Reading Level: Young Adult

The Sin Eater’s Daughter

As a young girl, Twylla is brought to live in the castle because she is the Daunte Embodied, daughter of two gods. As Daunte Embodied, it is Twylla’s duty to bring justice to the kingdom. She is the executioner; anyone that she touches, dies.

Twylla thought life in the castle would be different. But the privileged life she leads is lonely and becomes more a prison than a home to her. The kingdom’s people fear her. The queen demands absolute obedience from her. And Merek, Twylla’s betrothed, confuses her.

Twylla believes her life is set in stone until she is appointed a new guard. This guard doesn’t fear her as so many others do. He sees past her role as Daunte Embodied, and sees her as a person. As they spend more time together, Twylla begins to wonder if there is a different path she could follow. But such a path would go against her loyalty to Merek and the kingdom.

Confused and lonely, Twylla soon learns that the queen has a deadly plan of her own—and Twylla is in the way of the queen getting her desire. Will Twylla be able to survive long enough to choose between two men—one who needs her, and one who claims to love her?

The Sin Eater’s Daughter takes the reader into an interesting world ruled by an evil queen. The queen is the strongest character in the book. She is willing to kill anyone, including her best friend who dared to become pregnant while the queen could not. The king, who appears infrequently, is seen as a kind, but powerless man. Merek, who does not agree with his mother’s cruel ways, seems desperate and unkind, which makes it difficult for the reader to feel sympathy for him. Even Twylla, who is the heroin, is difficult to relate to. Although her situation is difficult, she seems to be content to sit in her tower and feel sorry for herself.

Although the world created in The Sin Eater’s Daughter is interesting, it is often violent and disturbing. Death is seen often and is described in graphic detail. There are many adult topics that appear including the mention of incest, killing a child in the womb, and seduction.

Sexual Content

  • During a sin-eating ceremony a woman’s father, who is under the influence of poppy tears, confesses that “she said no but he [himself] put a baby in her.” The Sin Eater says that when the man dies she will not “take that sin.”
  • Twylla and her guard kiss often towards the end of the book. In one scene she tells him that she loves him and then, “he devours the words right out of my mouth, pressing his own against mine and swallowing my worries. I let him, willing to sacrifice my questions temporarily for the taste of him, for his hands on my waist.”
  • Twylla and her guard plan to run away together. They again kiss. “Our mouths move gently, brushing together, our lips opening and closing against the other’s, our eyes locked. It makes me dizzy and I allow mine to flutter shut, concentrating on the feel of him against me, his tongue dancing gently with mine.”
  • Twylla and her guard have sex several times. The act is not described, but afterward they, “lie with our legs and arms twined, breathing softly, his breaths becoming my breaths. Our skin is damp and we stick together, as though nothing could separate us.” After one time together, the queen finds them in bed together and has them both thrown in jail.
  • The tradition in the kingdom is for the queen to give birth to one boy and one girl, and then the two children are married when they are adults. The goal is to keep the bloodline clean. Because the current queen has only one living child, a male, she plans to kill the king and marry her son.
  • At the end of the story, Twylla discovers that her guard was hired to seduce her.

Violence

  • One of the rituals in the book is when Twylla, as Daunte Embodied, kills condemned people with a touch. “Moments after I’ve touched them, they are slumped against the top of the table, blood streaming from their noses and pooling on the already-stained wood. I watch as thin red rivers flower over the edge, spattering the bolts that pin the chairs to the floor. . .”
  • When the guard and Twylla are found together he is clubbed in the back of the head with a sword. When he falls down, “two of them begin to kick him, bringing their boots back and swinging them into his ribs and spine.” The queen orders the beating to stop when the guard “has stopped moaning and grunting, finally unconscious.”
  • The queen has people killed throughout the book. Her favorite way to have them killed is to send the dogs to rip them apart. In one scene, the queen tells Twylla, “I have a mind to make you watch the dogs eat your lover first . . . Do you think he’ll try to shield you from their jaws when they tear your heart out . . . Do you know what my father used to do? He used to slice across the ankles of the wretches we were hunting. He’d cut them and leave them in the trees. He’d give them an hour to try to escape . . . it might be time to bring it back.”
  • The queen backhands Twylla across the face and threatens to kill her, “for opening your legs to another man while my son planned to wed you.”
  • In the end, the prince tells his mother, “I sentence you to hang by the neck until you are dead.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At dinner, one of the lords becomes drunk and upsets the queen so she has him killed.
  • When someone is sick, they are given poppy tears to help control the pain.
  • When a woman wants to “lose a child” they take an herb that will make them “lose a child.”
  • The queen uses poison to kill her husband.

Language

  • The queen calls Twylla, “a little slut,” a “whore” and a “harlot.”

Supernatural

  • There is a tale of a Sleeping Prince who is an alchemist. The prince was put under a spell that made him sleep forever. The queen has a totem that can call the Bringer, who is said to be able to bring the prince back to life with the death of a young girl. The queen believes that she can control the Sleeping Prince if she has the totem.

Spiritual Content

  • Twylla is told she is Daunte Embodied, the reborn daughter of the Gods. “The world has always been ruled by two Gods: Daeg, Lord of the sun, who rules in the day, and his wife Naeht, Empress of Darkness, who rules the night. . . She (Naeht) hatched a plan and seduced her husband, tiring him so much he couldn’t rise. Then she took the skies for her own and ruled alone, plunging all the world into darkness. Nothing lived, nothing thrived, and death was everywhere without the Lord of the Sun to light the world and give warmth and joy.” The God’s daughter was said to bring Daeg from his sleep and whenever Lomere needed the daughter, she would return as a symbol of hope.
  • As Daunte Embodied, Twylla is taught that she must, “strike down those who would hurt us. You will go and do your duty. You don’t want to anger the Gods do you?”
  • Twylla believes the Gods have chosen her path, and she must, “obey the Gods.”
  • When someone dies, a person’s soul, “will linger near the body for three days and nights after a death. During that time, the Eating must take place so the soul can ascend, otherwise it will drift to the West Woods to join its damned brothers and sisters in the trees. . .” During this time the sin eater must eat a particular food for each sin the person committed.
  • When Twylla’s mother talks about a woman taking an herb to lose a child, Twylla, “shook my head, not understanding. Losing a child wasn’t a sin; everyone knew the Gods could take away as they saw fit and sometimes they called an unborn back to the Eternal Kingdom.”
  • Twylla’s guard tells her that the religious rituals they perform are all lies and that her beliefs are, “just to scare people into obedience.” He explains that “We used to have Gods, too. And now we don’t and yet the country doesn’t falter; it thrives without them…It’s all made up. You are not beloved by the Gods—there are no Gods.”
  • Twylla tries to figure out what she believes and she thinks, “Neither my mother nor the queen have ever said they believed in the Gods. My mother needs them because if there are no gods, then there is no Eternal Kingdom and that makes the Sin Eater nothing more than a prop for mourning. The queen needs them because the fear of death is what makes people obedient, and kind, and good, and sorry.”
  • Twylla’s guard tells her that, “I don’t believe there are any [Gods] at all, but I believe there are men and woman whose lives are made easier by believing someone is watching over them.”

Blood Red Road

The Dust Lands are a post-apocalyptic world where written language has been forgotten, civilization has collapsed, and the strong rule through fear. Saba has grown up in a shack in the middle of nowhere with her twin brother, her sister, and her father. She rarely sees other people and has never been to a town.

Then Tonton soldiers come. They kill her father and kidnap her brother. For the first time in her life, Saba can’t follow her brother’s lead. Now she must be the leader because her brother’s life depends on it. Saba leaves the only home she has ever known and sets off in search of her twin.

Adventure after adventure follows. Saba’s path is not a straight one, but she never gives up hope. She knows what she wants and will do anything to get it. Written in a regional dialect, this first-person narration shows Saba’s strong will and determination. Even when sold into slavery, Saba is never the victim. She is never weak and her spirit is never broken.

Blood Red Road is fast-paced and exciting. A large cast of characters adds to this richly developed world of droughts and ruin. What sets this novel apart is that Young effortlessly turns the traditional damsel-rescuer model on its head. Saba is a wonderful role model for teenage girls that proves girls can be strong heroes too. Because of the sexual content and the violence, Blood Red Road is best suited for high school readers.

Sexual Content

  • Jack gives Saba “a quick hard kiss” after she saves his life.
  • When Saba is sold to the Cage Master, he “licks my ear slowly.”
  • Jack comes to a river where Saba and Maev are bathing. “Jack nudges our pile of clothes with his foot. Grins. Well, ain’t this an innerestin sitchation? he says. Two girls naked in the water an me with all their clothes.”
  • After rescuing Saba from a river, Jack kisses her. She pushes him away. Later Saba thinks Jack is dead, so she gives him mouth to mouth. It turns out he was faking.
  • Saba finally gives in and kisses Jack back. “He pushes me aginst the wall. Then his mouth is on mine an he’s kissin me like he’s starvin or dyin of thirst or somethin. He kisses my lips, my face, my neck, then back to my lips agin. He lips is smooth. Warm. The smell of him fills me.”

Violence

  • Saba’s neighbor and father are shot and killed. “The man slides a bolt shooter from his robe . . . He pulls the trigger an shoots Procter. Hob rears in fright. Proctor slides off an lands in a heap on the ground. He don’t move. . . He raises his bolt shooter. He fires. Pa cries out. His arms fly up in the air . . . the bolt’s gone right through his heart.”
  • Saba slaps her nine year old sister. “She gasps an sobs an screams an screams an screams . . . So I slap her. An she stops.”
  • Rooster’s hands are covered with burn scars from a hot poker, given to him by his abusive wife.
  • Saba is sold and forced to become a cage fighter. When a fighter loses three times in a row, they must run the gauntlet. “He sprints up the center path. Hands reach out, hit him, grab at his tunic, trying to pull him down…the crowd surges forwards onto the path, howlin like wolves at a kill, an bodies close over him. Waves pullin down a drownin man. Artashir disappears.”
  • During a break-out of the slaved cage fighters, bombs and weapons are used. “She lights her bottle. We toss ’em down the stairs. Then we run like stink. Two seconds later, there’s a huge bang. The ground shakes unner our feet.”
  • A landboat crashes, killing all aboard. “Blood covers his face. His right leg splays out at a strange angle…I fit a arrow to my bow. Take aim. This is fer Emmi, I says. Then I shoot her (dead body) in the heart.”
  • A mass grave is dislodged during a downpour; Saba ends up in a river surrounded by the dead. “I look down. It’s a human leg bone. I gasp. All around me, the dead are risin. Another leg bone bobs to the muddy surface. Then a skull. An arm bone. They swing lazily. The current grabs ’em an carries ’em away.”
  • When traveling, Saba sees four hanged men on the side of the road. “That’s when we come upon the hanged men. Four of ’em. Danglin by their necks from nooses tied to the branches of a big, lightnin-black tree. They turn gentle in the breeze, their faces an hands gray where they bin covered with wet ash that’s dried.”
  • Saba and her companions fight hellwurms. “The hellwurm’s on top of him. It rears up to its full height. It lashes out, swipes at him. Jack’s thrown into the air, like Emmi’s peg doll.”
  • Epona is captured. In an act of mercy, Saba shoots and kills her. “Suddenly Epona spots me at the edge of the trees…I lift my bow. I take aim. Epona smiles. She nods…That’s when I shoot her.”
  • There’s a battle between Saba’s people and the King’s. “Pinch lunges at me. A arrow whistles through th’ air. Hits him in the chest. He screams . . . There’s blood gushin outta his neck. The bolt’s ripped through it.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • An addictive drug named chaal is very popular. It is chewed and makes the consumer relaxed. The King is basically a drug lord who rules via chaal production.
  • Saba and her sister’s food is drugged. “You put somethin in…the food…My hand drops down. My knees buckle unner me. I fall to the deck.”
  • Saba drinks too much grog and gets a hangover in the morning. “I cain’t move, I says. There’s somebody poundin on my brain with a hammer . . . you drank too much of Ike’s hooch.”
  • Jack offers Saba vodka when she has to have a wound stitched up. She refuses, and he drinks it instead.

Language

  • Profanity is used rarely in the story. However, the following words are used: bloody, holy crap, sonofabitch, bastard, gawdammit, and gawdsblood.
  • Damn, hell and ohmigawd are used many times.

Supernatural

  • Saba’s father is a star reader. He can see the future, and tries to bring rain (without success).
  • Saba has a pet crow, named Nero, who can understand people talk.
  • Saba is given a heartstone. “It stays cold until you get close to your heart’s desire. Then the stone becomes warm. The closer you get to your heart’s desire, the hotter the stone burns.”
  • The crazy king demands an eighteen-year-old boy born at midwinter be sacrificed by being burnt alive every six years. He believes when the “boy dies, that boy’s spirit, his strength moves into . . . the King. An his power’s renewed fer another six years.”

Spiritual Content

  • Saba discusses the afterlife with her brother. She thinks they’ll become stars. He thinks “you jest . . . stop. Yer heart don’t beat no more, you don’t breathe and then yer jest . . . gone.”

by Morgan Lynn

A Breath of Eyre

Going to an exclusive prep school isn’t a dream for Emma. Instead it’s a lonely existence. With no friends, a father who is distant, and a step-mom who thinks she needs therapy, Emma doesn’t think life can get worse. Emma escapes her dreary life by reading Jane Eyre and dreaming about her crush on her English teacher.

As her sophomore year begins, Emma gets a new roommate, Michelle, who offers friendship and relief from her loneliness. However, when Michelle is accused of setting a barn on fire, Emma must decide if the friendship is worth fighting for.

Then a bolt of lightning hits Emma and sends her into the nineteenth century and the body of Jane Eyre.  As a governess, Emma finds peace and soon finds herself attracted to Mr. Rochester. Soon, Emma isn’t sure if she wants to live in Jane’s world or her own.

A Breath of Eyre has Emma jumping for her prep school to the world of Jayne Erye. The premise behind the book is interesting and will keep the reader wondering what happens next. Although A Breath of Eyre referes the book Jane Eyre, it is not necessary to read it to understand A Breath of Eyre. However, the book may be more enjoyable to those who have read Jane Eyre.

Many of the events in the book are typical of a teen novel. Michelle goes to a prep-school and is an outcast because she is on scholarship. The prep-school girls are vicious, but the teachers are afraid to discipline them because their parents have money. There is also a love triangle.

Mont throws in an interesting twist when Michelle travels between worlds; however, the book still lacks loveable characters that draw a reader into the story. The reader will smile because of the sweet conclusion of the book, but getting there will take some effort.

Sexual Content

  • One of the girls at school talks about her father who was a rich man who “took a liking” to her mother. When the man’s wife found out, the girl’s mother was fired.
  • Emma is at a party when Gray tries to kiss her. “I’d always imagined my first kiss being in the middle of a meadow under starlight . . . Not standing drunk with Gray Newman at the side of a building.”
  • Emma thinks back to when Gray almost kissed her. “The heat from his body had felt like fire. His lips had been inches from mine.” She then thinks, “I would have given anything for him to try to kiss me now.”
  • Emma and Gray talk about the problem with dating someone and then being friends afterwards. Emma wonders if Gray has slept with another girl, and then she imagines him with another girl, “her head on his shoulder, his hands running through her hair, and thoughts of being ‘just friends’ a distant memory for both of them.”
  • When Emma and Gray dance she, “wanted to bury my head in the warm hollow of his neck.  His hands gripped my hips, while his lips grazed my hair . . . I was in intoxicated by the moment, by the promise of something I’d only imagined before.”
  • Gray tells Emma that he slept with a girl who he had been going out with for six months.
  • Emma and Gray are parked in a car when he pulls her towards him. “. . . I was straddled across his legs . . . His shirt was open a little . . . I slipped my hand inside and pressed my palm against his heart, where his pulse beat hard and steady against my fingertips . . . The kiss grew deeper, warmer and wetter and more intense until I wasn’t thinking about anything other than the kiss. Letting myself fall head first into the white-hot madness of it…Other parts of my body began to engage, and I was all heat and light, tugging at his shirt, digging into his back, burrowing myself into the hollow of his neck.”
  • Emma has a daydream where Gray is kissing her and “There is a moment of unbearable tension as we hover mere centimeters from each other—waiting, wanting—and then pure release as our lips collide, sending sparks of heat and light through every limb down to our fingers and toes.”
  • Emma and Gray kiss often throughout the book. The feelings of the kiss are described in detail.  One scene describes it as “blistering hot.”

Violence

  • A man is attacked by a woman. His arm was, “soaked in blood.” The man said, “She tried to suck my blood. She said she’d drain my heart.”
  • In a dream world, Emma’s mother throws herself off of a roof. “I watched as this dark-plumed thing descended, wings outstretched, then shielded my face to avoid seeing her smash against the stones.” The building is then engulfed in flames.
  • Emma’s father talks about when his wife, “came here to this beach and she walked right into the ocean with her nightgown on.” He then tells Emma about how her mother left a suicide note.
  • Gray talks about when he got into a fight and hit his friend in the face.
  • A girl’s mother, “slapped her hard and quick against the cheek.”
  • Gray tries to commit suicide. Emma saves him, but in the process almost drowns.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Emma asks her friend if he stopped lifeguarding because he’s been, “too busy doing keg stands and scoring with the fraternity chicks?”
  • Emma’s grandmother drinks old-fashions and doesn’t like it when her drinks get low.
  • Several of the girls smoke pot in the school’s barn.
  • Emma and Michelle go to a party and, “slurp wine coolers like they were Gatorade.” Other students were, “sniffing out alcohol and drugs.”
  • Emma tells Gray that she is not interested in him because he spends his free time with his “head in a beer bong.”
  • On the way to a dance, Michelle and her friends drink champagne out of the bottle. Michelle encourages the driver to drink because he has to drive, “less than half a mile.”
  • Gray tells Emma about when he went to a party with his best friend’s sister. They both had been drinking, and the girl decided to go skinny dipping. The girl went into the water and never came out. Her body was never found.
  • When Emma is upset, her grandmother gives her a sip of tea with liquor in it.

Language

  • Elise says, “The new girl must be lesbo, because she can’t stop staring at us.”
  • Hell, ass-hole, damn, hell, pissed off, and shit are used in conversation.
  • Two roommates tease each other about getting, “enough Johnson.”
  • Michelle says, ‘I need to get away from these Lockwood bitches.”
  • Emma thinks about going into the hallway but is afraid it is, “occupied by a pissed-off ghost.”
  • A teacher is discussing a book and tells the class, “every once in a while, nature has to kick our ass to show us who’s boss.”
  • Gray is upset that a teacher wiped a tear off of Emma’s face. “He’s a teacher for God’s sake.  What’s he doing touching you? If I was your father, I’d kick his ass.”
  • Michelle ask Emma, “Why are you being so nice to me? I’ve been such a bitch.”

Supernatural

  • After Emma is struck by lightning she becomes Jane Eyre and lives her life for a short period. Later in the book, when Emma is stuck in a burning barn, she again begins to live Jane Eyre’s life.
  • Emma’s grandmother said, “your mother called out to me the night she died. I don’t know how, but somehow, her voice reached me . . . that night I woke up with this panicked feeling, like someone had just taken out a giant chunk of my heart.”

Spiritual Content

  • Emma thinks about her body and lack of curves. She thinks, “Despite nightly pleas to a God I only half believed in, I remained a disappointing five foot three.”
  • One of the characters believes in Voodoo and tells Emma about papa Legba’s vẻvẻ, which is a symbol to attract spirits to earth. Emma has a necklace that looks like a vẻvẻ.
  • Emma uses an incantation and ask Papa Legba to. “open the door for me. Father Legba, open the door to let me pass through.” Emma then goes to a “dream” world where she meets her dead mother.
  • Emma’s friend tells Emma not to mess with voodoo. The friend says she doesn’t believe in it, “but it’s kind of like God. I don’t believe in him either, but he still scares me.”
  • Emma thinks, “I had not been raised in a religious household, although my father did believe in giving thanks and asking forgiveness. Now I said a simple prayer for help. I don’t know who it was intended for—was I praying to a great Christin God to send me a guardian angel?  Was I praying to Papa Legba to guide me back though the door between worlds? Or was I praying to the Universe to help me find the path of my own destiny. I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I just knew I couldn’t make it on my own.”

A Phantom Enchantment

Emma has been looking forward to spending her senior year of high school in Paris. When she arrives, she and her friend Elise are excited to learn the culture and participate in an Opera writing competition.  Then Flynn and Owen show up in Paris and the conflict heats up.

Elise doesn’t want to miss the opportunity to date a cute French boy, but she also doesn’t want to give up Owen.

Then Emma’s boyfriend, Gray, goes missing and is presumed dead. Emma travels through a mirror and is able to talk to Gray, but the Gray in her dreams is dangerous and depressing. In an attempt to get over Gray, Emma begins spending more time with Owen. Soon Emma must face Elise’s jealousy and her own growing attraction to Owen.

As Emma’s dreams continue to frighten her, she decides to stay away from the mirror, but that doesn’t stop her from feeling Gray’s presence. And then a series of accidents makes Emma wonder if Gray’s Ghost wants revenge.

Although A Phantom Enchantment takes place in Paris, the setting does not add to the story. So much of the story revolves around Emma and her American friends, that the French culture takes a backseat to the teen drama. Even though Emma and Elise are in a Paris boarding school, none of the French students make more than a ripple in the story.

Even though the story parallels the Phantom of the Opera, this also does not add to the enjoyment of the story. By the time Emma’s story reaches book three, both her story and conflict feel old. Thus, reading A Phantom Enchantment became a chore, and Emma’s story came to a welcome end.

Sexual Content

  • Emma and her boyfriend talk about a night they spent on the beach and she asks, “You mean the night we almost had sex?”
  • A drunk Flynn sleeps in Emma’s bed. The next morning he wakes up concerned that they had sex, and he didn’t remember it.
  • Emma thinks about Owen who had his heart broken when Michelle, “revealed that she was gay. Then I led him on by kissed him, and worse by kissing Flynn a couple months later.”
  • Emma wishes she could be, “more like Elise, sampling cute men as one might sample macarons.”
  • Owen leans close to Emma. “He wanted me to be the one to initiate. He wanted me to want more. And I did…as difficult as it was not to press my body into Owen’s and kiss him hard on the mouth, I drew away.”
  • Elise tells Emma, “I know you were probably saving yourself for Gray . . . I just want to remind you that you’re human. And you’ll never be this young and hot again.” Elise tells Emma to, “wear something sexy, and try to get lucky.”
  • Else worries that she will become unfaithful like her mother, who cheated on her husband.
  • Emma and Owen kiss and she was, “dazed by the feel of his tongue in my mouth, dizzy from the sheer cinematic splendor of it.”
  • Emma and Owen make out. “I was a puddle of sensation, letting his mouth crash over me like a tide…We didn’t’ actually have sex-neither of us had prepared for this-but it didn’t matter. The end result felt the same as we lay in bed next to each other, nearly naked and spend, feeling desire twine though our limbs.”

Violence

  • The book refers to the storyline of Phantom of the Opera and how, “a scene changer had been found dead in a cellar, hanging from a beam.”
  • A Christmas tree falls and hurts Elise and Owen. Emma wonders if Gray’s ghost had something to do with the accident.
  • Gray pins Emma against the wall and yells, “You know what fucking happened to me!” He makes it clear that he would like to have sex with her, but she is unwilling. Gray ends up leaving.
  • A character talks about how he set fire to a girl’s room because he was jealous that she was with another man.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • There are several scenes where the characters are seen drinking and are drunk.
  • Flynn dreams of smoking pot in front of Jim Morrison’s grave, so Emma and Owen go with him so he can fulfill his dream. Although Emma does not smoke pot, Owen does.

Language

  • One of the male characters had, “to take a piss.”
  • Elise says that she has been “a bitch lately” and then apologizes. She also call another student a “douche.”
  • Gray yells, “Well, love is (a joke). The fairytales tell you otherwise, but it’s all bullshit. Happily ever after is a fucking lie.”
  • Profanity is scattered throughout the book. The profanity used includes: holy shit, Oh my god, smartass, and bastard.

Supernatural

  • Emma uses a voodoo spell to bind her and Gray together.
  • Emma is able to send her spirit self though a mirror and interact with Gray who had been lost at sea. Several times in the story Emma thinks she can feel Gray’s presence following her.
  • Several items go missing which is blamed on the Bastille Ghost.

Spiritual Content

  • One of the characters is a practitioner of voodoo and a believer of spells.
  • Emma prays to God, and she repeats a verse, “Dear Saint Anthony, please come around. Something’s lost that must be found.”
  • Emma says, “Sometimes I wished I believed in God in that unequivocal way others did. While I did believe in a cosmic force that had played some role in our creation, I had no idea what form it took or how much it actually intervened in human endeavors.”

A Touch of Scarlet

Emma’s life is a mess. Her boyfriend Gray broke up with her. Her roommate, Michelle, isn’t talking to her. She is lonely and isolated at her exclusive prep school. Then things get even stranger when she goes into a trancelike state and enters the world of the novel The Scarlet Letter.

In a moment of weakness, Emma kisses her roommate’s boyfriend, which causes her classmates to exclude Emma even more. Emma wants to feel brave, but instead, she’s heartsick over her breakup with Gray, worried about her estranged relationship with Michelle, and wishing her life didn’t parallel The Scarlet Letter.

When Emma finds out that Michelle is gay, Emma tries to help Michelle come out into the open and stop hiding her secret. The second half of the story follows Michelle’s struggle with discrimination and fear.  However, as the story is told from Emma’s point of view, the reader doesn’t get to see Michelle’s emotions. Although it is clear that Emma cares for her roommate, the battle isn’t Emma’s so it lacks emotion and suspense.

A Touch of Scarlet’s best moments are when Emma goes into the world of Hester and The Scarlet Letter.  When Emma watches the plot of the book unfold, she learns that each situation can be viewed from different perspectives and that forgiveness and honesty are important in life.

The book delves into the voodoo religion, showing how to make a hex. Another troubling portion of the story is when Emma learns how to leave her body and travel to The Scarlet Letter’s world.

Emma is shown to be a troubled teen who is trying to deal with life’s complications. She makes mistakes but cares for her friends. Plus, whe does not have sex or do drugs. However, several of the characters are seen drunk, smoking marijuana, and having sex.

Sexual Content

  • Throughout the book Emma kisses three different boys.
  • Emma and Gray kiss many times throughout the book. In one scene Emma tells Gray that, “My dad worries you’re going to steal my virginal innocence.” Even though Emma considers having sex with Gray, she does not.
  • Emma and Gray make out. She describes the sensation of Gray touching her.  “My body lit up like a pinball machine. Before I knew it, I was lying on the ground, my dress hitched up around my waist, with Grey’s body shifting on top of mine . . . I tore at his shirt, trying to undo the buttons with cold, nervous fingers . . . A part of me wanted to go for it—to lose myself in the moment.”
  • Emma and her roommate, Michelle, talk about how Michelle cheated on her boyfriend.  Michelle says, “It was a little more than kissing . . . I had to tell someone. It’s been eating me up inside.”
  • After a breakup, Emma kisses her roommate’s boyfriend. “Then we were really kissing, his lips on my lips, his hand gripping the back of my neck.”
  • Michelle’s roommate struggles with the fact that she is gay, but she doesn’t want anyone to know about it.
  • One of the characters tells about when she accidently told her friends that her cousin was gay. “Chelsea got all weirded out and Amber flipped because apparently—news to me—she had hooked up with him a few times the summer before. So Amber starts telling me he’s going to hell . . . I feel like vomiting, partly from drinking too many margaritas and partly because I’ve just realized my friend are complete assholes.”

Violence

  • Emma thinks about her mother who killed herself by walking into the ocean. Emma has dreams where she sees her mother walking into the water and Emma tries to save her. “I plunged to the bottom, trying to dive under the tumult, but the waves kept careening over me.”
  • Emma travels to the world of the scarlet letter. Abigail sticks a large needed into her belly and then accuses Elizabeth of being a witch. Elizabeth is arrested when, “the constable finds a poppet with a needle in its belly and accuses Elizabeth of using it as a voodoo doll.”
  • While playing hockey, Emma purposely hits another girl with a hockey puck. “I watched in fascination as it sailed through the air, seeming to hover in slow motion right before it connected with Elise’s exquisite cheekbone.”
  • When Gray finds another boy at Emma’s house. Gray wants to, “smash his face in.” Emma tells him, “You should be thanking him, not trying to smash him to a bloody pulp like some macho dickhead.”
  • In her dream world, Emma is chased by a mob of women who fling mud at her. “Fear and adrenaline surged through me as I ran through the forest, hearing their haunting voices behind me and feeling the pelts of mud at my back.”
  • Emma and Flynn kiss. “His mouth tasted earthy and sweet, like smoke and sage. And then I surrendered to the kiss, allowing him to draw me in, one hand on the back of my neck, the other making its way down my waist.”
  • In her dream world, someone tries to burry Emma alive and turn her into a zombie. “After he poured the last of the dirt on me, he reached in his basket and pulled out one last red rose, which turned black in his hands. He threw it onto my makeshift grave and laughed, ‘this is your fate.”
  • In biology, the class must dissect a cat. Michelle deskins the cat. One of the lab partners tells Michelle not to cut too close to the cat’s tail. The girls laugh when Michelle says, “I wouldn’t touch this cat’s anus with a ten-foot pole.”
  • At the end of the book, the girls find out that their male headmaster had an “inappropriate relationship” with a student when the headmaster worked at an all-male school.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Emma gets back to school she thinks, “Lockwood girls didn’t like their parents sticking around any longer than necessary, anxious to break out the booze for the first-night celebrations.”
  • Emma pulls out her cell phone, “looking down at it like a drug addict staring at a fix.”
  • Flynn drinks often, as well as smokes a joint, which is passed around between several others.
  • Flynn’s “father is an asshole and his mother is knocked out on prescription drugs half the time.”
  • Throughout the book, several characters drink as well as talk about things that happened when they were drunk.
  • Emma’s grandmother drinks often. Once the grandmother is admonished, “You’ve had enough whiskey for three people.”

Language

  • A boy asks someone, “When are you two lovebirds going to get off your asses and join us on stage?”
  • After the school finds out the Emma kissed her roommate’s boyfriend she is called a “bitch” and a “slut.” Emma says she is “sick of the slut-shaming.”
  • Emma’s friend is called a “dyke” several times in the story.
  • “Oh my god” and variations of “asshole” are used often.
  • When someone sees Emma and Flynn kissing, he says, “what the hell, man?” Flynn replies, “I’m such a fuck-up.”

Supernatural

  • A major part of the plot is that while running, Emma goes into a trance like state and enters the world of the book The Scarlet letter. After the first time Emma enters the world of The Scarlet Letter, she wonders who she saw. “Ghost lingering in a parallel universe, caught between my world and their own?”
  • Emma is told that she must be careful in her dream world because, “a voodoo priest can put people into trancelike states, and then bury them alive . . . they steak their ti-bone-ange (soul) thus depriving them of free will and conscience. That’s how zombies are created.”
  • Emma learns a “black magic” spell to remove a person “from your path.” Later in the story, Emma and her friends cast the spell. Emma is told, “a hex is just a formal way of putting a wish into the universe.”
  • At a slumber party, the girls play Bloody Mary.  Emma is freaked out when she sees, “Gray’s face, flickering in the candlelight . . . Behind him was a find aura of red, almost like Hester’s ghost was standing behind him.”
  • Emma learns how to send her spirit into the dream world while her body stays in one place. “I imagined myself a dolphin, half of my mind shut down to let me rest; the other half active and alert. It was this second half I sent out wandering.”

Spiritual Content

  • Michelle says that God hates her because she doesn’t believe in God.
  • Michelle’s aunt is “part dream interpreter, part voodoo practitioner, and all around wise woman. She believed in the spirit world and claimed to communicate with the dead.”
  • Emma goes and stands in the same spot where she was hit by lightning. She wonders, “If God would be audacious enough to strike the same place, and person, twice.”
  • When Emma is having her dreams, she is told that, “The Haitian people believe you have two parts of your soul-le ti-bon-ange, or your little angel, and le gros-bon-ange, your big angel. Now the little angel is like your shadow soul.  It’s only visible in dreams or visions, and helps you communicate with the spirits or the loa, kind of like your conscience. But the big angel is your fate soul, the one that determines your destiny or prophesizes your future.”
  • Emma goes to Easter service. “I hadn’t been to church since Christmas, and I felt a little guilty about it. It wasn’t’ that I didn’t believe in God, more than I questioned what kind of God he was.  Anyone who’s lost a parent must go through this crisis of faith, asking, How could a merciful God take my mother away?”
  • Emma thinks, “Michelle claimed to be an atheist, with science her only religion. She often scoffed at Darlene’s voodoo beliefs, but deep down, I think Michelle had some faith of her own, even if it didn’t conform to any church or institutions view of the cosmos.”

We Are All Made Of Molecules

Stewart always wanted a sister. However, he never imagined that it would take his mother’s death, and his father moving in with his girlfriend before he got his wish. Plus Ashley isn’t anything close to being the sister of his dreams. She’s one year older than Stewart, and they have nothing in common.

Ashley is a typical mean girl whose only concern is staying at the top of the social ladder. So when her father announces that he is moving out because he is gay, Ashley fears that if any of her friends find out about her father’s gayness, it will ruin her social standing. Then when her mother’s boyfriend and son move in, Ashley’s anger ramps up even more. After all, Stewart is a total nerd.

We are all made of molecules is told from the points of view of Stewart and Ashley, who are both loveable in their own way. Stewart is a logical nerd who just wants to fit in. Ashley is a self-centered, angry teen who is trying to deal with the upheaval in her life. Having the story told by both Stewart and Ashley gives the book an interesting twist, because not only can the reader see each character’s thoughts and feelings, but the reader also sees how the two view each other.

Through Ashely’s experiences, the reader learns about the danger of drinking as well as the sexual dangers girls may face. In the end, Ashley realizes that outward appearances are not as important as she thought, and that nerdy Stewart may just know a thing or two about friendship.

We are all made of molecules is an easy-to-read, fun story that explores the messy relationships of parents. Ashley’s father reveals that he is gay, and his gay boyfriend appears. Ashley’s mother has her boyfriend and son move in. In the story, the group of five is shown becoming a unique family unit.

Sexual Content

  • A subplot of the story is about Ashley’s divorced father, Phil, who has revealed that he is gay. In one scene, Phil tells Stewart, “I didn’t decide to be gay. It’s not something you choose.” They then discuss why Phil married Ashley’s mother and didn’t tell people he was gay until two years ago. Phil says, “I didn’t want to be gay. I grew up in a very conservative and strict religious family . . . I made myself believe I was straight.”
  • Ashley sees her father kiss another man.
  • In the locker room, Stewart, “sat quietly on one of the benches and tried not to stare, but it was impossible not to notice that almost every single guy in my class was well into puberty. They had hair in all the right places, and their you-know-whats actually dangled. . . Mine does not dangle. Mine is more like a protruding belly button.”
  • Ashley watches an episode on TV about a guy that found out that, “he wasn’t the father of his girlfriend’s baby, and that the real father was the guy’s own brother.”
  • Jared says to Stewart, “You have the hots for your stepsister, don’t you? Gross, Stewie, that’s verging on incest.”
  • Ashley goes to Jared’s house and while there he pushed her onto the bed and tried to take her shirt off. “I grabbed his hands, but he kept yanking . . . I tried to move, but he pinned my arms down. When I looked at his face, it was as if he’d gone somewhere else. It was like I wasn’t even there . . .He was pulling at my shirt and my skirt at the same time.” Then the housekeeper comes in and Ashley leaves.
  • At a party, Ashley is passed out on her bed. After Jared and his friend make sure Ashely was completely out of it, Jared pulls up her shirt and takes a picture of her in her bra. Jared then pulls up her skirt and takes a picture of her underwear.” Then Stewart shows up and runs off with Jared’s phone and calls the police.
  • When some of the students at school find out that Ashely’s father is gay, one of the characters says, “I think it’s so cool that your dad is gay. It’s so . . . twenty-first century. Very cutting-edge. Ashley is then invited to the LGBT club. Ashley says, “But I’m not gay. Or lesbian, or bi, or transatlantic.”

Violence

  • Stewart tries to hide in the locker room because he doesn’t want to take a shower with the other boys. When Jared notices him, he “grabbed my gym shorts and yanked them down around my ankles . . .Then suddenly he grabbed hold of my boxers and I realized with sphincter-tightening horror that he was about to pull them down.” Then the teacher walks in and Jared leaves.
  • When Jared sees Stewart in the locker room, he again tries to pull his pants down. Stewart was prepared and wearing a wrestling uniform. Then Jared, “Yanked my T-shirt up and over my head. I couldn’t see a thing. I felt his hand grab one of the straps of my wrestling uniform and pull it down . . .” Before Jared can get the uniform off Stewart, Steward reveals that he is Ashley’s brother and Jared stops.
  • Stewart is wearing the school bulldog mascot costume and scares Ashley. “She started pummeling me . . . She started kicking me. I tried to shout, but my voice was muffled, and her screams drowned me out.”
  • Jared was kicked out of a private school. He said he, “dealt with someone who needed dealing with. Guy was a colossal turd, and everyone knew it.” Later in the story, it is revealed that in the locker room, Jared beat up the guy because he was gay. “Then I saw him looking at my junk after our final game, so I punched him . . . stupid faggot.”
  • Jared said that Ashley was a, “total tease. All she’s let me do is squeeze her tits a few times. Outside her clothes . . . I’ll break that bitch down.”
  • Stewart remembers a time when a little boy was throwing rocks at him. The little boy’s mom and Stewart’s mom got into an argument. “That’s when my mom picked up a stone and threw it at [the kid]. Not hard, but still; I couldn’t believe my eyes . . . Then she threw a second stone.”
  • Stewart is dressed up as the school mascot when Jared comes up to him and talks badly about Ashley. When Jared walks onto the basketball court, Steward, “was working on pure fury when I ran onto the court and plowed my dog-head into Jared’s stomach . . . I ran behind him and pulled his gym shorts, along with his underwear, down to his ankles.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jared invites Ashely over to his house. Jared drinks a beer and Ashley has a wine spritzer.
  • Ashley has a party. Some of Jared’s friends show up. “They were carrying bottles of vodka and rum and stuff, probably stolen from their parents’ liquor cabinets.”

Language

  • One of the characters describes her family as FUBER. Then she explains the term is a military term that means, “’Effed Up Beyond All Recognition,’ but in the military, they don’t say ‘effed.’”
  • Ashley called a girl’s mother a “skank.”
  • When her mother’s boyfriend compliments the pasta, Ashley thinks, “which was a total butt-kiss because the pasta was just so-so.”
  • Ashley describes her mom’s boyfriend as having, “MPAL (Male Pattern Ass Loss, a tragic and devastating syndrome in aging men.”
  • When Ashley finds out Stewart is in the same English class as her, she thinks, “OH MY GOD . . . This cannot be happening.”
  • Ashley said she had a “crappy day.” She also tells her friend that a pair of jeans makes her “ass look fat.”
  • Profanity is not used frequently, but it is scattered throughout the book. The profanity includes: hell, ass, bitch, pissed, slut, faggot, shit.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Stewart thinks about his dead mother. “Even though the scientific part of my brain tells me she probably isn’t looking down on me from heaven, and that all that is left of her is random molecules, I feel a deep need to do this for her.”

Expelled

Theo Foster’s secret Twitter account just went viral. Now he and three other teens are expelled and Theo is determined to find out who is guilty and who is innocent.

Theo forms an unlikely allegiance with the three others who have been expelled. There is Sasha, the girl he’s been secretly crushing on, Jude, the school mascot and Theo’s best friend, and lastly Parker, the quarterback. Everyone seems to have a secret that they want to hide. Can Theo discover the truth? And will the truth bring these unlikely teens together?

James Paterson creates a first-person narrative that makes the reader fall in love with Theo and his unlikely friends. Although Theo is all about saving himself, he is completely relatable and loveable. The characters in Expelled jump off the page with humor, anger, and an array of teen emotions.

Expelled explores several deep issues include steroid use and incest without going into graphic detail. In the end, the reader will learn that other people’s lives are not as perfect as we imagine them to be.  Despite the engaging story, there are several drawbacks to Expelled. There is frequent and creative use of profanity as well as sexually crude remarks. Because of this, Expelled should be enjoyed by older readers.

Sexual Content

  • Someone posted a picture on social media. The picture was of the quarterback, “drunk and shirtless . . . He’s got a bottle of Jack Daniels in his right hand and the bare breasts of an unidentified female in very close proximity to his left.”
  • Jude is a “sixteen-year-old-bisexual virgin in a Hello Kitty T-shirt.” He is bullied even though his school has a Gay-Straight Alliance club and “the rainbow flag over the counselor’s office.”
  • Parker’s friend has a dog that humps a pink pig stuffed animal. “He’s always horny in the morning,” Jude says. “Also, he and Sex Pig are in love.”
  • Jude wants to go to art school. When talking about it, he tells Parker, “RISD’s school mascot is a giant penis named Scrotie.”
  • Parker asks a computer nerd if his porn isn’t downloading fast enough.
  • When Parker is looking at Sasha’s ears, he has, “an almost overwhelming desire to kiss them.”
  • Sasha said that she has a “dick pic” that the quarterback sent her.
  • Parker kisses Sasha. “Sasha’s mouth is soft and warm, and it opens to mine. I’m going to die of how good this feels. I let go of her with one hand, and twist my fingers into her dark hair, hot and silky in the sun.”
  • Sasha tells Parker that her dad molests her. “. . .he pressed me up against the refrigerator and he kissed me. . .” When her father tries to convince Sasha that incest is okay, he said, “Greek nobles used to kidnap young boys, take them into the forest, and rape them, and no one had any problem with that.”

Violence

  • Parker thinks about someone who killed themselves from jumping off a water tower. “. . . I can’t help wondering how he did it. How he coaxed himself to the edge and then leapt into the air.”
  • Parker’s father committed suicide because he had ALS. Parker thinks of finding the body. “There was still the blood. The gun. The shattered back window of the car.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone dressed as the school mascot. When trying to find out who it was, the quarterback said, “I was so drunk it could have been Tinkerbell under that head.” Later the quarterback tells Parker, “I was torn up that night, bro. I did six Jager shots and woke up under the bleachers.”
  • The Shell station is where “you can shoulder-tap for beer if your fake ID sucks.” However, Parker has never tried to use his fake ID.
  • Sasha’s dad is seen drinking whiskey and often seems drunk.
  • Parker has a secret social media account where he likes to post “harmless gossip.” In one post he said someone was, “drunk enough last weekend to introduce self to own dad.”
  • When talking about the picture, Parker asks his friend if he knows who was wearing the mascot head, “and then whoever that was go so wasted he whipped his dick out in front of an iPhone.”
  • Feeling sorry for himself, Parker drinks half a bottle of Knob Creek whiskey.
  • Parker talks about how fishing usually involves beer because all you do is sit and wait for a fish to bite the bait.
  • A computer smart boy tells Parker, that if he wanted to he could, “have six pounds of heroin sent to his mother at her office.” The boy then admits it would be “tricky.”
  • Parker goes to a baseball game and one of his friends is drinking a Michelob Ultra “she bummed off a guy coming out of the 7-Eleven.” Her water bottle is also filled with vodka.
  • Sasha said her mom was into the art scene and would go to, “really fancy restaurants and snort lines off the porcelain in the ladies’ room.”
  • Parker throws a prom for those who are expelled from school. The kids that attend drink. Someone brings a keg to the party. One boy brings a case of Tecate.
  • The quarterback reveals that the coach has been giving steroids to the players. “They shot me full of chemicals like I was a prize-winning steer!” He takes his jeans down, “so I can see half of his left ass cheek, where the skin is puckered and red—a big, angry scar.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often throughout the book. The profanity includes ass, bitch, dick, fuck, goddamn, hell, piss, pussies, shit, and wiseass.
  • Parker thinks waking his friend up early was a “dick move.” He often thinks of other people as a “dick.”
  • Sasha said, “Oh, my God I don’t know why I called you a nerd.”
  • Several times Parker uses Jesus as an exclamation. For example, he said, “Jesus, you scared me!”
  • While at an expulsion hearing, the narrator thinks, “I’ve heard that some kids show up to expulsion hearings with lawyers. Probably, at the very least, they bring a pissed-off parent or two.”
  • Parker is upset that people think he posted the picture, and he would like to “kick the ass of whoever’s trying to make me take the fall for it.” Later he yells that he will “tell my side of the story. And I will make my own goddamn ending!”
  • When Parker starts asking questions about the picture, someone jokes that “Those are my tits in the picture.”
  • Parker’s mom leaves him a note not to eat all the ice cream “or there’ll be hell to pay.”
  • Parker sees graffiti that reads, “fuck school.”
  • When leaving, someone says, “later bitches.”
  • Parker thinks to himself that he is an “asshat.”
  • Parker yells at the quarterback, “You were too much of a pussy to admit you hated it (football).”
  • When Parker tells Mr. Palmieri, the school administrator, about the steroid, Mr. Palmieri says, “God fucking damn it.”

Spiritual Content

  • When talking to his mom, Parker asks her “if she felt hypocritical, seeing as how she’d been a socialist atheist at UCLA.”
  • Sasha, an atheist, tells Parker that, “my grandma used to make prayer shawls . . . with each stitch, she’d say a little prayer for the person she was making it for.”

The Stars Never Rise

Soul-consuming demons started a war and almost caused the end of the world. The Church protects the remaining vestiges of humanity, and keeps everyone safe by enforcing strict rules and penance. Nina and her sister chafe under this strict system, and when they discover a horrifying truth, they must decide if the Church is really the hero everyone believes.

The Stars Never Rise has an interesting premise and is well-written, with actions and questions that keep the pages turning. However, the plot follows a lot of Young Adult clichés that hinder the originality of this text. There is a lot of violence that makes this novel inappropriate for young readers. Also, the Church is demonized and religion is shown in an incredibly negative light.

Sexual Content

  • Mel tells her sister, “You’re gonna need some way to work off all that sexual frustration.”
  • Nina thinks, “I didn’t know a single boy who’d ever worn a purity ring. Evidently, their virginity was worth even less than the stolen band of steel around my finger.”
  • Girls are examined by the Church, to determine if they are fit to bear children. “At fifteen years old, I was disqualified for procreation based on a history of allergies, my flat feet, and mild myopia–conditions it wouldn’t be fair to pass along to the next generation . . . Nearly a third of the girls in my class were declared unfit. We were sterilized that afternoon.”
  • Nina’s fifteen-year-old sister gets pregnant with her secret boyfriend. She says, “We tried to stop. We knew it was wrong, but it didn’t feel wrong.” Her mother tells her that, “We’ll fix it. I know someone who can do it safely, but it’s a drive. . .”
  • When Nina is caught shoplifting, the shop owner demands a sexual favor in exchange for keeping quiet. “My teeth ground together as I unbuttoned my blouse. I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see him, but I couldn’t avoid hearing the way his breathing changed. The way his inhalations hitched, his exhalations growing heavier and wetter with each button that slid through its hole . . . A second later, his fingers were there, greedy and eager. They pushed at the remaining material, shoving my bra up, squeezing, pinching.”
  • Finn assures Nina that he won’t rape her. ” ‘ If I were planning to . . . you know . . . ‘ He waved one hand at my entire body. ‘I wouldn’t have given you a slab of wood with nails sticking out of it.’ He pointed to the two-by-four still lying next to me within easy reach. ‘I’m as protective of my parts as the next guy’ “
  • Nina and Finn kiss a few times. “His mouth met mine, and I almost choked on surprise . . . I committed to that kiss like I’d committed to little else in life. My fingers brushed over short stubble at the back of his jaw on their way into his hair. He sucked my lower lip into his mouth and I let him have it.”
  • Nina thinks about her “carnal rebellion following [her] sterilization,” when she had a slew of one-night stands.
  • Dale accuses Nina of prostitution. “I caught her several times, here in the store, and she always tried to buy her way out of trouble, if you know what I mean. You know, with the only kind of payment a girl like that understands.”

Violence

  • Nina and her sister avoid their mother as much as possible because their mother angers easily and can get violent.
  • When a seventeen-year-old refused to kneel for worship, “They forced her to her knees on the dais, closed the steel cuffs about her calves, then burned her alive in front of the entire school.”
  • Mel realizes her mother plans to sell her. Her mother says, “You can’t imagine what a young, healthy body is worth to the right people.”
  • Nina discovers she is an exorcist. “The moment my fingers touched her chest, something exploded between us. . . The monster tried to back away but couldn’t disconnect from the fierce light still shining between us . . . the tingling beneath my skin had become the roar of a blaze that should have devoured my fingers but consumed the demon instead.”
  • Nina exorcizes several demons. “We crashed to the ground and I sat on his stomach, then pressed my glowing left hand against his chest. The demon screamed like a wounded cat, and my hand burned and burned and burned.” “He tried to scramble off me, but the fire in my hand had captured him, and the demon was stuck there, convulsing in the throes of death as his rotting flesh fried.”
  • Adam is burned alive. “Fire consumed Adam . . . could not mute his screams or the crackle of his crisping skin, captured by multiple microphones and broadcast all over the country. He hunched forward . . . I choked on the scent of burning flesh and hair.”
  • A demon kills several people. “He lay dead on the ground, blood still pouring through the gaping hole in his throat.” “Blood and liquefied brains exploded into the lobby from the hallway, and I caught a brief glimpse of the carnage already laid out inside.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Nina suspects her mother is doing drugs. “There was a spot of blood on her pillow, and more of it crusted on her upper lip. Another nosebleed. She was killing herself. Slowly. Painfully, from the looks of it.”
  • Finn emerged from the kitchen with a bottle of water in one hand and a clear, unlabeled bottle of amber liquid in the other.”

Language

  • Hell is said often, both in referring to the place and as profanity.
  • Shit and bullshit are said several times. “Oh shit,” Nina thinks. “Oh shitshitshit.”
  • Damn is said often. Nina’s sister says, “If you’re determined to damn yourself to a life of servitude, communal living and celibacy wouldn’t you rather be slaying demons?”
  • The word bitch is used several times. Mel’s mother calls her a “little bitch!”
  • Ass and badass are said a few times. Devi tells Finn, “I swear I’ll exorcise your ass right out of him.”

Supernatural

  • When a demon inhabits a human body for too long, that body turns into a degenerate. “It was bald, with cheekbones so sharp they should have sliced through skin, and ears pointy on both the tops and the lobes. And most–disturbing of all–it was female. Sagging, grayish breasts swung beneath torn scraps of cloth that were once a dress.”
  • Exorcists are the only ones who can send demons back to hell. “his hand against her bony sternum, both glowing with the last of that strange light . . . An exorcist in a hoodie. Where was his long black cassock, his cross, and his holy water?”
  • There is a shortage of souls because the demons ate so many during the war. Therefore there are many stillbirths. Children who do live are usually given a soul by an elder family member. Those that are lucky get a soul from the public registry when someone dies.
  • Some exorcists have extra abilities, like heightened hearing and enhanced strength.
  • The group Nina is rescued by is a group of people who were denounced by the church because they are supposedly suspected of possession.

Spiritual Content

  • Nina’s sister says, “Everything worth doing is a sin.”
  • Nina breaks many Church rules. “So what if deception was a sin? You can’t get convicted if you don’t get caught.”
  • As punishment for blasphemy, “Sister Camilla dragged Matthew onto the stone dais in the center of the courtyard, then forced him to kneel . . . she flipped a curved piece of metal over each of his legs, just above his calves, then snapped the locks into place, confining the five-year-old to his knees in the freezing rain. The posture of penitence.”
  • Finn is a soul without a body, who is able to inhabit other people’s bodies.

 

Nemesis

The Anvil, an enormous asteroid, threatens the earth is about to devastate the world. But Min has bigger problems. Min has died – again. Every two years since she was eight, a man in a suit finds her and kills her. Where ever she hides, he finds her. After her death, she always wakes up in the same clearing in the forest outside her small Idaho town. When she returns from her disappearances, no one believes her story and there is no evidence. This year when Min is murdered, she goes on a mission to discover why.

Terrifying dreams of death haunt Noah. Anxiety is his only true friend. Noah tries to hide that he is different by blending in, going along with what others say. When Noah discovers that he has been lied to and his dreams were in fact reality, he vows to be brave and search for the truth.

When the military arrives just out of town, Min and her best friend Tack make an uneasy alliance with Noah. Although they do not fully trust each other, they are determined to find out what has been happening to them. They go on a search to discover the answers to the questions that plague them.

Told from both Min’s and Noah’s perspectives, Nemesis starts with a suspenseful story of Min being murdered and coming back to life. The reader is instantly drawn into Min’s mystery. With detailed descriptions of events, the reader can step into Min’s shoes and understand her feelings. Suspense will grip the reader, who will be surprised by the events in the story.

Nemesis brings the stereotypical high school to life, with the typical cliché groups. The language in the book is a bit over the top, with most of the characters constantly spouting a plethora of cuss words. The ending of the book is similar to Lord of the Flies and just as violent. In the end, a computer simulation talks about saving humanity, but the majority of the characters are so unlikeable the reader wonders if humanity should be saved at all.

Sexual Content

  • While with a boy Min imagines, “leaning forward and kissing him.”
  • Min and Noah kiss several times. They fall asleep on a couch and wake up next to each other. Noah, “buried my face in her neck. Our lips met again, and for a while all other thoughts fled.”

Violence

  • Two boys fight at school. Ethan slugged “Tack full in the face. . . Tack dropped to the ground like a boneless chicken breast.”
  • Min and Tack put an oily rag into a Jeep’s gas tank and then set it on fire.
  • Several natural disasters happen throughout the world during a short time period. The events are described on the news.
  • In order to save a boy’s life, the sheriff kills a soldier. “He was lying face down on the ground, a dark puddle spreading beneath him.” As the kids run, shots ring out and they know the sheriff had been shot.
  • A group of men blows up a bridge. When they attempt to surrender, soldiers shoot them. “A line of bullets tore through the liberty men, cutting them in half. They feel in a bloody mass, each body pierced a dozen times.”
  • Tack kicks a soldier “in the crotch. The man dropped, writhing in pain.” The guards wrestle Tack to the ground. “Tack bucking and snarling like a wild animal until one of them struck him on the head with a rifle butt.”
  • Soldiers are rounding up a group of teenagers. Some of the teens resist and there is a scuffle. One of the parents tries to fight the soldiers and they shoot him. “Wendell dropped to his knees, then toppled forward and lay still.”
  • The military sprays a group of teens with a “thin green mist.” The reaction of the teens as they die is mixed. “Classmates writhed on the ground, tears and mucus coating their faces. The agony was unbearable—a burning, stinging horror that tore at the skin.” One of the commanders watching shots himself in the head.
  • When Tack confronts the leader and won’t follow orders, he is stabbed in the heart. Another boy who confronts the leader is killed. “Toby strode to where Benny knelt. Shaking his head, he put a gun to Benny’s temple and pulled the trigger. . . Benny slumped to the ground, a red mess where is head had been . . . Tucker stared at the fistful of hair still clutched in his fingers, then dropped it as if burned.”
  • In order to break Min out of jail, Noah attacks the guard. “Noah kicked him in the face, snapping his head back. Toby crumpled against the wall and lay still.”
  • Hector kills himself by jumping into a canyon. Hector believed he was already dead and was in purgatory.
  • When Min is eight she is murdered. She wanders off with a man, who she thinks is her mom’s friend, and he pushes her into a ravine.
  • A man murders Min multiple times throughout the book. When she is shot, she “tumbled to the floor, struggling to breathe, blood bubbling on my lips as I stared up at the drab fluorescent lights on the ceiling. Pain tingled everything red. . . Liquid was filling my mouth, hot and wet. The hole in my chest burned like a sliver of the sun.”
  • One time when Min was killed, she is chased through the woods. She falls and is barely hanging on the side of a cliff. “A shiny black boot smashed down on my fingers. I gasp in pain as my left hand loses its grip. I swing wildly, on the verge of plummeting to the white water belong. . . A foot stomps on my right hand. Snapping bones. A rush of air. Then I’m underwater, tumbling and spinning. Liquid fills my nose. My mouth. My ears. Something slams into my side, and ropes of agony shoot down my left arm. . . Pain explodes at my temple. I see and feel nothing more.”
  • Another time Min is killed when a man hits her with a car.
  • As Min tries to flee her killer, he finds her on the side of a cliff. He throws rocks at her until she plummets “to the boulders below. I land on my back and something snaps.” He then smashes her with a large stone.
  • Noah is murdered when a man stabs him. “The A spike on agony . . . blood pumps onto the pavement. Slides down the hill. Cold. Blackness. Nothing.”
  • Noah is murdered when a man cracks his skull.  “My head caved in! But I didn’t’ die right away. I struggled, by my arms wouldn’t move. Then he hit me again!”
  • When Noah is in the bathtub, the man puts a black metal rod into the water and electrocutes him.
  • Noah is on the lake in a skiff when a boat hits him. Noah tries to swim but his left leg is missing and he drowns.
  • Noah shoots Min. “There was a smoking hole in my chest. . . Tack was screaming, his clothes spattered in red.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Drinking is mentioned several times, although none of the teens are seen consuming alcohol. One character said the guys would get “Neanderthal drunk.”  Another time, Min talks about someone who, “spends most nights outside by his fire pit, drunk off his ass.”
  • Several of the adults drink alcohol, which is revealed in the descriptions. “Mom had put away the photo albums and washed her scotch glass . . . She rarely drinks, and never more than one. But she’d refilled her glass several times . . . “ ”
  • A character has to step over two adults who drunk themselves into a stupor and then fell asleep by their fire pit.
  • After getting in a fight, tack takes Advil.
  • Tack’s father is a drunk who hits his son.
  • Noah’s father is absent for the entire story. Noah thinks his father is, “busy getting loaded in another hemisphere.” Later in the story, Noah tells his psychiatrist that his dad drank a lot after he divorced his wife.
  • A psychiatrist gives two of the characters “little blue pills” to take daily. Neither character is sure what the pills are for, but when Noah is anxious he, “wanted a blue pill in the worst way.”
  • One of the characters takes his friend’s ADHD medication.

Language

  • Holy crap, crap, damn, ass, hell, prick, jackass, bastard, goddamn, piss
  • When a min shoots Min, she “carefully extended my middle finger” and told him to “go to hell.”
  • When thinking about the man who keeps killing her, Min thinks, “Wouldn’t let the evil bastard’s shadow every moment of my life.”
  • When describing a boy, Min thinks his face, “was gorgeous until you realized what a prick he was.”
  • Tack calls other people names including, “jackass, asshole, douchebag.” He tells one boy, “everyone here thinks you’re dumber than crap, I’m the only one willing to say it. None of these people like you, Ethan. You’re a loser and a fraud, just a redneck piece of trash like me. Kill yourself.”
  • Noah said his dad was a “drunk a-hole.”
  • One of the characters thinks, “Why am I so worthless? God, I hate myself.”
  • A parent spits at a soldier and tells him, “Piss on you and your threats. I know my rights, sunshine soldier.”
  • Someone accuses Noah of hiding behind a “skank’s skirt.”
  • When Min finds the man who has been murdering her, she calls him a “bastard,” and a “son of a bitch.”

Supernatural

  • When the world was destroyed, everyone died. “Though your bodies died, the program successfully preserved sixty-four electro-chemical blueprints. These were uploaded into the mainframe on Day Minus-Four after final measurements were taken. You now exist as autonomous lines of code within the MegaCom master program . . . You still must eat and drink. You must shelter from weather, and avoid hazards. You can be injured. You can be killed”

Spiritual Content

  • When the news is announced that the Earth will not be smashed by an asteroid, Melinda’s mom said “Praise God. . . God is good. Everything is going to be okay.”
  • When the natural disasters begin, Min’s Mom mumbled about “God’s judgement.”
  • Hector, a minor character, is the leader of the youth group. When the students are gassed and come back to life, he thinks he is in purgatory. He explains that purgatory is, “a holding place. Somewhere you’re judged. And tested.” After he jumps off a canyon wall, dies, and comes back to life, Hector said, “God isn’t down with me. It was stupid for me to think I was in control. I won’t defy him again.”

All that Burns

Emrys’ job was to secretly guard the prince, not fall in love with him.  However, loving him was a choice—one she gladly made, even when she had to give up her fairy power and immortality to be with him.  The mortals distrust her because they think she cast a spell over the young prince.  Now they want her and her fairy sisters dead.

To make matters worse, an old prisoner of Mabb’s has escaped and is determined to kill the royal family.  No one knows who the prisoner is or what he will do.  When Richard is abducted, no one knows if the enemy is a mortal or a fairy.  Emrys and Richard’s sister try to figure out what has happened to him, but they must do it in secret, because in a world where fairy and mortals mix, it is impossible to know who to trust.

All that Burns is an interesting story that focuses on Emrys’ love and the loss of her power.  Richard is worth all she has given up, but she still questions everything—her decision to give up her power and her new place within the mortal world.  At times, Emry’s inner conflict overshadows the story’s action and suspense.  In addition, many of the characters have lived thousands of years and reflect on their life in Camelot.  Thus anyone who is not familiar with King Arthur and Camelot may be confused.  One bright spot in the story is Richard’s sister Anabelle who is fiercely devoted to finding Richard and returning him to Emrys’ arms.

Sexual Content

  • When Richard touches Emrys she says it, “reminds me—in a faint and aching way—of magic. The way a spell burned just under my skin.    Waiting to explode.  This is what his touch does to me.  Every time.”  And then they kiss.
  • Richard’s touch slides down Emrys’ collarbone, his hand sinks into her hair and they kiss. “Richard’s breathe scarves my neck and his kisses trail down, forging new paths all the way to my collarbone . . . Want rises inside me, like the first surge on an unleashed spell.”  When Emrys reaches for the zipper on her dress, Richard “goes rigid.”
  • Another time Emrys kisses Richard and her, “hand slides up his chest and draws him closer.”
  • When another man kisses Emrys, she compares his kiss to Richard’s kiss.

Violence

  • Emrys is plague by dreams of the fall of Camelot. She sees a field that has turned to mud and is, “churned and mixed with the blood of a thousand men.  Full of flailing horses, snapped spears, and knights carved each other to pieces with crude metal.”
  • A mob of angry mortals chase Emrys and are run off by a Black Dog, which is a soul feeder. The Black Dog, which eats mortals and fairies alike, corners Emrys, but doesn’t eat her.
  • Emrys and Richard are attacked by men in black jackets and ski masks. A man presses a knife to Richard’s face and puts a cloth over his face that makes him go still. Emrys escapes only to see a Black Dog coming to get her.
  • One of the king’s guards shoots the fairy queen with electricity, the only thing that can kill a fairy.
  • When the veiling spell is broken, Emrys and the princess are chased by detectives.
  • People burn an effigy of Emrys over a fire barrel.
  • Emrys and Richard are put into a room underground, where they are told they will die when the building above them is blown-up.
  • Emrys and Richard are chased by the Ad-hene, but someone comes to their rescue by using magic to slice a staircase in half. Then the palace of Westminster is blown up, crushing the Ad-hene.
  • In the end the fairies corner Morgaine le Fay, who runs into tunnels that loop and cannot be escaped.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Emrys is under a veiling spell, she describes her steps as, “if I’ve had too many gin and tonics. I guess I am drunk in a way, reeling under so much magic after so many months without it.”
  • When inviting an enemy to dine at her table, the princess said, “I was thinking more along the lines of spiking his drink.”

Language

  • Richard tells Emrys, “the thought of losing you scares me shitless.”
  • In a fit of panic the prince’s sister uses magic and then says, “Oh shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”
  • “Crap” is used once.

Supernatural

  • There are fairies, spirits, and spells.

Spiritual Content

  • None

All that Glows

Emrys, a fiery Faery, was sent to London to guard the prince from the Old One who is out to destroy the crown.  Emrys is to guard Prince Richard, “Britain’s notorious, partying bad boy and soon-to-be king.”  Richard’s wild ways attack soul-feeding Green Woman, but also Emrys.

In a move that goes against every Faery rule, Emrys reveals herself to Richard and finds herself falling in love with the mortal.  Now she is in a fight against time to discover who the Old One is so she can keep Richard safe.  And if she can keep him safe, she will have to make the ultimate choice—loving Richard or keeping her magic.

 All that Glows is an entertaining story that has suspense, love, and intrigue.  Although others see Richard as an unruly party boy, the reader gets to see the side of him that is unsure and lonely.  As the novel progresses, Richard becomes more and more likable as he grows out of his boyhood partying ways and into a man worthy of being king.

There are several fights between Green Woman and Emrys, and the story ends with a final battle between the faeries.  These scenes add suspense and the reader is allowed to imagine these scenes unfolding since they are described without graphic or gory details.  Like the fight scenes, the love scenes are also tame.   Richard and Emry kiss and Emrys admires Richard’s physique, and although there is sexual longing, the two do not act on this desire.

 All That Glows is an excellent story.  However, there is a fair amount of scenes that revolve around clubbing, alcohol, and sexual desire that may be inappropriate for younger readers.

Sexual Content

  • When Richard looks at Emrys she describes the feeling as, “the strange jolt that seized me when our eyes met.”
  • When Richard takes Emrys to a club, Emrys thinks, “I hate the way he’s looking at me, all slow and squinty, like he wants nothing more than to get his fingers on the zipper of my dress.”
  • Richard kisses Emrys. She describes it as, “a nameless desire in the way he kisses me.  I feel it rising in me as well, swelling like clear, triumphant notes.  He pulls me closer, his kiss growing deeper, a never-ending crescendo.”
  • When Richard kisses Emrys, “it’s so easy to lose myself in the feel of him. His tongue just barely grazes the edge of my lips.  My hands slide up around his neck, anchor in his shaggy hair, pull him closer.  With a single finger he traces the ridged pathway of my spine all the way down to the small of my back…It’s like being in another universe, a time apart.  Nothing else in the world matters but how he’s touching me, making me move.”
  • In another scene, Richard kisses Emrys and she savors, “the taste of him, rest in his warmth . . . he pulls me closer . . . our kisses grow bolder, deeper. Forging new ground . . . I lose myself in his kiss.  In its perfect glowing feeling.”
  • Richard, “leans in closer, so that I feel his breath grazing my check. Deliciously hot.  Here (away from the bed’s feathery sheets), I think it will be easier to stop.  I let our lips collide, press soft into each other . . . ”
  • In another scene when Richard and Emrys kiss, she describes it as, “it’s like I’m diving into him, swimming down, down and never coming up for air. And I never want to.  His tongue grazes mine, inviting me deeper.  To places I could never go in the presence of so many watchers.”

Violence

  • A Green Woman (soul feeder) tries to sink her teeth into the prince. “The teeth beneath her mottled lips grow ragged, meant for tearing tendon from bone. “ Emrys throws herself at the soul feeder.  She then uses her magic to throw the soul feeder, “back with such force that the stall door crumples around her body.”
  • While in the restroom, a man comes in and approaches Emrys. “He’s less than an arm’s length away when he reaches out, his fingers twitching and eager.”  Richard hits the man and stands, “over the howling drunk as he writhes on the floor clutching his face and his awful, running nose.” When the man again reaches for Emrys, the drunk prince knocks him out.
  • After the fight in the club, Richard shows his sister his injured hand. She replies, “Well, you must have had one hell of a good reason to hit him.”
  • When a Banshee (soul feeder) tries to seduce Richard’s friend, Emrys jumps at her, “only dimly aware of the scattering remains of beer glasses and sloshed whiskey.” Emrys throws a spell at the Banshee taking away her voice. Then Emrys’ hands, “envelope her (Banshee), crushing over her larynx.” As she is holding the Banshee, Emrys puts a spell on the soul feeder so she cannot talk about what happened.
  • A Banshee and a Black dog attack Emrys and another fairy. However, Emrys uses a banishing spell to make them flee.
  • Emrys goes into a club to try to question a Green Woman. The Green Woman throws a spell meant to kill Emrys.  Instead it hits a girl.  “The girl’s body lies close to my feet . . .  Her eyes are open—but there’s nothing behind them.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The prince goes to a club several times through the story. In each club scene there is drinking.  In one scene, the bartender says, “All the girls buy him drinks, and he gets drunker than a jilted woman on her wedding anniversary . . . he’s gonna get us shut down for all that underage drinking.”
  • While at a club, the prince dances and, “amber liquid sloshes from the top of his beer bottle. . . ”
  • When Emrys tells Richard that his life is in danger he, “emerges with what he’s hunting for—a bottle of whiskey and a weighty crystal glass.”
  • After Richard’s father dies, Richard has a hard time coping. He says, “. . . just a few weeks ago I was at Eton and my biggest worry was whether or not the prefects would find my stash of booze.”
  • When the fairy queen asks Emrys to report on Richard’s behavior, the queen asks, “How’s the prince coping? Drowning in the neck of a liquor bottle?”
  • Richard gets so drunk that he passes out.
  • At a dinner party, champagne and wine, “flows abundantly” and, “the crowd of faces grows increasingly flushed and the laughter grows volumes louder by the hour.”

Language

  • Richard says “bloody hell” after being attacked by a soul feeder.
  • After a night of partying, Richard’s father yells, “I’ll go to hell and back before I let you spend twelve months pissing in the corner of some pub.”
  • When Emrys shows herself to Richard he says, “Shit. I’ve gone crazy.”
  • Richard and Emrys get into an argument. Richard yells, “Maybe that (being dead) wouldn’t be such a bad thing!  Then you’ll be free and you won’t have to babysit me and wipe my ass every second of the damn day!”
  • In an argument, Richard’s sister yells, “Like hell I am,” she huffs. “You don’t just get to tell me I have a flipping Faery godmother and that we’re being attacked by some old thing and then go traipsing off into God-knows-where.”
  • Damn and hell are used several times.

Supernatural

  • There are fairies, spirits, and spells. Throughout most of the book, Emrys uses a veiling spell, which makes it so mortals cannot see her.
  • Emrys uses a banishing spell to keep people away and a spell that wipes people memories. She uses a variety of other spells as well.
  • Emrys talks about Henry VIII and the ghost of his wives as, “disturbed, unrested souls—cluster around, haunting him in all their vehemence.”
  • There are Tower ravens, “prophets clad in black feathers” that warn Emrys that someone is out to kill all of the royal family. In another scene, several of the Tower ravens go to Emrys to warn her about the Old One. They tell Richard that the Old One is, “coming for your crown and head.”
  • Emrys explains soul feeders. “There are spirits whose powers are strengthen by a mortal’s death…They like to hunt in the cities, usually at night.”
  • Banshees suck out mortals’ souls with a scream. They can also shape shift into weasels, stoats, hares, and crows.
  • A Green Woman appears as a beautiful, green-clad blonde to seduce and kill men.
  • Emrys explains that royal blood contains blood magic that can be transferred, which is why the Old One wants to kill him.
  • Emrys explains that there are many types of supernatural creatures including Herne the Hunter, who is a very old spirit who guards the woods of Windsor.

Spiritual Content

  • There’s several references to “the Greater Spirit.” One of the characters tells Emrys, “may the Greater Spirit go with you.”
  • Emrys promises to erase a Black Dog’s memory and tells him, “I swear it by the Greater Spirit.”
  • After Richard’s father dies, Richard says, “Sometimes I wonder if he’s watching me . . . I wonder if he likes what he sees.”
  • Emrys looks at the Thames and thinks, “In dusk’s illuminating glow, the surface of the Thames looks less full of sewage and debris and more like the mighty brown god it once was.”
  • When a faery dies, Emrys says, “We do not know what lies beyond this plane. We can’t imagine where our sisters might be now—yet we know they aren’t gone.”

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight

In a book that takes place in the time span of about a day, Hadley Sullivan misses her flight at the airport in a matter of minutes. Those minutes will change her life as she is forced to take the next flight, and meets Oliver, a tall and handsome boy from England. They instantly connect at the airport and on the plane, but after the flight, Hadley is left wondering if that is the end of their journey, or if fate will bring them together again.

Hadley is on her way to her father’s wedding, where he is marrying a woman she has never met, an English lady, who her father fell in love with while he was teaching at Oxford. Still upset by her parent’s divorce, and coming to terms with her father’s marriage, Hadley must battle with the mixed feelings she has for her father as she grabs the next flight to London.

Hadley is a very relatable character and her interactions with Oliver are sweet. The novel is overall fun and light, even though it touches on some heavy content with both Hadley and Oliver’s fathers. Hadley’s story is fun, fast, and touching. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight is a cute love story that navigates the emotions of a young teenage girl dealing with a broken home.

 Sexual Content

  • Hadley mentions that she is a part of an e-mail chain, where one of the things Charlotte and her bridesmaids talks about are, “lingerie preferences.”
  • Hadley and Oliver almost kiss, causing Hadley’s heart to skip around and the feeling of a “bolt of electricity” when their hands brush, but they get interrupted.
  • Hadley and Oliver kiss in the airport before they leave, and Hadley describes Oliver’s lips as, “soft and taste salty from the pretzel they shared.”
  • When she meets Oliver at the funeral home, they share an urgent and desperate kiss.
  • Oliver tells Hadley that his father has had multiple affairs.

 Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • None

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Rebecca Mondon

If Only You Knew

Summer love isn’t supposed to be complicated. But then Joe meets two great-looking guys on the same day, and her life gets complicated fast. One guy makes her heart skip a beat, but can he be trusted? The other guy is trustworthy and totally outrageous, but is he still hung up on his crazy ex-girlfriend? With both guys demanding her attention, Jo’s not sure who to trust with her heart.

Then in a strange turn of events, someone begins stalking Jo, and she wonders if it’s connected to the horrible accident she witnessed last summer. With her life in danger, she’s not sure who she can trust. And to make matters worse, she has no job, no future plans, and no idea what her next steps should be.

At the beginning of the book, Jo’s story is slow-paced. However, suspense is added when Jo tries to solve the mystery of the accident she witnessed. Jo is a loveable character who many teens will be able to relate to—she is confused about life, love, and her place in this world. The ending leaves the reader with a surprising, sweet, and satisfactory conclusion.

Some readers may be turned off when the pastor in the book spends two to three pages preaching about the Bible. However, the characters in the book do not come off as preachy, perfect people, but as regular people—some who have a firm belief in God, and others who question God’s motives.

Sexual Content 

  • There is some kissing between Joe and her boyfriend. The scenes do not go into much detail. For example, “All I know is that somehow out lips found each other and in that instant everything else in the world disappeared and all I knew was that Sam’s mouth was on mine.”

Violence 

  • In one scene, two men try to hurt Jo and her friends with a baseball bat. Then the two men chase them with a vehicle and ram them off the road.
  • In another scene, Jo is walking when the two men (from above) follow her in their vehicle cat–calling and threatening to kill her and her friend. One of the men yells, “How ya think. . . those legs of yours will look flattened under the wheels of my car?”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Jo discovers that her boyfriend had been in jail. Before his jail time, the boyfriend describes the night he tried to kill someone, and while he was drunk, high, and scared, he turned himself in to the police.
  • Jo’s boyfriend also talks about how he used to, “drink too and use some drugs and stuff. . .”
  • One of the character’s father is a recovering alcoholic.

Language 

  • Jo said that she cussed, but there are no actual cuss words.

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • Throughout the book, the characters discuss their relationship with God. Some characters have a positive relationship with God, others do not.
  • In one church scene, the preacher discusses Philippians Chapter Two and how one should obey God. The pastor then goes on to explain how people should examine God’s word.
  • One of the characters talks about how she is waiting for God to bring the right man into her life.
  • At a wedding the pastor discusses the meaning of the Bible verse, “Love is patient. Love is kind.”
  • At one church service, the pastor talks about Jesus’ crucifixion.
  • In one scene the church is practicing a play that reenacts John Chapter Four, the “The Lady at the Well,” story.
  • Towards the end of the book, Jo accepts Christ and then later one of Jo’s friends explains how she cannot be separated from Christ’s love.

Raging Star

DeMalo has established his borders. New Haven is expanding and its subjects appear to be thriving. At a quick glance, this land is exactly the paradise DeMalo proclaims it to be.

But at its border, a small token of resistance remains. Saba and her family have pledged themselves to destroy DeMalo and all he has built. But what can so few hope to accomplish against a united nation?

The final installment of Young’s trilogy focuses on the struggle taking place within Saba. Every time she attempts to leave the Angel of Death behind and find a non-violent solution to the rebel’s problems, a crisis gets in the way. Her sister is growing up and discovering new talents, DeMalo wants Saba for his wife, and there is a traitor among her small group of trusted friends. The path Saba takes is filled with surprising twists, and the suspense continues to grow in this gripping tale.

 Sexual Content

  • DeMalo asks Saba if she’s pregnant.
  • Saba starts kissing Jack and undressing him. “I kiss him . . . He ain’t kissin me back. He ain’t touchin me. He jest stands, not movin. His shirt hangs open. Did I do that? I don’t recall. I press closer, ever closer. My fevered hands roam him. Reckless. Hell-bent. Uh-uh. He grabs ’em. Firmly. Stop right there, he says.”
  • Saba makes out with Jack. “Our kisses grow hungry. Our bodies heat . . . I push him off, sit up an start puttin my cloths to rights. He’s made a heroic effort to undress me.”
  • An unnamed character has intercourse with Molly so he can learn, “how to please a woman. Yer teachin me. That’s all this is.”
  • Saba sleeps with Jack. “We’re skin to skin. Breath to breath. There’s now. There’s here. There’s him an”
  • Saba agrees to marry DeMalo if he gives her friends and family safe passage. When Jack finds out, he and Saba fight. “What deal did you make? To marry him, I says. His eyes harden to ice. You bought our freedom in his bed.”
  • Saba has a miscarriage. “You miscarried, lady . . . if often happens with the first one. Sometimes you don’t even know you’re pregnant.” Saba’s not sure who the father was as she slept with both DeMalo and Jack.

Violence

  • Saba and the rebels set out to blow up a bridge. At the last minute, a group of Tonton and slaves cross the bridge and get blown up with it. “Gone. The three Tonton. All gone. The Stewards in their cart. The blameless beasts. Animals an people, now bloody lumps of flesh. Flung like so much bad meat.”
  • Mercy has scars on her back. “I’ll survive, she says. I’ve had worse. Thin white lines, the scars of a whip, criss-cross her sun-tough skin.”
  • Mercy slaps Creed. “Marry me, he says. She slaps him hard. Almost slaps his head off. Everybody turns at the sound. The angry crack of skin on skin.”
  • In New Eden, weak newborn babies are left outside overnight. If they survive, they are given a second chance to live.
  • Someone nails a dead crow to a tree, hoping Saba will think it is her pet Nero and get frightened. “There’s a crow spiked to the trunk. Jest above head height. Wings spread wide. Dead. Nero.”
  • Emmi is shot. “We’re runnin an pullin her along by her hands. Lugh one side, me the other. There’s a crack. I feel the shot hit her. The blast throws her forward. I hold tight to her hand. She goes limp between us.”
  • Lugh is shot. “What’ve you done? I shout at Lugh. He’s on his feet, lookin dazed. A gun thuds. a bolt slams him in the back. No! I scream as his arms fly up as he twists an falls to my arms. Then we tip we topple out of the window down to the river below.”
  • Saba kills DeMalo. “DeMalo’s knife slashes my arm . . . I seize the crystal rock. I raise it high. I smash DeMalo in the head…My fingers wet with his blood. His head’s crushed. A mess of hair, blood an”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Saba is given a sleeping potion. “From a tiny stone bottle she tipped the merest, barest blink of a teardrop . . . Molly weakened it three times in water. Saba drained the cup, then lay down. Short minutes later she was out.”

Language

  • Profanity is used throughout the book. The profanity used includes: Gawd, bullshit, bullshitter, fergawdsake, dammit, ass, sonofabitch, ohmigawd, damn, and hell.
  • Gawdamn and gawdamnmit are said many times throughout the story.
  • Saba has a chance to shoot DeMalo, but “I cain’t. I cain’t do it. Slowly I lower my bow. I says, Gawdamnn you sonofabitch.”

Supernatural

  • Emmi starts to hear earth songs, a sign that she can become a shaman. “They’d wakened her at dawn yesterday. The earth songs…the songs leading her, telling her, teaching her. Not songs with words. No. No words. Dreams.”
  • DeMalo claims to have visions of what the earth looked like before the apocalypse.
  • Saba has a heartstone. It gets hot as a way of leading a person to their heart’s desire.

Spiritual Content

  • Saba wonders if it is ever right to kill. “I killed some people. Not becuz I wanted to, I had to. It was kill or be killed. Is that wrong? . . . That’s a big question, says Mercy. Is it ever right to kill another person?”

by Morgan Lynn

Rebel Heart

Saba killed the King, but she didn’t destroy the empire. DeMalo, the King’s second in command, has taken control. He has plans to create a new empire and prove himself a much tougher opponent than his predecessor.

All Saba wants to do is join up with Jack at the ocean and live the rest of her life in peace. But the world has other plans. Rumors that Jack joined the Tonton sends Saba on a journey to find him. Only Saba believes in Jack’s innocence; those she travels with doubt his intentions and are ready to kill him if need be.

Swept into the heart of DeMalo’s new empire, Saba reluctantly joins rebels who are determined to destroy everything DeMalo has created. This sequel to Blood Red Road is not as fast-paced as the first, but the world DeMalo is trying to build is both interesting and alluring. The author makes Saba’s decision between joining DeMalo and fighting him a difficult one. While his methods may be harsh, the picture he draws of the future is beautiful. It’s the age-old question: does the end justify the means? A gripping story, the Dust Lands series has enough violence and sexual content to exclude younger readers.

Sexual Content

  • Saba sees her brother go off with a prostitute after a party. “His hands circle her ankles, smooth her bare legs with restless intent. She jumps down. She takes him by the hand. She leads him off into the night.”
  • Slim tells Lugh to, “get on with it. Life’s too short. Take her off in the bushes, my friend, an make her yer own. If you don’t, somebody else will. Hell, I might jest make a play fer her myself.”
  • Tommo kisses Saba. She stops him.
  • Saba makes out with DeMalo, then sleeps with him. “I’ve climbed on to his lap an I’m runnin my hands through his hair, over his shoulders an arms, while we kiss . . . he drags his lips along the inside of my arm, wrist to elbow. Trailin shivery fire on my tender skin till I’m quiverin head to foot. A rush in my belly, hot an ancient . . . I lead him to the bed. We lie down together.”
  • Molly sees a hickey on Saba’s neck.
  • Saba kisses Tommo to get him to trust her.
  • Saba kisses Jack when she finally finds him. “He takes my face in his hands an kisses me, over an over an over agin. My lips an my cheeks an my eyes an my lips, oh my lips. An I kiss him back. My whole body’s shaking. On fire. He’s shakin too.”

Violence

  • Subjects of New Haven are branded on the forehead depending on their status.
  • A family is displaced. The parents and son are shot, the daughter shoots herself rather than be taken. One of the soldiers is also shot for disobeying orders.
  • Saba is attacked by wolves. Her friend’s wolfdog saves her by ripping the other wolves’ throats out. Saba is knocked unconscious during this; she only sees the dead wolves afterward. “They lie in pools of their own blood. Both got their throats ripped out . . . The air hums with a hungry buzz. Flies. Hunnerds of ’em. Thousands of ’em. The open wounds, the half-dried lakes of sticky blood.”
  • In a fit of rage, Saba attacks her brother. “I leap at Lugh. I knock him backwards. We roll on the ground. I punch, I kick, I claw . . . my hands is tight around Lugh’s throat. My thumbs pressin on his windpipe.”
  • Saba discovers a temple of skeletons built by cannibals. The skeletons “sit close packed, side by side, on long wooden benches. They gleam whitely, dully, in the dim light.”
  • There is a pot cooking in the temple. “Somethin large bobs to the surface. It turns over…a face looks at me. A human face.” She flees, killing a priest on the way out. The cannibals give chase, and she shoots several of them with her arrows.
  • Saba and her friends hijack a man’s wagon. They force him to drive it by threatening to shoot him. “Gawdamn sonofabitch, I mutter . . . I walk fast, loadin by bow, aimin it straight at his face. He throws his hands up.”
  • Twice while on the road, Saba and her friends are spotted. They kill the people to keep their presence in New Haven quiet. “He shoots her head. An it’s silent. Jest like that.”
  • While on the road Saba sees a dead man who was lashed to a tree trunk. “A fat iron spike’s bin nailed through his throat. He ain’t bin here more’n a few days. He died hard. Hard an long.”
  • Saba jumps off a cliff. DeMalo pulls her out of the water and asks, “Were you trying to kill yourself?…[Saba] says naught.”
  • When attacked by Tonton, all the Tonton are killed. One of Saba’s allies is killed, possibly from friendly fire. “Both Tonton lie dead on the ground. Bram hangs halfways outta the driver’s seat, face down. He’s bin shot in the back.”
  • Maev gives herself up as a diversion so the others can escape. She fights for as long as she can, then blows herself up. When Saba tells Maev goodbye, “I kiss her lips. Don’t let ’em take you, I whisper . . . An as I soar through the darkness, high above the lake, Maev starts to shoot . . . the sound of gunfire goes on fer longer than I’d of thought it would. Or could. Then one big explosion.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Jack drinks wormwood whiskey at his friend’s inn.
  • Saba accuses her brother of taking the drug chaal, but he denies it.
  • Saba’s brother is hit with a blow dart. They cut open the wound and suck the poison out.
  • Saba drugs DeMalo’s wine with a potion that will knock him unconscious for many hours.

Language

  • The words damned, helluva, fergawdsake, damn, and sonofabitch are used once or twice.
  • Hell, variations of gawdamn, and ohmigawd are used often.
  • When Saba starts acting irrationally, her brother yells at her. “Tell me, gawdammit! Why’d you break yer dawdamn bow?”

Supernatural

  • Saba has a heartstone. It gets hot as a way of leading a person to their heart’s desire.
  • Saba starts to see ghosts. “It’s Epona. But not like she was. In life, she gleamed an shone…She’s a child of the air now. Fog an mist. She drifts. She gathers. She fades.”
  • Saba meets the Sky Speaker, a type of shaman who can sing the earths songs and sometimes see what will happen in the future. “The Sky Speaker’s shakin, head to foot. Her eyes roll back an she waves her hands wildly. She starts to babble, a endless stream of sounds.”
  • Saba follows the Wraithway, a road where spirits are said to roam.

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Lynn

Haze

Seb does not understand people. He prefers numbers and computers. His parents don’t get him. When he’s at school, Guzzle is his only friend. But Guzzle isn’t always around to protect Seb from the bullies who harass him.

Things begin to change when he makes friends with Krisite, Madeline, and Jen. And things get even better when a new computer teacher, Miss Adonia, shows up. However, Guzzle doesn’t think Seb can trust Miss Adonai. Soon Seb is mixed up in a web of computer fraud, and he must turn to someone for help. But who should he trust?

Seb must also worry about Guzzle who is struggling to find peace in his life. Although Guzzle is popular at school, he does not enjoy his classes or the friends his popularity brings. To add to his misery, his mother is in an abusive relationship. Despite his struggles, Guzzle is a loyal friend to Seb.

Haze is an easy-to-read story that has loveable characters. There is enough mystery and suspense to keep the reader interested in the plot. The author adds drama to Guzzle’s life by showing his mother in an abusive relationship without adding violent detail. Part of the story revolves around a possible love interest, with a sweet ending.

The author teaches about Asperger Syndrome through Seb’s thoughts and actions. The information about Asperger Syndrome never seems preachy, but comes across in a natural and interesting way. Although Seb’s new friends don’t understand him, they are willing to stick by him, and as they learn about Seb’s Asperger Syndrome, the reader does as well.

Younger readers will be able to enjoy Haze because of the easy reading level as well as the fact that there is no violence. However, there are sexual references, cursing, and mention of drugs and alcohol that may make this book inappropriate for younger readers.    

Sexual Content 

  • When Seb is worried about going on a date, Guzzle said, “Go to the movies or something. You don’t have to talk and if she lets ya, you can touch her up in the dark.” Guzzle goes on to explain that touch her up means, “grab her boobs.”
  • When Guzzle sees Miss Adonia at a hotel with an older man, a group of her students speculate that they are “lovers” or maybe their teacher is a “sex slave.” Then a girl says, “maybe he’s her sex slave! She seems to like to be in control.”
  • Guzzle tells Seb that Kaziah is “easy” but a “bitch at times.” When Seb asks what easy means, Guzzle says, “shit, mate, sometimes you’re such a kid. She lets me touch her you know, do things.” When Seb asks if Guzzle has, “done it, all the way,” Guzzle says, “not yet. Close but.”
  • When Seb is kissed on the cheek, he thinks, “She kissed him. No fuss. No slobbery saliva. No expectations that he do anything. His first kiss. Not quite up to Guzzle’s standard. But this was better. He wouldn’t swap the world for that kiss.”

Violence 

  • On the way to school a group of boys beats up Seb. One boy tells the others that he feels, “like kickin’ butt” and he then begins to hit Seb. “Seb rarely felt the kicks and punches…but he felt humiliated. The futile anger. Couldn’t understand why they hated him so much. Didn’t know how to make them stop.”
  • When Seb gets upset at school he, “hit a couple of kids and then smashed a window with his bare fist.”
  • When Guzzle tells Seb he is leaving home, Guzzle says, “I’m pissing outta here.” Then later Guzzle explains why he is leaving, “Anus beat the shit outta mum last night. I wish she’d leave him. But she won’t. Says she still loves him.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • Guzzle goes to the park at night. Later Seb asks Guzzle if he was drinking. Guzzle replies, “A bit. Gotta live up to me name, don’t I?”
  • Guzzle goes down to the park and shares his last beer with Kaziah. “One kid was smoking cones through a cut up coke bottle. Kaz breathed deep on a joint, but Guzzle stuck to his cigs.”
  • Guzzle gets “rolling drunk” and talks about going to the shed, “where kids smoked, and teachers avoided duty.”
  • Guzzle says that Kaziah’s friends like to, “smoke dope and beat up anything they can get their hands on.”

Language 

  • The words “shit” and “damn” are spoken by characters.
  • When Seb tries to call someone in the middle of the night, a man answers the phone and says, “Goddam, who the hell is this?”
  • When Jen gets angry at Seb she yells, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
  • One of the characters asks her mother if she can go out with a group of people which includes boys. Her mother gets angry and says, “I knew that sleepover was a bad idea…Twenty four hours in some slut’s house and all your values fly at the window.”
  • When Guzzle’s mother’s boyfriend hits her, he yells, “filthy bitch…useless…deserve this…”

Supernatural 

  • None

Spiritual Content 

  • None

I Never

Janey King’s life revolves around school, friends, and her family. When Luke Hallstrom, a hot senior, notices her, Janey finds that navigating her first serious relationship can be tricky. Janey is trying to add Luke to her life, but not all of her friends are happy about their relationship. Janey isn’t completely sure that Luke will stay true to her. To complicate matters her parents are getting a divorce.

With Janey’s new relationship comes new complications. She must decide if she is ready to have sex, and if Luke is the person to give herself to. I Never gives readers graphic details of Janey’s experimentation with sex. The book’s message is “sometimes people need sex with no strings attached.” However, the story doesn’t address any of the negative and potentially dangerous sides of sex. The story seems to forget that not every boy is as respectful as Luke, and not every sexual encounter is satisfying. Because of the graphic descriptions of sex, this book should be picked up with caution.

Sexual Content

  • The story begins with the narrator contemplating her love life and thinking how other teens have already had sex, but she thinks, “sex should mean something.” Throughout the rest of the story, there are numerous hook-ups. The narrator talks about her friend’s sex life and her own sexual experiences in some very detailed scenes. Not all of the sex descriptions are recounted below.
  • As Janey is trying to figure out if she should have sex with her boyfriend, she and her friends discuss how sex should work, how to let a person know when you are ready to have sex, and about their own experiences.
  • Janey’s friend, Danielle, has a boyfriend who is always making out with her at school. After a two-week school break, Danielle’s boyfriend sees her. “Charlie turns her around, backs her up against the lockers, and starts kissing her with unbridled desire . . . It’s as though Danielle and Charlie are totally unaware of where they are and who’s nearby.”
  • Janey and another character discuss Danielle’s sex life. “I know they did it in her dad’s car while it was in the garage and her parents were watching a movie upstairs. . . They did it after school in the multipurpose room . . . they went to town on the table.”
  • Janey’s friend Sloan, “is the girl some parents would refer to as fast. She’s a virgin but loves to go to parties to ‘hook up’ with guys. In fact, her mantra is everything but.” Sloan went to a party and made out with two different boys.
  • Janey’s boyfriend Luke tells her that his parents bought him condoms, “and put them in my bathroom, but we never discussed it.” Luke also talks about how his brother “came out when he was a senior in high school.”
  • Janey and Luke kiss frequently. During their first kiss, “His tongue ever so gently finds mine, and our two tongues do a little dance. I am lost in him, in his soft lips, his smooth tongue, his yummy smells.”
  • After track practice, Janey and Luke make out on the pull vault mat. As they kiss, he takes her shirt off.  “. . . He’s lying on me, his legs between mine. . . I feel his whole body pushing against me. I can tell how much he wants me.”
  • Janey and Luke make out often. Once when they were making out, Janey describes Luke in his “black boxer briefs that hug his body and make his erection beyond obvious . . . It’s an entirely different matter to see a huge boner underneath a thin layer of back cotton. And that boner is pointed at me. It’s a turn-on, but also a little scary . . . My legs separate slightly and he fits snugly between them. I can feel the warmth beneath our underwear.”
  • Janey and Danielle go condom shopping. They discuss what type to use. When Janie asks why they are shopping for condoms, Danielle said, “Because if you show up for protection, he’ll know you’re ready . . . And trust me, it’ll be the biggest turn-on ever.”
  • Janey and Luke are kissing in the car.  “. . . I feel wetness between my legs the second his tongue enters my mouth . . . I feel weak, I moan, I get wet. . . it’s clear my body wants him desperately . . . I need to have sex with him. The same way I need food, water, and shelter.”
  • Janey and Luke make out naked in a hot tub. “His hands move down my back and explore my butt and my waist as he pulls me closer to him, pushing me against him. The kissing is constant, while I drop my hand to feel him. It’s smooth and the skin is soft, but the whole thing is so incredibly hard, much harder than I would have thought possible.” They stop when Janey decides she’s not ready to have sex.
  • Janey and Luke go back to her father’s house. Janey has decided she is ready to have sex, which is described over approximately five pages. “I put my hand on him feeling his hardness, knowing that it will soon be inside me . . . He spends significant time tickling and rubbing my boobs. . . sucking on my breast and flicking his tongue against my nipples . . . I wrap one hand firmly around the base and use the other to tickle the rest. I keep both hands moving, working in a rhythm. . . The moisture between my legs gets more obvious, allowing him to enter me push by push, millimenter by millimenter. . . My hands find his ass and squeeze while he moves up and down, in and out. . .”
  • Luke tells Janey she should masturbate so she knows what she likes. “Because if you know what you like, I can do it for you.”
  • While in the car parked outside of Janey’s house, Luke makes out with Janey and they make each other climax.
  • Janey walks in on her newly separated mom having sex with a man. “My mother is on her back amid her throw pillows, her legs splayed. An unknown man is on top of her, his back slightly hairy . . . His ass, also slightly hairy, knocks repeatedly against my mother, and with each knock, she lets out a little grunt . . . my mom is having raucous, furious, daytime sex in my parents’ bed with a man who most definitely is not my father.”
  • Danielle finds out her boyfriend is cheating on her and sexting. “He told her he wanted to squirt whipped cream all over her and lick it off . . . Charlie and I did that on Valentine’s Day.” Later in the story, Janey tries it with Luke. “. . . He delicately uses his tongue to make little waves in the white stream. I can barely stand it. I practically beg him to have sex with me.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Janey’s parents take her out and order champagne. “I know my mom will give me a sip of her champagne and it will tickle my nose and taste bitter. . . “
  • When Janey goes to Luke’s house for dinner, his parents have wine, but they won’t let Luke drink any.
  • Luke tells Janey about how his brother went out and drank beer and sang eighties pop songs.

Language

  • Profanity is scattered throughout the story. Damn is used six times which is the most.  Profanity includes, “ass, bitch, bitchy, crap, bullshit, holy crap, damn, dumbass, holy moly, hell, pissed shit, shitty, oh my god, and Oh my f-ing god.”
  • When Janey’s friend sees her kissing Luke in an empty classroom, he says, “what the hell. . . Maybe you didn’t tell me because you’re wasting your time with a worthless, arrogant guy who’s going to treat you like shit.”
  • “Charlie often sits with us because god forbid he miss an opportunity to put his hand on Danielle’s ass.”
  • Janey said her dad, “never seemed to notice a hot piece of ass nearby.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

Paper Covers Rock

Alex narrates his story through diary entries and poetry. At the beginning of the school year, Alex and his friends are drinking and decide to jump off a tall rock into the river. Thomas, one of Alex’s best friends, dies. With that death comes terror—the terror of someone finding out that they were illegally drinking. The terror that Mrs. Dovecott saw more than she is letting on. The terror that Thomas’s last words will shatter someone’s life.

Alex life is full of secrets. He splits his time between daydreaming about his crush on Mrs. Dovecott and wondering how far Glenn will go to keep their secret. Paper Covers Rock revolves around Thomas’ death and the boys wanting to keep their drinking a secret. Glenn wants Alex to tempt Mrs. Dovecott into kissing him so that she will get fired. And Alex reluctantly goes along with the plan.

The storyline of Paper Covers Rocks does not always ring true. The boys’ lives are full of lies, deception, and sexual content. As Alex paints the story of his life, it is hard to connect with someone who is willing to lie to everyone around him in order to hide the fact that he was drinking when his friend died.

Sexual Content

  • Alex spends a lot of time fantasizing about his English teacher, who he thinks he is in love with. In one scene he thinks, “I wish there were punch, I wish it was spiked, I wish that Mrs. Dovecott would drink a gallon of it and make crazy love to me.”
  • When talking about the culture of the school, the narrator explains that there are not a lot of employees at the school who are hot. “If you want to have a crush on a Burch bitch . . . there are not a lot of options. You’ve got your dining hall employees, but they’re inbred. . .”
  • The narrator mentions that his roommate is, “jacking off every night.”
  • The narrator wonders if his friend is gay. At school there, is no worse label than being gay.
  • One of Alex’s friends tells him, “Your brains are in your crotch.”
  • The boys play a version of Would You Rather. “Would you rather watch Mrs. Davido give a blow job to Buddha or Mr. Lyme? Would you rather watch Miss Dovecott give a blow job to Gaybrook or Everson?” Then they talk about if Mrs. Dovecott could get Gaybrook “off” and if Everson would “sploodge in about two seconds.”
  • Alex is glad that his mom isn’t coming to parents’ weekend because she will be labeled as a FUM, “boarding-school speak for (f^ckable mom).”
  • The boys wonder if a teacher is a lesbian.
  • Alex thinks about how he, “fondled a girl’s breast once. Her nipples were tiny, but her tits were huge . . . She laid the sweater across my crotch and slid a hand underneath it . . . I moaned and came in my shorts.”
  • Someone tells a story about girls kissing another girl’s breast and practicing kissing on each other. “I had heard before that girls practice kissing with one another so that they know what they’re doing when a boy kisses them for real.”
  • Alex thinks about the faculty members’ daughters who are sent away to go to school. He thinks that the girls who stayed would all have sex with his friend Glen, if Glen wanted to have sex with them.

Violence

  • At a dance, someone talks about how a student committed suicide. “This teacher’s theory is that the boy took all those pills because he was struggling with his sexuality . . . He might have been gay.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • While drinking, Alex and his friends jump off a rock and into a river. His friend Thomas, who was “shit-faced” from chugging vodka, hits his head on a rock and dies. The boys are afraid that if the school finds out, they will be expelled.
  • There is drinking at a football game that the alums go to.

Language

  • Alex says someone is, “full of shit.”
  • The narrator says that parents pay “shit-loads” of money to send their sons away to boarding school.
  • An “ass-hole” who lived in Alex’s dorm room before he moved in burnt holes in the carpet with cigarettes.
  • Profanity is scattered throughout the book. The profanity includes bullshit, f^ck, smart-ass, and damn.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • The school’s reverend, “is a hypocrite. He preaches on the sin of homosexuality at least once a trimester, he quotes the Scriptures, twists it so that it fits his message. . .The good reverend says that we are made in God’s image. God is perfect. Therefore, God is not gay. If you engage in the sin of homosexuality, then you will contract gay cancer and die a very slow, very painful death.”
  • In one sermon the reverend says, “You will come to learn that God shows His mercy in small ways . . . God is with us, and under His watch, all things are good.” Alex doesn’t agree.
  • Alex’s father told him that, “religion was a human invention.” Alex thinks that more educated people don’t, “need religion to make sense of the word.” Therefore Alex does not believe in God.
  • The reverend says Thomas, “did not die in vain; he was part of God’s plan.” Alex thinks, “Even God does not have the power to intervene in a world where centuries of evil have rooted beneath the surface of everything . . . My father is right: humans made god up to satisfy their own needs.
  • Mr. Parks preaches that “God is programmed into our DNA, so He’s there under our skin, biologically there, to connect us to a force larger than ourselves.” Alex wonders if homosexuality is programmed there too.

Endangered: A Death on a Deadline Mystery

Hayley isn’t a typical teenage girl. Rather than caring about prom or worrying about not getting her high school diploma, she spends her time working for her father’s newspaper.

While listening to a police scanner, she gets her first big scoop. Her hope is to discover whose blood is splattered all over a remote cabin. But instead of looking for clues, Hayley’s father forces her to participate in a research project to earn credits she needs to graduate high school.

Instead of investigating a possible murder, Hayley finds herself stuck on a boat doing research with only Ms. Cameron, a biology teacher, and Ernest, a social outcast, for company. Hayley and her group find the rare turtle they’re hunting for, but with it they find people illegally hunting it. When Hayley and Ernest try to protect the turtle, they find their lives are in danger. Now Hayley has two mysteries to deal with-and twice the danger.

Endangered: A Death on a Deadline Mystery is an enjoyable book. While the ending is no surprise, the story is engaging and interesting. Even though the bad guy is predictable, the ending is still satisfying and will make the reader smile.

Hayley is a loveable, realistic character the reader can bond with. Hayley has abandonment issues because her mother left her as a baby. She doesn’t do the “dating scene” because she’s not sure how to handle guys. She doesn’t have a normal family life. But when it comes to reporting, she is assertive and sure of herself.

Between the mystery, the hunt for an elusive turtle, and Hayley’s personal story, the book has a lot to love. Even though the story revolves around a possible death, the violence is not detailed or graphic. However, there are many references to drugs and alcohol that may be inappropriate for younger readers.

Sexual Content

  • Hayley is at work and wonders about her friends who attended prom. She was, “checking Facebook every ten minutes to see which of my friends were making out, breaking up, or getting hammered.”
  • When talking about a Herpetofaunal research project, Hayley thinks, “It sounded like a sexually transmitted disease.”
  • Hayley tells a boy she isn’t into the dating scene because, “You go to a club, or a party, and you’re out there dancing, and suddenly a guy you don’t even know comes up behind you and starts groping you. When did that become socially acceptable?” Later in the same scene, she says, “The point is, that’s what guys always say: ‘What’s the problem, baby? Why are you so uptight? It doesn’t mean anything.’ And then they expect you to have sex with them because, if it doesn’t mean anything, why should you say no. . . . And maybe it does mean something. The point is, why do guys think that they get to decide if it’s meaningful or not? When they’re not even the ones who are going to get pregnant if something goes wrong.”
  • When talking about when a girl really likes a guy, Hayley says, “Because then you sleep with him, and you put your heart into it, and half the time he doesn’t really care, he’s just using you.”
  • Hayley thinks about her father not being at home when she was little. “Dad was out chasing stories and whatever else grown men chase when they don’t have a wife at home . . . he never brought a girlfriend home. But he was late often enough. Let’s just say, it wouldn’t have surprised me.”
  • While Hayley is drinking at a bar, one of the men she is with leans toward her. “His hand, warm and heavy, landed on my thigh. I felt a throb go through my body—a throb I didn’t want to feel, not for Trevor. A burning sensation flushed from my legs through my pelvis, my breast, my neck, my lips…My body wanted to throw itself at Trevor-Forever.” Trevor kisses Hayley’s earlobe and then her lips. Drunk and upset, Hayley runs, grabs a cab, and goes home.
  • Ernest’s mother left him when he was eight. When Hayley sees Ernest’s father’s green lawn Hayley thinks, “Given the way his wife had left him for a life of probiotic lesbian farming, he probably felt sweet revenge every time he blasted a dandelion.”
  • When Alex’s thigh touches Hayley’s thigh, “a warmth spread through my leg that was more than just body heat.”
  • When Alex touches Hayley’s hand she thinks, “Every part of him I saw, I wanted to touch: the short, soft hairs at the nape of his neck, the stubble on the line of his jaw, the hair that fell in a fringe over his left eyebrow, the muscles that rippled in two long, smooth ridges down his back, on either side of his spine. I wanted to trace those ridges from the curve of his shoulders down to his hips…”
  • Alex kisses Hayley. “He cupped my cheek with his hand. His lips touched mine with a warmth that made my heart roll over and surrender.”

Violence

  • Hayley goes to the scene of a crime where “some cops had found a blood-splattered shack.” The story revolves around Haley trying solve the crime.
  • At one point Hayley thinks that the crime could have happened when a fight broke out because “someone was drunk or high or something.”
  • Hayley and Ernest get into a fight over a drill. They, “went tussling over the sand like a deranged parody of a teenage beach movie…I twisted my body to keep his pelvis away; the last thing I wanted was to feel Ernest’s groin pressed against mine.” Hayley then bites Ernest, who lets go of her.
  • Ernest and Hayley are scuba diving when they see a fishing boat trying to illegally catch a turtle. While Ernest is trying to cut the net to free the turtle, someone shoots at him. “Fragments of shot pelted through the froth. A red cloud tinted the water . . .His other arm dangled limp at his side, a ribbon of red streaming out from a spot a few inches below his shoulder.”
  • Hayley talks about covering stories about “near-fatal bar stabbings” and “drunk-driving accidents.” She said her father’s philosophy was that “if I saw the stupid tragedies that people got into with drugs and alcohol abuse, I’d be smart enough to avoid them.”
  • A woman describes how Tyler was killed. “I can hear Snake telling Gill how he just killed some kid down at the cabin…he just wanted to beat him up, teach him a lesson, and now the kid’s dead, and he needs to get rid of the body before the cops find out.”
  • An illegal exchange was taking place when two people accidently walk in. Snake is shot before he can kill anyone. “There on the flagstones beside the pickup truck, lay the drug dealer Snake. He was face-up on the ground and a dark stain spread over his chest. A handgun lay on the ground beside his outstretched arm as though it had been flung from his grasp as he fell.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Part of the story revolves around Hayley’s emotional issues because her mother was a drunken party girl and she, “couldn’t wait to get back to the party scene once I was born.”
  • When Hayley talks to two boys who saw the scene of the crime, the boys tell her, “we were kinda drinking.”
  • Tyler Dervish wanted to be part of the popular crowd, so he decided to sell drugs. One of the cops asks if Tyler sold, “E? Oxy? Coke? Weed?”
  • Hayley talks about being in a band with a couple of friends. The band fell apart when her friends, “discovered the joys of getting trashed after our gigs on vodka and party drugs.”
  • A fisherman said his grandfather, “made more money running rum. Prohibition times, it was.” He then goes on to explain how his grandfather got away with selling liquor during that time period.
  • While on a boat, Hayley thinks, “the wrong wave and it would throw us at the rockface, like a drunk smashing a beer bottle against the wall in a bar fight.”
  • Hayley goes to a bar to meet a young cop and his friend. The guys have a pitcher of beer and Hayley has a mixed drink. When one of the guys starts flirting with her, she flirts back. “The alcohol had apparently cut off my rational mind from the instinctual part of my brain.”
  • Hayley’s friend says, “I need a joint.” Hayley replies, “You need to get off that shit.” Hayley notices this friend has a mark on her arm that could be from a drug needle.
  • When going to the bad side of town, Hayley sees, “used condoms lay in the dirt beneath them. There were probably needles in there, too, but I didn’t stop to check.”

Language

  • As Hayley is trying to get information from a young cop she gives him a smile like, “Hey, I get it, my editor’s just as hard-ass as your partner.”
  • An angry fisherman tells Hayley, “You write this in your goddamn newspaper.” Later on in the story, the same fisherman uses the word “goddamn” again.
  • After getting drunk and flirting with Trevor, Hayley thinks, “Why did I have to go and make an ass of myself last night?”
  • When two boys found the crime scene they were scared “shitless.”
  • A woman calls her boyfriend a “bastard.”
  • When a fisherman tells someone that a turtle shouldn’t be taken out of the ocean, the man replies, “God, another fucking tree-hugger.”
  • Snake tells someone, “You heard him lady. Get the fuck inside!”
  • Profanity is used throughout the book, occasionally in Hayley’s thoughts, but mostly when the characters are in a stressful situation. The profanity includes holy shit, hell, shit, bullshit, goddamn, and bastard.

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

No True Echo

In a strange twist of events that he doesn’t understand, Eddie relives the same day over and over. The first time Eddie lived through the day, his mother died when he was an infant and his only plan was to spend his school break climbing trees with his best friend and trying to find a way to talk to the new girl. As Eddie continues to relive the same day, he is also attempting to figure out what is causing the strange occurrence, why the new girl keeps asking about his dead mother, and if there is a way he can change the day’s events.

As Eddie navigates his unexpected time-travel, Eddie tries to figure out who he can trust. And in the end, he must decide if telling the truth is the right thing to do, even if it means losing someone he loves.

No True Echo weaves a gripping story that leaves the reader wondering what will happen next. The story revolves around Eddie (and others) being shot which adds suspense and intrigue. The shooting scenes are described with little detail which allows the reader to imagine as much or as little as they like.

However, what really drives the story is the characters. The story is told from Eddie’s point of view as well as a police officer’s point of view which adds depth to the storyline. The adults are not portrayed as perfect, but with problems of their own. Eddie’s best friend Angus adds humor. The new girl Scarlett adds suspense and a bit of romance. The interactions between the characters are realistic and emotional. In the end, the story shows that the connections people make are what really matter in life.

Sexual Content

  • None

Violence

  • Eddie is shot several times, but it is not described in detail. The first time Eddie is shot, he jumps in front of a girl to protect her. “All I knew was the agony of the bullet ripping into my chest. And the shock. And the fear.”
  • Another time Eddie is shot, he “shut my eyes in agony as the bullet tore through my body, but the pain vanished as though it had never been there.” Later when discussing the shooting, he is told that “he (the shooter) knew that the timeline would be destroyed anyways, so I’m not sure that counts (as murder). He also knew I would save you.”

 Drugs and Alcohol

  • Eddie’s mom has a “large glass of wine” with dinner.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • In this time period, people can time travel by going back into their younger bodies. At one point in the story, Eddie travels into his infant body so he can watch his mother’s death in order to determine if her car accident was an accident or a murder.

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

Hider, Seeker, Secret Keeper

Lana has never been able to tame her rebellious streak, so she’s not surprised when she is not chosen to go on tour with the Bolshoi ballet company. Then her friend is in an accident and Lana believes her luck has changed. But when she gets to New York, Lana’s life takes an unexpected turn.

Georgi, an old friend of Lana’s mother, requests to see her. Although Lana does not trust him, Georgi is her only chance to discover why her mother refuses to talk about her past. Lana is tired of feeling as if she’s been living in the dark. And when Georgi and his young bodyguard, Roma, tell Lana that they know who her father is, Lana can’t resist being drawn into Georgi’s web. Despite assurances that Georgi can be trusted, when another dancer ends up hospitalized, Lana isn’t sure if she can trust Georgi or anyone else.

 Hider Seeker, Secret Keeper is a fast-paced story that leaves the reader guessing. However, the book revolves more around Lana’s life and the mystery behind her mother’s past than around ballet. For those who pick up the book in the hopes of learning about the life of a ballerina, they will be disappointed.

Sexual Content

  • When Lana is retelling the history of Russian ballet, she describes the tabloids’ stories.  “Sure, a lot of it is sensational nonsense—like the story about Pavel Vartukh’s secret gay lover who came back from a sex-change operation in Belgrade ready to become a prima ballerina.”
  • A man approaches Lana on the street corner and tells her that his boss would like to take her to dinner, she tells the man, “I don’t know how long it takes for a Russian boy to grow American balls, but I really don’t want to see yours.”
  • Lana goes into a saloon and sees her artistic director tipsy. She explains, “It’s usually an occasion for hands a bit too low on the back, a nuzzle behind the ear. A suggestive joke. Dancers my age are expected to respond with a blush and light push. More senior dancers know to expect a straightforward proposition.”
  • Lana meets a boy. After they get to know each other better, “he takes my face again, this time in both his hands. It’s not even my face he wants now, though. He wants my lips. They’re his.”  Then later in the scene, he kisses her, “long enough to bring back the heat wave.”

Violence

  • At the beginning of the story, two characters are run over by a motorcycle. Although the accident is not described, the wounds are described.
  • Lana’s friend is hospitalized after she is given an old prescription drug in order to kill her. Her “recovery is uncertain.”
  • Lana gets into a confrontation with a man. She begins hitting him. In order to get Lana to stop, the man grabs her. “He has me by both arms. My head is on his chest. There is a deep scratch down his neck. His helmet and his gloves are in the gutter ten feet away.”
  • Georgi hired a man to scare a ballerina, but the man ended up hitting her with a motorcycle.  In a conversation afterward, Georgi said, “You get some money to that girl’s family or you can expect some new friends in prison who will teach you a thing or two about making mistakes in the dark.” The man replies, “—Da, Georgi Ivan-oh-bitch.”
  • Georgi tries to explain why someone was trying to frame Lana. “Anna figured a dead girl in New York would be more convincing than a roughed-up one in Moscow. She could pin one on you and one on your mother.”
  • Lana finds out that her grandfather shot Georgi, then held a gun to a girl’s head. Lana’s father killed her grandfather in order to save the girl.
  • Anna grabs Lana and drags her outside. Then Anna tries to push Lana’s mother into the path of an oncoming motorcycle.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Lana goes to a party that has “booze.” She tells her friend that she will go to the party and, “will drink two glasses of wine.”
  • Lana finds an article that suggests that her grandmother was an alcoholic and mentally disturbed.
  • A ballerina is given Dinitrophenol, a supplement that, “burns fat by turning your body into a furnace.”
  • In several scenes, the artistic director is drunk.
  • Georgi recounts a story about seeing someone in the airport. The guard was drinking, so he was able to talk to the man. “He tells me that Arkhipova’s the one who ratted Marina. I was impressed, if you wanna know. I underestimated that snake with tits . . .”

Language

  • Profanity is used often throughout the character’s conversations as well as in Lana’s thoughts. The profanity used includes: hell, damn, piss, bitch, limp dicks, jackass, bullshit, shit, crap, asshole, and fucking.
  • When Lana is thinking she uses words such as, “God-damn,” and, “Oh my God.”
  • Someone tells a joke. “What jumps higher than a man in tights? A man in tights with a BMW up his ass.”
  • In one scene, Lana tells her mother. “Ma, I don’t care about whoever he [her father] was . . . So I’m a bastard.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When Lana’s friend and another man are injured, she thinks, “It seems unlikely that God had much to do with it. Daniela is maimed, and Pavel Vartukh, artistic director and serial womanizer, will wave at the paparazzi and go back to work. That doesn’t strike me as divine will.”
  • When chosen to perform a dance routine, Lana gives the background of the dance. “. . . it’s meant to be the Chosen One dancing for her elders…And we know perfectly well that in pagan rituals, the Chosen One would have been a maiden—a virgin.”
  • Lana describes the Russians as, “God-fearing, blasphemous creatures.”

Monument 14

One minute, fourteen kids were on the bus heading towards school. Then the gigantic sized hail began. The bus crashed and everything changed in an instant.

Six high school kids, two eighth-graders, and six little kids are trapped in a chain superstore, while chemicals fill the outside air. They must work together in order to survive. However, the longer they are in the store, the more difficulties they must face—they must keep others out, they must take care of the younger children, they must fight the escalating tension between each other—all the while trying to come up with a plan to survive.

Monument 14 is a suspenseful survival story written from the point of view of one of the teenagers. Although the premise behind the book is interesting, some of the events in the story are farfetched. The narrator describes some graphic fights, including one in which an adult is shot and killed. One of the pre-teen girls is sexually assaulted. Another character raids the pharmacy and is high for most of the story.

Sexual Content

  • When exposed to the chemicals in the air, Brayden thinks, “But I still had some weird stuff happening in my body. What I wanted was Astrid. She looked so good to me that I wanted to take her, in a dark and terrible way.”
  • When one of the children is playing with Barbie toys, the narrator describes it as a “Barbie orgy.”
  • When some of the characters fight, a boy says, “I see. I get it . . . You and your brother want in on Niko’s little gay Scout thing. You guys wish you could be up in the woods, huffing on each other’s campfires . . .”
  • Some of the boys were talking about Astrid. Brayden says, “You don’t even love her. You just want her so you can get your rocks off.”
  • Sahalia helps people wash their hair. The narrator and two other boys watch her. “We can see skin under the leg of her shorts. The creamy skin of her inner, inner thigh . . . Now we see her breast outright, through the material of her shirt. We could see the nipples. Everything about them, we could see . . . But it seemed to me she wanted us to see her body. She wanted to be wanted.”
  • Sahalia is wearing a revealing outfit. When the boys look at Sahalia’s body, another character yells at her, “We get it, okay? You’re sexy and you want to have sex with these guys. We get it. But, honey, it’s not going to happen because you are thirteen.” As the two fight, Sahalia yells, “I know more about sex than you do, you stuck-up bitch!”
  • Astrid finds Sahalia “basically naked” and crying. “She sat on the floor, clutching her nightgown to her chest.” Later Sahalia says, “He (an adult, school employee) said that I should be, like his girlfriend. And I guess I thought I could, you know, do what all he wanted me to do. But then I didn’t want to and . . .”
  • Two of the characters kiss. “Nicko held her to him, encircling her dark shoulders and pulling her into his body . . . She looked up at him and he looked at her and they were kissing.”

Violence

  • When the school bus crashes, the driver is killed. “He was pinned behind the wheel and blood was spilling out of his head like milk out of a carton.”
  • When exposed to the air, the narrator begins attacking Niko. “I started beating him with the mask I was still holding. He wouldn’t let go of my leg and was dragging me down the stairs. I swung at him, wanting him to lose his balance . . . I couldn’t think. Just pummel. Pound. tear. Destroy.”
  • One of the characters talks about how his mother’s boyfriend hits her. In a later scene, he talks about how his aunt’s husband would beat her aunt, but the aunt would always lie about how she got hurt.
  • When Chloe was exposed to the chemicals, she attacks the others. “She had Batiste by the throat, up against the wall . . . He was getting strangled to death . . . His face was blue and his eyes were big and his legs were limp.”
  • When Robbie (an adult, school employee) is found sexually abusing Sahalia, Astrid holds a gun to him. Later, Jake is given the gun and Robbie attacks him. Robbie says, “I told you it wasn’t me. She wanted to be my girlfriend.” Then Robbie, “lashed out and struck Niko across the face with the barrel of the pistol.” Another character shoots Robbie dead.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • One of the kids says that he went to a strip club with his uncle. He said that they serve liquor. “They have these little glasses in all kind of flavors like watermelon and peach passion and hot apple. They taste horrible.”
  • Some of the older kids drink rum. The narrator describes the experience. “I was loose. I felt big, like I could say what I really felt. I was drunk.” In another scene, three of the older kids put alcohol into their slushies and get drunk.
  • After getting in a fight, the narrator takes some pain pills and some steroids. “I was already starting to feel better. More warm and relaxed.”
  • Jake offers the narrator a pill and says, “Let’s get high.” The narrator takes, “one of the EZ-melt pain pills from the day before and one triangular orange mystery pill later, I was flying. I felt relaxed but energized. Loose and happy.”
  • Jake said, “I keep taking these pills. But every time, they’re working less. It’s like I squeezed all the good feelings out of my brain and now I’m out. I drained it all out and I’m done.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often. The profanity includes: holy Christ, hell, son of a bitch, a-hole, crap, and ass.
  • When the group of kids make lunch in the store, one of the kids asks, “What do we do if the people from the store come? They’re going to be pissed?”
  • When watching the news, the narrator notices the anchors messed up make up. “I wondered why no one fixed her makeup. It was CNN, for God’s sake.”
  • When Brayden tells Astrid what to do, she yells, “Screw you, Brayden! You’re the last person I want to be stuck here with!”
  • When Chloe sees Brayden’s beat up face she asks, “Oh my God, what happened to you?”
  • Someone tries to get into the store. The man shouted, “BY THE HAIR OF MY F—CHIN, LET ME IN OR I’LL HUFF AND I’LL BLOW YOUR EFFIN’ GREENWAY DOWN.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • When disaster strikes, Batiste keeps saying it is “the end of days” and that “judgement day was upon us.”
  • When talking about the strip club, Batiste says, “Our church is always trying to get those sinners to repent. But I don’t even know what kind of sinning they’re doing.”
  • A character says, “I thank God he brought us to this place.”

We Were Liars

Cadence is a Sinclair. A member of the beautiful, blonde American dynasty. No one is depressed, addicted, or a criminal. No one is greedy or drunk. They are the perfect family that spends every summer on their private island, Beechwood. The oldest of the Sinclair grandchildren and their best friend call themselves the liars. The four of them—Cadence, Mirren, Johnny, and Gat—are inseparable every summer. They share secrets, go on forbidden adventures, and uncover mysteries of their family as they grow up together in a world of money and privilege.

But the Sinclairs aren’t perfect. The aunts always fight over their inheritance and drink away their sorrows. Grandad is beginning to lose his mind and can’t cope with the loss of his beloved wife. Cadence herself can’t remember summer fifteen after she wakes up in a hospital with traumatic brain injuries and burns.

Cadence struggles to retain her memories as she returns to the island after two years of absence. Everything seems the same as it always was, but the closer she looks, the more she realizes how much the world she once knew has changed. As Cadence tries to put together the pieces of memories that led to her accident, she discovers that the secrets of summer fifteen might have been better left as they were.

We Were Liars is a gripping novel that will leave readers restless to uncover the truth. Suspenseful and surprising, this book is well worth the read as it is fast-paced and entertaining. The characters are realistic and ask questions that teen readers may also be pondering such as the existence of trust between family members and the necessity of faith. However, the intertwining timelines may be difficult to grasp for some readers, and the story contains some mature content that is not appropriate for younger audiences.

Lockhart’s writing style is also unique and takes some getting used to. The story is told from Cadence’s point of view, and the descriptions make it sometimes difficult to differentiate between imagination and reality.  Careful reading is necessary to determine if the event actually happened to Cadence or if it is a figurative description of her inner emotions.

 Sexual Content

  • Cadence’s parents get divorced because “my father ran off with some woman he loved more than us.”
  • Aunt Carrie’s husband left her with four children to care for, including a baby.
  • When the liars are having a conversation, Johnny asks, “Can’t we talk about sex or murder?”
  • Gat and Cadence fall in love. There are several kissing scenes throughout the novel, but they are never long and their relationship never goes beyond making out. “He touched my face. Ran his hands down my neck and along my collarbone. . . Our kiss was electric and soft, and tentative, and certain, terrifying and exactly right.”
  • Cadence and Gat are anxious to be near one another and often make physical contact. “He touched me whenever he could . . . As long as no one was looking, I ran my finger along Gat’s cheekbones, down his back.”
  • Mirren mentions her boyfriend during a conversation with Cadence. “I have a boyfriend named Drake Loggerhead. . . We have had sexual intercourse quite a number of times, but always with protection.” Their relationship is never described again and later in the story, it is revealed that Mirren made him up.
  • When Cadence and Gat are mad at each other, she longs to be with him. “I reach out and touch him. Just the feel of his forearm beneath the thin cotton of his shirt makes me ache to kiss him again.”

Violence

  • Cadence often describes events in her life figuratively and descriptively. When her father leaves, she says, “Then he pulled out a handgun and shot me in the chest. I was standing on the lawn and I fell. The bullet hole opened wide and my heart rolled out of my rib cage and down into a flower bed.”
  • When Cadence discovers that Gat has a girlfriend, she punches the shower wall in anger.
  • Cadence often describes her emotional pain as blood dripping from her body. Although she is not actually bleeding, this description conveys the pain she feels inside. No one notices except her beloved Gat. “When blood dripped on my bare feet and poured over the book I was reading, he was kind. He wrapped my wrists in soft white gauze.” Her pain is described in this manner multiple times.
  • As a result of her brain injuries, Cadence feels immense pain that is sometimes depicted in disturbing detail. Her pain is often compared to violent situations in an attempt to help the reader understand what she is going She describes her pain as “a truck is rolling over the bones of my neck and head. The vertebrae break, the brains pop and ooze.” In another instance, a witch, “swings the statue again and hits above my right ear, smashing my skull. Blow after blow she lands, until tiny flakes of bone litter the bed and mingle with chipped bits of her once-beautiful goose.”
  • Aunt Carrie smacks Aunt Bess across the mouth as they are arguing over their inheritance.
  • The liars steal some of Grandma Tipper’s favorite expensive collectibles and smash them to pieces on a dock. They then wipe them away into the sea.
  • Near the conclusion of the novel, the liars decide to burn the Clairmont house (the largest house on the island) down to the ground as they are angry with all that it represents. The burning does not go as planned and several characters die in the fire. Their deaths are not described.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Cadence is anxious, she “drank wine I snuck from the Clairmont pantry. I spun violently into the sky, raging and banging stars from their moorings, swirling and vomiting.” She and the other liars sneak wine from pantries and other places several times throughout the novel.
  • Cadence takes medication to help her deal with pain. If she does not take the prescription medication, she suffers pain so unbearable that it makes her question her will to live. Although the drugs are habit-forming, she claims that she does not have an addiction.
  • The aunts often discuss wine and have chats during cocktail hour. They are also frequently drunk.
  • Cadence’s younger cousins often ask if she is a drug addict. One of them adapts the motto, “Drugs are not your friend.”
  • When making a joke to her aunts, Cadence says, “Nothing wrong with me that a Percocet and a couple slugs of vodka doesn’t cure.”
  • Cadence says that she is “high on Percocet half the time.”

Language

  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel. Profanity includes: damn, God, fucking, good lord, ass, hell, stupid-ass, asshole, assface, bullshit, fuck, shitty, fuckload, and fucked up. The cursing intensifies when the liars get older.
  • Shut up is used several times in a conversation.
  • When attempting to recall her incident, Cadence says, “I suppose that I was raped or attacked or some godforsaken something.”
  • Gat discusses some of Grandad’s negative tendencies and behaviors with the liars. “The point is, Harris doesn’t like Ed’s color. He’s a racist bastard, and so was Tipper.”

Supernatural

  • When thinking about her feelings towards Gat, Cadence says, “I am not talking about fate. I don’t believe in destiny or soul mates or the supernatural.”
  • Cuddletown, one of the cottages on the island, is haunted, as the ghosts of the deceased liars remain there to help Cadence remember the events of summer fifteen.
  • Bonnie has an obsession with vampires and insists that they are real.

Spiritual

  • Cadence and Gat have a conversation on whether or not God exists. When Gat asks, “Do you believe in God?” Cadence responds, “Halfway . . . When things are bad, I’ll pray or imagine someone watching over me, listening . . . But the rest of the time, I’m trudging along in my everyday life.” After listening, Gat asserts that he no longer believes in God after witnessing the horrors of poverty in India.
  • One of Cadence’s aunts says, “Thank God you’re here.”
  • The liars think setting the fire on Clairmont is a semi-spiritual act. They see it as a form of purification as they cleanse their family of its past. Gat refers to the burning as “playing God.”

by Morgan Filgas

Backward Glass

For as long as anyone can remember, a skipping song has warned children about the dangers of Prince Harming. “Lover sweet, bloody feet, running down the silver street. Leave tomorrow if you’re called—truth and wisdom in the walls. Crack your head, knock you dead, then Prince Harming’s hungers fed.”

When Kenny moves to a new town, he is shocked when his father finds a dead baby hidden in the wall of the carriage house. But what shocks him more is the note that is found with the baby. “Help me make it not happen, Kenny. Help me stop him. Clive is dead all over again.”

Kenny embarks on a journey through different time periods with the help of his newfound friend Luka and a time travel mirror. The two teens hope to save the baby and figure out how the skipping song is related to the child’s death. They soon discover that Prince Harming is not just a fairy tale character, but a living man who is out to kill Kenny and anyone else that stands in his way.

Backward Glass is an interesting story. However, there are many different characters in different time periods, which makes keeping track of people and events a little difficult. In the end, all of the pieces of the story fall into place to give the reader a satisfying ending.

Sexual Content 

  • Kenny tells about his father’s first kiss. “Ten years old, and he chased her into a scrap yard and kissed her and she tripped him.”
  • When Kenny is saying goodbye to a girl from another time period she, “stepped forward, grabbed my shoulders, and kissed me square on the mouth. It was awkward, and it wasn’t a long kiss like you see in the movies, and maybe that’s all I’m going to tell you about it because maybe it’s none of your business. It was good, though.”

Violence 

  • Kenny and his father find a dead baby hidden in the wall, “like someone killed it and hid it there. With a note asking me for help.”
  • As Kenny and Luka step out of the time travel mirror, a man holds a gun and threatens to kill Kenny. Luka “reached for the gun, now pointed toward the ceiling, and covered both of the men’s hands in her own, but from one of them—I couldn’t tell which—came a sharp kick to her midsection that sent her flying to crack her head on the cement floor of the basement.” The two men precede to fight over the gun. Then Kenny is shot. The shooter says he had to kill Kenny because Kenny killed his wife. This fight scene continues for several pages.
  • Kenny is jumped by several teenagers. “I fought back like I had nothing to lose . . . When Boyd Fenton broke my nose, I stepped back, pulled it as straight as I could and asked if he was done yet.” In the end, another boy arrives and helps Kenny fight off his tormentors.
  • Wald carries a “wild man” who is tied up and gagged. The man breaks free and tries to hurt Kenny. “He thrashed frantically, trying to hit me in any way he could. His head slammed against mine, and some part of him dug into my stomach.”
  • When Kenny’s father was younger a man attacked him. “He twisted Brain’s arm, checking his lunge, and brought a quick fist down onto the side of his head, slamming him back against the corner of a brick. Brain slumped.”
  • Kenny pushes a woman into the mirror. However, he knows that this means she will die because the mirror in the other time period is under water. “I reached for her, but all I could feel was water and pain.”
  • A man goes back in time with the intent to kill his infant self. “All I need to do is never live. I kill the baby and its’ no crime. It’s suicide.” Later in the story, the man is holding his baby self when someone tries to grab the baby from him. The man, “gave her a push with his foot, sending her flying into a large chest.” Later the man, “began to topple back . . . cradling the baby, instinctively bringing it close as he fell . . . Little Curtis and his older self lay spread out on the floor, their hands close enough to exchange bright flashes. Both were convulsing slightly.”
  • A young boy tries to take a girl into the time travel mirror. “When she couldn’t pass in, he grew angry and smashed her head repeatedly into its unbreakable surface. She never recovered completely.”

Drugs and Alcohol 

  • One of the characters smokes a cigarette.
  • One of the characters gets stuck in a time period that is not his own when, “fed too much beer at a year-end celebration by a stranger . . . he came back to the mirror too late and found himself trapped ten years in his own past.”
  • Kenny talks about a vacant house that kids, “had been going there to drink or make out for a couple of years.”

Language 

  • When Kenny’s father finds a dead baby hide behind a wall he says, “Oh Christ, Oh Christ. Oh, Jesus, Kenny, look at the little thing.”
  • When Luka’s mother thinks she is on the phone, her mother yells, “Hell’s the matter with you?”
  • A character talks about how he found, “that goddamn diary when I was nine years old.”
  • When discussing time travel, a character says, “Christ. Time travel—and I wanted to sell comic books. Go on H.G. Wells. Take it. Save the baby. Maybe there’s a reason the damn mirror didn’t open up for me.”
  • Kenny tells a teen named Chuck that his sister will marry a Goldstein. Chuck replies, “You saying my sister’s going to marry a Jew?” When Kenny asks if he cares, Chuck replies, “Nah, but it don’t matter how welcome I am in the family, none of them better try cutting part of my pee-pee off.”
  • Holy crap and hell are occasionally.

Supernatural 

  • • None

Spiritual Content 

  • • Two characters discuss the rules of time travel and how people cannot get in contact with their other self. “It’s like you can’t mess up time,” Luka said. “Keisha says it’s God, but I asked her where exactly the time-travel mirrors come into the Bible. Melissa says it’s fate, but I don’t even think it’s’ that.”
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