information, it’s still a mystery as to what’s going on. Lyga keeps giving almost enough clues to figure out the mystery, but readers just can’t piece it all together.

Unlike the first book, we get a slightly expanded POV cast. Jasper’s girlfriend Connie and his best friend Howie are also featured and have a few mysteries of their own to deal with in their hometown.

One of the novel’s most gripping elements is the number of twists that keep arriving. Similar to the first book, it’s difficult to predict what’s going to happen because of the insanity of it all. Jazz is dealing with serial killers, and their minds are nearly impossible to understand. Each event that unfolds seems like it’s as bad as it gets, but another gruesome murder or unforeseen twist always comes up.

Game features relatable characters; Connie and Howie both face problems with their parents and peers that normal teenagers would go through as well. The novel is an exciting, engaging read with an excessive amount of profane language and gore. The mystery will keep readers interested as they try to understand the clues. Readers will want to use caution since Game is a gory, brutal story told in a fittingly brutal way.

Sexual Content

  • Jazz has recurring sexual dreams throughout the novel that include sentences like, “his fingers glide over the warm, supple flesh. . . his skin on hers. . .”
  • When they were talking, Jazz “kissed the back of [Connie’s] neck.”
  • Connie considers Jazz a, “sexy, brooding boyfriend who didn’t realize exactly how sexy and brooding he was.”
  • Billy has a career of, “raping, torturing, and murdering mostly young women.”
  • Howie orders, “dirty movies on pay-per-view.”
  • Howie thinks that his hemophilia means that girls are, “much less willing to get naked and sweaty with him in the way nature prescribed.”
  • When they are alone in a hotel room, Hughes urges Jazz and Connie to “use protection.”
  • When Connie and Jazz are in bed together, she tells him, “We’re just gonna get real close and mess up one of the beds, is all.”
  • One of the serial killers, “rapes the women, makes up for it by castrating the men.”
  • Jazz wishes, “he’d thought to bring condoms.”
  • Jazz thinks about Billy’s voice, “urging him to sucker Connie’s legs apart and slide between them.”
  • When Jazz and Connie are sleeping together, “he kissed her and she kissed back just as urgently and fumbled with the drawstring on his pajama bottoms and reached for him there. . .” Jazz doesn’t allow it to escalate any further.
  • Connie tells Jazz that she “brought condoms” and “knew [they’d] be alone here.”
  • Connie thinks, “they were ready for the next step, and once she knew that, she was desperate for it.”
  • Connie calls their time in bed together, “a late-night/early morning grope-fest.”
  • Jazz remembers how he and Connie were, “reaching for each other. Familiar touches gone explosively unfamiliar, explosively craved.”
  • Jazz opens his email to find, “spam and porn links from Howie.”
  • Jazz tells Connie, “Your boobs are pretty big.”
  • Howie says he will “sleep with” and “knock up” Samantha.
  • Connie theorizes about a serial killer. “Maybe tough chicks make his little pee-pee hard.”
  • Connie asks that Howie, “stop thinking with the contents of [his] jock strap for a second.”
  • Connie also asks that they, “just stipulate that [Howie] made a killer double entendre with ‘rubbed off.’”
  • Howie makes an innuendo. “Because you know what they say about guys with big feet.”
  • A serial killer has his “underpants dropped to his ankles” and “his turgid junk gripped in one hand and waving proudly.”
  • Hughes tells Jazz, “no one had to clean up [the killer’s] grungy spooge.”
  • Billy asks if Connie likes to “go all ghetto in bed” with Jazz.
  • “Jazz did wonder about Morales’s breasts.”
  • Jazz wonders, “Would it be terribly stereotypical – as a guy and as a potential future serial killer – to steal a pair of used panties?”
  • Howie thinks about, “Billy Dent doing his own sister.”

Violence

  • The book opens with a killer who “decided on the left hip” and “began to carve” a woman he took captive.
  • There are numerous descriptions of violent events, including a killer who, “had removed the eyelids first” and “opened [Jerome’s] gut.”
  • In addition to the actions of killers, gruesome descriptions of dead bodies are provided, including the image of a serial killer reaching into, “a blood-slippery mass of intestines from the thing’s [victim’s] open cavity” and a body “slit open from breastbone to waist, the gaping wound of her gut revealing the shiny-slick loops of intestines.”
  • Howie, a hemophiliac, recounts a time when kids were, “poking bruises into [his] arms.”
  • When a police officer enters their house, Jazz’s grandmother yells at Jazz to “gut him!”
  • Jazz has memories and dreams that involve, “the knife meeting the flesh. . . then parting it.”
  • Descriptions of crime scenes include things like “lots of mutilation” and “maiming,” as well as more specific details like “disemboweling.”
  • Jazz compares serial killers to Jeffrey Dahmer- “drilling holes in the heads of corpses in an attempt to make sex zombies.”
  • A victim has, “her throat slit with a precision Jazz couldn’t help but admire.”
  • Multiple victims’ “genitals had been excised.”
  • “A crude dog had been carved into [a victim’s] shoulder.”
  • “Slashing wounds gave way to multiple stab wounds, choking, and – later – disembowelment.”
  • When comparing two rape scenes between a “hat” killer and a “dog” killer, an “ME found less vaginal tearing and few bruises than the hat.”
  • A serial killer “killed,” “gutted,” and “de-eyed” one of his victims.
  • An ME describes how a victim has “been enucleated,” which he explains, “means her eyes were taken out.”
  • An ME recalls a story where “some toes were missing and we found them in the victim’s throat.”
  • A killer “leaves their [his victims] guts in a KFC bucket.”
  • Jazz is shot, and there is a descriptive scene where “blood had matted around the wound,” and pours bleach “right on the wound… to clean it.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jazz says that Billy inhaled “a pot smoker’s hearty toke.”

Language

  • There is a large amount of profanity in the novel, including: dumbass, hell, damned, bastard, jackass, freaking, mofo, crap, smartass, poop, dyke, bastard, fucking, pissed, hardass, bitch, BS, goddamn, moron, and sumbitch.
  • “We have every terrorist in the world gunning for this city . . . You want to know how many of them have succeeded? I’ll give you a hint: It starts with Z and ends with a fucking zero.”
  • Connie says, “Jesus, Whiz. Talking to you is better than yoga sometimes.”
  • Connie threatens Jazz by saying, “I’ll kick your ass so hard you’ll poop from the front.”
  • Jazz offers to let Howie, “tattoo [his] freakin’ ass.”
  • Hughes says that Morales is “a dyke, you know.”
  • Howie thinks of himself as a “stupid, joking, horny, useless bleeder.”
  • One of the serial killers refers to women as “whoresluts.”
  • As he attempts to heal a bullet wound, Jazz yells, “Oh, Jesus Christ!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Samantha claims, “There isn’t a hell in the universe hot enough for [her] brother.”
  • Whiz reminds Connie not to take “the Lord’s name in vain.”

by Dylan Chilcoat

 

Blue Water Hues

Paramedic Ashley Grant moved to a Caribbean island hoping for a laid-back life. When Ashley responds to a fire at a beach resort, she recognizes the victim. The victim’s cousin, Darlene, pleads for help. But there are people who don’t want the two women asking questions. As Ashley learns more about the murder, she becomes a target herself. Will Ashley be able to learn the truth or will she be silenced forever?

 Blue Water Hues is a solid mystery that takes the reader into the heart of Ashley’s investigation. Darleen takes Ashley around the small Caribbean island where Ashley finds plenty of people to question. The fast-paced story keeps the reader guessing until the very end. Many of the characters are fearful, and they do not want Ashley digging into the murder. This fear adds suspense and leaves the reader guessing until the very end.

 Blue Water Hues is part of Orca Publishers Rapid Reads collection. Readers who do not have a lot of time will find the story’s straightforward plot, easy vocabulary, and interesting characters the perfect fit. Since the story is only 160 pages, the characters are not well developed. However, the mystery drives the story and will keep the reader entertained.

Sexual Content

  • A customer was angry that it rained during his vacation but still had to pay the hotel bill. He posted a “review that said the maids were servicing customers in guests’ beds.”

Violence

  • A woman is murdered, but her death is not described.
  • A man is shot in the chest and his chest, “was drenched in blood.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ashley goes to a house where, “men stood on the porch, drinking from cans of beer.”
  • Ashley goes to a restaurant where “four men . . . had a pile of beer bottles collecting in front of them.”
  • Ashley goes out to dinner and has a glass of wine. A man at a table next to Ashley complains about the wine.
  • A group of people goes out to dinner and a man orders a beer.

Language

  • Heck is used twice.
  • Someone says a man is, “a mean son of a bitch.”
  • Someone asks, “What the hell is going on with her, man?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The town only has one ambulance, and the drivers, “pray it doesn’t break down.”
  • An ambulance worker is going to be late for a date. He tells his partner, “My date doesn’t mind waiting. She knows I’m doing the Lord’s work.”

 

The Lonely Dead

For years, doctors have told Adele that she has schizophrenia, that the ghosts she sees are just a figment of her imagination. Adele is tired of living in a drug-induced fog and decides to ditch the drugs. But now the ghosts are back. When Adele finds her ex-best friend’s body and her ghost, she realizes the dead aren’t really dead and only she can talk to them.

When Tori’s body is found in a shallow grave, the police focus their investigation on Adele. As the prime suspect in the murder, Adele decides to find the killer, which means working with Tori’s ghost. When Tori begins questioning others, danger comes from all directions. Will she be able to find the murderer or will the murderer silence Adele forever?

The Lonely Dead has an interesting premise but lacks suspense or any sense of urgency. Adele lacks personality and common sense. In her search to find the killer, the clues come too easily and she makes unwise choices. It is difficult to believe that she would trust a murder suspect just because the suspect is good-looking. Even though Tori’s death should add a tragic tone to the story, it is hard to feel sorry for the self-centered girl who was mean to everyone and lacked self-control.

The story teaches about the dangers of alcohol and the importance of being aware of one’s surroundings. However, the author takes the idea of a blackout too far. Tori does not know who killed her because she blacked out, and Adele wonders if she blacked out and then killed Tori. Not only is this unrealistic, but Adele’s confusion borders on the absurd.

Adele is surrounded by turmoil; both her mother and grandmother died due to mental disorders, her harsh grandfather gives her little support, and she is friendless. The story focuses too much on Adele’s inner monologue as well as her past struggles. Instead of being interesting, the family’s background takes away from the murder mystery and adds little to the story. To make matters worse, the police, the student teacher, and the psychologist are all portrayed in a negative light.

One good point of the story is the focus on Tori’s bad behavior. Adele points out that Tori hurt people when she ignored them. Adele said, “You might not ever have laid a hand on them, but it still hurts when someone acts like you’re not even there.” You may want to avoid The Lonely Dead since the murder mystery lacks interesting characters, surprises, or a sense of urgency.

Sexual Content

  • Adele goes to kiss a boy. “My improvised plan is to cover his mouth with my thumbs and then kiss them. It’s a game kids used to play. . . And instead of kissing my thumbs, I press my lips against Charlie’s warm, soft ones.”
  • While playing hide and seek at a party, Adele ends up in a closet with Tori’s boyfriend, Luke. They kiss. Adele, “found my mouth suddenly pressed against his. We weren’t making a sound, but it was like everything inside of me was singing and shouting. I was alive and kissing. . . Under my hands, his shoulders were taunt with muscle. My nose filled with his sharp smell that was at once familiar and not. His mouth tasted like beer.” Tori finds them.
  • At the party, Tori was “dirty dancing with some of the guys, even at one point dropping the straps on her dress and flashing everyone.”
  • Someone says that Tori was “all over Ethan” even though he has a girlfriend.
  • Tori implied that she had a sexual relationship with a student teacher and “that it was her idea.”
  • One of the character’s dads was cheating on his wife, so she kicks him out of the house.
  • Luke kisses Adele. She thinks, “Luke’s lips are so soft, but then they press into me hard. I freeze. My heart pulses in my ears. My skin feels tight. It’s like I’m drowning, like there isn’t enough air.”
  • Adele kisses Charlie. “I put my arms around him. Then I close my eyes and press my mouth to Charlie’s. Just as I remember, his lips are soft and warm, and he tastes like peppermint.”

Violence

  • The story revolves around discovering who murdered Tori. When Adele finds the body, she discovers a “dark line that runs across her throat. She wasn’t choked with hands, but with something like a thin rope. Other, shallower red marks run from just under her chin to the hollow of her throat. Tori must have clawed her own skin, trying to save herself. On the back of her neck, the dark line ends in two purple-red oval bruises.”
  • Tori said her father never “leaves bruises,” but “he’s pushed me a few times when I made him mad. Once he grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go to a party.”
  • Adele meets the ghost of a prostitute that was killed by a customer. The ghost tells Adele, “The guy who did it was one of my regulars.”
  • When Adele’s grandfather discovers that Adele has stopped taking her medication, he slaps her. “My mouth falls open as the blood rushes to my stinging skin.”
  • A girl accuses Adele of killing Tori, then pushes Adele. Someone throws something at Adele. Luke steps in to protect Adele, and fists are thrown. “Then Luke hits him square in the nose. Justin staggers back, blood slicking his upper lip.” A girl slips and hurts her arm.
  • The person who killed Tori tries to kill Adele. “He shifts his grip, and the leash tightens even further, making me cough.” Adele hits the person in the throat and is able to escape. There is a chase and Adele is able to hit the person with a board. “It hits his head with a sound like a cantaloupe falling to the floor.” The person is arrested.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Adele is walking through the park, a girl calls out to her. Adele thinks, “I’m afraid of homeless guys, of drunk guys, of guys who might try to drag me into the bushes. Not of some girl who knows my name.”
  • Adele wonders if her friend is drunk or on drugs.
  • Adele sees ghosts, but her doctor and grandfather think she is schizophrenic. She is supposed to take pills to keep her from being delusional. Adele doesn’t like taking drugs because they “bleed the color from everything. How they make me feel dizzy and drowsy and sick to my stomach.”
  • Adele attends Tori’s party, where teens are drinking alcohol. The ghost of Tori doesn’t remember much about the party because she was drinking “shots.” When Adele saw Tori at the party, “she had a glass in her hand, and half of those times she was shouting ‘Shots’ then tossing down her drink.” The class discusses the dangers of drinking including alcohol poisoning and blackouts.
  • A class assignment asks students to think about Dwight. He “drinks on weekends, he turns into a different person. He is belligerent and aggressive, and often gets into fights.”
  • At the funeral viewing, “cigarette and even pot smoke lingers in the air, and a few of my classmates are tipping back flasks I’m pretty sure hold more than just water.”

Language

  • Oh God and Oh my God are used several times as exclamations.
  • Hell is used three times. For example, when Tori finds Adele kissing her boyfriend, she yells, “What the hell? What the actual hell?”
  • Crap, damn, and pissed are used once.
  • Tori calls Luke a jerk.

Supernatural

  • Adele can see and talk to ghosts of people and animals. The dead are tethered to their body by a cord that runs to their bodies ’ skull. Tori says that some ghosts, “who’ve been here a long time say that folks from really old graves keep getting fainter and fainter. A couple have just disappeared. And people who’re cremated—they say you never see them at all, even if the remains are buried here on the grounds.”
  • Adele meets the ghost of a girl who died on the Oregon Trail. The ghost tells her that wolves would dig up the graves. While on the trail she saw, “an arm lying in the wagon ruts. Just an arm. We never could find the grave from which it came.”

Spiritual Content

  • Tori wonders if she is in “limbo.” But Adele tells her, “I think the Catholics did away with that.” Then Tori asks, “So is this hell? Being stuck here with no one to talk to besides you?”
  • After Tori dies, she realizes how painful it is to have people ignore her, and she says, “Maybe God has a sense of humor.”

I Hunt Killers

Jasper Francis Dent, who goes by Jazz, is the son of a famous serial killer who has been imprisoned for four years, but still has lasting effects on the boy’s life. Although Jazz is plagued by memories of the teachings his father gave to him, Jazz was almost adapting to living normally. He took care of his grandmother and had a best friend and girlfriend.

However, a serial killer imitating his father causes Jazz to change his life drastically. Instead of following in his father’s footsteps, he uses the inner workings of a serial killer’s mind to try to find out who is committing the murders. Jazz has to deal with reporters constantly hounding him, a sheriff who won’t let him look into the investigation, and a killer who is always one step ahead of everyone else.

I Hunt Killers has an exciting premise that hooks readers instantly. The story immediately throws Jazz into a crime scene surrounding a dead body. The gore and violence that the book opens up with are present throughout, but so is the thrill Jazz experiences trying to discover who committed the crime. The characters are well developed, unique, and convincing.

Jazz’s character is relatable because of his complexity and his competing desires. The reader is given a glimpse into Jazz’s thought process and is allowed to see his torment. Jazz wants to do good, but also struggles with the darker parts of himself, those parts that might be like this father. The themes in the book seem somewhat forced at times, but also provide messages related to independence, persevering through difficulty, and breaking cycles of abuse.

The book contains a somewhat predictable story, although the characters are unique and compelling. The story is written in a very approachable way, utilizing understandable language that clearly and quickly conveys Lyga’s message. At times, it seems like Jasper almost magically discovers clues to his victim. It is difficult to believe that a thirteen year old would reach the conclusions he does. This results in many of the revelations in the story feeling somewhat forced, and the twists feeling less surprising.

I Hunt Killers is a dark, disturbing, character-focused mystery in which the plot is often overlooked in favor of humor or graphic violence. Its story is predictable, but is otherwise an enticing read. The story shows the horrific nature of brutal crimes. Readers will want to take caution before picking up I Hunt Killers because of the subject matter, the graphic crime scenes, and the mind games that are played throughout the story.

Sexual Content

  • Many of the dead bodies in the book, including the first one, are found naked.
  • Jazz thinks of a time he and his girlfriend spent “tangled up” at their hideout.
  • Jazz says that another character’s reaction “felt like he’d just seen a nun do a striptease.”
  • Jazz mentions having a pistol pointed at his “thirteen-year-old junk” in a memory from when his dad was first apprehended. He is seventeen at the time the book takes place.
  • Howie wonders if the killer was just “having sex and stuff” and suggests that the killer’s girlfriend might have just hit her head and had a heart attack, resulting in him abandoning her at the scene.
  • Howie perks up at the mention of “cleavage” while a dead body is investigated.
  • Howie and Jazz contemplate whether or not the killer “did stuff” to his victim.
  • Jazz and Connie kiss several times. Their kisses range from a “quick kiss on the lips” to “kissing and groping” that includes descriptive visuals such as “the soft insistence of Connie’s plush lips, to the warm of her tongue” and “a long, lingering kiss that warmed him [Jasper] all over.”
  • Connie and Jazz spend the beginning of rehearsal “feverishly kissing and groping back in the wings.”
  • A character is suspected to have “entertained some R-rated fantasies about the girls in his class.”
  • Jazz says that “if you were in a room alone with her [Harriet Klein], you’d feel it.”
  • Gramma Dent accuses Jazz of “Putting [his] thing inside them [whores]!”
  • Jazz explains how serial killers often “jerk off” after revisiting crime scenes, which Howie says “ruined masturbation” for him.
  • Howie calls a toe ring “sexy.”
  • Jazz thinks about how he is obsessed with sex. “He was terrified of sex. Like every teenage boy, he was obsessed with it, of course, and wanted to have as much of it as humanly possible…”
  • When Connie sits on Jazz’s lap, “he felt himself respond to her weight in his lap the only way a teen boy should respond.” Then, Connie adjusts herself in Jazz’s lap and grinds “her butt into his groin in that special pleasant/painful way.”
  • Connie mentions how people dream about “having sex with a supermodel.”
  • A character whose initials are “VD” reminds Howie of “venereal disease.”
  • Jazz remembers how a female character’s breasts had pressed against him when they hugged.
  • When Howie is hospitalized, Jazz asks jokingly if he wants “a hot nurse and a stripper pole.”
  • Jazz recounts that one of Billy Dent’s victims was “sexually assaulted, invaded both vaginally and rectally.”
  • Jazz suspects that the killer used “a sex toy or something” on one of his victims.
  • Jazz says to Connie, “I bet I could warm you up,” implying sex. Connie “shifted, locking her ankles together.”
  • Jazz thinks that “any straight male snuggling with Connie would be desperate to get those jeans off.”
  • Gramma Dent, upon seeing a horde of reporters outside her home, believes they are enemy warriors and yells that “They’re gonna rape mongrel babies into me!”
  • Howie suggests to Jazz that he “stick [his] tongue down her [Connie’s] throat.”
  • Billy Dent asks if Jazz has “a little piece of tail [he] like[s] to bang,” and if “girls. . . line up for a taste of [his] dick.”
  • Billy Dent talks to his son and asks, “are you always the one buyin’ the rubbers? Hmm? Or maybe she’s on that pill? Cause you can’t always trust ‘em, Jasper. You look at them rubbers real close-like, see?”
  • Billy asks Jazz to “Tell Dear Old Dad your little pussy’s name.”
  • Billy describes a victim with “Perfect little titties.”
  • Billy says to Jazz “I’m glad you’re getting’ your dick wet.”
  • Billy is suspected to have left semen and committed rape at a murder scene.
  • G. William searched Jazz and placed a hand “uncomfortably close to the family jewels.”

Violence

  • The book opens up with a police scene surrounding a dead body, and it is made clear that this will be a common theme in the novel.
  • There are multiple instances of body bags being opened or used to store/view bodies. “Two cops approached the corpse with a body bag hanging limp between them… he focused on the struggle with the body bag.”
  • Jazz often imagines entering violent scenarios with different characters.
  • The killer’s specialty is to sever his victim’s fingers. Removed fingers are referred to as excised digits.
  • Billy Dent killed over one hundred people, whose deaths are frequently referenced.
  • Jazz experiences memories of his father describing his methods to commit murder. “Good boy. Good boy. (one cut, two cuts) Just like that.”
  • Vivid descriptions of dead bodies are provided. “Dead female Caucasian… Found at least two miles from anywhere in any direction. Naked. No apparent bruising. Missing fingers.”
  • Billy Dent kept trophies from his victims.
  • Jazz has what looks like the “biggest god-damn pistol in the entire universe [pointed] right at [his] thirteen-year-old junk.”
  • The experimentation process of serial killers is described as they try new methods of violence. “And they experiment. Cutting off the fingers…”
  • G. William threatens to shoot Jazz.
  • Jazz “was certain that the next day would have seen G. William dead by his own hand” if Billy Dent had not been found.
  • Jazz imagines cutting a finger off.
  • Jazz says that the death isn’t just “Joe-Bob McHick smacking around his girlfriend and then leaving her to die.”
  • An autopsy is performed on a corpse.
  • Jazz imagines G. William drawing his service revolver and putting “two slugs into his center of mass.”
  • A joke is made about pointing an excised finger.
  • Howie is a “type-A hemophiliac, which meant that he bled if you looked at him too hard,” and experiences large amounts of bleeding in the novel.
  • Jazz beat up Howie’s bullies.
  • Jazz experiences a bloody nose.
  • A reference is made to Hannibal Lecter, the cannibal villain.
  • Jazz thinks a crime would be easier to identify if there had been “some sort of savagery before death—torture, cutting mutilation…”
  • Victims are strangled.
  • During the investigation of a body, eyelids are peeled back.
  • Howie’s face bleeds profusely from a nosebleed.
  • Genocide and famine are referenced.
  • A body is nailed naked to a ceiling in a church. “Her head lolling downward, her limbs bearing the weight of her body. When the reverend who found the body called the police, the skin and muscle were already coming loose.”
  • An angered parent of a victim threatened to kidnap Jazz and perform his father’s crimes on him.
  • Eyes are removed from a corpse and fed to cats.
  • There are multiple references to famous serial killers.
  • Gramma Dent often threatens people with a shotgun.
  • Jazz imagines a character having a “Glock or Magnum” in their purse.
  • Jazz’s grandmother smacks him multiple times.
  • Billy Dent disjointed a corpse.
  • Billy Dent is said to have raped and abused his victims as well as killed them.“He tormented them. Tortured them. Raped them and abused them.” More details are given later on when Billy Dent’s victim is described as “Sexually assaulted, invaded both vaginally and rectally.”
  • Jazz imagines ripping out a character’s larynx.
  • Jazz wonders why Billy has not been shanked in prison, as well as why he hasn’t committed suicide.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • G. William is said to very rarely drink.
  • Jazz gives his grandmother a “poor man’s sedative” so that he can go out without her arguing.
  • Jazz also puts a “powerful tranquilizer” in his grandmother’s breakfast for a similar purpose.
  • Jazz’s grandmother is sedated and held captive by the novel’s antagonist.
  • Jazz “clambered down the fire escape like a monkey on crystal meth.”

Language

  • There is an immense amount of profanity including crap, Christ, God, Devil/Satan, Hell, idiot, moron, badass, douche, goddamn, demon, piss, whores, ho, bastard, ass, hellfire, jackass, smart-ass, butt, buttocks, damn, BS, pussy, titties, dick, bitch.
  • When Jazz tells G. William that he had been spying on the crime scene at the beginning of the book, “G. William slammed a fist on the desk and swore.”
  • A killer leaves behind his victim’s middle finger while taking other digits.
  • Doug Weathers is called a “bottom-feeding moron.”
  • Jazz and Howie say “bros before hos.”
  • Gramma Dent uses the “hellfire o’ Jesus” as an exclamation.
  • Jazz exclaims “Jesus!” at one point.
  • Connie gasps “Oh my God.”
  • Billy Dent is said to have “a real PhD in slinging high-grade horse manure.”

Supernatural

  • Witchcraft and witches are mentioned as a part of the Salem Witch Trials that took place in The Crucible.

Spiritual Content

  • G. William is said to have “catholic guilt.”
  • The Devil/Satan, demons, Heaven, Christ, and God are mentioned as slurs, although not in actual religious contexts.
  • Jazz describes faith as “being certain of something without any kind of evidence.”
  • Howie says that he “deftly avoids the crushing throngs of heathens.”
  • The Crucible is being performed by Jazz’s drama group, and he acts as a reverend in the play during the witch trials that were performed in Salem by the Puritans.
  • A quote from The Crucible says “Theology, sir, is a fortress; no crack in a fortress may be accounted small.”
  • A quote from The Crucible says “Man, remember, until an hour before the Devil fell, God thought him beautiful in Heaven.”
  • Gramma Dent has a collection of “religious dogma.”
  • Billy Dent says that “Cain slew Abel, all under God’s eye” as justification for his murders, specifically of Jasper’s dog Rusty.
  • Jazz asks that “God bless Ginny Davis.”
  • Billy Dent describes the sound of someone dying as “sacred an’ holy.”
  • Gramma Dent cries out “Praise God!”
  • Jasper’s grandmother recalls how she had “said all her Hail Marys” when she shifts into the persona of a young girl.
  • Billy Dent claims he is the god of his victims.
  • Jazz says Billy “had been a god” that he worshiped, although later states that Billy “had been a devil, not a god.”
  • Billy sighs “as if asking the Good Lord.”
  • A serial killer believes that Billy Dent, a serial killer, is a god, and that Jasper is a “child of divinity.”

by Dylan Chilcoat

 

Big Trouble

Friday has found a home at her exclusive boarding school, but she’s unprepared for her father being a guest professor. However, her father isn’t the only new arrival. A Norwegian princess has just arrived, just when a thief called the Pimpernel is causing chaos across campus. Can Friday avoid her father, rein in a royal brat, and discover who the Pimpernel is?

The third installment of the Friday Barnes Mystery Series will entertain readers with its page-turning mystery and the reappearance of some lovable characters. Although Melanie’s best friend and possible love interest Ian reappears, new and interesting characters are added. Many of the characters are portrayed in an exaggerated, stereotypical way, which adds to the story’s humor. For example, when Friday catches a girl eavesdropping, the girl replies, “. . .we’re preteen girls. We’re supposed to have a cavalier disregard for the sensitivities of our peers.”

Melanie’s brother, Binky, makes an appearance and wants to know how to attract a girl. His interactions with Friday are heartfelt. Middle school readers will relate to his dilemma. Binky adds a welcome dose of romance to the story.

Like the previous books, Friday focuses on several smaller mysteries that end up all coming together for a big reveal at the end. Even though the story’s ending is mostly predictable, readers will still enjoy discovering how Friday used her power of observation to solve the mysteries. Friday doesn’t shy away from using large vocabulary words or feel like she needs to hide the fact that she is smart.

Black and white illustrations appear every 4 to 8 pages. The illustrations help bring the quirky characters to life and show some of the story’s action. Although the Friday Barns Series does not need illustrations to get readers to turn the pages, they add a nice touch and are often humorous.

Although Big Trouble can be read as a stand-alone book, readers will enjoy the story more if the previous books in the series have been read. Big Trouble will keep readers entertained with new mysteries and new characters. Friday’s curious personality and search for the truth will captivate readers and keep them turning the pages.

Sexual Content

  • When Friday says she doesn’t think Ian is a thief, Melanie asks, “Because you love him even more than you love Marie Curie?”
  • A magazine prints a picture with the heading, “Secret Smooching at Swanky School’ and a grainy black-and-white photograph of Princess Ingrid kissing a boy. Melanie is upset that the boy was Ian and yells, “How dare he kiss another girl just because she’s beautiful, rich, and royal.”
  • While looking at the picture of the princess and Ian kissing, Friday notices his messed up hair. “Maybe Ingrid ran her hand through his hair,” said Friday. “That is something kissing people are known to do.”
  • When Ian tries to explain that he wasn’t kissing the princess, Friday doesn’t believe his story. Ian replies, “What interest would I have in being chivalrous? It would be more to my advantage if everyone thought I was the type of guy who made out with European royalty on a polo field.”
  • One of the boys decides to wear clothes to show off his muscles. He hopes to attract a girl by being “eye candy.”

Violence

  • Friday’s uncle, “accidentally hit the lady who sang the national anthem.” He says the lady, “burst onto the ice with a bunch of spectators to try to punch our goalkeeper . . . He’d just let in a home goal, so they were feeling emotional. Fists started flying, and my fist just happened to connect with her nose.”
  • A dog “launched himself at Uncle Bernie’s bottom.” He is not seriously hurt by the resulting bite.
  • One of the characters talked about how during a race someone tried to stop people from winning by putting down banana peels. It didn’t work, and “the winner punched Rajiv in the nose and kept running.”
  • During the race, a boy “whipped off his size 14 shoe and threw it at Patel. It hit him neatly on the ankle, causing him to trip and slam into a vending machine.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Friday’s father calls someone a buffoon.
  • Melanie calls Ian a rat.
  • Friday says that a thief is “an idiot with a get-rich-quick scheme.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Paper Valentine

In the last six months, Hannah’s life has been turned upside down because Hannah’s best friend Lillian died and is now haunting her. Not only is Hannah struggling to understand the self-destructive behavior that led to Lillian’s death, but she is also grappling with changes in her elite friend group. When Hannah runs into bad boy Finny, she can’t decide if she should stay away from the boy with a bad reputation or if she should explore her growing attraction to him.

Then, when someone begins murdering young girls and leaving behind paper valentines, Lilian’s ghost encourages Hannah to look into the crimes. As Hannah discovers gruesome details about the murders, the ghosts of the dead girls begin appearing. But why do they appear when Finny is near? And by investigating, is Hannah making herself a target for the murderer?

Over the course of the book, Hannah struggles with depression and dealing with the death of Lillian. To make matters worse, Lillian has changed in death. Lillian criticizes Hannah for spending time with her friends, even though they were Lillian’s friends when she was alive. Lillian is mean to Hannah and says things like, “Hannah doesn’t like to live in real life. Hannah just wants to pretend that we all live in happy fairy-land, where everyone is super-best friends and no one is a heinous bitch and nothing bad is ever going to happen.” Although much of Hannah’s behavior seems week, she is like many teenagers who struggle with wanting to fit in.

Paper Valentine does an excellent job showing the complexities of people. Although most people think Finny is just a delinquent, he also has a streak of kindness. Hannah is able to look past Finny’s ‘bad boy’ image and see his good side. In addition, Hannah realizes that she and Lillian, “were always trying so hard to be perfect . . . when the funny thing was, we didn’t have to.”

Paper Valentine bounces from topic to topic, including the desire to be perfect, depression, eating disorders, child abuse, and ghosts. None of the topics are dealt with in detail and will leave the readers with unanswered questions. The conclusion was predictable, typical, and lacks insight into the mind of the killer. Those looking for an excellent murder mystery may want to bypass Paper Valentine. Despite its flaws, Paper Valentine is an enjoyable, unique story that junior high readers will enjoy. Paper Valentine is a fast-paced story that has a bit of a scare factor due to the ghosts. Readers will enjoy looking for clues to discover the murderer, and Hannah and Finny have some sweet moments.

Sexual Content

  • While watching the news, someone makes a comment about the news correspondents. “I bet they make out like hyenas as soon as Jim Dean starts giving the weather report.”
  • A boy that Hannah knows “used to go out with Lillian in junior high and now sometimes made out with Angelie.”
  • A boy at school would “grab girls around the waist when they walked by his table in the cafeteria last year and say things like, ’Want to sit on my lap and talk about the next thing that pops up.’”
  • When Hannah picks out some lipstick, she’s afraid her friend will think the “colors are perfect for a disco-clown hooker.”
  • When Hannah thinks of pressing her hips against Finny, “the thought of this is electric, beating in my chest like a birthday wish, dark and warm and secret.”
  • Finny and Hannah kiss several times. The first time, Finny “bends his head and kisses me, just once, then lets me go. When Connor would kiss Angelie in the halls last spring, he did it like he was trying to suck the chocolate off the outside of a Klondike bar. It could last hours. This is more like seeing a star fall—thrilling and soundless and then over.”
  • When Finny kisses Hannah a second time, “his tongue brushes the curve of my bottom lip, grazing the hollow underneath, and something leaps and fidgets in my chest. . . I want him to never stop.”
  • When Hannah goes to Dairy Queen, a girl she knows was “leaning against the side of the little brick building, frantically kissing Austin Dean.”
  • A boy asks, “Hey, do you think if I bleached my hair and started vandalizing street signs or something, Carmen would let me near those exquisite titties?”
  • While in a public place, Hannah kisses Finny so that her friends will see. “He doesn’t react right away, but then his hands move to my hips.”

Violence

  • When someone was bothering Hannah, Finny came to her aid. “Finny had Connor by the collar of his shirt and was holding him so their foreheads were almost touching, but he didn’t say anything. He just leaned over me while Connor yanked on Finny’s wrist, trying to get loose. . . With his hand on the back of Connor’s neck, Finny held Connor away from me. . .”
  • Hannah talks about the murder of Monica Harris. “One of the city garbage collectors found her out in the parking lot behind the Bowl-A-Rama in her pink polyester jacket, beaten dead with a piece of two-by-four and her own ice skates.”
  • Hannah looks at the crime scene photos and sees, “Her face is shockingly white—dead white—and there are dark finger-shaped bruises all over one shoulder. In the blue evening light, the bruises look black. Almost as black as the blood that’s splashed in the weedy grass around her.” The photo is described over five paragraphs.
  • When Finny was younger, a dog bit off his finger. He also has cigarette burns on his back. The abuse is not described.
  • While in elementary school, Hannah was mean to Finny, and he washed her face with snow. “The snow was weeks old, crusty with ice, and when he scrubbed my face with it, the crystals were so sharp they made me bleed.”
  • A boy is in foster care because “his dad was using him for a punching bag.”
  • Hannah and a group of people find a dead body. “I’m looking into the face of a girl, and there’s blood in her hair and splashed down the side of her neck. There’s a smell. . . Her face is pale blue in the light. . .” The scene is described over three paragraphs.
  • The murderer tries to kill Hannah. “He turns and grabs me by the shoulders, slamming me hard against the wall of the bridge. . . When I try to squirm away, prying at his fingers with my free hand, he gives me a shake that nearly pops my shoulder out of its socket. . . That’s when he slaps me. . .” The murderer hits Hannah’s head with something heavy. She is injured but survives. The scene takes place over a chapter.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A shop owner “runs off prints of scowling tattooed drug dealers and drunk, disorderly frat boys standing against a dirty wall outside one of the college bars.”
  • The Qwick-mart has “smashed beer bottles” on the ground outside.
  • Hannah remembers when Lillian was younger and “took that bottle of Sour Apple Pucker from her mom’s liquor cabinet, and we drank it in the back of her garage.”
  • Lillian thinks her mother, “spent the last three years drinking a perfectly decent chardonnay on the couch and waiting for me to stop being so dramatic.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. Profanity includes ass, asshole, bastard, bitch, crappiest, damn, fuck, goddamn, pussies, hell, shit, shitty.
  • Thank god, Jesus, and God are used as exclamations. For example, Hannah’s friends tell her, “God, you’re such a weenie sometimes.”
  • Finny tells someone, “Don’t be a douche.”
  • Ghost Lillian calls a boy a pervert.
  • When a girl’s thong is showing, someone says, “Damn! That is just too much ass for those jeans!”
  • Finny took a stolen bracelet away from a boy and gave it back to Hannah. When she asks if the boy was mad, Finny replies, “Do I give a shit? He can fucking deal with it! I told him that maybe he’s free to act like a total dick any other time, but not to girls and little kids. Not when he’s with me.”

Supernatural

  • Hannah’s friend is a ghost. Hannah narrates, “Ghosts are the kind of thing you go your whole life with everyone telling you they aren’t real. I believe in them anyways, because the world is full of things that no one actually understands. Mostly though, I believe in them because my best friend died six months ago and now she’s with me all the time, materializing silently out of the shadows, creeping closer, reaching out.”
  • Several times, Hannah uses an Ouija board to talk to the spirits of the murdered girls.

Spiritual Content

  • The murderer tells Hannah, “As far as those little bitches knew, I was God.”

 

 

 

Under Suspicion

When the police show up at Highcrest Academy, Friday isn’t expecting them to take her to the police station. She has to clear her name with the help of a vagrant she meets. Life is no easier once she gets back to school, as she quickly jumps in to investigate a quiche back-off scandal as well as discover why holes are being dug everywhere.

The second installment of the Friday Barnes mystery has many of the same characters. Friday’s best friend Melanie spends all of her time sleeping, skipping out on classes, and obsessing over Friday’s love interests. Melanie’s nemesis Ian is willing to do anything to earn a scholarship, even framing Friday for a crime she didn’t commit. Many of the characters are portrayed as rich kids who are willing to do anything, including lie and cheat, to win. Besides the cast of characters from the first series, cute boy Christopher makes an appearance, which gives Melanie another boy to tease Friday about.

Throughout the story, Friday focuses on several smaller mysteries that end up all coming together for a big reveal at the end of the story. Throughout the story, Friday uses her power of observation to solve mysteries. Although Friday is socially awkward, she is clearly a genius who isn’t afraid to show that she is smart. Friday understands her weaknesses, which include social interactions. Even though the girls at the school ignore her, she is still willing to help them when they are in need.

Black and white illustrations appear every 4 to 8 pages. The illustrations help bring the quirky characters to life as well as show some of the action in the story. Although the Friday Barnes Series does not need illustrations to get readers to turn the pages, they add a nice touch and are often humorous.

Unlike many children’s books, the Friday Barnes Series doesn’t shy away from larger vocabulary words. Friday is a genius, and her vocabulary includes words like laboriously, repugnant, extrapolate, and fastidious. Even though readers may not understand all of Friday’s references and words, this doesn’t take away from the book’s enjoyment. Friday’s curious personality jumps off the page. Even though the reader knows that she will solve every case, there are plenty of surprises. Friday Barnes Under Suspicion is the perfect mix of dry humor, action, and suspense.

Sexual Content

  • When Friday and Ian are arguing, Melanie says, “You should write down some of this witty banter so you can read the transcripts to your grandchildren one day.” Another person replies, “I didn’t know Barnes and Waincott were planning to start a family.”
  • In order to get Friday to run, a boy grabs her hand. “Friday was surprised. No boy had ever held her hand before. It didn’t tingle like in the romance novels, but it did feel nice in an inexplicable, visceral way.”

Violence

  • The school gardener is found unconscious. He was hit in the head with a tool “but only because someone took the tool and swung it at him. . .”
  • Someone threatens to break Friday’s arm. He says, “I know that if I used my knee as a fulcrum and your forearm as a lever, I could snap your elbow like a dry twig.” He then uses a zip tie to secure her on the top of a lawn mower grass catcher.
  • Someone soaks Friday’s hat in gasoline and “produced a lighter from his pocket and set Friday’s hat alight.” Then the person, “threw the flaming hat through the broken window, then calmly walked back to where Friday was tied up.” The fire alarm went off and the school was evacuated.
  • When someone swung a spade towards Friday’s head, Ian tackles the person. “Ian had knocked him over and they were wrestling among the rosebushes.” The person brandishes gardening sheers at Friday and Ian. When the person goes to flee, Malcom, “burst out from the bushes at the edge of the forest and came sprinting down the slope towards the lawn mower. . . Malcom pivoted himself up and raised his fist to deliver a blow.” Friday yells at Malcom, who stops himself from hitting the person.
  • Malcom tells a story about someone who, “tried to trick an eighty-five-year-old lady. . . Little did he realize she was a retired professional wrestler. She hit him over the head with her walking frame, then held him in a leg lock until the police arrived.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Twice, someone calls Friday an Idiot.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Impossible Crime

Mac is an ordinary kid who likes to play video games. While at the arcade, the Queen of England’s corgi appears with a note stating, “pick up the phone.” The Queen of England needs Mac’s help. Someone is planning on stealing the Crown Jewels. With the help of beefeater Holcroft, Max tries to keep the Crown Jewels safe. But when they disappear from a locked room, Mac must use all of his knowledge to discover not only who did it, but why.

The Impossible Crime uses humor, riddles, and corgis to teach readers about English history. The fast-paced plot has several of the same interesting characters as Mac Undercover, but isn’t as outrageously funny as Mac Undercover. However, readers will enjoy the silliness of the story, the dialogue between Mac and the Queen, and the surprise ending. As the story unfolds, readers will learn historical facts, geography, and different meanings of words. Each new fact is integrated into the story in a seamless manner, which makes learning fun.

Mac tells his own story with humor and uses lists and reputation to help readers follow the mystery. The Impossible Crime will entertain even the most reluctant readers for many reasons. Short sentences and simple vocabulary will help readers build confidence. Every page contains large black, green, and orange illustrations that add to the humor of the story. The illustrations and text work together to provide clues, create humor, and keep the reader interested to the very end. The Impossible Crime is a fun, easy-to-read book that is a great choice for any reader. It is also a perfect book for parents to read aloud to their children; the short dialogue is a great opportunity to use different voices for the characters.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • In 1671, Colonel Blood tried to steal England’s crown jewels. When Edward took Colonel Blood to see the jewels, “Colonel Blood threw the cloak over Edwards’s head! The men tied up the god Keeper like a sheep in a sack. Then they hit him with mallets. . . Then they stabbed him.’”
  • Holcroft goes after Mac with an axe. “He turned to me and brandished his axe. . . I backed into a corner of the library as Holcroft slowly came towards me.” Mac orders Holcroft to put the axe down and he does.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Mac asks a man, “what the heck are you doing?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Dreaming Dangerous

Brassmere Academy is the only home Plum has ever known. Hidden deep in the woods, Brassmere is home to orphans who have extraordinary abilities. Each night when Plum lays down to sleep, she travels into dream worlds, where her best friends Vien, Gwendle, and Artem meet her. While dreaming, the friends go on exciting journeys and fight dangerous monsters.

During a dream, Artem tells Plum, “They’re coming for us. One by one, until they find the one they need.” When she wakes up, Artem is missing. No one knows where Artem has gone. Plum is convinced that the adults at the school cannot be trusted.

Plum, Vien, and Gwendle search for their friend. As they find clues in both the dreaming and waking worlds, they uncover many secrets. Plum has always considered the director, Dr. Abarrane, a trusted adult, but now she wonders what dark secrets he keeps. Brassmere has always kept the children safe from the outside world, but is the real danger inside Brassmere’s walls? Will Plum and her friends be the next to disappear?

Told from Plum’s point of view, Dreaming Dangerous quickly jumps into the mystery of Brassmere Academy. Right from the start, the reader understands the strong bonds of friendship between the four friends. The friends travel into the dream world, where they encounter imaginative worlds full of monsters. Plum spends an equal amount of time in the real world and the dream world, which adds drama but also may cause some confusion.

Dreaming Dangerous is a compelling story that has the perfect amount of suspense and scare factor for younger readers. Readers will be drawn into the story because of the interesting dream world, the children’s abilities, and the mystery surrounding Brassmere Academy. The ending of the story shows the violent death of Plum’s mother and the evil nature of Dr. Abarrane. However, the death is not described in gory detail. The only negative aspect of the story is the abrupt, confusing conclusion that leaves many questions unanswered.

Many readers will be drawn to Dreaming Dangerous because of the well-develop characters, monsters, and mystery. The fantasy story is at times creepy and frightening. For readers who like Gothic-style mysteries, Dreaming Dangerous is an easy-to-read, fast-paced story that will entertain until the very end.  

Violence

  • While in a dream, Plum falls. “Sword pointed downward, Plum leaned into the momentum of the drop, landing hard on the head of some giant, scaled creature. An alligator, she suspected. She jammed her sword between its eyes and it thrashed and roared. . . Blood stained her sword and her shoes. . . The giant alligator would not die quickly . . . a set of sharp teeth had snared her ankle and pulled her underwater.” Plum’s friend appears and saves her. The battle with the alligator happens over four pages.
  • While in a dream, Plum sees a monster. When she asked the monster a question, “its mouth became so wide that it was big enough to devour a girl like Plum in a single bite. And that’s what it did. . .” She falls down the monster’s throat and lands in a town.
  • The gargoyles that stood guard over Brassmere came to life. The gargoyles flew towards the school. “One of the gargoyles was barreling through the overarching glass window of the grand foyer. The other had scaled the side of the building that housed the dormitory, and its giant swinging tail was shattering the windows. . . All the birds and insects in the wallpaper had escaped and were buzzing and flapping at the ceiling and remaining windows, trying to find a way out.” No one was injured.
  • Plum wakes up Melinda, who was in a trance. When Plum touches her, “Melinda raised her head and looked at Plum, her mouth curled into a vicious snarl. And then, Plum was airborne, flying backward by the metal in her boot buckles and the buttons of her coat, until she hit a wall, hard, and everything went dark.”
  • In a dream, Plum sees the young Dr. Abarrane kill a woman and take her baby. When the woman tries to argue, “Dr. Abarrane didn’t bother to argue. He pulled the trigger . . . the woman had fallen to the ground. Dead. The baby screamed and fell into a fit of tears.”
  • Dr. Abarrane chases after Plum and Artem. He tried to inject Plum with a syringe, but “a metal tray hit him in the side of the head, hard. All it took was one blow and he was down.” The kids were able to escape.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Plum is given a “strange purple liquid” through an IV. The liquid makes her sleep, and she is unable to wake from her dream.
  • After Artem disappears, Plum finds him in a building that looks like a hospital. When she finds him, he has an IV “that dripped in a bag over his bed. Plum recognized that odd purple liquid; it was the same thing Dr. Abarrane had given to her that morning. . .”
  • Plum overhears a nurse talking about the death of a boy. The boy was given “three doses of blue. . . The immediate effects were an increase in physical strength and energy.” The fluid killed the boy.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • The orphans who live at Brassmere Academy all have special abilities. The main characters share their dreams. Some “could bend and move metal if they concentrated.” Others could “charm animals” or “communicate with their thoughts.”
  • While in a dream, Artem “could always breathe underwater.”
  • While in a dream, Plum and the others travel to a town. Plum thinks what they saw “happened in the past, and somehow I was able to see it.”

Spiritual Content

  • None

Bad Mermaids Make Waves

Beattie, Mimi, and Zelda planned to spend the summer on land with temporary legs, but their trip is cut short when they receive a message ordering them to return home. The queen of the Hidden Lagoon, Arabella Cod, has been fishnapped. It’s up to the three friends to figure out what has happened to Arabella. When they return to the Hidden Lagoon, they discover that some seriously bad mermaids have taken over. With the help of a talking seahorse, the three go on a dangerous journey to discover who has fishnapped Arabella. Will the three be able to avoid the bad mermaids and chasing piranhas? Can they discover who the true villain is?

Readers looking for a fast-paced and silly mermaid mystery will be drawn to Bad Mermaids Make Waves because of the beautiful cover and the fun black-and-white illustrations throughout the story. The illustrations bring the magical mermaid world to life and help readers visualize the many crazily outfitted characters.

As Beattie, Mimi, and Zelda swim through the mermaid kingdom looking for clues, they interview those who may have had a hand in Arabella Cod’s disappearance. The mystery solving is more silly than serious and the three spend much of their time being chased. Bad Mermaids Make Waves will satisfy readers who like riddles, puns, and seriously silly fun.

The three main characters and a talking sea-horse, Steve, interact in hilarious ways. Another added bonus is the news-like articles from Clamzine and The Scribbled Squid that are dispersed throughout the story. The Scribbled Squid writes, “gossip and lies and things you should definitely buy,” while Clamzine gives snapshots of important characters in a fun way.

Bad Mermaids Makes Waves weaves mermaids, fashion, and mystery into a silly story that will engage reluctant middle school readers.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Arabella Cod is fishnapped by a human.
  • Piranhas chase the three mermaids. Mimi uses fin-fu, which is “a little like human kung fu, only with fins” to battle the piranhas. Mimi “was doing a weird single-finder chopping move and pinging them away.” The piranhas finally swim away.
  • The mermaids chase someone who stole a car. Beattie jumps on a shark and chases the car. “The shark lunged and snapped down. The clam car shot forward . . . the shark lunged and crunched! She opened her eyes just in time to see the robber mermaid shoot out of the car and down the alleyway.”
  • The mermaids sneak into someone’s house to investigate. When they are caught, Beattie gets stuck in the door that was shaped like fish lips. In order to get Beattie unstuck, “Mimi casually turned and fin-fun chopped the fish lips. The entire sandcastle crumbled into a pile in one dusty explosion of sand.” The mermaids then escape.
  • Someone fishnaps Goda Gar. “There on the bow was Goda Gar, being tied up with seaweed streams and carted off by the chomping piranhas.”
  • The three mermaids are captured. When a seahorse tries to help them, a shark “bit down hard on Steve. . . Beattie cried as the wriggling little sea horse went limp and floated down toward the mermaids in a trance below.” The seahorse’s “shell top is ruined,” but he’s okay.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Someone used a “powerful magic, old magic, dark magic” to control the mermaids. Somehow the mermaids’ nails are stamped with piranhas, which allows the piranhas to track them.
  • Someone found the Ruster Shells, which are “two magic shells with crocodiles carved on them.” When mermaids see the shells, they fall into a trance and do everything they are told. Whoever wears the shells can control others.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

 

Tell

David isn’t sad that his stepfather is dead. However, he didn’t expect to become the prime suspect of his murder. The detective investigating the case is convinced that David is keeping secrets—and he’s right. David knows the truth about his stepfather’s death. But can he convince the police that he’s not guilty of shooting his stepfather and leaving him to die?

Tell, published by Orca Book Publishers, is specifically written for teens who want to read short, high-interest novels.  The story focuses on David and his struggles with his stepfather, Phil. The easy-to-read story shows the harsh realities of life without going into graphic descriptions. Even though David tells his own story, the mystery of his stepfather’s death leaves the reader wondering if David is actually the murderer.

The suspenseful story has a dark undertone. David struggles with his brother’s death, his mother’s deceit, and his stepfather’s manipulation. As David interacts with his mother, her uncaring and lying nature becomes obvious. In the end, Tell shows that sometimes the monsters in people’s lives are the ones living under their own roof. The sad ending can lend itself to some good discussion between parent and child.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • David’s brother, Jamie, “drowned when he was eight years old.”
  • David thinks Phil intentionally let his brother die. David said, “Phil could have saved him. Phil was right there. He was a good swimmer. He could have saved Jamie, but instead, he did nothing.”
  • After Phil goes to an ATM, a man approaches him. “Phil shoved him away and swore at him. He turned away from the guy. Then I saw the guy take out a gun. He pointed it at Phil . . . The guy shot him.” When David approached Phil, “he was making a sort of gurgling sound . . . Then Phil stopped making that noise. . . and I ran.” David didn’t get Phil help because Phil didn’t help his brother.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Throughout the story, people talk about how David’s stepfather would drink beer. Sometimes he goes to the bar and drinks. He would also play poker with his friends and they would drink beer.
  • David said that Phil carried the picture of his dead brother around because “he got a lot of sympathy from it. One time he told me he got a lot of free drinks too . . .”
  • Jack, a friend of David’s mother, “took a quick gulp of beer” while he was talking to Dave. Jack is also seen drinking beer several times in the story.

Language

  • Profanity is used a few times. “Ass” is used once. “Damn” and “pissed” are each used twice. When Phil gets home from work, his stepson would act up, which “really pissed Phil off. . . “
  • A character said Phil could be a “jerk.” Later, David said he “wanted his mom to know what kind of jerk she married.”
  • Phil calls David a “pain in the ass.”
  • “Oh my god” is used as an exclamation once.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Girl at the Grave

When Valentine was a child, her mother murdered a wealthy man. After her mother was hung at the gallows, Valentine was left in the care of her neglectful father. Forced to learn to care for herself, she lived in a ramshackle house and spent most of her time alone.

Now Valentine is a senior at the prestigious school, Drake Academy. Even though she has earned excellent grades, her mother’s death still haunts her. An outcast among the other students, Valentine relies on Sam’s friendship especially when a local man is murdered and people begin whispering that Valentine may be a murderer like her mother.

As Valentine searches for the truth behind her mother’s death, she soon finds that powerful people will do anything to keep their secrets. Unexpectedly, Rowan Blackshaw, the son of the man her mother murdered, begins spending time with her. Because of Rowan’s interest in Valentine, the other members of her school begin to include her in their group. Valentine longs to be accepted by society, but is acceptance worth burying the secrets of the past?

The first chapter grabs the reader’s attention by setting up the mystery, hinting that Valentine’s mother might have been innocent. Valentine and her two love interests are all well-developed. Because the story is told from Valentine’s point of view, the reader has the ability to understand and care about her struggle. Rowan’s character is an unexpected delight because he does not conform to the rich boy stereotype.

As Valentine begins to unravel the mystery of her mother’s death, her discoveries show the different motivations of some of the characters, which adds interest. When Valentine’s father and another woman disappear, the town sheriff, Valentine, and other town people seem uninterested in their disappearance, which seems unrealistic. The lack of drama that surrounded their disappearance made the discovery of their deaths anticlimactic.

The middle part of the book spent so much time on the love triangle that the mystery faded into the background. The ending of the book contained several surprises, which highlighted how far people will go to protect those they love. The fact that Valentine chooses to follow an unexpected path instead of marrying the boy of her dreams is an added bonus. In the end, what drives the story is Valentine’s personal struggle. Even though the story lacks danger and suspense, Girl at the Grave is an entertaining book that is worth reading.

Sexual Content

  • When Valentine pulls away and won’t let Sam kiss her, he says his brothers, “think I’m a right fool, letting you lead me around on a leash. They kiss a different girl every week.”
  • Valentine learns that her father “has a woman across town. When he’s not home, that’s where he is.”
  • Valentine spends time with Rowan. Once while he was at her house, he “reached around my waist. . . I tilted my head, making room for him at my shoulder, and he lingered there . . . If I moved at all, he would do the rest. I felt him wanting it, his lips poised over my skin, his heart only inches from mine. But my body sways with uncertainty.” They don’t kiss.
  • Valentine and Sam kiss twice. The first time, “I leaned forward and touched my lips to his in the kiss that should have happened a long time ago . . . our lips soon warmed and softened, our heads tilting into one another, his arms sliding around me.”
  • Rowan and Valentine kiss several times throughout the story. “He leaned closer and brushed his lips against mine. Just a touch, then drew back. . . Then he kissed me again—and this time our mouths immediately molded to one another, warm and perfectly fitted, as if our lips had been made for this purpose, for this tasting and breathing and exploring one another.”
  • When Valentine tells Rowan she loves him, he kisses her. He “drew me into his arms, kissing me before I could catch my breath. A desperate kiss. A starving kiss. . .”

Violence

  • Valentine’s mother shot a man. She was hung on the gallows three days later. Throughout the story, Valentine revisits the memory. When Mr. Blackshaw was shot, the sound of the shot came from “everywhere, jolting my bones and filling my nostrils with the burning stench of gunpowder. . . I see Mr. Blackshaw sway on his feet, looking startled, then topple slowly backward, landing hard on the walkway, his arms sprawled.
  • Valentine remembers when her mother “hangs by her neck from a rope, her head tilting and her eyes staring fixedly, her hands clasped behind her back. Her boots dangle motionlessly at the bottom of her best black dress.”
  • When Valentine was younger, the Frye boys would torment her by “chasing me in the schoolyard. . . They’d tied me to trees and stolen my mittens.”
  • Valentine finds Mr. Oliver on the floor with a gash in his head. Valentine, “held his cold cheeks and felt his life sliding away beneath my hands, his face sagging, his body relaxing.” Later, she finds out he was poisoned.
  • Mr. Fry hits his wife and kids. Valentine thinks, “I’d seen what a punch from one of his enormous fists could do; Sam had outgrown them, but not Mrs. Fry and the younger boys.”
  • Valentine finds her father’s dead body. He is “on his back, staring upward, his eyes wide but seeing nothing. Icy and damp, both frozen and thawed.” Later she finds out he was poisoned, probably when someone gave him “a swig of liquor.”
  • Birdy’s body was next to Valentine’s father’s body. “A dark gash split the back of her head, separating her thatch of short hair.”
  • A woman attacks Valentine. “She grabbed a kitchen knife and lunged. . . She lunged with a furious screech . . . her knife sliced my upper arm.” They both grab for the knife and fight for control of it. Valentine pushes the woman, and “she stumbled back with a cry, blood flowing from a deep gash above her eye.” The woman falls, “hitting her head with a loud crack, then she crumpled to the floor.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Alvina Lunt’s “drunken father had broken both legs.” While he was in the hospital, Alvina learned about the unfair treatment of “lunatics.”
  • Sam takes his mother to visit her brother. When his brothers took his mother, “they got drunk and beat up the neighbor.”
  • Someone calls the doctor a “drunken fool.”
  • When Valentine was ill, Mrs. Blackshaw drugged her, so she would keep sleeping.

Language

  • Sam calls someone an “arrogant ass” twice.
  • Someone tells Valentine that she was “spawned by that tramp of a woman.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Devotionals are part of the school day on Fridays. During devotionals, Mr. Oliver reads from the Bible. “Man in his natural state . . . unassisted by the grace of God.”
  • When Valentine finds Mr. Oliver, she prays, “Father who art in heaven. . . Please, God. Please help Mr. Oliver.”
  • One of the characters could not get pregnant, and “she’d pleaded with the Lord for twenty years before her precious Philomena arrived, and her husband’s death soon after had only magnified the value of the blessing.”
  • When Valentine’s mother is hung, Mr. Oliver tells her, “But take comfort, for your mother confessed her sins. She is in God’s hands now, and he knows all.”
  • Some men think having a woman run a bank “is against God’s law.”

 

Bob

Five years ago, Livy told Bob to hide in a closet. Since then, he’s built a Lego pirate ship sixty-three times. He’s played chess with a Lego pirate monkey. He began reading the dictionary. And he’s wondered why Livy hasn’t come back.

It’s been five years since Livy visited her grandmother in Australia. Once she’s back, she knows she’s forgotten something very important. She’s forgotten all about Bob.

Bob, a short greenish creature, hasn’t forgotten about Livy, but he has forgotten who he is and where he came from. Five years ago, Livy promised to help him find his home. Now that Livy is back, they work to solve the mystery of where Bob belongs.

Each chapter switches between Livy’s point of view and Bob’s point of view. Hearing the different perspectives of each character adds interest and allows the reader to peek into each character’s world. Younger readers will relate to Livy, who is afraid to stay the night at her friends’ houses and struggles between growing up and remaining a child. Bob adds an interesting perspective showing how Livy has changed since they parted five years ago. In the end, Bob realizes that “Livy’s not just Old Livy or New Livy, she’s every age she’s ever been, and sometimes they get jumbled but they are all there.”

The simple writing style and beautiful pictures will engage even the most reluctant readers. Bob has spent much of his time reading the dictionary and uses his knowledge to explain the meaning of words in a fun way that is completely integrated into the story, so readers will learn new words without feeling like they are sitting through a vocabulary lesson. The story contains short paragraphs, lists, and dialogue that break up the test and keep younger readers interested.

The mystery of where Bob came from and what he is adds interest. The friendship between Bob and Livy will touch reader’s hearts. Bob and Livy are well developed; however, the other characters lack personality and added little to the plot. The ending is a surprise and wraps everything up nicely. Not only does Bob show the value of friendship, but he also realizes that “All the things I choose to put in my head are what make me, me. I plan to choose wisely.”

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Livy carries a black pawn from a chess set to help her remember Bob. When she doesn’t have the pawn. She forgets Bob.
  • Bob is a well dweller. They live in between wells and are responsible for bringing the rain. Well dwellers are “tied to the earth and the sky . . .”

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

#Prettyboy Must Die

After his first failed mission, Peter Smith goes undercover at an exclusive school in Colorado. Peter is supposed to be keeping a low profile. When Peter goes out for a late-night run, a classmate snaps a picture of him and posts the caption “See Prettyboy run.” When the picture becomes a viral sensation, Peter knows he’s in trouble. Before the end of the day, Peter’s school is under attack as a terrorist wants revenge. This former-foster-kid turned CIA operative will have to use all of his skills and training to stay alive.

Told from Peter’s point of view, #Prettyboy Must Die starts out with action and intrigue. However, right from the start the plot is over the top and unrealistic. The action continues throughout the story, but there are too many scenes where Peter and his friends unrealistically knock out an adult, professional, or mobster.

Having the story told from Peter’s point of view did not necessarily improve the story’s appeal as he is arrogant and doesn’t believe that others can be an asset. Peter doesn’t think girls can be accomplished and smart, which is shown several times, including when he thinks the hacker cannot be a girl because she is pretty. Girls are portrayed in a negative light once again when a group of girls don’t worry about the danger they face; they just want a picture of #prettyboy.

#Prettyboy Must Die is not a serious spy book, but it is a fast-paced story that leaves the reader wondering who can be trusted. For those looking for an easy-to-read, fun story, #Prettyboy Must Die is a good choice. Even though the violence is not described in detail and is appropriate for younger readers, there is a wide range of profanity that is used often. If you loved Aly Carter’s Gallagher Girls series, you may want to leave #Prettyboy Must Die on the shelf.

Sexual Content

  • Katie changes her clothing in front of Peter. He thinks, “It takes me a second to realize I probably shouldn’t be staring like I’ve just seen the promised land . . . But I can’t help but comment because, you know, Katie. Half-naked. ‘Hey girl, as much as I’d like to, this probably isn’t a good time.’”
  • Peter thinks about a date with Katie, “. . . I remember our one date, our first kiss, and I want to kiss her again. . .” Later in the story, he asks Katie, “Are you sure you didn’t know who I was when I asked you out? Because the way you kissed me. . . I mean, after the movie, in your car—”
  • When Katie sees a black SUV and realizes it has come to pick her up, she kisses Peter. “. . . I damn near forget about Sveta, Rogers, and the entire universe. I hold her like it will be the last time. She kisses me again like it’s only a preview of more to come.”

Violence

  • The CIA raids an arms dealer’s hideout and a man is killed. “Marchuk Sr. is now on the floor three feet inside the house, knocked that far back by the shot that has to have killed him instantly.” The raid is described over four pages. During the raid, Peter is shot.
  • When a classroom is taken hostage, the chemistry teacher tries to tackle Bad Guy #2. The bad guy puts the teacher in a “choke hold. Before I can even process what’s happening, the bad guy is already done with Mr. Valaquez, who he lets slump to the floor, unconscious. Or worse.”
  • Someone kicks one of the bad guys. “It doesn’t take a genius to figure out where, considering all the moaning.”
  • A bad guy hits a school employee and Peter hears “the sound of a fist hitting bone.” Later in the story, Peter sees a teacher who is hiding, and “I throw a left hook across his face and knock him the hell out. . . I’m pissed he’s in here hiding out instead of heading back to his class. . .”
  • When Peter tricks a bad guy into coming into a classroom. “That’s when I land the steel baton against his pterion, the weakest point on the skull, immediately incapacitating him. Or possibly killing him.” He takes out two other bad guys in the same way.
  • Katie is captured and a bad guy beats her. “. . . Officer Andrews is holding Katie by one arm, or more like holding her up.” Peter is tied to a chair and when he struggles “he hauls off and lands a right cross that feels like a sledgehammer against my face.” Later, as the bad guy is talking to Peter, he hits him in the face. Katie saves the day with, “A brutal kick to his junk . . . she hooks her foot around his ankle, sweeps his legs out from under him, then straddles his back. I’m certain it’s an image I won’t soon forget—girl of my dreams on top of the guy who wants to kill me.”
  • When the bad guy begins to recover from “the ball-kick she (Katie) gave him and is starting to squirm . . . she grabs Marchuk’s hair and slams his face into the floor, knocking him out.”
  • Peter attacks a bad guy. “. . . I land my fist against the side of his head. . .and kick him in the jewels. That brings him to his knees, but I know it won’t be for long.”
  • Peter and Katie go after a bad guy and he threatens to shoot them, but Peter shoots first. “When the bullet hits his left knee, he goes down before he can get off a single round. I hear the sound of metal against bone. Maglite against skull.”
  • Someone tries to use a drone to kill Peter and Katie. “Just as Katie takes off running, I hear a car come over the ridge, followed by a loud thump. I turn back in time to see Sveta on the car’s hood, her phone flying through the air. . . The car screeches to a stop and Sveta slides off and onto the ground, moaning. For a brief moment, I regret that she’s still alive.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A character said, “My layabout son takes nothing seriously, is only concerned about spending my money on women and drink.”
  • Peter gives the principal tickets to the game. After the game, the principal tells Peter, “I damn near went broke on stadium beer, but that’s what I get for celebrating a little too hard.” Later in the story, he tells Peter, “I’d been sick all morning, hungover. . .”
  • When Peter overhears someone say bank robbers are in the school, he thinks, “the average bank robber does so on impulse and out of desperation, usually some loser meth-head needing a hit.”
  • Katie injects several bad guys with carfentanil, a drug that is “ten thousand times stronger than morphine, so it acts quickly, and it only takes a drop or two.”
  • Peter and his friend are captured, and “then the crazy chick starts singing a kid’s chant to figure out which one of us she will shoot first.” Before she can shoot them, “Katie falls through the ceiling and onto the psycho’s back.”
  • When a bad guy crushes a boy’s hand, Katie fires her gun, but the bullet accidently hits Peter. Peter wants to know why he isn’t dead and Katie tells him, “It doesn’t shoot bullets. It was supposed to shoot nerve gas. . .”

Language

  • Profanity is used often and includes: ass, asshole, damn, dickhead, fucking, goddamn, hell, and pissed off.
  • When a teacher sees three incapacitated bad guys, he said, “Jesus H. Christ—are those terrorists?” Then he asks Peter, “Who the hell are you?”
  • “Oh My God” is used as an exclamation several times. For example, a girl says, “Oh my God. I sit two rows over from him in calculus. . . How did I not notice how hot he is?”
  • Peter sees a classmate and thinks, “I see Carlisle’s resident douche.”
  • When a teacher is looking for a bug, Peter thinks, “Despite the crazy that is happening all around us, watching The Douche have a near breakdown is fucking hilarious.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Dream a Little Dream

Liv is used to strange and new things. For all of her life, she has bounced from city to city as she moved from one place to another. This time she and her sister, Mia, are packing up their belongings for England because their mother has garnered a teaching position at Oxford University. Little does she know that this move will be the strangest yet.

Liv finds herself thrust into a world of gossipy blogs, a rich new family, and vivid dreams that make her question her reality. She soon finds herself entangled in bizarre dreams in which she is led to the most popular boys in school, one of which is her new “brother.”  Before she can even adjust to her new life, she is swept away into deals with a demon to free the boys from a terrible fate. Liv’s curious mind drives her closer to the heart of the mystery of the dreams as she searches for the truth underneath all of the madness.

Dream a Little Dream is an entertaining and suspenseful novel that leaves readers on the edge of their seats as they wonder what will happen next. Many of the characters are introduced at the same time, which causes confusion.  However, the story has a creative and engaging premise that is very enjoyable. The reader is able to discover this new world along with Liv and relate to her confusion, fear, and curiosity. The book has a surprising plot twist that adds to the enjoyment of the novel, but what follows that event leaves much to be desired. The attempt to leave room for a sequel ruins the ending and causes the reader to be confused rather than curious about the next installment in the series. Additionally, the novel describes how characters conduct rituals to make deals with a demon, which may be concerning to some parents.

Sexual Content

  • Liv’s mom has a relationship with an English lawyer, who makes her happy. They are described as kissing a few times, but nothing more than that.
  • Florence is described as having, “voluptuous breasts.”
  • The school blog wrote about sports and said, “Aesthetically speaking, those sloppy shirts they wear are the worst (even polo kit has more sex appeal), but all the same I don’t object to the sweaty sight of our four musketeers.”
  • In one of the “dreams”, Henry and Liv hold hands. They also discuss kissing, but only briefly.
  • In reference to Jasper’s dreams, “Most of the people in his dreams are stark naked.”
  • Liv’s mom talks about how when she was fifteen, she “was sitting up at night writing poetry. I was unhappily in love. . . At that age you fall in love with someone else every three weeks.”
  • Liv tells Anabel that she looks like Botticelli’s Venus, to which she responds, “Yes, but only when I’m standing around in a seashell with no clothes on.”
  • Anabel says that Arthur is the great love of her life and that, “it was like a tsunami rolling over us. I knew we were meant for each other, I knew he was the man I’d been waiting for all my life.”
  • Mia and Liv jokingly say that they have an “Operation Marrying Off Lottie” in which they will find their au pair a soulmate so she’ll have something to do when they don’t need her anymore.
  • Grayson and his girlfriend Emily kiss at a party intensely to the point which Liv thinks that it is, “kind of embarrassing to watch.”
  • Liv and her friends walk into a cinema and find a couple in the top row of seats in the dark. The man “began frantically adjusting his clothes . . . he came storming down the steps, his shirt still unbuttoned.” When the woman comes down, Arthur says, “How nice to see you again, Mrs. Kelly . . . and give your husband my regards if he happens to be at the party too.”
  • The four boys repeatedly ask Liv if she is a virgin. It is later revealed that she is.
  • Anabel breaks the rules of the game by having sex. She then has to forfeit and her dog is killed by the demon. It is later revealed that she killed her own dog with poison in order to trick the boys.
  • In the dream world, Henry and Liv kiss several times. They are not described in detail, but are usually described as “soft kisses.”
  • A gossipy girl talks about Arthur and says, “I get goosebumps whenever I set eyes on him. But Henry Harper is totally sweet too. And sexy.”
  • Henry and Liv make out during her sixteenth birthday party. “For a few seconds I forgot to breathe, then I felt my arms rising and going around his neck of their own accord to draw him closer. We weren’t kissing cautiously now, but much more intensely.” They all so make out during a school dance. “I’ve no idea how he did it, but when he kissed me nothing else mattered.”

Violence

  • When Liv went to a middle school in Berkeley, California, a girl gang, “had threatened to force my head into a toilet.” They later actually do shove her head into a toilet and it is described in detail in one of Liv’s dreams. These bullies also say that they squash people’s hands in doors.
  • In a dream, Henry sees his old cat. “He looked just the way he was when I last saw him: all-over blood and with his guts coming out . . .”
  • In one of her first vivid dreams, Liv repeatedly hopes that Lottie won’t show up with a hatchet.
  • In a nightmare, there is a group of enraged basketball fans. Liv says, “It sounds like they are going to kill him any moment now!” The mob begins to chant, “Burn him now, burn the traitor. Burn him now, not a day later!”
  • Liv jokingly remarks about London and says, “Street gangs indulging in shoot-outs the whole time, sex fiends lurking in front gardens, and isn’t that Jack the Ripper just coming around the corner.”
  • During a ritual, Liv, Grayson, Arthur, Jasper, and Henry all take turns cutting their hand with a hunting knife and dribbling their blood into a Chalice full of red wine. This scene is described in detail over several pages.
  • Liv has many dreams about Hamlet after she sees the play, and in these dreams, there are references to the stabbings and deaths of many of the Shakespearean characters.
  • During her sixteenth birthday party, Liv requests that Mia stop her from looking like a “lovelorn sheep” in any way that she can. Mia decides to distract her anytime she looks at Henry in that manner. “I was black and blue around the ribs and had been hit by assorted flying objects: several chestnuts, a spoon, and a blueberry muffin.”
  • Arthur intends on offering Anabel as a human sacrifice in the dream world in order to satisfy the demon. This never happens, but later in the novel, Anabel captures Liv with the intention of killing her as a virginal sacrifice to the demon.
  • When Liv tries to stop what she thinks is the sacrifice of Anabel, she “swung up my right foot and caught him just under the chin as I jumped. Still in the air, I turned at an angle of 280 degrees, and when I landed, my left forearm caught him in the stomach.”
  • An iron torch holder falls on Liv and she blacks out. Following the incident, she has to get several stitches.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the airport, Liv is stopped for suspicion of drug smuggling because a drug dog smells something in her backpack. It is just German cheese with a strong odor, but the ordeal causes Liv a lot of embarrassment.
  • On several occasions, Jasper helps himself to some of his mother’s sleeping pills in order to remain in the dream world longer.
  • Liv’s mom is accused of smoking pot when she was fifteen, but she defends herself by saying, “Nonsense. I never smoked pot until I went to college.”
  • Grayson tries to deter Liv from going to a party by telling her mother, “These parties are rather wild. I mean there’s a lot of alcohol flowing, and what with Liv being only fifteen.”
  • Liv describes Arthur’s house as looking like “a private clinic for the drug-addicted kids of millionaires.”
  • Jasper makes drinks that contain large amounts of alcohol during an important scene that lasts several pages. He is also later described as “tipsy.”
  • During a party, Arthur drinks gin straight from a bottle.
  • The British teens that Liv meets tell stories of when they were drunk on Halloween.
  • In one of Anabel’s dreams, Arthur walks toward her heroically while carrying a bottle of wine.
  • A drunk truck driver killed one of Anabel’s ex-boyfriends. The accident is not described.
  • At the school dance, Jasper “had somehow managed to get tipsy, although there were no alcoholic drinks.”
  • Anabel and Arthur leave the school dance under the guise that she is terribly drunk. They are actually setting a trap to lure Liv, so Anabel can kill her for the virginal sacrifice.
  • At the conclusion of the novel, Anabel is “lying in a hospital bed in Surrey, stuffed full of mind bending drugs and tied down.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel, including hell, bloody hell, shit, and damn.
  • “God,” “my God,” “thank God,” and “oh my God” are used frequently as swear words.
  • Grayson is described as a “stupid show-off” and later as an “idiot.”
  • Mia thinks that her aunts named Gertrude and Virginia have “shitty names.”
  • Liv strongly dislikes Persephone and says that she, “follows me around everywhere, talking to me the whole darn time!”
  • A character is called a “midget.”

 

Supernatural

  • During a ritual, Liv, Grayson, Arthur, Jasper, and Henry all take turns cutting their hand with a hunting knife and dribbling their blood into a Chalice full of red wine. This scene is described in detail over several pages.
  • Liv does not believe in “unlucky numbers any more than I believed in horoscopes, or four leaf clovers and chimney sweeps that brought you luck.”
  • The main characters of the novel conjure a demon and in return for freeing him, have immeasurable power and their dearest wish granted. “If you followed the rituals in this book, Anabel claimed, you could conjure up an ancient demon from the underworld, a demon that could help you gain immeasurable power and grant your dearest wishes.” Their immeasurable power is in the form of dreams in which they can control what happens with a simple thought and enter the dreams of others to learn their deepest secrets and desires.
  • The initial approach to conjuring the demon was not serious. “Conjuring up a demon on Halloween . . . It was fun . . . it seemed to me as harmless as telling your fortune by reading tea leaves. No one expects the tea leaves to develop an independent life of their own and come tormenting you in your dreams by night. Or go about murdering dogs.”
  • When Liv wakes up from a horrific nightmare, her family comes running to make sure that she is okay. Florence asks her, “Did you see a ghost?”

Spiritual Content

  • To upset Florence, Liv makes sarcastic suggestions as to the horrible things that she and her family might be. She says they are, “hopelessly disorganized, or a kleptomaniac, a Republican, a Jehovah’s witness, or anything.”
  • The demon that the group conjures is the “Lord of Shadows and Darkness.” Anabel believes that he is all-powerful and dedicates herself to him like a god. This devotion stems from a time period in her youth when she and her mother were a part of a satanic cult.

          by Morgan Filgas

 

League of Archers #1

Elinor Dray and her friends idolize Robin Hood. Calling themselves the League of Archers, they illegally hunt on Lord de Lay’s land. Although the game is scarce, the meat they obtain is used to feed their families and help the poor. One night, Ellie meets a man in the woods who has been shot with a poisoned arrow. When Ellie takes the man to the nunnery, Ellie discovers the man’s identity—Robin Hood. And the abbess of the nunnery is Maid Marian.

When Maid Marian’s secret is revealed, the Lord de Lay arrests Marian and blames Ellie for Robin Hood’s death. The villagers believe Ellie is a traitor to the poor and vow to hunt her down. Living as an outlaw, Ellie and the League of Archers attempt to clear Ellie’s name, free Maid Marian, and keep Robin Hood’s legacy alive.

Action-packed and full of battles, League of Archers has a strong female protagonist, who wants to do what is right. As Ellie fights to stay alive, she struggles with the need to hurt the baron’s guards in order to stay alive. Ellie truly cares about the needs of others and often wonders, What would Robin Hood do? Throughout the story, the hero Robin Hood is not portrayed as a perfect hero, but as a man who makes mistakes. Although many of his great deeds of legend are true, many of his deeds are exaggerated. However, it is clear that Robin Hood, flaws and all, is still a great man.

Despite the high-interest topic of the story, the plot is complicated and not necessarily believable. The character’s dialogue is not true to the time period, and the storyline is not historically accurate. Even though junior high readers may not pick up on all of the inaccuracies, some will question how a twelve-year-old girl was able to successfully use Robin Hood’s bow.

Friar Tuck, Maid Marian, and the League of Archers—all of them could have been interesting characters. However, none of them are developed into individual people. Ellie is the only character whose thoughts and feelings are shown, but her conflict lacks more specific details that would explain how she came to be a master archer who wants to be like Robin Hood. Ellie and the League of Archers go into battle after battle with grown guards and although the violence is not described in gory detail, there is blood, pain, and death. The many battles are what drives the suspense in the story and keep the reader interested in the outcome.

If a reader is wildly interested in the topic of Robin Hood, League of Archers will interest them. The fast-paced plot with many battles will entertain readers. Reluctant readers will want to leave this book on the shelf because the detailed descriptions are cumbersome and slow down the plot’s otherwise fast pace.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Ellie’s mother was caught poaching because they “needed to eat. But her mother was caught, dragged in ropes to the baron’s castle. The village was invited to watch as an executioner made Ellie an orphan at the baron’s command.”
  • Ellie witnesses Robin Hood being shot with an arrow. When it happens, “Ellie saw the bright red of the arrow’s fletching, and the way it pierced the stranger’s shoulder like a knife through meat. A bloom of dark blood spread across his cloak as he dropped to his knees.” The arrow was poisoned and, “the skin around it bubbled like fat atop a pot of soup.” Robin Hood dies from the wound.
  • The baron’s men enter the covenant in order to arrest the abbess. When the abbess resists, a novice is grabbed, and the baron’s guard, “pressed the flat of a knife to Ellie’s throat . . . The blade was cool against her skin.”
  • The baron parades Ellie around town, accusing her of killing Robin Hood. A riot begins, and Ellie tries to escape. When Ellie’s friend tries to defend her, a guard whips him. Later, when Ellie tries to defend herself, “the guard’s knife pierced the heavy blue dress, drawing a gasp from her as it cut into her skin. She felt a trickle of blood mingling with sweat in the small of her back.”
  • A mob of people throw rocks, mud, and horse dung at Ellie. In order to escape, Ellie grabs a guard’s wrist and “yanked the blade from his hand, then wheeled around and struck him with Robin’s bow, still clutched in her other fist. He fell sideways off the cart. . .” Ellie escapes.
  • While traveling, a friar is attacked by guards. The friar hits one guard on the head with a bottle. When three other guards appear, the friar fights back, but is wounded. In order to help, Ellie “pulled an arrow from her quiver and strung it on her bow. It flew straight and true and hit the guard in the eye before he could bring down his knife. He fell down dead. The fighting takes place over four pages. Another guard is injured when “Alice flung a knife that caught him between two ribs, then he fell.”
  • A group of drunk men tries to capture Ellie. The League of Archers helps Ellie. “Jacob yanked a pitchfork from one of the men and swung it like a scythe, forcing others to run clear. . .” A man grabs Ellie and “had wrapped an arm around her neck, squeezing until stars exploded in front of her eyes.” Ellie and the League are able to escape.
  • The gamekeeper shoots arrows at Ellie and the League of Archers. In order to save her friends, Ellie shoots the gamekeeper. “She swung the bow to the right and released the string. Her arrow slid neatly into the gamekeeper’s hand.”
  • A man grabs Ellie in order to take her into the village and hang her. “He grabbed her roughly by the shoulders and stood her up, facing the door.” The man also tied up Ellie’s friends. In order to escape, Ellie “took a breath and drove her head straight into his nose. He screamed and reeled backward, clutching his face. Blood spurted through his fingers.”
  • When trying to free one of the baron’s prisoners, the guards try to stop Ellie and the League of Archers. Someone hits a guard over the head with a club. Ellie shoots at a guard, and “one of her arrows found the meat of a man’s leg as he swung his sword at Marian’s exposed side. A second shaved a slice off a guard’s ear as he tried to hoist Alice over the side of the drawbridge. Then he dropped her, one hand lifting to feel the blood running down her face. She turned on him savagely with her knife.” In order to save her friends, Ellie lets “the arrow fly and watched as it slid into the heart of the guard lowering the gate.” The battle lasts over a chapter.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Several characters are given ale or wine to drink.
  • One of the characters makes “home-brewed liquor,” selling it to the villagers. He is often drunk.
  • Ellie and her friends go into a tavern. While there, “she watched a man slap a woman’s hip as she delivered his tankard, and another one crash down drunkenly from his chair.”
  • Ellie and the League of Archers come across a group of drunk men who are patrolling the forest.

Language

  • Someone uses “Oh, God” as an exclamation.

Supernatural

  • When talking about Robin’s silver arrow, which never missed its mark, the friar said, “I’m a religious man, so talk of magic doesn’t sit right with me. But there’s something about that arrow. There was never any questions it would find its way to where Robin intended.”
  • A woman tells Ellie her fortune by casting “a handful of dry brown bones.”

Spiritual Content

  • Several of the characters live in a convent and the life of a nun is described including going to prayer. Ellie also says the “compline prayer.”
  • The baron chastises Ellie. “‘God made us men in his image girl,’ he said. ‘You should show your betters a mite more respect.’”
  • A friar tells Ellie, “Whether he’s a saint or a sinner is not for us to say. . . We must trust in God to sort it out.”
  • One of the characters tells Ellie, “But there are some who, like you, would go to any lengths to save the abbess’s life—and I believe God is on their side. And justice, too.”
  • When a woman wants to tell Ellie her fortune, Ellie asks, “Is fortune-telling not a tool of the devil, Mother Barkbone?” The woman answers, “The devil and I walk different byways. . . I respect his power just as I respect that of God’s. But I worship the things I can see, the spirits who speak back to me. Those of the land, those of my ancestors. They guide me true and would never lead me into the devil’s mouth.”
  • Ellie tells someone who committed murder, “I forgive you. May God, too, have mercy on you.”

The Hide-and-Seek Ghost

Kaz is an ordinary ghost who hasn’t figured out how to glow. When the house that Kaz and his family live in is torn down, the wind scatters the ghosts and carries Kaz to a library. While at the library, Kaz meets Claire—a human who can see him. Together the two look for Kaz’s family and solve ghostly mysteries in the process.

One of Claire’s classmates, Eli, is known for his pranks. So when he asks Claire to help him rid his family home of a ghost, Claire isn’t sure if Eli really needs help or if he is just trying to pull another prank. Can Kaz and Claire discover if Eli’s home is really haunted?

The Hide-and-Seek Ghost brings Claire’s world and the ghost world to life with black-and-white illustrations that will help readers visualize the characters and actions. The plot focuses on an argument between Kaz’s parents and another ghost as well as the mystery of Eli’s haunted house. The multiple plots make the story choppy and may cause some confusion. Readers will enjoy following the clues to the mystery and looking at the many illustrations that show the characters’ emotions.

The ghosts in the story are not scary; however, there are several scenes where ghosts are separated from family when they leave a building and the wind blows them away. The idea of being accidentally separated from family and not being able to return may frighten some readers. A glossary of ghostly terms helps readers understand those that are used in the story.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Many of the characters are ghosts who can choose to be seen and heard by “solids” and who can glow, shrink, expand, and walk through walls.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

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