Reading Level: Junior High

The Breathless

Ro’s body was found lifeless on the beach. No one knows what happened. All they know is that Ro’s boyfriend, Cage, disappeared the same day and hasn’t been seen since. The mystery behind her death turned Blue Gate Manor into a house of sadness and secrets.

One year later, Cage shows up looking for Ro with no memory of anything that happened in the last year. His confusion only adds to the mystery of Ro’s death because even though he was the last person to be seen with her, he has no idea how she died or if he caused her death. Ro’s sister, Mae, doesn’t trust him, but she decides that helping Cage is the only way to find out what happened to her sister.

Then Mae finds a little green book that belonged to Ro. She hopes the book will unlock the secrets behind Ro’s death. As she follows clues in the book, she discovers her family is hiding a dark secret about her ancestors. Danger lurks around every corner as Mae hunts for answers that might be better left undiscovered.

The very first sentence of The Breathless grabs the reader’s attention and never lets go. Graphic descriptions bring this creepy Gothic tale to life. Full of magic, love, and loss, The Breathless is a captivating story that will give sensitive readers a fright they will not soon forget. This is not a good book to read for those who are prone to nightmares.

Sexual Content

  • Cage is watching a girl on the beach. The girl, “licks her fingertips before she turns the page and he wants to be that book.”
  • While sleeping, Ro’s boyfriend thinks about a time when she “pulls him down next to her and leans into him, all oil and legs and her red bikini top loose. He holds his breath as she unties her top, lets it fall.” He wraps his arms around her in the dream and then wakes up.
  • One of the characters is in love with a girl and they kiss. “She leans forward and kisses him and his stomach drops and then the world drops way until her lips finally leave his.”
  • When Mae starts to cry, Cage hugs her. Then he thinks about kissing her. “He was going to kiss her, it was all he wanted, and the next thing he knew she was pulling out of his arms, and stepping back.”
  • When Cage is burning with fever, Mae undresses him. When she goes to take off his pants he said, “Mae, we can’t.” She replies, “Cage, that’s not what I’m doing.”

Violence

  • Cage wakes up in a hospital, unsure of why he is there. He climbs out a window to escape. When a security guard tries to stop him, Cage hits the man. “His fist collided with the man’s face. The security guard crumpled to the ground.”
  • Elle points a rifle at Cage. At first, Elle thinks she hit her sister when she fires because “The house was bleeding. Thick, dark red droplets were splattered across the floor.” However, Elle only shot the red polish in Mae’s pocket.
  • Grady’s girlfriend, the “witch’s” daughter, has his child. When Grady’s father discovers Grady’s secret, the father sets the house on fire and Grady’s girlfriend dies. Then Grady kills his father with an ax. “The first thud makes his ears ring, and they’re still ringing as he drags his father’s body from the house . . . He feels like his lungs are going black, his heart too. But there’s no stopping now.”
  • Elle hits a deer with her car. Mae “knelt down beside the deer, taking its head in her hands, watching its lungs going fast as it panted, a shard of glass in its neck. Its heartbeat thudded against her, echoed inside her, fainter and fainter . . . The deer’s blood was slick in her hands and she stared at the shards of glass in its neck.”
  • One of the characters tries to raise Ro from the dead. In order to complete the ritual, he drugged his sister and then put her into a lake to drown. She is saved. Later the character intends to kill her so she can’t tell anyone what he did, but “he realized he couldn’t do it. Not when she was blinking up at him, asking questions.”
  • Mae’s father shoots Cage. “And then came the blast that thundered in his ears and he was falling, the gravel rising up in front of him. . .”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mae’s father often drinks whiskey.
  • In a flashback, Ro is smoking a cigarette. “It’s slender and smells of cloves.”
  • A character steals pills from his mother’s supply and gives them to his sister.
  • When Cage is on his way to see his mother, he doesn’t want to . . . “meet her new boyfriend but what he really doesn’t want to see are those pill bottles of hers, the way they make her angry. She’s angry that she’s sick, always has been.”

Language

  • “Shit” is used often throughout the book by several different characters. In one scene, Mae’s father said that there are “plenty of pieces of shit around these days.”
  • “Hell” is used several times. When Mae is caught spying on her sister, Elle says, “What the hell, Mae.”
  • Mae’s father says “goddamn” several times. One time he swore when he almost hit a girl with his truck.

Supernatural

  • The story revolves around Mae trying to understand a book that Ro had owned. The book has several spells, including one to bring back the dead. “Besides the raising ritual, there were other spells: some for curses, some for love, so many she hadn’t been able to get through them yet.”
  • Mae finds a room that has jars of animals used for rituals. In one jar “chunks of a hairlike substance were at the bottom. Floating inside the jar was a pale cat skull.” Another jar had a bird claw and a horse’s hoof. “Bits of tissue swirled into the murky water, and long dark hair was layered at the bottom. . . A hank of what looked like the horse’s dark mane fluttered at the bottom, next to bone.”
  • Mae remembers a time when her sister tried a ritual. When her sister turned around, “her dress had been a different color. . . Dark, dark red, steaked with blood.”
  • Mae discovers that the raising ritual requires the payment of a “human life for human life.”
  • A “witch” and her family live nearby. They use a ritual that can bring the dead back to life.

Spiritual Content

  • None

ADRIFT

Matt went to the party to see a beautiful girl. He never expected that decision would alter his life forever. In a strange turn of events, Matt and John end up adrift in a boat with three rich kids. They assumed they would be rescued quickly. They assumed wrong.

Matt and John are used to banding together to help each other. By when five people are fighting for survival, it’s difficult to know how far each person will go to stay alive. When Matt begins to fall in love with Driana, conflict builds. The group needs to work together to stay alive, but growing mistrust makes that impossible. After all, no one wants to be the first to die.

Adrift is a gripping tale that will capture readers’ attention right from the start. Even though most of the action takes place on a boat in the open sea, there is plenty of suspense to keep the story interesting. The story doesn’t only focus on the struggle of being lost at sea, but sprinkles in mystery because something happened in the past—something bad—and that secret has shaped both Matt and John.

Besides being an entertaining story, Adrift is easy to read and shows the complicated nature of humans.  Although the story explores the idea of killing a sick person to save oneself, in the end, the characters act with compassion. One positive aspect of this story is that characters show the importance of telling the truth—even if the truth is ugly.

Sexual Content

  • Matt and Driana kiss twice. The first time Driana, “kissed my eyes and then my lips . . . We kissed and kissed.” The second time Driana, “kissed me fast and then pulled away, and then she leaned in for a longer, harder one and lingered, and then she pushed away really hard. . .”

 

Violence

  • One of the characters tries to hug a dolphin. “It bucked, and its tail kicked up into the Windsurfer. . . Maybe I only imagined the bones crack, but her arm from her elbow down was facing the wrong way, and a slick red bone tip pierced her skin. . . blood pulsed from the rip in her arm . . . ”
  • John and Matt were told about a character whose, “mother was gunned down in front of her. . . A drug deal went bad and Stef’s mom was hit in the cross fire. . . Stef was holding her when she bled out. She was five years old, and she remembers it like it was yesterday.”
  • Throughout the story, the death of John’s father, Mr. Costello, is talked about. In the beginning of the book, the reader gets snatches of information such as, “When his father’s blood spattered my face.”
  • Several years before the story begins, John’s father is shot. The incident is described over several pages. Matt tells the story. He said, “It wasn’t the blood that freaked me out. . . Mr. Costello took all three bullets fired into the front seat. His body is pinned against the driver’s side door.”
  • At a baseball game, there is a group of men who are spitting at the coach. “Mr. Costello helps him up. He drags him to the ball-field exit and throws him into the parking lot.”
  • John tries to kill a baby porpoise, so they can eat it. John hits him with a harpoon, drags it onto the boat, and then hits it one the head with a hammer. “I heard a popping sound, and then another one when John swung the hammer into the porpoise’s temple. The porpoise writhed and bucked and flopped right out of the boat.”
  • When a shark tries to eat one of the boys, John hits it with a hammer.
  • One of the boys goes “out of his mind.” Dri is trying to comfort him when, “He screamed and flung her off. Her head smacked the bench cabinet. Blood drops hit the water on the deck and spread out like exploding red stars.” Matt steps in between the two and, “Drove the heels of my hands into JoJo’s chest. . . JoJo came back at me with a fist to my shoulder. The force of the punch tumbled into my spine, my legs. . . I hit the floor of the boat hard enough to see stars. . .”
  • JoJo jumps into the open ocean and is eaten by sharks. “. . . a shark bit his shoulder and shook him to tear away the skin. He didn’t have time to scream before another shark clamped its mouth over his head.”
  • John hits Matt. “When I turned back his fist smashed my face. Lights out.”

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • There are several detectives looking for the missing teens. A detective’s memo stated, “Also, Castello’s mother was hospitalized with alcohol poisoning. Apparently this wasn’t the first time.”  Later Matt said, “After Mr. Costello was killed, she drank to the point she couldn’t work.”
  • One of the characters takes drugs for his depression. “One is pink, the other yellow, another light blue.”

 

Language

  • None

 

Supernatural

  • Matt occasionally sees a ghost. “I meet him [the ghost] in my nightmare. He lay in the front seat of the car with his skull smashed in. Mr. Costello opened his eyes and cried blood tears. The ghost had never spoken to me before, but that morning he said, Matt, it’s time to wake up.”
  • Matt says that Mr. Costello’s ghost is everywhere. “He looks so lost and sad. Like he wants to tell me something, but can’t talk because his neck is all blown out. His voice is gone.”
  • At the end of the story, Matt says, “. . . sometimes Mr. Costello is there . . . Once in a while he follows me. He doesn’t mean any harm, and he isn’t bleeding anymore. The wounds are gone. He can talk now, but he doesn’t.”

 

Spiritual Content

  • While looking at the sky, one of the characters says, “To get to see this? God loves us. Truly we are loved.”
  • A character asks Matt if he is a believer, then goes on to say, “I believe God sent you both. You especially. . . You have a talent for remaining calm. This is the way God made you.”
  • In a conversation, Matt is told, “God is watching out for us.” When Matt is asked if he believes, he replies, “Only when I’m taking a test I didn’t study for.”
  • There are several references to God such as, “Thank God we have more money than they do.”
  • One of the characters says, “The universe provides.” In response, John thinks, “For some people, the universe provides. The rest of us scramble.”

Landry Park

Madeline has lived a life of comfort and luxury; however, she has been given little control over her life. Life in the United States is ruled by the rich gentry, and the seventeen-year-old is expected to find a rich husband and run the family estate. Only Madeline has no desire to marry. Her one desire is to attend university.

When one of Madeline’s friends is attacked at a party, Madeline is determined to discover the truth behind it. As Madeline leaves the family estate, she discovers that people are not always what they seem, and the life of the servant class, the Rootless, is not what she envisioned.

As Madeline tries to secretly help the Rootless, she accidently discovers that gentry boy David Dana has secrets of his own. Although she is attracted to him, he is promised to another—but that doesn’t stop Madeline’s heart from wanting.

Soon rumors of war and rebellion break out, and Madeline finds herself in a dangerous web of secrets and lies—and David may be the only person who can help.

Landry Park takes the reader into a world where slavery still exists. The gentry want to keep the Rootless under their control, and anyone who tries to help the Rootless have a better life is seen as a threat to the Gentry. Madeline is trapped between her desire for a comfortable life and her desire to help the Rootless. As the reader enters the world of the Rootless, there are some graphic scenes of sickness and death.

Although the story is interesting, Madeline’s desire to have her comfortable life and her unwillingness to take necessary risks make her less likable. The ending has a few surprises that will delight the reader.  However, because of the disturbing themes of death, slavery, and marriage, this book is not suitable for younger audiences.

Sexual Content

  • When Madeline and her mother are discussing marriage, her mother tells her she can’t marry Jamie because he’s too poor. Madeline thinks, “Jamie wasn’t interested in marriage. At least, not with me or any other girl.”
  • Madeline reflects on a childhood friend who, “dared a servant boy to kiss her on the mouth and then watched without emotion when the boy and his family were removed to a distant farm.”
  • Madeline explains that “gentry boys and girls dated—and often did more than just that—before their debuts, but strictly speaking, both parties were expected to arrive at the marriage bed untainted and untouched.”
  • Madeline’s father has a mistress. Madeline’s mother and father fight and the mother yells, “How dare you skulk around with Christine when it was my family’s money that kept your precious estate alive? My money is the reason you didn’t marry that whore and then you went and wasted it all away.”
  • Madeline has a crush on David and when he looks at her she thinks, “I felt the ghost of his kiss on my lips, felt the ghost of all the kisses I had craved and desired, and all the kisses I had yet to dream of, and then his mouth parted slightly and I wondered if he was dreaming of those phantom kisses, too.”
  • At her debut, Madeline kisses her date, Jude. “He took my whole face in his hands, so gently that his fingertips tickled my jaw, and kissed me harder, his mouth firm and warm. It felt nice, in a distant, premeditated sort of way. I wished I was kissing David.” Later as they are dancing, Jude kisses her again.
  • Madeline discovers her friend, “pressed against the wall, kissing someone with ferocious intensity.”
  • A character describes how, “no matter how many women I bedded or how much I drank, I felt as if this life were tenuous.”

Violence

  • In the beginning of the book, a girl was attacked and the girl’s screams are heard. Madeline tries to discover the truth behind the “attack.” Later in the story, Madeline discovers that Cara was attacked by her mother. “She hit me and I fell into the brambles nearby. She hit me again and again.”
  • A character talks about when he realized the servant class, the Rootless, had terrible lives.  He talks about how the penalty for stealing gentry trash is death. “And the bodies strung up on the estates numbered in the hundreds.”
  • There is a battle between the military and the Rootless. David describes his experience. “. . . I’ll tell you what it’s like to watch the man next to you blown to bits and to see your friend’s hand shot off by an armor-piercing round and to have a mouth so full of char and dirt that you can’t taste food for weeks.”
  • In a later scene, David describes the battle with the Rootless. “There was one man, good as dead, holding his innards and trying to crawl to safety. I thought he was an Easterner, so I left him behind. But when we collected the bodies, I recognized him. He was one of ours and I had left him there to dies like a beast in the mud.”
  • When Madeline’s father threatens to make a child swallow “gibbet food,” a radioactive tablet that will kill him, the Rootless attack. Madeline’s father is attacked and, “they [the rootless] pinned him down and forced the gibbet food inside his mouth for several minutes. Not enough to kill him, but enough to burn his mouth. Enough to give him severe radiation poisoning and probably cancer. . . the lower half of his face was unrecognizable—dark brown with blisters covering his lips and tongue. Bloody ulcers were beginning to form at the corners of his mouth. . .”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Throughout the book, the characters are seen smoking opium. In one scene, Madeline talks about how the Gentry boys, “spent most of their days playing golf or tennis while working their way through hundreds of dollars of whisky and opium.”
  • When a girl is attacked, a doctor gives her sedatives.
  • At parties, the characters drink whisky and spiced wine.

Language

  • Cara says she feels “like shit.”
  • Hell is used several times. For example, when Madeline accuses a boy of hurting Cara, he asks, “Why the hell do you think I would do something like that?”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Selection

Gorgeous dresses, spectacular meals, a handsome prince, and the chance to become a princess. It was everyone’s dream . . . and one girl’s nightmare.

America Singer only signed up for the Selection to appease her family and boyfriend. She didn’t expect or even want to be chosen. But it no longer matters what America wants. She is taken from her family and forced to join thirty-four other girls in the palace, all of whom are hoping the prince will chose to love and marry her.

America is the only girl in the competition who wants to lose, but as she gets to know Prince Maxon and becomes his friend, her desires become unclear, even to herself.

As the competition drags on, America is exposed to the rebel attacks that are a regular part of the royal family’s existence. While everyone else dismisses the attacks as random acts of violence attempted to usurp the throne, America begins to suspect there is something bigger going on.

America’s personality shines throughout the story. She is strong, funny, and unpredictable. Instead of acting like a love-sick teen, she talks to Prince Maxon as if he were the enemy. And while the other contestants faun over the prince, America stays true to herself. Although there are many predictable parts to this story—the mean girl, girl drama, a love triangle—the plot is still enjoyable. The story has the same premise as the television show The Bachelor, but the book is teen-friendly.

Sexual Content

  • America and her boyfriend kiss several times. In one scene they are lying in bed, fully clothed, kissing, and she thinks, “I was nowhere near ready to stop” and “this is why people got married so young.” Then when America thinks about marriage she worries because only the upper class can, “regulate having children.”
  • When America is told the rules of the Selection, she has to sign a form stating that she is a virgin. She is told that she cannot refuse the prince, no matter what he asks, “dinner, outings, kisses—more than kisses—anything. Do not turn him down.”
  • As part of the Selection, the girls talk about which girls the prince has kissed.
  • Another girl who is part of the Selection asks what someone did to become so popular and then states, “A girl has more than one way she can pay for what she wants.”
  • The queen’s sister tells one of the contestants about the queen having multiple miscarriages.
  • Towards the end of the book, America and her ex-boyfriend are kissing in bed, fully clothed. Afterward she feels bad about cheating on the prince, even though the prince is dating other girls.

Violence

  • When America thinks the prince is going to kiss her, she knees him in the groin.
  • Several times rebels invade the palace and the girls must hide from them. Although the story describes the damage that the rebels cause, little actual fighting is described.
  • During one of the rebel attacks, a maid is terrified when a rebel gets ahold of her, licks her face, and starts dragging her off somewhere. As part of the description, it says, “I’m not sure they (rebels) have very many women with them, if you catch my meaning.”
  • There is some brief mention of the contestants fighting. One girl slaps another across the face, and a girl rips another’s dress.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • America is offered sleep aides because she has trouble sleeping.
  • America is described as running like a drunk.
  • At a banquet, the queen’s sister is drinking alcohol, and one of the contestants talks about how the queen’s sister has had too much to drink.

Language

  • America wonders, “How the hell did I get here?”
  • The word “damn” is used several times.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Although religion is not discussed, it is illegal for people to have sex before marriage.

 

Stone in the Sky

Years ago, Tula was left for dead on a remote space station. During her time on the space station, she has made a home for herself. When a spacecraft crashes on the abandoned planet below, the pilot discovers a rare and valuable plant. Soon others flock to the planet and the space station in hopes of becoming rich. Along with masses of aliens, Tula’s old enemy Brother Blue appears on the space station. And he hasn’t forgotten that Tula knows too much about his past.

Soon Tula must flee the Space Station in hopes of proving that Brother Blue is not who he claims. As Tula travels, the reader is taken on an incredible adventure through space. Away from the space station, Tula soon discovers that there are some who can be trusted and some who need to be feared. And in order to help the people she loves, she will have to take risks that may lead to her own death.

Stone is the Sky is an exciting and well-written story. The story brings back some of the same loveable characters that appeared in Tin Star. The story contains several surprises that make Stone in the Sky worth reading. Like the first book, the violence and sexual content is relatively mild.

Sexual Content 

  • Tula kisses two different characters.
  • Tula is thinking about a rush on the planet below the space station. “The rabble had come first, but when the truth of it had spread out to other systems, more sophisticated types came to the Yertina Feray with dreams of making a fortune down on Quint. And with them, came the people who saw a fortune to be made in the supporting of those heartier types. Gigolos and whores. Seedy merchants. Con artists. False prophets. Robot vendors.”
  • Tula has a romantic relationship with an alien, Tournour. In one scene, Tula, “cupped his hand and took the moment in. . .his arms encircled me, and I leaned my head on his shoulder. This was as close as we got, and it felt good. But I couldn’t deny that it was different than being physically with Reza. That was what my body longed for now that Reza was so close. I wanted to talk to him with my body.”
  • In one scene Tula describes a romantic moment. “Then he put his arms around me and pulled me to him. I could feel my body tense and then relax until I leaned my head on his strong chest and slowly slid my arms around him. He held me all night, and I marveled at the pure astonishment of skin and heart.”
  • Tula and Tournour are having a discussion when “my mouth was so close to his antenna that my lips brushed them. He shuddered. I couldn’t tell if it was with pleasure or disgust, but he held me tighter.”
  • At the end of the story, “Bitty and Myfanwy were closer than ever, and I knew by the way that Myfanwy gently rubbed Bitty’s back, or the way that they would whisper to each other, that something was growing between them. One day they would be more than friends. It made me feel better that the reason why Myfanwy had never cared for Caleb was a matter of attraction and not the fact that she had never seen what a good-hearted person he was.”

Violence

  • Tula and a group of humans are kidnapped on a spaceship. While on the ship, pirates invade and a fight ensues. “Bitty jumped in front of me and slashed a Hort’s appendage off. The Hort screamed at a pitch that I couldn’t hear, but I could feel. Dark liquid spilled to the floor, making it slippery. Bitty shoved the Hort to the ground and with a battle cry sunk her knife into its chest.”
  • Brother Blue shoots a character who crumples to the floor dead.
  • At the space station, two people can fight in a hotch. This is a way to settle disagreements.  During a hocht, Brother Blue pulls a knife and stabs Bitty. “There was blood everywhere, and the blood was not mine…/Bitty was clutching her side, holding the stab wound to staunch the blood.”
  • Tula finally gets her revenge on Brother Blue. They fight and then Tula sets the self-destruct button on a robot. “Sparks shot out of Trevor (the robot) arcing towards anything that could conduct electricity, including Brother Blue who crackled and lit as he was surrounded by light. He convulsed and his skin turned from pink to gray. His eyes bulged. His lips burst. His body swelled . . . Brother Blue fell in a heap to the floor, a mess of charred, melted skin. He was dead.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Kitsch Rutsok’s bar is a popular hangout place on the space station. Tula thinks, “If people wanted the hard stuff, to get intoxicated, or to find comfort in the arms of someone for the night, they went to Kitsch Rutsok’s.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Crossed

Cassia has risked everything.  The Society sent Ky to the outer providence, and Cassia is determined to find him.  When the chance comes, she sneaks onto an air ship to be used as a decoy in a war against an unnamed enemy.  However, Cassia and another girl, Indie, are soon able to escape, and they go on a dangerous trek through the Carving to search for Ky and the Rising.

Ky will fight for life and for his chance to find his way back to Cassia.  When the society takes him back to the land of his childhood, he runs for the Carving.  However, he is not alone. He has his friend Vick, a young boy named Eli, and an enemy chasing him.  Ky knows the Society is his enemy, but are the inhabitants of the Carving enemies as well?

As Ky and Cassia search to find each other, the point of view changes back and forth between the two characters.  Even though the top of each chapter is labeled with the character’s name, the characters’ voices aren’t distinct.  Instead of hearing the characters, the reader only hears the author’s voice.

Unlike the first book, Crossed is not as suspenseful or enjoyable.  The Society is clearly fighting an enemy; however, there is very little action.  The reader only sees the fighting through the dead bodies left behind.  Besides having little action, it is not clear who the enemy is or what they want, which makes it hard to decide if the enemy is someone to feel sympathy for or to hate.

Cassia gave up everything to find Ky—her family, her home, her place in society—yet Ky still doubts her love for him.  Ky has a secret about Xander that he thinks will make Cassia reevaluate her love for both of them.  He worries that she still loves Xander even though she has proven that she will go to any lengths to be with him.  Instead of creating suspense, the love triangle feels forced.

In the end, Ky and Cassia must split up to make it to the Risings Camp.  Even though Ky is only days behind Cassia, when he arrives he finds Cassia has joined the Rising and been sent back into the Society so she can help their cause.  It seems unrealistic that Cassia would leave Ky after having risked everything to be with him. Instead of leaving the story with a satisfying ending, the author sets it up for another sequel.

Sexual Content

  • There are several scenes with kissing.

Violence

  • Air ships come to kill the inhabitants. The deaths of the people are not described in detail.
  • Ky teaches the Aberrations how to use gun powder in their guns. When the air ships come, they fight back. This is when Ky and two others decide to run to the canyons and try to escape.  The fighting is not described in detail, but they hear the others scream.
  • Ky thinks back to the time the air ships came and killed his entire village.
  • Ky remembers how the Officials came to take him from Patrick and Aida. He had to be gagged.  He remembers having, “blood in my mouth and under my skin in bruises waiting to show.  Head down, hands locked behind me.”
  • In the previous book, an Anomaly killed Ky’s cousin. His death is referred to, but the details are not discussed.
  • An air ship sends bombs into a river, damming it. They then inject poison into the water.  During this time, one of Ky’s friends is killed.  “Whatever fell hit with such impact that it looked like it sent Vick flying; his neck was broken.  He must have died instantly…I look at those empty eyes that reflect back the blue of the sky because there is nothing left of Vick himself.”
  • One of the characters talks about how many people in his village have died. “People died that way. They dropped like stars.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The teen and adult citizens must always carry a “tablet container,” which holds three pills. The green pill makes people feel calm.
  • The society has told people that the blue pill gives nourishment if they need to go without food for some reason; however, it contains something that will, “stop you. If you take one, you’ll slow down and stay where you are until someone finds you or you die waiting.  Two will finish you outright.”
  • The red pill people only take when the government tells them to; the citizens do not know what it does, because it wipes people’s memories.  They do not remember the last 12 hours of their day, which includes the part of them taking the pill.
  • Xander stole blue pills to give to Cassia in the hopes that if she were hungry, she would be able to use the pills to survive.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Ky buries a body he thinks, “part of me wants to believe that the flood of death carries us someplace after all. That there’s someone to see at the end.”
  • Ky and Cassia find a picture that they think shows angels. Ky said, “Some of the farmers still believed in them.  In my father’s time anyway.”
  • One of the characters recites a poem.  “. . . They perished in the Seamless Grass-/No eye could find the place-/But God can summon every face/On his repealless-list.”  He then goes on to say that some of the villagers believed in life after death; however, he does not.

Matched

Every aspect of Cassia’s life is perfectly planned out for her—her profession, her future husband, her dwelling. If she follows the path the Officials have planned she will be happy.  Or so she thought.

During Cassia’s matching ceremony, she is ecstatic to find out that her perfect match is her best friend Xander.  But in a strange twist of events, when she opens a file that is supposed to contain facts about her matched, Xander, another’s face appears. The face of a boy named Ky, her first matched, who was discarded by the Officials as an aberration. It only takes an instant to plant doubt into Cassia’s mind about whom she will choose to love—Xander or Ky?

As Cassia struggles to choose between Xander, who will give her a perfect life, and Ky, who can give her passion, she begins to question the foundation of her society.  Is it as perfect as it appears?  And can she live in a world where every choice and every freedom—including the freedom to choose love—is taken away?

 Matched is an entertaining book that revolves around Cassia’s discovery that her society is not all that appears.  She soon discovers that although she loves Xander, she feels a passion for Ky that cannot be matched.  The book also incorporates Cassia’s relationship with her parents into the story.  It is clear that Cassia’s parents love her and want what is best, even if that means going against the Officials.

Cassia struggles with her conflicted feelings for Ky and Xander, which is a topic that teens will be able to relate to.  Because Cassia generally cares for both boys, her decision is that much harder to make.  However, the plot does not only revolve around Cassia’s love triangle.  Instead, the author includes Cassia’s family’s and friend’s experiences to show that the Society isn’t always what it appears. Unlike many teen books, Match portrays a two-parent family that is not dysfunctional. They genuinely care for each other.   The violence in the book is not described in detail, which makes this book suitable for younger readers.

 Sexual Content

  • There are several scenes with kissing. In one, Cassie can, “feel is arms around me and the smoothness of the green silk as he presses his hand against the small of my back and pulls me closer, closer . . . his lips meet mine, at last.  At last.”

Violence

  • In the past a boy was murdered. Although how it happened is discussed, it is not detailed or graphic.  However, Cassia wonders if they, “let that Anomaly (murderer) out on purpose? To remind us?”
  • There is film that shows a, “sinister black aircraft appear in the sky and the people run screaming away . . . One of the actors falls on the ground dramatically. Garish red bloodstains cover his clothing.”  Some of the viewers laugh, and it isn’t until later that Cassia finds out that the scene was footage of an actual event.
  • When a boy is taken away from his family, his adoptive parents make a scene. The father tells people, “the war with the Enemy isn’t going well.  They need more people to fight.  All the original villagers are dead.  All of them.” Then two officials pin their arms behind their backs, gag them, and take them away.  Afterwards, the officials make the citizens take a pill that erases the entire scene from their memory.
  • One of the characters draws the scene of how his village was wiped out by ammunition falling from the sky. “His parents died. He saw it happen.  Death came from the sky, and that’s what he remembers every time it rains.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When people turn eighty years old they die. Most people do not realize that the reason they die at that age is because their food is poisoned.
  • The teen and adult citizens must always carry a “tablet container” which holds three pills. One pill makes people feel calm.  One pill gives nourishment if people need to go without food for some reason. The other pill people only take when the government tells them too; the citizens do not know what it does, but later in the story Cassie finds out that it wipes people’s memories.
  • When a character has an anxiety attack she takes her friend’s “green tablet” because she had already used her own. “Almost immediately, her body relaxes.”
  • In a dream, Cassia’s friend takes a green tablet, then a blue tablet. Cassie then gives her friend a red tablet.  Her friend falls down dead.  “Her body makes a heavy sound when it falls, in contrast to the lightness of eyes fluttering shut…”
  • Cassia considers taking the green table to calm herself down, but she decides against it.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Cassie thinks about how the Society doesn’t have the death penalty, but they kill the elderly, she thinks that people survive because of natural selection, “with the help from our gods, of course—the Officials.”
  • When Cassie has a choice to make regarding another person she thinks, “If I get to play God, or angel, then I have to do the best I can for Ky.”

Reached

The Rising was supposed to be the answer.  It was supposed to be the cure for the Society’s ills.  It was supposed to bring Cassia, Xander, and Ky choice.  But so far, all the Rising has brought the Society is a deadly plague that has the power to kill millions.

Cassia still seeks to find her way back to Ky.  However, her main goal is to show others that they have something of worth—the ability to paint, to sing, or to write.  As Cassie tries to find her way back to Ky, she struggles to know who to trust.

Xander is quarantined in a hospital, trying to treat those affected by the plague as well as trying to help find a cure.  However, time is running out. The plague has mutated, and the cure that the Rising was supposed to deliver is no longer working.  People are dying and Xander is determined to help them.

Ky and Indie are piloting a plane, taking the cure to those in need. However, Ky wonders if the Rising can be trusted and if he will ever be reunited with Cassia. The rebellion has started.  But will it change Society for the better or destroy everything?

 Reached jumps from three different character’s points of view: Cassia, Xander, and Ky.  As the point of view changes, the reader is able to see all sides of the rebellion.  Although it is clear that Xander cares for people, he still has very little medical training, which makes it is hard to believe that the Rising comes to rely so heavily on him to find the cure for the plague.

Xander still hopes to win Cassia’s heart.  This part of the plot seems forced, especially since Cassia made the decision to love Ky in book one.  Xander knows this and yet, he still wonders if they will end up together. The conclusion of Reached, leaves the reader with more questions than answers.  However, the book is good for junior high readers because most of the violence is not described and the sexual content contains only brief kissing.

Sexual Content

  • Two teenagers are having an argument when “over his shoulder he says something crude to Indie—what he’d do to her and with her if she weren’t crazy.”
  • Indie kisses Ky. “Her hand slides into my hair, her lips press against mine.  Nothing like Cassia.  I pull back, breathless…”

Violence

  • When a man discusses his job, an Army officer comes in and drags him away. “His mouth is gagged and his words unintelligible, and above the cloth his eyes meet mine.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the characters describes disease-proofing tablets that are given to babies when they are seven days old. The tablets keep the babies safe from illness and infection.
  • The Society has a red pill that is given to its citizens to make them forget the last 12 hours. Cassia and a group of workers are given one to swallow.
  • The Society has been affected by a plague; Xander, as well as others, are giving patients medicine and hoping to find the cure.

Language

  • Ky thinks, “I have to keep running in this damn cure even if it means I can’t get to Cassia as soon as I like.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Ky wonders about what happens when people die. “I don’t know what happens when we die.  It doesn’t seem to me like there can be much past this.  But I suppose I can conceive that what we make and do can last beyond us.”
  • Ky thinks, “long ago people used to say what they wanted out loud and hoped that someone would give it to them. They called it praying.”
  • The Society stores DNA samples of its citizens in the hopes that one day they will have the technology to bring people back to life.

Can’t Look Away

Clothes. Make-up. Her Vlog. Popularity. Torrey cares about them all.  While at the mall trying to film her newest Vlog, Torrey and her sister, Miranda, fight. Miranda leaves and is killed by a car.  When her sister dies, Torrey’s life falls apart.

Because of Torrey’s popular Vlog, many bash her online. When Torrey goes to a new school, she wonders who wants to be her friend just because of her online presence. Things get even more complicated when the popular girls invite Torrey to be a part of their group. When Torrey begins to fall for Luis, who the popular girls hate, Torrey begins to wonder if being part of the “in crowd” is worth it.

Mixed into the conflict of trying to fit into a new school, Torrey is also trying to figure out how to deal with the death of her sister, Miranda. When Luis introduces her to the tradition of the Day of the Dead, Torrey wonders if there is a way to remember Miranda without the pain.

Even as Torrey’s family is dealing with the death of Miranda, Torrey’s focus is on herself. She feels guilty about how she treated Miranda, but Torrey also feels frustration that her mother is focused on grief instead of her. She also wants to prove to the online world that she isn’t as bad as some people think.

When Torrey begins attending a new school, she focuses on how to become one of the popular girls, and how to hide her growing feelings for Luis. At the beginning of the story, Torrey’s main concern is her image. Everything revolves around her.

As Luis introduces Torrey to his world, one where death is just a part of life (his father runs the local mortuary), Torrey begins to face her own feelings about death.

Luis is a welcome addition to the novel. Besides being a sweet love interest, he is a likable character who takes the reader into the world of the funeral business, which gives the story an interesting angle.

Can’t Look Away deals with the tough topic of death in a way teens can relate to. Although it deals with many teen issues—friendships, popularity, and family problems—the book doesn’t come across as preachy. Instead, the first-person narration allows the reader to see the difficult emotions that Torrey faces when she loses her sister. And in the end, Torrey realizes that true friend are more important than popularity.

Sexual Content

  • Torrey kisses Luis several times, but it is not described in detail. “When Luis pulls slowly away, I can still feel the touch of his lips on mine.”
  • At a party, Luis kisses Torrey. “He runs his fingers lightly through my hair. Then he kisses me. And I melt into mush.”
  • Torrey thinks about what it could feel like if Luis touched her.

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • There is a brief conversation about what happens to people after they die. One person says they believe in God and that “if some kind of afterlife exists, then dying wouldn’t be bad after all.”
  • When talking about death, one person says they think people can “stay around” after they die. “I think there could be reasons sometimes for them to stay . . . It’s a very small space between the living and the dead. Why wouldn’t there be some overlap?”
  • Part of the story revolves around the Day of the Dead. Torrey goes to her sister’s grave on the Day of the Dead in order to put her sister’s favorite things on her grave. “Whatever made the dead happy in life, they are to have it again.”

How to Say I Love You Out Loud

Jordyn has a secret to keep. When she moves to an elite new school, Jordyn knows that her secret cannot get out. When charming Alex Colby kisses her, Jordyn demands that they remain “just friends.”  When her best friend tries to get Jordyn to open up, Jordyn pushes her away.

Suddenly, Jordyn’s life takes a turn for the worse when her autistic brother is forced to attend the same school as Jordyn. Can Jordyn keep everyone from knowing that the crazy new kid is her brother? And if her friends find out the truth about her brother, will they alienate her?

Jordyn must decide if she should show others her true self and risk revealing the truth about her complicated family life. If she decides to let others in, will she lose Alex and her best friend?

Jordyn’s fear of rejection is something that every teen can understand. Jordyn struggles with the conflicting emotions of loving her brother but being embarrassed by his behavior. Even though Jordyn’s family life is messy, how to say I love you out loud portrays a loving, two-parent home that sticks together and does the best they can; this is rare in teen literature today.

Another positive aspect of the book is that although it deals with teen issues, there is nothing that is too shocking. Even though the teens in the book cuss often, it is nothing that a typical teen isn’t exposed to in a high school hallway. How to say I love you out loud is an enjoyable romance that shows the importance of showing people your true self and realizing that no one’s life is perfect.

Sexual Content

  • There are several references to people hooking up. The term is used, but not explained.
  • Alex’s girlfriend gives him a “quick, flirty kiss.”
  • In the school hallway, “Leighton’s back is against the wall and Alex has one arm above her head, keeping her in place, his body pressed against hers . . . their mouths mashed together.”
  • During a swim party, Jordyn and Alex go into a supply closet looking for bug repellent and end up kissing. The kissing scene lasts for about a page. “. . . We had no trouble finding each other. His hands fell to my hips like they belonged there. I felt myself being pressed against the rickety wooden shelves, the firm, warm heat of his bare chest against my damp skin.” After the kiss, Alex apologizes, “Didn’t mean to be a dick.”
  • Jordyn thinks about Alex. “I want to hold his hand. I want to touch his face. I want to memorize his expressions when he’s sleeping, all over again. I want to feel the pressure of his lips against mine. I just want him.”
  • Jordyn and Alex hide in a coat closet and kiss. “Alex raises his head, finding the other side of my neck with his lips. He plants the smallest of kisses there and I hear my breath vibrating in the air between us . . . my hands running over the planes of his strong back as I claim his body with no fear of the consequences. We fumble in our attempts to get close enough, determined to close the distance that never should have existed in the first place.”

 

Violence 

  • Jordyn’s autistic brother gets upset and takes off running, taking off his clothes as he runs. It takes three staff members to control him.

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • When Jordyn goes to a staff party, her friend asks, “Did Petersen show up really drunk again? Hit on any of the lifeguards who aren’t even legal yet.”
  • Jordyn and some kids from school go to a party where they drink alcohol and some of the kids smoke pot. Jordyn drinks, “hot chocolate that has been spiked with a liberal dose of peppermint schnapps.”

Language 

  • Profanity is scattered throughout the story on a regular basis. The profanity includes crap, pissed, hell, and bullshit.
  • Most of it appears in the teens’ conversations. For example, “. . . it would have been really nice to actually feel like I have my shit together before walking in there.”
  • Jordyn thinks that she, “sure as hell is not trying to steal anyone’s spotlight.” Later she describes her day as “long-assed.”
  • Jordyn’s in Advanced Placement U.S. History and, “the essay tests are rumored to be a bitch.”
  • A teen boy describes Jordyn’s brother’s behavior and said, “Dude, it was fucking nuts.”
  • When Jordyn and her mom get into an argument, Jordyn thinks, “I can feel the acid in the pit of my stomach . . . when I’m being a bitch.”
  • Alex asks Jordyn, “Jesus Christ, Jordyn, can we please have an honest conversation for once? My God, don’t act like you don’t know.”
  • A girl calls Jordyn a “slut.”

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

 

Broken Crowns

Interment is falling out of the sky. If the king on the ground can’t be stopped, he will destroy Internment. Morgan and Pen must come up with a plan to save their home, even if they can never return themselves.

Broken Crowns is the third and final installment of the Internment series. For readers who enjoyed the first two books, Broken Crowns will keep them enthralled with Morgan’s story. The relationships between the characters drives the story.

The story has several surprises and ends with a satisfying ending. The story isn’t as fast-paced as the first two, but the character’s voices shine through. DeStefano creates characters that the reader will wish they could invite into their homes for a visit.

Sexual Content

  • Judas and Morgan discuss when they kissed in the previous book.
  • The prince is attracted to other men.
  • There are several references to “attraction camps” where people who are attracted to the same sex are sent. It is implied that the people are tortured. The prince takes Morgan to the camps and sees some of the patients who have had surgeries on their brains.
  • Pen’s father sexually abused her when she was younger. It is not talked about in detail. However, when her mother found out about the abuse, her mother used a tonic to “drown her thoughts.”
  • Basil and Morgan kiss. “Somehow, one of his hands has made it to my thigh, and I feel the fabric of my dress moving up and up and he knots the fabric in his fist . . . He kisses my neck, and I wrap my arms around his neck to draw him nearer still.”
  • The princess knows that her father would have, “made me have a termination procedure if he’d known about this baby in time to stop it.”

Violence

  • The king slashes Pim’s throat. He then attacks Morgan. “. . . The knife is hovering over my face, shaking uncertainly, as though the blade itself isn’t sure which of us to kill . . . I grab the knife from the king’s faltered grip and I plunge it into his throat.”
  • The prince said he was afraid that his sister would be sent to the camps because of her petulance. “I thought that if she resisted, she’d be whisked off to one of those camps and that her brains would be scooped out with a spoon until she was nothing but a blubbering mass of compliance.”
  • Nim’s father and grandfather are killed, but the deaths are not described.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party, guests drink “tonic.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Nim burnt his car as an offering to save his sister. When Nim’s sister recovers, Morgan thinks, “It makes me wonder if their god is real. It makes me wonder if any god is real, or if it’s only easier to believe in that than the arbitrary series of events that make up all our lives.”
  • When one of the characters is about to die he wonders, “if his spirit would be taken to the tributary, or if he’d go to whatever afterlife the ground believe in, or if there was nothing at all.”
  • The people from Internment believe in the god of the sky.

Burning Kingdoms

They escaped Internment, but will the ground be a refuge or a prison? When Morgan and her friends left Internment, they never imaged what life would be like on the ground. There are many new wonders, but there are also the horrors of war.

Celeste is determined to return to Internment so she can save her dying mother—and she needs the king’s help to get her home. Morgan has the ability to help Celeste convince the king to help. However, in order to help Celeste, she must betray her best friend, Pen. As Morgan struggles to make the right decision for her friends and for Internment, the war on the ground intensifies.

Soon the characters are caught in a trap of the king’s making, and they aren’t sure what will become of them. Burning Kingdoms, the second book of The Internment Chronicles, has danger, suspense, and a new set of characters.

Burning Kingdoms focuses more on the character’s relationships with each other than on the challenges of being in a new world. The story is interesting, but the world on the ground is not really unique or intriguing. The ending of the story throws in some complications—Pen’s relationship with her father and Morgan kissing Judas—however, the complications distract from the story and leave the reader wondering why they were added.

Sexual Content

  • Celeste talks about her brother. “What would they do with a prince who dreams of falling in love with another prince?” She then talks about how she worries that her brother would be sent to an “attraction camp” to cure him. “There are tonics involved and surgeries that are worse than death . . . If Papa were ever to find out, I truly worry that Az would end himself.”
  • Morgan kisses Judas (to who she is not betrothed to). “He’s closer, and I reach for his shoulder. It’s jagged with bone, and I’ve wanted to touch it since the night he pinned me against that tree in the moonlight . . . My heart is like this world’s rain hitting against the window. I can’t breathe. I had thought all kisses were like the ones I’ve shared with Basil, that they started out timid and uncertain. But this one goes through the skin.”
  • The story implies that Pen’s father abused her. Pen feels ashamed. “A horrible thing happened that day. You wouldn’t have understood. You were only a little girl.”
  • Morgan and Pen talk about Judas’s kiss. “. . . But I realize that she’s right—that something in his eyes when he looked at me, when he kissed me, even when he plucked the leaf from my hair, was wanting.”

Violence

  • Two bombs land in the middle of a busy city, killing many. “The screams have all faded to whimpers and groans; Birdie is one sobbing girl among hundreds . . . The first bomb was just to get everyone to the harbor . . . All the survivors would come here and be caged animals.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Several of the characters go into a club and get drunk. “By the fourth or fifth glass, Birdie has stopped spluttering the stuff back up before she can swallow it.”
  • Several times throughout the story, the characters drink alcohol.
  • Pen spends much of her time drunk. “She prefers gin to sleep.”
  • A group, including Morgan, goes on a yacht and drinks champagne. Pen gets drunk and dives into the water. When Pen doesn’t resurface, Morgan jumps in after her and finds Pen unconscious.
  • While in the hospital, Morgan is given something to help her sleep.

Language

  • The only profanity in the story is when a driver mumbles, “goddamn snow” during a blizzard.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Throughout the story, there are references to Internment’s belief in the god of the sky. They believe that when someone dies, “we burn the bodies of our dead so that all the bad in them can fall away, while all the good becomes a mass of colors in the sky that can’t be seen by the living.”
  • Two of the characters discuss their different beliefs. On the ground, they burn offerings. “If there’s something you really want to ask of our god, you burn something that’s of equal importance.” Once a year on Internment “we burn our highest request and set it up on the wind to be heard.” At the end of the story, one of the characters sacrifices his car, which is his most precious possession, in the hopes that god will make his sister well again.
  • One of the characters tells a story about the god of the sky. “If people were going to be greedy, he could take the source of that greed away. That’s why it’s against the law for any king to pass a bill that would charge for wind or solar energy.”
  • On the ground, people believe that Ehco was the first creature of the sea. “. . . The God told him [Echo] that when he put mankind in the world, mankind would sometimes ask the God for things he wouldn’t be able to do. And mankind would grow angry with him—and would grow sad, and that anger and sorrow needed someplace to go, and so it would be Ehco’s job to consume it and keep it in his body so that it didn’t destroy the world.”
  • Pen and Morgan question their beliefs. “Lately I wonder if the god of the sky even heard us when we were in the sky.”
  • Pen is reading the ground’s religious book, The Text. In the book, “their god creates light, and the earth and things . . . And then this god of theirs creates the first man and woman, and a page or two later their children are throwing stones and murdering each other. It doesn’t bode well for the dawn of humanity, does it?”
  • The Text has a story about the ark. “Their god flooded the world to start over. So when their god doesn’t like someone, he tries to drown them.”
  • When having a funeral, one of the characters is worried about not having a priest. “The priest has to say the burial prayer. If he doesn’t say the prayer, how will Riles be able to get to heaven?”

Visitors

Two Riggs means twice the adventures—and twice the trouble. Now that Rigg has a copy, they have decided to diverge. One will attempt to get to Earth and stop the invasion. The other will explore the wallfolds of Garden and decide if the walls should stay up or come down.

The Rigg that goes to Earth is willing to destroy his parent planet if that is the only option for protecting Garden. He quickly discovers that the situation is not that simple. Earth may be in as much danger as Garden from an enemy that cannot be fought or reasoned with.

Meanwhile, the original Rigg explores his own world. He encounters slavery and murder, and is faced with the dilemma of how to use his powers. As a time traveler, he can change anything he wants, but should he? If he allows people to die, is he complicit in their murders? He cannot save everyone…or can he?

The final installment of the Pathfinder series has everything from Neanderthals to alien races. The brain-tickling problems that come with time travel continue, this time compounded with moral questions. Just because Rigg can save a life doesn’t mean he should, but how can he let people die horrific deaths when he has the power to change the outcome? At what point does free will become an illusion? Visitors again expands Rigg’s world from a few wallfolds to several populated worlds, and provides readers with an extremely satisfying ending.

 Sexual Content

  • Umbo and Param kiss several times. Years later, when they are married, Param is irritated that her husband never asks for intimacy or “even wait[s] around as if hoping.”
  • Leaky wonders if she is infertile or if her husband is.
  • Leaky admits she had a botched C-section and was so, “torn up inside the midwife said [she’d] never be able to bear.”
  • Ram plays matchmaker with Noxon and Deborah, to which Deborah says, “We didn’t agree to mate and make babies.”
  • When speaking of Neanderthals and Erectids (extinct species), a man describes their mating as “being kidnapped and sequestered” while his daughter insists it is “rape.”
  • Square, one of the first people to grow up with a facemask, discusses the need for him to mate with Umbo. “And when you take a mate and we find the best way to get facemasks on your babies.”
  • Noxon is copied, and both copies are in love with Deborah. The Noxon who was not exposed to radiation decides he will be Deborah’s husband because his gametes are likely superior to the Noxon who was exposed to radiation.
  • Noxon kisses Deborah. “Whereupon Noxon sprang from his chair, took her into his arms, and kissed her . . . She responded with as much enthusiasm as was appropriate with her father present. Which was to say that, upon repetition, in private, the whole business seemed to work much better.”

Violence

  • Umbo realizes Param will have to marry him or kill him because he could become a political threat to her. “It should be clear that in order to keep you from being a divisive force in the kingdom, she either has to marry [me]…Or kill me.” Param decides to marry him.
  • To explain Rigg’s face, Ram Odin lies and says Rigg’s face melted in a fire.
  • Umbo’s father hits Umbo and breaks his son’s skull. “Father began striking him with the flat of the blade, hitting him on the shoulders and the side of his head, until young Umbo hung limp and unconscious . . .‘”I think the skull is broken here. Look how it’s swelling, but it looks dented anyways.’”
  • Rigg visits a tiny town where a young girl was raped and murdered. “He tried to kiss her and she was still too young and small to put up much of a fight. When he was done with the rape, she was crying and her clothing was torn . . . he dragged her to her feet and strangled her. It was brutal. He held her up and she flailed and kicked, but her arms weren’t long enough to reach his eyes and her kicking him did no good.”
  • When exposed, a murderer commits suicide.
  • In one version of the future, Loaf’s throat is slit, his wife is run through with a sword, and their baby is thrown out of a second-story window. Umbo is told that this is what happened as he does not witness any of it.
  • A man kills Deborah. “He had a fist-sized stone in his hand and he was bringing back his arm and before Noxon could come out of sliced time to shout at Deborah the stone was already in the air . . . It struck Deborah on the side of the head . . . and dropped her instantly.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Shut up is said several times.
  • Son-of-a-bitch is said once.
  • Ram asks the expendable if he has an anus and if it works.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Rigg and Ram discuss the morality of going back in time and preventing a young girl from being raped and murdered. Ram says, “You can’t just go killing people because you know they’re going to do something terrible…because until he does the murder, he doesn’t deserve to die.”
  • Rigg comes to the conclusion that while he has, “this godlike power to force other people not to do evil…choos[ing] not to use it doesn’t make [Rigg] evil.” He decides on a course of minimal change.
  • Umbo wonders if the replication of genes is all there is to life, since “we evolved so that our greatest pleasure comes from sex.”

by Morgan Lynn

Ruins

Rigg and Umbo have started to hone their time traveling skills—and just in time. They discover that in the not-so-far future Earth visits Garden with the intent to completely destroy Garden. Now the two boys race to figure out why their parent planet would destroy a colony they created. Something the Earthlings found on Garden horrified them, but what?

Garden cannot fend off these attackers, so Rigg will have to find the motive behind the attack and change the past to stop it from ever happening. As Rigg searches for answers, he travels through different wallfolds. One is extinct of all human life, another seemingly populated by poop-throwing yahoos and sentient mice, and in a third, the people have evolved to live in the sea. But wherever he goes, Rigg finds people who want to manipulate him. With no one willing to tell him the whole truth, how can Rigg decide which path to take?

The second installation in the Pathfinder series takes the story up a notch. By expanding Rigg’s world from one wallfold to four, the reader is shown several different paths the human race could have taken. The what if’s are tantalizing. The world Rigg explores is as interesting and exciting as the actions he takes. Ruins is in no way linear. Now that Rigg and Umbo are skilled time travelers, their paths jump forward, go backwards, and sometimes cease to exist entirely. While these time jumps may cause one to stop and ponder for a while, they are written in a way that is relatively easy to follow.

Sexual Content

  • When discussing a parasite, it is said that “the only part of the earthborn brain it could control was the wild, competitive beast, bent on reproduction at any cost . . . That sounds like soldiers on leave.”
  • Rigg notes that some mice are mating. Later, when starting a colony, Loaf says the mice are “mating their little brains out.”
  • The humans that live under the ocean are naked. Larex comments on how Rigg is staring, to which Rigg replies, “I’m fifteen years old, I think . . . my eye goes to naked women.”
  • Umbo explains that when they change something in time, children will be born, but the “mix of genes . . . will be different. Perhaps conception will happen on a different day. Or a different sperm will win through.”

Violence

  • Yahoos, creatures that appear to be similar to humans with little intelligence, throw poop at Umbo and Loaf. “The watcher flung something out of his lofty perch. It splatted against Umbo’s cheek and shoulder. It stank. It clung . . . it was nightsoil. Presumably the watcher’s own.”
  • Param is murdered. When she is skipping time, the mice move a metal rod into the space she is about to occupy. When she and the rod collide, “Param felt a searing agony in her throat, the heat of billions of molecules being torn about . . . she lived just long enough to feel the heat pulse through her entire body, every nerve screaming with the pain of burning to death in a searing moment.”
  • To keep the mice in line, Olivenko points out that the humans “can break their little skulls under our feet.”
  • Rigg and Loaf discuss the morality of preemptive killing.
  • When Ram Odin tries to stab Rigg, Rigg jumps into the past and kills Ram with a knife. “He was also completely aware of the knife in Ram Odin’s hand, the hand that was darting forward to plunge it into Rigg’s kidney . . . In the very moment he caught Ram Odin’s knife, Rigg shifted half an hour back in time . . . the knife easily passed between the ribs of Ram Odin’s back and pierced his heart. A little flicking motion and both ventricles of Ram Odin’s heart were split open. The blood of his arteries ceased to pulse. He slumped over and, without time even to utter a sound, he died.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • The words “pissed” and “butt-ugly” are used once.

Supernatural

  • Symbiotic creatures evolve so they can live in conjunction with humans. They attach to the human body and, depending on the breed, can provide benefits such as breathing underwater and increasing a person’s speed, eyesight, etc.

Spiritual Content

  • Rigg discovers the Odinfolders have meddled in genetic alteration, and selectively bred themselves for traits they considered desirable.
  • Humans are defined as any creature, no matter how diverse, that is descended from what we consider a homo sapien.
  • Mice were bred for intelligence, to the point that Rigg says their souls look very similar to human souls.
  • Param briefly wonders if death is better than life.
  • Rigg accidentally copies himself by time traveling. Vadesh warns him to be careful or he will “run out of souls to populate these bodies that you accidentally make.”

by Morgan Lynn

Pathfinder

Rigg is as unimportant as a young boy can be. He lives in almost complete seclusion in the far northern woods of his wallfold. He and his father are trappers, coming down from the mountains only to sell their furs. But Rigg has a talent. He can see the path left by every living being that has traversed Garden. This skill comes in handy when tracking animals, but it is not until his father dies that Rigg beings to realize the full extent of his powers.

With his dying breath, Rigg’s father tells him a secret—he is not Rigg’s father. Shocked and hurt, Rigg must travel into the heart of civilization to find his family. He explores his terrifyingly powerful talent on the way, using it to get out of trouble time and time again. But when he arrives at his wallfold’s capital, he realizes that his talent may be most useful in protecting himself from his very own family.

Orson Scott Card creates a fascinatingly unique world. His detailed understanding of physics and his elaborate exploration of time travel puzzle and delight. Rigg’s story is wonderful to follow. It is exciting, dangerous, and enthralling. The skill in which Orson Scott Card builds this world will quickly suck readers into a wonderful trilogy. There are adult conversations regarding sex and violence, but the adult content is not described in detail.

Sexual Content

  • Loaf tells Rigg that he threw out this first wife when he came home from a lengthy trip and discovered she had three children from three different men. Loaf says she was lucky he didn’t kill her, as was his right.
  • Rigg hangs a purse of jewels under his clothes, around his waist. Loaf says, “I think you carry in your crotch most of the wealth of this wallfold . . . but that’s how all young men feel, isn’t it!”

Violence

  • Rigg’s father dies when a tree falls on him and he is impaled. His father calls out to him, “I have been pierced by two branches, completely through my belly.” Rigg does not see this directly, and his father makes Rigg promise, “You will not come look at me, now while I’m alive or later after I’m dead. I don’t want you to have this terrible image in your memory.”
  • Rigg tries to save a boy from falling off a waterfall. In the process, he nearly knocks a man over the falls. “The weight of Rigg’s head and shoulder striking the man caused his leg to buckle, and the man twisted, started to topple forward. I came to save a boy and now I’m killing a man.”
  • Umbo thinks his brother was pushed over the waterfall by Rigg. Umbo throws rocks at Rigg, nearly knocking him over the falls. Later a mob, stirred up by Umbo, comes for Rigg. Nox talks the mob down. “Why do you want to believe the worst? Why are you hungry to do a killing here today?”
  • Umbo runs away because his father beats him, and after his little brother dies he was scared his father would kill him. “Perhaps Umbo was afraid . . . Everyone knew how Tegay beat him when he was angry.”
  • Loaf met his wife after a battle. He was on the ground with a gash across his stomach. His wife found him, stitched him up and took him home. “By scavenger law I’m her slave,” Loaf says.
  • When captured, a general threatens to torture and kill Rigg’s friends.
  • A man talks about his great-grandfather, who was given, “a slow and gruesome public death . . . with his body parts fed to the royal hunting dogs.”
  • Rigg hits a man on the forehead and pees on the same man during an attempt to escape his own assassination.
  • Ram Odins’ neck is broken by expendables, machines that look human. “The expendable reached out with both hands, gave Ram’s head a twist, and broke his neck.”
  • Peasants broke into the house the former princess was living in, and forced her to surrender all her clothing.
  • Loaf injures a drunkard who was close to hurting his wife. He does this before his wife would have killed the drunk to save herself from harm.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Rigg is attacked by soldiers who are drugged to the point of being unable to recognize when they received, “orders [that] would lead directly to their deaths.”

Language

  • Bastard is said once.

Supernatural

  • Rigg and several others have the ability to manipulate time to different extents. These abilities are genetic.
  • Some people in Rigg’s wallfold have genetically induced powers such as projecting a wall with their minds.

Spiritual Content

  • The people of Rigg’s wallfold pray to many deities such as the Wandering Saint.
  • Rigg briefly wonders if he is a demon, since he has strange abilities.
  • Rigg and his friends take a pilgrimage to the Tower of O, a strange structure of unknown origins that is the oldest structure in the Wallfold.

by Morgan Lynn

Take the Key and Lock Her Up

Death is no stranger to the royal family of Adria. Centuries ago, the royal family was murdered, which changed the political landscape of Adri. However, the infant princess survived and was hidden; those who hid the child wanted her to take her rightful place as queen. Now, two hundred years later, there are still some that believe the princess’ descendent should sit on the throne.

Grace discovers that the princess’s blood runs through her veins. If people find out that Grace is a lost princess, the news could spark a revolution. Some people want to use Grace as a pawn, others want to silence her forever. Grace must figure out a way to save herself and the people she loves. Danger and deceit hide around every corner, and if Grace fails, she will pay with her life.

Take the Key and Lock Her Up is the exciting conclusion to the Embassy Row trilogy. The third book in the series ramps up the suspense because Grace isn’t sure who wants to help her and who wants to kill her. The romance heats up, but the kissing scenes are tame and appropriate for younger readers. Even though the book is written for readers as young as twelve, there are some readers that will not be ready for the more mature themes. For younger readers, the content may be disturbing because there are several scenes that focus on a mental institution and how the drugs affect the patients. In addition, Take the Key and Lock Her Up has more violence than the first two books because there are several factions that want Grace dead. The ending of the story is a bit predictable, but that doesn’t detract from the story’s enjoyment.

Sexual Content

  • Grace and Alexei kiss five times throughout the story. The first time, Grace brings “my free hand up and weave my fingers into Alexei’s dark hair, pull him close, and kiss him. Like maybe it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.”
  • Alexei kisses Grace. “. . . Alexei’s lips are on mine, and I’m not aware of anything anymore. It’s different from the kiss on the bridge. There’s no urgency now. . . This is about now—right now. No future and no past.”
  • Alexei and Grace kiss. “. . . His lips are on mine and my fingers are in his hair and everything fades away, the streets and the darkness. . .”

Violence

  • After Grace is drugged and taken to an unknown location, she escapes. “I just pick up the candlestick and throw it over my head as hard as I can . . . I can hear the chaos behind me, cries of pain and fury and fear.”
  • Someone is trying to capture Grace. In order to help her, Alexei throws a man over a bridge.
  • When a man tries to grab Grace, Alexei fights him. Grace watches “him twist, launching himself over the bigger man, and in a flash Alexei has his arms around his neck and he’s squeezing . . . The orderly slumps as Alexei cuts off his . .” At the same time, an orderly tries to drug Grace, and she throws her “hands up, catching his wrist with both hands, pressing up as he presses down.” She makes the man put the syringe in his own leg, and she and Alexei are able to escape.
  • Grace’s friends blow up a car. “Flaming debris fills the yard. Windshields are smashed. Tires are flattened.” No one is injured.
  • For no reason, a woman attacks the prince. She “slaps him hard across the face and starts kicking and clawing.” Several people pull her off of him.
  • Someone poisons the king, and he “pitches awkwardly forward and crashes down the massive staircase. . . (he) has landed, limp and broken, on the polished parquet floor.”
  • When Grace discovers a secret, someone hits her, knocking her out. Later, this person shoots a man in the chest, “and he drops to the ground.”
  • When a woman attacks Grace, her son shoots her. “The gun is tumbling from his hand as his mother crumbles, blood-soaked, to the floor.” The woman survives.

 

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Grace drugs someone’s tea. When Grace drugs the person, “she slumps slowly to the ground, getting mud and grass stains all over her pretty white suit.”
  • A guard drugs Grace. When it happens, she feels “a pinch in my neck. I turn to see a guard behind me holding a syringe.”
  • While walking down the street, Grace passes some drunk people and goes by a café where people are drinking wine.
  • Alexei’s mother was in a mental institution, where she was prescribed drugs. Grace thinks, “I don’t know what they were giving her at that facility, but I can imagine. I know better than anyone that the medicine can be far worse than the disease.”
  • A woman is put in a mental intuition where she is given a vial of medication. Grace thinks that the medicine is “supposed to feel like peace, like bliss. But to me they always felt like your heart was covered with frostbite. They made me so numb I actually burned.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

See How They Run

Finding the truth about her mother’s murder was supposed to bring Grace peace. But the past still haunts her. Grace realizes that her mother carried secrets of her own, but there are those who want those secrets to stay buried. And there is someone who is willing to kill to make sure the truth never comes out.

Grace knows there are century-old secrets surrounding her family. The only thing she doesn’t know is who to trust in her search for the truth. And when a U.S. citizen is murdered on Adria soil, Grace realizes that death is just a tool that a powerful person isn’t afraid to use.

Full of suspense and intrigue, the second installment of the Embassy Row series will captivate readers and pull them into the mystery surrounding Grace. See How They Run focuses less on Grace’s friends, and their absence makes the story less interesting. Grace doesn’t trust her own decision-making skills, and often refers to her “crazy” nature. Her complicated character adds suspense to the story. The addition of Adria’s history and the murder of a royal family creates an eerie atmosphere.

For those who enjoyed the Gallagher Girls series, See How They Run will not disappoint. However, See How They Run focuses on the death of a royal family and the murder of a young man. Even though the violence is not described in detail, the story makes it clear that someone is willing to kill innocent people.

Sexual Content

  • At a party, a boy kisses Grace. “He is leaning closer and closer. I close my eyes and feel his lips brush mine.” The kiss ends when she shoves him back.
  • Alexei and Grace kiss. The first time they kiss, Grace thinks, “Spence kissed me. But this is more. More intimate. More gentle. More emotion pounds through my veins than anything any boy has ever made me feel.”

Violence

  • An integral part of the plot revolves around a revolt that happened 200 years ago. During the revolt, “The king, the queen, two princes and a baby girl who wasn’t even a month old yet. Five of them. They pulled them from their bed, and they killed them.” The family was murdered and their bodies were hung from the palace.
  • When Alexei finds out that Spence kissed Grace, Alexei “turns and pulls back his arm in one smooth motion, dropping Spence to the ground with a single blow. . . They tumble and twist and brawl closer and closer to the party.” The fight lasts over several pages, but no one is seriously hurt.
  • When Jamie finds out that his friend kissed Grace, he “doesn’t say a word of warning. He just hits him.” Spence’s head jerks but he stays on his feet. The boy doesn’t hit back and Jamie leaves him with a warning to leave his sister alone.
  • During the festival, a drunk man recognizes Alexei. Then a mob of people attacks him and Grace. “The first fist that hits Alexei knocks him nearly off his feet. He doesn’t see it coming. . . I can feel myself getting pushed, almost knocked to the ground. I lash out, kicking a man in the knee as he lunges at Alexei. But two other men are already upon him.” During the attack, Grace is stabbed in the side.
  • Someone bombs a car. It is unclear if the driver was killed in the explosion or if the vehicle was unoccupied.
  • Someone stabs Jamie. “. . . I see blood that covers Jamie’s shirt. He’s trying to press against the wound with his free hand, but it’s not working. My brother is going to bleed to death, die right in front of me.” A helicopter arrives to take him to an Army hospital in Germany. It is unclear if he will survive his wounds.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • In the past, Grace has been given medication for anxiety. When she has a bad dream, she blames it on “the meds that I’m not taking.”
  • During a festival, a man walks by Grace and her friends. She comments that the drunk’s “breath smells like liquor.”
  • When Grace is stabbed, someone tends to the wound and then gives her “a small glass bottle” with medicine in it to help with the pain.
  • Grace does not want Alexei to turn himself into the authorities, so she drugs him. “His hand goes limp . . . His legs wobble. But thankfully we are out of view of the street by the time he passes out completely and falls, sprawling on the weeds.”

Language

  • A character, “mumbles something that I think must be the Russian equivalent to Oh my freaking goodness.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

All Fall Down

Three years after her mother’s death, Grace is sent to live with her grandfather, a powerful ambassador who is too busy to spend any time with her. Thrust into a new situation, Grace isn’t sure who to trust. Grace has never been close to her childhood companion, Megan, and wonders why she would want to help her. Her new friend Noah claims to want to be her best friend. Her brother’s best friend Alexei says he’s watching out for her out of obligation. Are they really her friends or do they have other motivations for staying close to Grace?

Grace wants to keep out all thoughts of her mother’s death, but visions of her mother keep appearing.  While Grace’s grandfather wants her to put on a pretty dress and attend functions at his side, Grace doesn’t seem to be able to stay out of trouble. When the mysterious Scared Man from her past appears, Grace overhears his plans to kill. Convinced that the Scared Man is responsible for killing her mother, Grace goes on a mission to stop him from killing again.

Grace narrates her own story, which allows the reader to see into her troubled mind and understand her terror. Grace believes that others think she is crazy because she witnessed her mother’s death; despite appearing completely normal, she struggles with panic attacks and visions of her mother. Grace saw her mother being shot in the chest, so why does everyone say the death was an accident?

Full of suspense, interesting characters, and plot twists, All Fall Down is an entertaining story that will leave the reader reaching for the next book in the series. For those who enjoyed the Gallagher Girls series, All Fall Down will not disappoint. However, All Fall Down has a more serious tone with more violence. Although the violence is not described in gory detail and is appropriate for younger audiences, Grace’s mother’s death is described in a detailed flashback. Even though the book is written for readers as young as twelve, as the series progresses there are some readers that will not be ready for the more mature themes.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Feeling overwhelmed, Grace runs from the house. As she backs out of the door, a “hand grabs me from behind” and she lashes out. “A cry rises up my throat, primitive and raw, and then I’m pushing and lunging. Falling. As I land in the rosebushes, I can feel the thorns of a rosebush tearing into my skin, clinging to my clothes.” In her panic, she hit the Russian ambassador, giving him a bloody nose.
  • While Grace is sleeping, a boy sneaks into her room and tries to wake her up. Startled, “I wrench the boy’s hand farther back, holding his thumb with my other hand.” After they talk, they sneak out of the house to attend a party.
  • Grace is told a story about a royal family that was murdered. The person speaking says, “The people stormed the palace and dragged Alexander and his family from their beds.” No other description is given.
  • Grace thinks that the Scared Man is going to kill the Russian president so she jumps off a balcony. When she jumps, “everyone is watching as I hurl myself over the railing. Even the U.S. Secret Service can do nothing but watch as I fly through the air and crash onto the Scared Man’s back.” Later she finds out that the Scared Man was holding a cell phone, not a gun.
  • Someone tries to kill Grace. “There’s a fence at my back. I can’t move any farther, and that is when the prime minister lunges for me, grabbing my arms in his massive hands, squeezing like a tourniquet. . . I can’t think anymore, so I just start kicking, screaming.” She struggles with her attacker, “when my elbow makes contact with his nose, I hear a sickening snap and feel the warm gush of blood on the back of my neck.”
  • Grace witnessed her mother’s death. “. . . I am standing there, watching my mother fall, bloody and broken. . .” The person who tried to help her was injured. “Blood rains down his face. His left eye is swollen shut. And the skin on his left cheek is almost black with blood, singed skin, and a rugged cut that runs from brow to jaw.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Grace takes prescription pills that help her deal with anxiety. Several times she refers to the pills. When she has a panic attack she doesn’t want anyone to find out because, “It will be just like after (her mother’s death). With the pills and the shrinks and the looks.”
  • After Grace jumps off a balcony and lands on the Scared Man, she is given more medication. The medication makes her act differently. The medicine makes Grace shake “my body like a pendulum that can never quite stop moving.”
  • Someone drugs Grace so that she will go to sleep. After she takes the drugs, she thinks, “I want to argue and demand answers, but it is all I can do to focus on the glass that is falling, shattering on the floor. Two seconds later, I follow.”
  • Grace’s grandfather “pours himself a drink, I can tell it isn’t the first of the night. The way things are going, it almost certainly won’t be his last.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Bet Your Life

Jess Tennant wants to stay out of trouble, but when Seb is found on the side of the road with serious injuries, she is pulled into the drama. At the request of Seb’s younger sister, Jess tries to find out what really happened to Seb, but the more Jess discovers, the more complicated Seb’s story becomes.

In Bet Your Life Jess enters the party world of the popular rich kids. However, she soon learns that the party scene isn’t glamourous, but dangerous. As Jess learns about Seb, she finds that most people think he had it coming and nobody wants the truth to come out.

Bet Your Life explores the topic of rape. Although the rapes are not described in detail, bits and pieces of the victims’ experiences are uncovered. One of the girls talks about how the police would not believe her story because she could not remember exactly what happened. Even though Jess knows that Seb was drugging girls, she decides not to tell anyone with the hope that being beat up and left for dead will cause him to change his ways.

Unlike the first book in the series, How to Fall, the second installment of the Jess tenant series contains more sexual content and the kissing scenes are described in more detail. The sexual content may be disturbing for some teens.

Sexual Content

  • Ryan unexpectedly kisses Jessie on the mouth. “My lips were parted and it was startlingly intimate, even if it was quick.”
  • Jess watches Will and thinks, “I wanted to run my hand across his broad shoulders and down his back. I wanted him to turn around and press his body against mine. I wanted to remind myself what it was like to kiss him. . .”
  • Will and Jess kiss several times.  In one scene, Will sneaks into Jess’s house and surprises her. “I slipped my arms around his neck and he stepped between my knees, closing the distance between us . . . and then we were kissing and it made the room spin as if we were on a carousel. . . he dropped kisses down my neck. He trailed his fingers along my spine and I felt it in the pit of my stomach . . . He pulled the material off my right shoulder and leaned in to kiss my collarbone.”
  • Jess discovers that a boy was drugging girls and then having sex with them.  In one scene, a girl wakes up and is unable to move. The boy strokes her face and then she passes out.  Jess finds the boy’s cell phone which has pictures of some of the victims. “The lighting in the picture was terrible, but I could see a girl lying on her back on a rumpled bed, one arm over her face. She was topless. I was also fairly sure she was unconscious.”
  • While looking at a boy’s cell phone, Jess discovers pictures of him and his step-mom. “. . . in the picture he’d taken of the two of them kissing. And he was pretty obviously naked too, so it didn’t take a genius to work out what was going on.”
  • A girl went to the police to report that she had been raped, but the officer said, “no jury would ever take me seriously, especially when I don’t’ know where it happened or even what happened.”
  • A boy tells Jess that he was drugging girls so he could have sex with them. When she said it was rape, he replied, “There were no consequences for her. She didn’t even know it had happened, and neither did anyone else. I wore a condom. I was respectful. I didn’t take pictures or video. I didn’t make fun of them.”

Violence

  • At a party, Ryan and Will fight, presumably over Jess. The fight takes place over several pages and neither is hurt badly. When Ryan is hit in the mouth and begins to bleed, the fight ends.
  • Someone drugs Jess, locks her in a pool house, and then sets it on fire. She is able to escape without being seriously injured. However, the person who set the fire ends up dying.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jess goes to a party where alcohol is served.

Language

  • When talking about a boy who was beat up, someone said, “There’s no justice in half killing someone because they’re a dick.”
  • Profanity is used rarely. Profanity used includes damn and ass.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Hide and Seek

Unapologetically curious—that’s Jess Tennant. So when her classmate, Gilly Poynter disappears, Jess decides she must investigate. With only Gilly’s diary as a clue, Jess finds out that Gilly’s home life wasn’t happy, and her social life was a mess. As Jess tries to find out what happened to Gilly, she discovers that the police and her boyfriend want her to keep clear of the case. But Jess is convinced that she can help find Gilly and unlock the secrets that want to remain hidden.

Although most of Hide and Seek revolves around the mystery of Gilly’s disappearance, it also delves into the complicated relationships between people. Jess’s boyfriend is back in town for Christmas break, but instead of spending time together, they are arguing. To add conflict to the story, Jess’s dad is in town trying to win over his ex-wife, which Jess is hoping doesn’t happen.

Jess Tennant is a charismatic character who has the reader running with her from the start. Hide and Seek contains mystery, suspense, and complicated relationships that keep the reader guessing. The characters in the book are complicated and real.

For teens who like mysteries, Hide and Seek tells a good story without adding graphic images of sex and violence. Instead, the author creates interesting characters that drive the action and keep the reader interesting.

Sexual Content

  • One of the characters is seen kissing his girlfriend. “She grabbed hold of him and kissed him back, pressing her body into his. One of his hands slid down her back, his fingers spreading, digging into her flesh.”
  • Jess’s boyfriend’s father lectures her on, “taking the appropriate precautions.” Jess is upset by the talk because, “it wasn’t even relevant, currently. We hadn’t. We hadn’t even talked about it.”
  • Jess kisses her boyfriend several times throughout the book. In one scene, “his mouth tasted of cinnamon and his hand was warm on my neck. His thumb stroked the skin just under my ear and I shut my eyes, lost in him.” Another time, Jess “found myself pinned against the wall. He kissed me, hard, and my heart took off, fluttering in my chest like a hummingbird.”
  • In her diary, Gilly described having sex with someone in the disabled toilet near the staff room. “We ended up on the floor . . . And it felt amazing. . . But the main thing is that it felt RIGHT.” Later it is revealed that the person Gilly had sex with was her history teacher.
  • When Jess was trying to figure out who Gill had sex with, another character goes through a list of possible people. Jess “thought of quite a large group she’d left out. The girls.”
  • Nessa talks about how her parents think she is a lesbian, but she hasn’t made up her mind yet. Later someone defends Nessa asking, “Why do you care if Nessa likes girls anyway? Why does it threaten you?”
  • The teacher kisses Gilly twice. He “turned his head and kissed her, his tongue probing her mouth.”

Violence

  • At a party, a group of girls confronts Gilly. One girl grabbed onto Gilly’s wrist. Then Gilly grips her glass so hard that it breaks. “Liquid started to seep between her fingers—wine mixed with oozing red blood that trickled down the backs of her hands and slid along her forearm, branching out as if her veins were suddenly, shockingly, on the outside of her body.”
  • Jess sees blood in Gilly’s trash can and assumes it was cutting. “I knew plenty of girls who did it, slashing their skin to ribbons in neat lines down arms or thighs, because physical pain was better than the emotional kind.”
  • A girl attacks another character. “Nessa grabbed him by the throat . . . Max was choking, his face red, and Nessa let go . . . I couldn’t tell if it was planned or not, but her knee collided with his nose. He jerked his head back, and a spray of blood splattered the fake snow . . .”
  • Two of the boys fight and the description lasts for several pages. “It wasn’t a pretty fight. It was punching and shoving and gouging eyes. It was a kick to the thigh that wrung a string of curses from Will.” Will’s father shows up and breaks up the fight.
  • Gilly and the teacher tie Jess to a latter and then lock her in a house that is about to be crushed by incoming waves.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jess goes to a party where alcohol is served.
  • Jess goes to talk to Gilly’s mother who was acting strange. “I didn’t know if she’d been drinking or if she’d taken something, but there was no way she was sober.” Later Jess discovers that Gilly’s mother had been drugged.
  • Jess used to live in North London, “where you could buy pretty much any drug you wanted just outside the train station.”
  • One of the character’s wife is ill. He tells Jess that she, “just stays in her room, popping pills and waiting for the end.”
  • Gilly wrote in her diary that she wished she were like everyone else, “getting drunk, having fun.”

Language

  • Hell is used several times. For example, when Jess thinks someone is spying on her, she asks, “What the hell are you doing?”
  • When Will’s father breaks up a fight, he asks, “Do you want to tell me why you and this idiot are hitting seven kinds of crap out of each other?”
  • When Jess is asking too many questions, she is told to “piss off.”
  • One of the characters calls someone a “twisted little dyke” and later someone refers to another character as a “dick.”
  • In her diary, Gilly uses, “Oh my God, OMFG, and F*****G.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

How to Fall

Fraya is gone, but Jess is determined to discover how Fraya ended up dead at the bottom of a cliff. However, everyone just wants Jess to stop asking questions. After all, Fraya is dead and nothing will bring her back. Despite the obstacles, Jess is determined to follow the leads and find out if Fraya’s death was a suicide, like some believed, or if there was something more sinister at play.

How to Fall is an action-packed story that will have the reader on the edge of their seat to find out what will happen next. As Jess tries to unravel the secrets to Fraya’s death, she meets Ryan and Will. Both boys hate each other, and both want Jess as their own. This budding love triangle is expertly weaved into the story without taking over the mystery of Fraya.

Teens will relate to Jess because she is a likable character who isn’t afraid of the popular mean girls or being an outcast. Jess’s confidence in herself is refreshing in a character. Even though Jess is sure of herself, she doesn’t come across as smug. The romance and language are teen-appropriate and, although there is profanity, it is used sporadically. How to Fall is an enjoyable book that shows how bullying can quickly spiral out of control.

Sexual Content

  • Jess is going out with a boy, so she can find out what he knows about her cousin’s death.  Her friend tells her to wear “Skanky jeans” so the boy talks to her.
  • Someone started gossiping about Jess’s cousin Freya and telling people she was a “slut.”
  • At the end of the story, a boy kisses Jess. “I had spent days imagining what it would be like to kiss him, but I hadn’t even come close. He kissed me like it was the start of something, or the end, and I couldn’t work out which it was, but I didn’t want to ask.”
  • Someone tells Jess that a boy likes “dirty girls.”
  • Jess goes to a party with a boy and he kisses her. “He pressed his body against mine, and with the kiosk behind me I had nowhere to go, but I didn’t have enough air to complain.”
  • A policeman gives Jess a ride home. Before she can get out of the car, he grabs her arm.  “Slowly, deliberately, he stroked my wrist with his thumb, trialing it across the veins where the blood ran close to the surface. . .” He then wipes off her smeared lipstick. “Before I could stop him he drew his thumb along my lower lip, staring into my eyes the whole time.”

Violence

  • Natasha is upset that Jess has been spending time with Natasha’s ex-boyfriend. They argue and Natasha grabs Jess. “Before I could move, Natasha shot out a hand and grabbed a handful of my hair.” Natasha then tries to throw her over a cliff, but is stopped.
  • A character retells a story about when he and a friend were being bullied. Eventually, his friend was attacked and broke an arm.
  • A group of girls was bullying Freya. One day at school, “a whole group of girls cornered Freya and held her down so Natasha could cut off her ponytail.”
  • The story begins with Fraya running and falling off a cliff. As the story unfolds, the reader discovers that Fraya had been bullied, which eventually lead to her death.
  • Someone tries to kill Jess by throwing her off a cliff.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • A character retells a story about a boy that was “smoking dope.”

Language

  • Jess and another girl were arguing. The other girl tells Jess, “Don’t think you can do better than me at being a bitch.” Several times throughout the book someone is called a bitch.
  • Jess’s friend surprises her. Jess says, “God, Will, you scared the crap out of me.”
  • Someone tells Jess, “Don’t tell anyone, but I am shit-scared of heights.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Elite

America isn’t sure if she wants to win Prince Maxom’s heart. The other six selections’ girls don’t share that uncertainty. They all want Maxon to choose them to be the next princess of Illea and are ready to fight America for Maxom and the crown.

When America is with Maxom, he sweeps her off her feet, and the choice seems obvious. Then her heart becomes confused whenever she sees her childhood sweetheart, Aspen. With Aspen back in her life, and both Aspen and Maxom competing for her heart, America’s indecision grows.

America is a strong character in The Selection, but she loses much of what makes her likable in the second installment of this series. In book one she is strong and funny, but in this book she degenerates into an indecisive and, quite frankly, whiny brat. The story is dragged on because America can’t decide if she wants to marry the Prince or Aspen.

The book loses the romance and suspense of the first book. Though there are exciting and fun scenes, they are sparse. If you enjoyed The Selection, you may find yourself reading The Elite out of obligation, rather than enjoyment.

Sexual Content

  • America kisses both Malcom and Aspen at different times throughout the book.
  • After one of the contestants gets married, she talks about the first time she and her husband shared a bed. It was, “a little uncomfortable at first. The second time was better.”
  • One of the contestants is seen lavishing affection on Maxom and kissing his neck.

Violence

  • After being found together, a contestant and a guard are caned for treason. During the caning, the guard’s back is described. “His skin was already torn, pieces hanging sickeningly. Blood was trickling down, ruining what used to be his dress pants.”
  • Two of the elite get into a fight. They use their nails and fists causing mild injury to each other.
  • The rebels attack the palace several times. In one scene a guard is hit by a bullet and blood pours from his chest.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a banquet hosting the Italian monarchy, wine is served. When a member of the monarchy wants America to talk about Maxom, she offers America wine in order to get her to talk.

Language

  • The words hell and damn are used in the heat of emotion.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Passenger

Secrets are kept to protect. Secrets are kept to survive. When Etta is suddenly thrust into another time, she realizes her life has been based on secrets. In an attempt to keep Etta safe, and keep a family heirloom out of the Irnonwood’s hands, Etta’s mother disappeared into the future. Now, if she wants to save her mother and return to her own time, Etta must find the ancient object that has been hidden for so long.

Nicholas has long been the Ironwood’s victim. In an attempt to secure his freedom, he agrees to watch over Etta and ensure that she brings the ancient object to them. Yet when Nicholas and Etta team up, he soon finds himself drawn to Etta.

As Nicolas and Etta work together, they follow clues left behind by Etta’s mother. The clues lead them across time periods and across continents. As they race to meet Ironwood’s deadline, they realize he is not the only one who wants the object. Can the two find the object and keep it out of the grasp of those who would use it to destroy their timeline?

The imagery and dialogue in Passenger jump off the page and engage the reader from the start. Action and suspense begin in the first chapter and lead the reader on an adventure that spans several centuries. For a story that has epic chases and attacks, the violence is not graphic. Although there is blood, the battle scenes are not gory or over the top.

The reader learns about racism through the eyes of Nicolas, as he struggles with being the son of a slave and a white landowner in the southern colonies. The cultures of the past cause interesting conflicts, as Etta’s worldview is based on the present.

Passenger is an excellently written book, with interesting characters, secrets galore, and suspense. However, the ending is set up for a sequel and leaves more questions to be answered. Because none of the book’s questions are answered in this installment, the reader will be left wondering what next?

Sexual Content

  • A few weeks after Etta and her boyfriend break up, she sees him kissing a girl in Central Park.
  • Nicholas explains his parentage. “Nicholas’s mother had been the family’s slave, and Augustus had assaulted her, abused her, and in the end had never freed her.”
  • Cyrus Ironwood tries to blackmail Etta. Cyrus tells her, “he was going to leave me so destitute I was going to have to resort to prostitution.”
  • Etta and Nicholas are attracted to each other. “She traced his face . . . He pressed a hard, almost despairing kiss to [her hand]. But when she tilted her face up, half-desperate with longing, her blood racing, Nicholas pulled back.”
  • Etta and Nicolas kiss several times. “He leaned forward and captured her lips, stealing the kiss himself until she had to come up and gasp for breath. Nicholas pulled her back under, and this time she did let go, only to take his beautiful face in her hands, to let his hands tangle in her hair, around her shoulders . . . he was breathing hard enough that she felt his heart jumping against her ribs, and she knew hers was doing the same. She turned, running her lips along the curve of his ear, her fingers pressed against the solid muscles of his back.”
  • Nicolas looks at Etta and thinks, “Want. His exhaustion had boiled him down to his basest instincts. He wanted her lips, her touch, her esteem, her mind. Inside her. Beside her. With her.”
  • When Etta and Nicolas are put in the same room to sleep, Etta goes to Nicolas’s bed and crawls in with him. “He ducked down kissing her, and she moved against him, urging him to touch her, to find the secret self that only ever seemed to exist with him. Etta felt him come alive in his own skin, felt the sheer stretch of him as he moved over her, with her, and she let herself fall into it, dissolving into him.”

Violence

  • Etta’s mother is kidnapped and her family Alice is killed. “Blood sputtered from her chest, fanned out against Etta’s hands as she pressed them against the wound . . . Her next breath came raggedly, and the next one never came at all.”
  • Etta wakes up on a ship that is under attack. During the attack, several people die. One crew member falls, “his chest shredded by balls of lead, his face a death mask of outraged disbelief.” During the fight, Etta stumbles over a dying man. “He wasn’t moving. He wasn’t blinking. She looked down, mind blank as it took in the dark liquid coating her skin, her chest, her stomach, the dress. Blood. Her snowy white skirt was drenched with thick crimson blood. She was crawling through that man’s blood.”
  • Etta and Nicholas are chased by three men. “A pair of hands scooped Etta up by the elbows, hauling her back before she could get her feet beneath her. The smell of cologne and sweat flooded her nose, and she threw her head back, trying to hit some soft, fleshy part of him.”
  • A man shoots at Etta. “The bullet went wide, striking the brick wall behind them. A splatter of dust and debris exploded into her hair, scratching the back of her neck.”
  • In the jungle, Etta almost steps on a cobra. Nicholas shoots it, but the bullet also grazes Etta.
  • Etta and Nicolas are again chased by men. Etta shoots at them, and they scatter.
  • Someone tries to capture Etta. The attack is described over several pages. During the attack, Nicolas is shot. “She reached out, one hand gripping his arm to steady him, the other going to his side—where a large, wet patch of violently crimson blood was spreading.”
  • In a final confrontation, a man holds a knife against Etta’s throat and later is shot in the shoulder. Etta and Nicolas are left in a desert to die.
  • At the end of the story, one of the characters is found. “The face was unrecognizable, swollen and purple as a ripe plum. She’d been stripped bare to her waist, and three jagged stab wounds to the torso looked to be bleeding through the earthy salve and bandages covering them. A thin blanket had been draped over her supine form to protect her modesty.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • Damn and hell are used frequently.
  • Bastard is used in a couple of instances. “Despite the wash of blood at his feet and the bodies strewn around him, his features went as soft as a kitten’s. The old bastard couldn’t help himself in the presence of young ladies, especially those in need of rescue. . .”
  • Nicolas says “bloody hell” a few times.
  • During a battle, one man is killed. His dying words are, “Sent . . . down . . . to . . . devil . . . by-by-a-a shit-sack . . . negro.”
  • Nicolas explains about time travel. “Christ. . . The first time I traveled, I attacked an automobile with an umbrella and nearly pissed myself in terror.”
  • “Oh my God” is used several times.
  • When Nicolas thinks, “And holy God, when she looked at him the ways she did now . . . he felt like he’d stepped into the blue-white heart of a flame.”

Supernatural

  • Several of the characters are able to use portals to time travel.

Spiritual Content

  • One of the characters describes his parents’ relationship. “Abbi and Ummi were not married—they could not be traditionally bound. It is forbidden for a woman of my faith to marry a man who is not. But Allah in all his wisdom still brought them together. . . It is blasphemous, I know; it goes against our teachings and beliefs, but I accept their choices. I cherish them in my heart. I cannot help but think, it matters not who you love, but only the quality of such a love.”

Glow

Julie’s future plans of going to New York for college have died. Julie is frustrated with her mother’s financial problems, a dead-end job, and a best friend who is moving on without her. When she discovers a series of antique paintings in a thrift store with hidden glowing images, her curiosity is piqued. As Julie looks for clues to the artist’s identity, she finds more paintings with increasingly nightmarish scenes hidden in the daylight.

Lydia’s story comes to life as she writes to her beloved who is on the front lines of the Great War. One hundred years before Julie’s time, Lydia is excited to join the girls in the factory painting luminous watch dials for soldiers. She is hoping that her factory job will help her struggling family, but when girls from the factory become seriously ill, Lydia wonders if there is danger lurking in the factory’s new scientific paint.

As Julie’s obsession with the paintings mounts, she discovers the truth about the Radium Girls. As she learns about the paintings, she also learns that relationships are more complicated than she thought. In the end, Julie realizes that when life’s obstacles destroy your plan, there can be a new path to finding your goal.

Megan E. Bryant tells a beautiful story of love, friendship, and broken dreams. Julie’s story is told in the first-person point of view, which allows her range of emotions to be highlighted. As Julie grieves the loss of her college dream, she also struggles with feelings of resentment towards her mother and envy over her best friend’s future. Teens will be able to relate to Julie’s frustration because life doesn’t always go as planned. However, in the end, Julie learns valuable lessons about the secrets that people keep.

Lydia’s story is told in letter format. Every other chapter of Glow focuses on Lydia’s life and concerns. The reader will learn about how life was for a young woman who lived during World War I. Lydia’s only wish is to have her soldier come home safely so they can be reunited. The unexpected ending of Lydia’s story is heartbreaking and will leave the reader in tears.

Glow captures the reader’s attention from the very beginning. The mystery of the paintings, as well as the captivating characters, make Glow a difficult book to put down. Although Glow is written for readers as young as 12, younger readers may be disturbed by the gruesome descriptions that are found hidden in the paintings. The story describes the horrific effects of radiation poisoning both in the paintings and in Lydia’s older sister’s slow death. Although there is very little sexual content, the story does show the shame of being diagnosed with syphilis during the early 1900s.

Sexual Content

  • Julie makes a wisecrack and then wonders if it made her sound “slutty.”
  • Lydia’s boss takes “liberties” with the girls.  “A leering smile here, a sneering remark there, even a pinch from time to time . . . I do not smile when he is near, lest he think I encourage such behaviors.” Later in the story, Lydia discovers her sister and her boss, “locked in a tender embrace. His thick and calloused hand, pressed to her chest. . . “
  • A doctor diagnoses Lydia’s sister with Syphilis. Lydia “has never heard it spoken out loud before, just in whisper-hisses hidden behind hands when an uncharitable rumor spreads from girl to girl.” According to the doctor, Lydia’s boss said he had an affair with her sister. The doctor said, “We also understand that your sister is known for dangling her favors before a great many men. . .”
  • When Julie is upset, her friend Luke tries to comfort her. “I just leaned up and kissed him. His lips were as soft as I imagined they would be. . . his kisses were so good, just what I wanted, just what I needed, my fingers ran through his hair, and it was so soft, so silky. I couldn’t help pulling his face closer to mine, and I think he liked it. . . I tugged at his jeans, fumbled for the button, for the zipper. Luke was poised above me. I was ready. He was ready . . . He pulled away.”
  • Julie thinks back to her time with Luke. “When I thought about how ready I’d been to sleep with him, in the mud, on the worst night of my life, I wanted to pull my hair over my face and hide. I wanted to die of shame.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Lydia’s sister breaks her leg, she is given morphine for the pain. After an operation, Lydia’s sister is again given morphine for the pain.
  • Julie remembers a time when she and her friend “got wasted.”

Language

  • Profanity is used rarely throughout the book. Profanity includes crap, holy crap, damn, goddamn
  • Julie uses Oh my God, God and Jesus as an exclamation often.
  • Julie tells her friend, “I have been to hell, and it is Triple-B on a Sunday in August. God, can you imagine?”
  • When Julie touches a painting, her friend yells, “Come on, Julie, you know this. Don’t touch the goddamn painting.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • In a letter, Lydia writes, “I send my greatest hopes that the Almighty will protect you.”
  • When Lydia’s sister has surgery, Lydia thinks that “God willing the procedure will . . . offer a cure.”
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