Topic: Love

Since You’ve Been Gone

Emily was ready for summer. She had it all planned out: she and her best friend Sloane would find fun part-time jobs, go on weekend trips, and take everyday adventures together. However, everything changes when Sloane mysteriously disappears, leaving behind a list for Emily to accomplish. Seeing this as the only way to get her best friend back, Emily is determined to finish the list. The list contains thirteen tasks designed to push Emily’s comfort zone like “riding a horse” or, even scarier, “kissing a stranger.”

Emily embarks on a completely unexpected summer filled with risky exploits, play-writing parents, and new friends that allow her to discover who she is as an individual, not just half of a whole.  Since You’ve Been Gone is a delightful novel that makes the reader long for those days of summer that seemed endlessly filled with possibilities. Fans of Morgan Matson’s other books will be thrilled by this adorable adventure that is in her same spellbinding style.

This book is perfectly appropriate for teen readers and is relatable in many aspects through the struggles Emily faces to discover her individual identity. Nonetheless, there is a great deal of romance throughout the book and sexual content is found on several occasions, so parents of younger readers may heed caution. Despite this, Since You’ve Been Gone is a delightful book full of hilarious scenes in which the readers feel as though they are part of a group of friends. The characters and plot make Since You’ve Been Gone well worth reading.

Sexual Content

  • Sloane and Emily make a plan to find “summer boys.”
  • A boy absentmindedly stares at Sloane when she is at a craft fair, and he unknowingly picks up a macaroni necklace during his entrance of her beauty.
  • Items on Sloane’s list include skinny dipping and kissing a stranger.
  • When Emily goes to The Orchard, a popular hangout place, a couple of parks next to her car and “started furiously making out in the front seat.”
  • When Emily sees Frank lift up his shirt to reveal his surprisingly ripped abs, she “felt my feet tingle.”
  • When Emily meets Dawn for the first time, Dawn is crying about the fact that her boyfriend is cheating on her with her best friend.
  • Sloane’s boyfriend, Sam, was “sliding his arms around Sloane’s waist and kissing her cheek.”
  • Emily’s parents’ play has a kissing scene that Emily and Frank almost have to perform.
  • Emily makes out with a stranger in the small pantry of Frank’s house. “His lips were on mine . . . he wrapped his arms around my waist, and started kissing me for real . . . And soon I was kissing him back, my pulse racing and my breath catching in my throat, his hands twined in my hair. It was only when his hands slipped under the hem of my shirt . . . that I came out of the make-out trance.”
  • Emily’s former boyfriend Gideon is a “good kisser.” They kiss a few times in the book.
  • Sam kisses Emily, making Sloane break up with him.
  • Emily and Frank kiss in her car as the rain is pouring down on them through the sunroof. “And it was a kiss that felt like it could stop time . . . We were kissing like it was a long-forgotten language that we’d once been fluent in and we were finding again, kissing like it was the only thing either of us had wanted to do for a long, long time, kissing with the urgency of the rain that was pounding down all around us . . . His hands were tangled in my hair, then touching my bare back, and I was shivering in a way that didn’t have anything to do with the cold.”
  • At the conclusion of the novel, Frank and Emily engage in a passionate kiss that is not described in detail.

Violence

  • When attempting to break into her own house, Sloane falls over the windowsill and lands “with a thump that I could hear even from the ground.”
  • A character commits arson in the play Bug Juice that Emily’s parents wrote.
  • Frank hits Collins on the back affectionately and Emily remarks, “I had no idea why boys, when they become affectionate, got violent.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At the apple orchard where many parties are held, there are ladders, and “only the bravest‒or drunkest‒people ventured up them.”
  • The Orchard is described as having, “a small group smoking. There was a keg and a stack of red Solo cups, an open cooler at his feet.”
  • Emily gets a cup of beer that was “mostly. . . a cup of foam.” She “took a tiny sip, wincing at the warm, metallic taste, wondering how much longer I had to stay.”
  • Collins hits on a girl who is, “smoking a cigarette and talking on her phone.”
  • Sloane acquires fake IDs for herself and Emily to go into a bar and hear one of their favorite bands perform. Emily does not go in the first time, but returns after Sloane has gone missing. Within the bar, she sees “the shelves of liquor stretched up almost to the ceiling.” When she orders a diet coke, the bartender asks her if she wants it “with rum,” to which she refuses.
  • At Frank’s birthday party, Emily gets tipsy.
  • When Emily sleeps over at Sloane’s house, she is sent to get a bottle of wine from the fridge for them to drink while they binge watch Psychic Vet Tech.

Language

  • Phrases using the word “god” as an exclamation are used frequently.
  • Profanity is used frequently throughout the novel. Profanity includes holy crap, hell, and damn.
  • Collins jokingly insults Frank and says, “You complete moron. I thought I was going to have to get the ladder and pull you out like a damn cat!”
  • Emily thinks that some people at a party think that she is a “narc.”
  • A girl in a bar says, “Jared has been cheating on me with some skank named Penelope.”
  • Frank says to Emily, “Don’t be stupid.”

Supernatural

  • When thinking of Sloane’s mysterious disappearance, Emily says, “I was negotiating with some cosmic dealer who could guarantee this for me.”
  • An example of the trivial text exchanges between Sloane and Emily is, “Have you noticed it’s been a while since anyone’s seen the Loch Ness monster?”

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Filgas

Crossing the Line

Dalila Sandoval, the daughter of one of the wealthiest lawyers in Mexico, is focused on her future. She is turning 18, but she already knows exactly what she wants from life—until she meets Ryan Hess. He is a “bad boy” who doesn’t fit into her life, but when she looks into his blue eyes, a flame of desire comes alive.

Ryan Hess has one goal—to prove he can become a great boxer. He flees an unhappy family life and travels to Mexico in the hope of convincing a famous retired boxer to train him. He does not want to be pulled into Dalila’s life or her problems, but he can’t stop himself from falling for her. Despite their immediate attraction, forces outside of their control quickly rise to conspire against them. Is there any way their love can survive?

Dalila and Ryan are two star-crossed lovers who, like Romeo and Juliet, fall in love quickly. Each chapter flip-flops between Ryan and Dalila’s point of view, allowing readers to understand both character’s thoughts and feelings. The beginning of the story is predictable, and the supporting characters are underdeveloped. Despite these drawbacks, readers who enjoy a good love story will be drawn into the couple’s drama and enjoy the unique angle of a rich girl from Mexico falling for a poor American.

Crossing the Line is not a book for those wanting a plausible story based in reality. Ryan spends all his time thinking about proving himself in the boxing ring, but once Dalila steals his heart, he quickly forgets about his dream. Dalila has no qualms about lying or using her body to beguile Ryan. Even though Ryan knows that Dalila is manipulating him, he overlooks her flaws and vows to stay by her side as she tries to figure out if her father is involved in the Mexican Mafia.

Crossing the Line is full of mystery and has a whirlwind ending full of surprises. The story follows the typical story line—boy and girl don’t want to fall in love, but are forced together by outside forces. For older readers who want a steamy, action packed romance, Crossing the Line will keep you entertained.

Sexual Content

  • When Ryan was new to town, a girl and he “hooked up at a party.”
  • After Ryan’s mom found out she was pregnant, her boyfriend, “ran off with some bimbo stripper he’d met at a dive bar.”
  • When Ryan was younger, his mom “had a history of bringing random guys to the trailer, but she wasn’t a whore. She was hoping one of them would stick around enough to take care of her.”
  • While at a concert, Ryan’s friend said, “I think that girl over there with the spider tattoo on her face just grabbed my ass. I feel violated.”
  • Dalila’s friend “might be a flirt, but she’s not into one-night stands or hookups.”
  • Dalila tries to convince a police officer that she is Ryan’s girlfriend. “I bury my hands in his thick hair and touch my lips to his. I’m determined to make this make-out session look convincing. . . the touch of his soft but firm lips against mine sends delicious sensations zinging up my spine. I’ve kissed boys before, but I’ve never felt goose bumps all over like this.”
  • The day after Ryan’s fight, Dalila tends to Ryan’s wounds. “And when she bends over to tend to the cut on my cheek, her cleavage makes my groin twitch.”
  • At Dalila’s birthday party, she and a friend take a walk in the gardens. “Before I can pull back, he presses his lips to mine and wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me close. I’m not ready for this. . . I push him away, glad when our lips separate.” The boy thinks she is playing games and “presses his body to mine again, so close that I can feel how much of a distraction he wants to be.” Ryan sees the two and the boy leaves.
  • Ryan and Dalila kiss several times. Once when they kiss, Ryan’s “breath hitches as she steps so close, I can feel the heat of her skin against mine. Without hesitation, she reaches up on her toes and her sexy, full lips meet mine. They’re soft and wet and full of passion. I hate myself as I take hungry possession of her mouth . . . My lips are still on hers as my tongue instinctively darts out, taking this kiss to the next level. . . her tongue darts out and meets mine.”
  • Ryan tells a story about when he, “got an erection during the swim unit freshman year. One of the girls noticed and screamed it out to the entire class.” He tells another story about his mom’s boyfriend. Ryan did not like him so he took a girl’s phone and “text[ed] the guy all this sexual stuff hoping my mom would see it.” Ryan’s mom broke up with the man.
  • Dalila goes to where Ryan is staying and takes a shower. Thinking about her in the shower, Ryan’s “body is reacting, willing and ready to be called into action.” The shower scene takes place over four pages and the two end up in the shower together. Dalila’s “breath hitches as he leans down and gently licks my wet skin, the sensation sending shock waves through my veins. . . His hot, wet tongue graces my earlobe and then his lips place tiny, light kisses on my mouth. A fire burns within me that I’ve never experienced before. . . This feeling is like a drug and I want more.” They do not have sex, but “we both explored and experimented and drove each other insane. . .”
  • Ryan and Dalila’s truck breaks down in the middle of the desert. Alone at night, they kiss and Dalila, “still straddling me, lifts my T-shirt that she’s been wearing all day over her head. Her fingers go to the front hook of her sexy lace bra and she releases the material, making me feel like the luckiest guy on the planet. It falls down her shoulders revealing her full, perfect breasts. I swallow and my breathing gets ragged as her hands reach for my zipper.” They then have sex, but it is not described in this scene.
  • Later, Ryan and Dalila have sex again, and it is described over two and a half pages. “She steps closer and reaches out, touching my chest with her soft, delicate fingers. . . I close my eyes and feel the brush of her gentle kisses on each bruise, starting with my shoulders and moving down to my chest and lower. . .When her panties and shorts fall to the floor, she focuses her gaze on the ground. . . My fingers trace a path from her taunt stomach to those perfectly shaped hips and I settle my palms on her amazing backside. I pick her up by her bottom.”

Violence

  • Ryan thought about committing suicide, but someone saw him, “sitting on a park bench with a pocketknife it my hand,” and talked him out of it.
  • Ryan thinks back to a time when he got in a fight at school. When the boy talked badly about him, he “whacked willie with a solid left hook. Willie fell and I was immediately on top of him, punching him repeatedly as frustrated tears streamed down my face. My fist kept flying until three lunch supervisors hauled me away.”
  • Ryan sees a boy slip something into a girl’s drink and he confronts the boy. When the boy goes to give the girl a drink, Ryan’s “fist connects with Skyler’s jaw. The guy stumbles backward and falls to the floor.”
  • Ryan’s stepfather tells Ryan that his father “killed someone, shot him in a bar fight.”
  • Ryan goes to an underground bar and fights other men, but the fighting is not described.
  • At Dalila’s birthday party, someone shoots at her family’s compound. Ryan shields Dalila. “Another pop pop pop fills the air and I suck in a horrified breath. . . Fresh blood drops from Ryan’s side onto the floor.” Ryan only has a flesh wound.
  • After spending the night together, Ryan takes Dalila home. Her father’s bodyguards beat up Ryan. “Without a word or grunt, he punches me in the gut. His fist feels like a steel mallet. Fuck, that hurt. . . Gerardo punches me in the gut with that mallet fist of his two more times. I don’t want to crumple to the ground when the clowns release me, but the pain takes over my resolve and all of a sudden I’m eating dirt.”
  • A man and his gang attack Ryan. “I take a few of them out before I’m surrounded. I’m not giving up, not even when someone whacks me on the back with something other than a fist. The punches and kicks don’t stop, and slowly my body gives up.” Ryan blacks out and is dumped in an alley.
  • Dalila hears a gun shot. When she runs towards the sound, “my entire body goes numb as I see Papa holding a gun. He’s standing over a body lying in a pool of blood.” Later she finds out that her father did not kill the man.
  • Someone kills Dalila’s abuela as revenge. Ryan and Dalila find “Abuela Carmela, who’s lying on the floor, soaking in her own blood. . . Dalila’s hand flies to her mouth and a helpless cry pierces the air at the sight of her grandmother riddled with stab wounds.”
  • At the end, several cartel members surround Ryan and Dalila. Ryan threatens them and “I see the fire flash out of the barrel of his gun.” Ryan is shot. “Something cold pierces my gut and my shoulder. I know I’ve been hit.” Someone grabs Dalila “and attempts to run out with her as his shield. . .” Before he can do that, “shots ring out” and the man “falls to the ground, his body riddled with bullets. He’s dead.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Ryan’s mother is an alcoholic. At a funeral Ryan wonders, “how much alcohol she downed before she showed up here.” Ryan refers to his mother’s drinking often.
  • Ryan smokes a cigarette at a funeral.
  • At a dinner party, the guests are served “some kind of amber-colored brandy.”
  • At a concert, people are able to order a drink from the bar. A boy offers to buy a girl a beer, but she just wants a soda. The boy buys the girl a soda, but slips something into it.
  • Ryan meets a man in a bar; the guy has a “half-empty bottle of beer in front of him.”
  • Ryan’s mother said she heard, “you were running drugs across the border.”
  • Dalila goes out with her friends and sees a boy she knows. The boy is with his friends. “One of them is laughing loudly and the other has bloodshot eyes. They’ve definitely been drinking.”
  • Ryan goes to an underground bar where “there’s a big dude at the door who looks like a poster child for the overuse of steroids. In lethal doses.” The people in the bar are also drinking.
  • Dalila’s parents throw her a birthday party and one of the boys was holding a beer.

Language

  • Profanity is used in the extreme. Profanity includes: ass, bastard, bitch, crap, dick, damn, douch-bag, fuck, hell, motherfucker, piss, pendejo, puta, and shit.
  • When Ryan sees a girl, he flips her off.
  • Ryan’s motto in life is “fuck being a hero.”
  • Ryan’s stepfather calls him a bastard several times.
  • When Ryan stops a boy from kissing someone, the boy says, “Oh, and the next time you cock-block me like that, I’m gonna make sure you never get hired in Mexico again. By anyone.”
  • After Ryan is shot, he stays the night at Dalila’s family home. His friend tells Ryan, “I’ll bet my left nut that sleepin’ on an expensive mattress will make you crave the good life, especially if the rich chick finds her way into it.”

 

Supernatural

  • None

 

Spiritual Content

  • When Ryan reminds his stepfather that they are not family, his stepfather says, “Thank the mighty Lord for that.”
  • The story talks about the Day of the Dead.

Stay Sweet

For Amelia, working at Meade Creamery means more than just having a summer job. After four years of working at the ice cream shop, Amelia has a strong bond with the all-girl staff. The older girls teach her about life: who the best teachers are, how to wear lipstick, and the perfect amount of sprinkles to put on a sundae.

When the creamery’s owner suddenly dies, the grandnephew Grady takes over the business. The nineteen-year-old hopes to prove he is capable of running a business. But Amelia and the other girls feel threatened by his presence. She doesn’t want a boy to come in between her and the perfect summer. Can Amelia show Grady the importance of the traditions behind being a Meade Creamery girl?

Stay Sweet focuses on Amelia’s desire to keep the Meade Creamery open so traditions don’t die. The story is written in the third person, however, which leaves the story feeling emotionally flat. Instead of having well-developed characters that are worthy of falling in love with, the characters’ thoughts and feelings fail to shine through.

The characters are not likely either, which makes becoming invested in this story even more of a struggle. Amelia allows herself to be taken advantage of by Grady. Amelia’s best friend, Cat, is a jealous, self-centered, awful person and a terrible friend. And Grady’s handsome looks may be the only likable part of his character. The WWII diary entries of Molly Meade bring some interest to the story, but the script font makes the entries difficult to read. In the end, Molly is the only girl who is not portrayed in a stereotypical way.

Although Stay Sweet encourages girls to live their dreams, the characters’ flaws interfere with the message and leave the reader feeling indifferent for most of the story. Stay Sweet is not a memorable summer romance.

Sexual Content

  • Amelia thinks about all she has learned while working at the creamery. The older girls taught her “the unvarnished truth of what it was like when they lost their virginity.”
  • One of the girls “donated” a box of condoms because “girls shouldn’t ever depend on a guy to bring protection.”
  • Amelia knows someone who would “stress-French after SAT prep classes.”
  • Cat predicts that Grady will “try to get with one of the girls this summer.” She makes the girls swear to stay away from him.
  • Grady and Amelia kiss. Grady “pulls her even closer to him. There is warmth in his eyes. . . They are kissing . . . what she wants to concentrate on are his lips on hers, how he can’t seem to get close enough to her, how his curls feel softer than she ever imagined.”
  • Grady and Amelia get caught in a rainstorm. When they get inside, “he pulls her close to him and kisses her. Their wet bodies stick together.” They take off each other’s shirts. Then “they are kissing and walking, heading toward the living room couch half-dressed.” Amelia’s friend walks in on them and stops them from going further.
  • In one scene where Amelia and Grady kiss, “his hands slipping up her neck and into her hair. When she tries pulling away, he leans forward, holding his lips to hers, extending the kiss for a second, two, three. Like he doesn’t want it to end.”
  • Molly’s journal talks about when her boyfriend left for the war. He took “my face in his hands, wiping away my tears with his thumbs. He kissed me on the lips, then brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it, almost on the top of the engagement ring.”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • When Grady and his father have a serious conversation, Cat says, “This is why kids at Truman are so stressed out! They’ve got these alpha parents pushing them. I’ve heard like over half of the student body is on Adderall.”
  • Grady’s parents try to FaceTime him, but he ignores it because “they got to Amsterdam today, which means they’re high.”
  • The creamery girls have a party at the ice cream stand and leave a huge mess. “Icy beer has splattered all over the drums of ice cream.”

Language

  • The teen characters often use profanity in their conversations, including: “ass,” “badass,” “crap,” “damn,” “hell,” “hella,” “pissed,” “shit,” and “son of a bitch.”
  • “Oh my god” and “Jesus” are used as exclamations several times.
  • Cat and Amelia get into an argument and Cat yells, “That’s a screw you.”
  • When Cat finds out that Grady will be the boss, she said, “I’m worried he’s going to ride our asses all summer.”
  • When Grady tastes the creamery’s ice cream, he says, “Holy shit.”
  • “Holy crap” is used several times.
  • Cat tells Amelia, “I’m pissed at you for keeping secrets, I’m pissed at you for hooking up with Grady, and I’m pissed that you fired me. . . But holy shit, Amelia, you fucking fired me.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • At Molly’s funeral, the pastor says, “Now, the good Lord sprinkled Molly and Wayne with the same stardust he must use to make movie stars.” Later in the service, he says, “Now, Wayne, as you know, never made it home from the war, may God rest his soul. But God did not forsake . . .”
  • In Molly’s journal, she prays, “Please, God, send him home to me.”
  • Molly is afraid that it is a sin to be so lucky, so on Sunday she is “going to put a little something extra in the collection plate and pray a few more rosaries than I normally do. That way God will know how very grateful I am.”

Girl at the Grave

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

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

 

The Unexpected Everything

Andie has her life carefully planned out, beginning with this summer. She is going to attend John Hopkins University’s prestigious young scholars program, giving her a one-way ticket to one of the best colleges in the country for pre-med. This all changes when a scandal rocks her world and she must deal with her father, ranking Congressman Alexander Walker, being home for the first time in five years.

Her summer plans quickly change as she finds out that her crucial benefactor removed his letter of recommendation from her young scholars application due to her father’s circumstance. Now she’s stuck walking dogs all summer, leaving a tragic gap in her transcript.

Much to her surprise, her summer takes a turn for the better and her life is irrevocably changed by the adventures that ensue. She finds herself having the best three months of her life as she spends time with her friends, grows closer to her formerly distant father, and meets Clark, a cute teenage author. Her unexpected summer leads her to discover her true self and what’s important in life.

The Unexpected Everything is a delightful read that makes audiences yearn for those warm summer days spent with friends. This book is satisfying like drinking lemonade on a porch on a hot July day. The characters are endearing and their little charms will draw readers into this cute, though slightly predictable tale. The Unexpected Everything is a romance novel in which the main characters discuss sex. The abundance of sexual content may not be appropriate for some readers. For readers ready for a steamy romance, this enjoyable book is well worth the read.

Sexual Content

  • Andie is perpetually in cycles of dating boys for three weeks. She develops a crush, dates them, and then sets them free. Her friends nickname her a “serial heartbreaker.” Her dates are “a formality before we got to the making out part at the end.”
  • Toby believes that she is cursed to never have a boyfriend and constantly begs her friends to be her “wingwomen.”
  • At a party, Andie sees two people, “standing in the shadows of the living room, talking close, only minutes away from starting to hook up.”
  • Andie makes out with the same guy, Topher, at parties when they are both available. They never go beyond making out because Andie continually says that she is not comfortable with that. “Sometimes making out with Topher was like quenching a thirst, and sometimes it made me thirstier.”
  • Andie describes the diner as a place where she’d “made out with guys in the darkness of the parking lot, guys who tasted like milkshakes and French fries. And it was where we’d all gathered the morning after Palmer slept with Tom for the first time.”
  • Palmer is upset that being a stage manager, “means watching your boyfriend macking on some random college freshman.”
  • Bri thinks Andie saying, “I’ve got dogs to walk” sounds “vaguely dirty.”
  • After getting asked out by Clark, Andie “found my eyes drifting down to his mouth. By the end of tonight, we might have kissed.”
  • When Clark and Andie hold hands for the first time, Clark’s hand, “sent a spark through me that I felt all the way in my toes.”
  • On her kissing philosophy, Andie says, “Normally, I kissed first. I liked to take matters into my own hands, squash that moment, and get right into the make-out session.”
  • Make-out scenes between Andie and Clark are described in vivid detail. “We lingered there, our lips brushing gently. And then he raised his hand and cupped it under my chin, drawing me closer toward him, and we started kissing for real.”
  • In the world of Clark’s novels, an elder says, “Believing that such a thing—just a kiss—has ever, for even a second, existed in this world.”
  • During a pool party, Palmer and Tom make out on the diving board.
  • Over the course of her relationship with Clark, Andie’s “formerly rigid boundaries—just kissing and nothing more—had gotten a little fuzzier… everything was just feeling so good and so right that I was having more and more trouble remembering why I’d decided that was all I could do… And as I started to care very little for anything that wasn’t the two of us, alone in the darkness, it fell to Clark to pick up the slack.”
  • Before a scavenger hunt, Clark, “pulled me [Andie] in close to him, dipping me into a Hollywood-style kiss.” He then takes her keys to try to have an advantage in the competition.
  • Clark and Andie’s relationship becomes very serious. When they decide to watch a movie, they wouldn’t actually watch it. “Even if there were a movie playing, it would simply be in the background, a pretense for fooling around.”
  • In one instance, Andie and Clark are passionately making out and it escalates. “He leaned down to kiss me, and I kissed him back, and then we were kiss-walking across the room, until we fell down onto the bed together, and then there was only his lips and his hands and our breath, falling into a rhythm until I couldn’t think about anything except him, and us, and now.” They don’t actually have sex in this scene or any scene in the book.
  • Clark and Andie block off a certain date on which they decide to have sex. There is much anticipation as each prepares in their own separate ways, but the night is called off when they get into a fight.
  • Andie walks in on her two friends, Wyatt and Bri, making out with each other. This was a dramatic revelation as Bri’s best friend, Toby, had a huge crush on Wyatt. This event is the stimulus for the destruction of their friend group as they know it. It is later revealed that Wyatt and Bri were “hooking up.”
  • When Andie reconnects with Topher after breaking up with Clark, she forgets her former policy and slips her hand under his shirt. Topher goes along with it, which makes her realize that she is in love with Clark.
  • In the final scene, Andie and Clark reunite in a bookshop. “Clark was picking me up, and I wrapped my legs around his waist and we kissed, and it was like I was blocking out the commotion all around us.”

Violence

  • When Wyatt greets Tom, he always hits him in the back. Tom always says that “it hurts.”
  • Andie’s parents met when her dad was a public defender and her mom was a police sketch artist. They bonded over the sketch of a murderer they nicknamed “Stabby Bob.”
  • In Clark’s books, the main character, Tamsin, dies “a terrible death in the highest tower.”
  • When on top of a roof, Bri kicks Toby’s legs in a petty argument. Palmer throws a Sprite bottle at them to stop their bickering and to keep them from falling off.
  • In a fictional story that Andie and Clark make up in a silly game, the main characters kill each other.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • At a party as a freshman, Andie was, “drinking a beer from a red Solo cup, like an idiot.”
  • Following the prom, Toby and Wyatt “tipsily made out.”
  • At parties, Andie brings a soda bottle and fills it with “anything but brandy.” “It was the only way I let myself drink at parties.”
  • At a party, “the kitchen counter was covered with bottles and mixers and a half-filled blender, and through the open doors to the patio, I could see a keg. The people who always headed to the edges of people’s yards to smoke were smoking.”
  • Palmer is described as being amazing at “manly stuff” and had been “the one who taught us how to tap a keg, pack a bowl, and play quarters, beirut, and beer pong.”
  • At a place called the Orchard, teenagers congregate to party and drink alcohol because it is on the border of two towns and neither side’s police force wants to interfere. The characters go here often and drink. It is described as having “someone selling overpriced keg beer or cans from a cooler that never seemed to get very cold.”
  • After Wyatt has had beer, he annoyingly plays acoustic guitar.
  • During an argument with her father, Andie “could feel the anger coursing through me like a drug.”

Language

  • At a party, the host was, “telling people that the party was over and to either help him clean up or get the hell out.”
  • Toby says, “This Dr. Rizzoli guy sounds like a dick.”
  • Andie thinks a dog is saying, “get the hell away from me and the girl with the leash.”
  • Profanity is used a few times throughout the book. This includes “goddamn,” “shit,” “damn,” and “heck.”
  • While watching play rehearsal, Andie asks Palmer, “What the hell was going on.”
  • “Oh God,” “Oh my god,” “god,” “thank god,” and “swear to god” are said frequently as curses.
  • Andie’s father asks her, “Where the hell have you been?”
  • In an excerpt from Clark’s book, “Tamsin cursed under her breath.”
  • When Andie talks about the seriousness of her relationship, Toby says, “I didn’t read anything about hell freezing over today.”
  • Andie calls Bri’s cat a “jerk” and Clark’s dog “stupid.”

Supernatural

  • A vocal warm-up that the actors in the play practice makes a reference to ghosts.
  • Clark writes fantasy novels that have magic spells, dragons, and curses.

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Filgas

 

Uncommon Criminals

Katarina Bishop and her crew robbed the greatest museum in the world, which is why someone has asked her to steal the Cleopatra Emerald. Despite the curse of the Emerald, Katarina decides to take the job and return the jewel to its rightful owner. But when Kat and her crew go after the Cleopatra Emerald, they soon learn that the emerald is connected to their family in unexpected ways. Is there any con that can help Kat steal a treasure that has cursed all those who have tried before her?

The second installment of the Heist Society series has the same suspense and thrill as the first book. The characters’ personalities are described in more depth, which makes the book more enjoyable. Kat’s family secrets keep readers is suspense. The story’s intriguing, fast-paced plot ends with a satisfying conclusion. With plenty of plot twists, surprises, and a little bit of romance, Ally Carter’s Uncommon Criminals will delight readers of all ages.

Sexual Content

  • After a heist, Kat falls into Hale’s lap. “She didn’t think twice about the way her arms feel around his neck. When her lips found his, she didn’t pull back, she just pressed against him, sinking into the kiss and the moment until . . .” She then realizes that “Hale didn’t kiss me back.”
  • Kat kisses Hale. “She kissed him, quick and feather soft.” She tells him she kissed him “for luck.”

Violence

  • As a distraction, Nick and Hale argue over a girl. Hale hits Nick. Hale’s “fist was suddenly flying through the air. It struck Nick on the jaw, and sent the smaller boy spinning, the sound echoing in the empty hallway.” Security guards break up the fight.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Someone offers Kat a drink, and then changes her mind because Kat is a “child.”

Language

  • None

 Spiritual Content

  • None

 

A Little in Love

Thenardiers are strong. They are cruel. They steal. Eponine is a Thenardier. But she longs for more than a life of heartlessness. She dreams of a world filled with kindness and love.

When Eponine tries to show kindness, Mamam punishes her. When Eponine tries to show her mother affection, Mamam flinches. Mamam wants her daughters to be cruel and steal—from anyone. The only thing that Eponine’s parents care about is money and getting it any way they can.

When Eponine’s father kills a bishop, the family must flee. The family ends up in Paris, where Eponine desperately searches for goodness in the world. However, when her family ends up cold, starving, and out of options, Eponine wonders if being cruel is the only way to live.

A Little in Love captures the reader’s attention in the first few sentences and remains captivating until the end. The world Eponine lives in is described in wonderful detail and the characters are believable.

The story is told from Eponine’s point of view which allows the reader to feel her emotions and understand her struggles. Her personality drives the book. By the end of the story, the reader will fall in love with Eponine and cry when her story ends.

This story is based around Les Miserables; however, no background information is needed. Those who have a tender heart may want to avoid reading A Little in Love. Although the story is entertaining, the content is very dark and cruelty runs rampant in Eponine’s world.

Sexual Content

  • Eponine sees women that, “had pained their faces and they lolled in doorways. . .” Her father says the “harlots” are their kind of people.
  • A character in the book tells Eponine, “Love? It’s a myth. But there’s money in it. You’re not ugly. You could sell a kiss or two.”
  • A man kisses Eponine. But it was not a gentle kiss. “Montparnasse pressed his lips against mine and clutched at my dress and he pushed me against the gravestone very roughly and his tongue filled my mouth so I couldn’t breathe.” She then breaks free and runs away from him.
  • Eponine meets a woman who is in prison. The woman said, “I sold what no woman should ever have to sell.”
  • When Eponine realizes her sister likes Montparnasse, she wonders, “Perhaps she hadn’t run away from his mouth, as I had done. Perhaps she actually wanted to feel those hands. . .”

Violence

  • When Maman has a boy baby, she tells the family to leave the baby to die because she has always hated boys. Eponine thinks her mother hates boys because “she had two brothers and they used to beat her. Her father beat her too.”
  • When Eponine’s father tries to steal from a bishop, her father kills the man and runs from the law.
  • Eponine’s father talks about the law finding him. “They’ll put shackles on me, if they find me!  They will hang me or take me to the guillotine—and you too.”
  • Several of the characters talk about the executioner, “who works the blade—and he gets to keep the silver crosses or gold rings that the jabbering fools bring out with them. Once the blade drops, he pries these treasures out of their still-warm hands.”
  • One of the characters talks about murdering people. “If they’re very old, then what harm have you done? They’d have died soon anyway.”
  • At the end of the story, there is a rebellion. People die. Eponine sees a body. “His eyes were open. His chest was open too—like a red, wet cave.”
  • When a soldier points his weapon at Marius, Eponine, “threw my right hand across the end of the musket and pulled it toward myself.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The family in the book runs a tavern. The patrons as well as the adult family members drink.  There are several references to drunks throughout the book.

Language

  • Eponine’s father calls her a “bitch.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • Eponine wonders about intuition. “Some people think it’s the voice of God—but what about the people who say there isn’t a God at all?”

The Stepsister’s Tale

Jane and her sister should live like nobles; they are after all ladies of a once-rich family. Despite their struggle to survive, Jane’s mother refuses to acknowledge the desperate state of the family. Jane and her sister are forced to take care of all the household chores, as well as care for the livestock and garden.

Jane doesn’t think life can get much worse until her mother suddenly appears with a new husband who has a spoiled daughter. Then the unthinkable happens, Jane’s step-father suddenly dies, leaving behind more debt and his demanding daughter. In order to provide enough food for her family, Jane must reach out to a mysterious group of wood people.

With a mother who doesn’t accept reality, two sisters to feed, and winter coming, Jane wonders if hunger will claim her family. When a surprise invitation to a royal ball is delivered, she begins a plan to get rid of her step-sister once and for all. However, this Cinderella story doesn’t end with the typical happy-ever-after.

The Stepsister’s Tale will pull readers into Cinderella’s time period. Although the tale has some similarities to Cinderella’s story, The Stepsister’s Tale is fresh and interesting. Told through the eyes of Jane, the reader can easily empathize with Jane’s struggle and her desire to provide for her family even if it means going against her mother’s idea of how a lady should act.

The ending of the tale is surprising but will leave the reader with a smile. The Stepsister’s Tale would be suitable for junior high readers as well as entertaining for more advanced readers. Because the story is a retelling of Cinderella and is also a unique, tame love story, the Stepsister’s Tale will appeal to a large range of readers.

Sexual Content

  • Jane shakes the hand of a boy, and she wishes the contact would continue. Then the boy “brought her hand to his lips . . . and kissed it gently. It was over so quickly that she thought she must have imagined it.” After he leaves Jane, “lingered in the hall, looking at the back of her hand, which his lips had touched. It didn’t look any different, although it tingled; and when she pressed her own lips to the spot, she tried to imagine what it would have been like if instead of that swift kiss, he had pulled her to him and bent his head to her face and—”
  • While at a fair, a boy kisses Jane. “His lips were on hers, and he was clasping her waist and gently pulling her closer to him . . . He turned his head and kissed her palm and then her forehead, and then each eyelid and then her mouth again.” The kiss ends when some girls see Jane and cruelly make fun of her.
  • When Jane is kissed she thinks, “it felt as though that kiss was something she had been waiting for, and the warm thrill of it made her forget, for a moment at least, the pain in her feet . . . ”

Violence

  • During this time period, poachers are taken by the king’s men. A boy tells how the king’s men try to trick people into poaching. “They slit the back of a deer’s hind leg so that it can do no more than hobble, and leave it near a path.” The king’s men then watch for someone to catch the dear and the poacher is taken away.
  • Isabella has to run away from the king’s men who are chasing her.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • The king throws a party where alcohol is served.

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • There is a short conversation about fairy-people. A character tries to explain why the fairy people harm people. “If we do something they don’t like, they’ll do something to pay us back, or if they’re bored, they’ll play a trick just to be irritating. Any harm isn’t done on purpose.”
  • There is a brief mention of the fairy people exchanging a human child for a changeling.

Spiritual Content

  • None

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.”

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

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

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

Fever

Escaping with Gabriel was supposed to be the hard part, but as Rhine travels the country in search of her brother, she realizes that escaping the mansion was easy compared to what is coming next.

Captured by Madame, a woman of dubious sanity who wants Rhine to become one of her scarlet girls, Rhine starts to wonder if leaving the mansion was the right course of action. It seems there is nowhere she can go to reclaim her freedom. Would it not have been better to die in comfort at the mansion, forced to wed one man, than to spend her last years forced into prostitution in Madame’s decrepit carnival?

Hundreds of miles away, Housemaster Vaughn continues his twisted plans, in which Rhine unknowingly still has an important part to play.

While Fever’s pacing is not as smooth as Wither’s, interesting characters are introduced that will keep the pages turning. DeStefano does an excellent job at creating an atmosphere of urgency and weaving a perpetual feeling of captivity. Rhine struggles with many mature issues, such as how far she is willing to submit herself, sexually, in order to survive.

Sexual Content

  • Rhine is captured by Madame, who runs several scarlet districts. “Filthy girls are peeking out from a slit in the rainbow-striped tent, blinking like bugs. And I know immediately that this must be a scarlet district—a prostitution den.”
  • Rhine spins a lie to placate Madame. She says her husband was malformed, and she had an affair with her attendant. “He might have turned into a beast around me, but it didn’t matter. Nine times out of ten, he couldn’t do anything about it. And like you said, women have needs.”
  • Rhine and Gabriel are forced to have intercourse while being watched by Madame’s paying customers. This act is described briefly. “I didn’t let myself look outside my cage. Rather than the rustles and the murmurs, I focused on the brass music playing in the distance. After a while it all blurred together . . . Gabriel kissed me, and I parted my lips, closed my eyes. It felt like one short, murky dream.”
  • When Rhine stays the night in a stranger’s home, the man sexually assaults her. “He kisses me. It’s a hard, forceful kiss, his tongue prying my mouth open, attacking me with salt and cheap liquor and hot, coppery breaths . . . I feel like his tongue is slithering down my throat, choking me. His other hands moves past the drawstring of my sweatpants . . . gripping the fleshiest part of my thigh.”
  • Silas often brings girls home. In one scene, Rhine finds “Silas pressed against the wall and tangled in the arms of a new girl.” He asks Rhine, “Come to join us?”

Violence

  • When Rhine is captured by Madame, Gabriel is beaten. “The sick sound of bone hitting skin. Gabriel lands a perfect punch . . . but then there are others grabbing his arms and kneeing him from all sides.”
  • Madame beats and almost kills Maddy, a little girl, for ruining a sale. Her mother hides Maddy; she tells Madame her daughter died and her body was incinerated.
  • Madame’s son shoots a Gatherer who tried to steal Rhine instead of paying for her. “Then another shot, this time from Jared’s gun. For the second time in my life, I watch as a Gatherer crumples and falls down dead in front of me.”
  • Madame’s daughter and husband were killed in a bomb before the beginning of the book; this is mentioned in hindsight.
  • When Rhine returns to her home, she finds it has been burned. In the basement are dozens of dead rats.
  • Rhine sees a dead girl lying in a gutter. “It’s too late. I’ve already seen the dead girl lying face up in the shallow water, her eyes full of clouds . . . I do not see this girl’s features, the color of her hair. A bizarre thing happens. I see her bones instead. I see right through her skin, to the blood and tissue that’s blackened and still. I see the torn muscle that used to be her heart. That’s where the Gatherer’s bullet hit.”
  • Rhine attempts to cut Housemaster Vaughn’s tracker out of her thigh with the shard of a broken pitcher. “Hands try to stop me. My name is being shouted . . . it’s Cecily’s brown eyes I’m staring into. Blood on her shirt . . . she’s trying to take the glass from my fist, and then she’s trying to stop the bleeding with her open fingers.”

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Gabriel’s captors forcibly give him angel’s blood, which is a sedative. One of the prostitutes says, “It’s just a little angel’s blood. The same stuff we take to help us sleep.”
  • Rhine and Gabriel are exposed to aphrodisiacs by Madame to make them put on a show for her customers. “It’s making me greedy, making me tilt my head so that his kisses to my neck reach my lips, and making me take him with me as I lean back into the pillows that clatter with beads . . . the smoke of the incense is alive. It traces the length of us. The heady perfume of it makes my eyes water, and I feel strange.”
  • Rhine is drugged to keep her from fighting. “It feels as though the world is a giant bubble about to pop, spilling forth bees and words.” A girl tells Rhine that she was given “angel’s blood mixed with a depressant to keep you asleep.”
  • Gabriel goes through withdrawal from angel’s blood. “His rattling gasps are made all the more terrifying by the fact that I can’t see him. ‘Gabriel?’ The response is a pitiful groan . . . ‘It’s like someone wrapped twine around all my organs, and pulled.'”
  • Rhine starts dying from withdrawal from a treatment Housemaster Vaughn had been secretly giving her. She faints, feels weak, and vomits.
  • Housemaster Vaughn starts experimenting on Rhine. He pumps her full of drugs that cause her to hallucinate. “I lose the distinction between dreams and reality . . . I see my father, pale and lifeless, standing in the doorway watching me . . . I hear Rose in the ceiling start to scream.”

Language

  • None

Supernatural

  • Rhine sees a fortune teller, who says, “It’s a good card. . . It means everything will fall into place. Your world will come together.”

Spiritual Content

  • Some people think the human race is doomed, and there should be no more experiments on children to try to save themselves from extinction.

by Morgan Lynn

Sever

Back with her husband and sister-wife, Rhine can’t help but wonder if she has done the right thing. Jenna is dead, Diedre has been tortured, and she doesn’t know where Gabriel is. When Rhine sees Cecily with her former husband and Cecily’s child, and she feels more alone than ever.

Despite her doubts, Rhine is still determined to find her brother. After taking time to recover from her hospital stay, she sets north with the unexpected companionship of Cecily and Lindin. But once again, she discovers Housemaster Vaughn is one step ahead of her. And this time both Rhine and her brother will play a part in his search for the cure.

Sever’s plot is similar to DeStephano’s first two books, and reading it feels like Déjà vu. Also, the cure discovered for the Virus was not quite believable. Still, DeStephano writes a surprising ending to her trilogy, and the last chapter in Sever ties this world up with a bow and leaves her characters in a satisfying place.

Sexual Content

  • Cecily is now in the middle of her second pregnancy at the age of fourteen.
  • Rhine and Linden kiss. “His lips are familiar. I know the shape of them, know how to make mine fit against them. His taste is familiar too . . . I’m holding his life against my tongue, between my rows of teeth.”
  • Cecily has a violent miscarriage that nearly kills her. “Sliding down her thighs is an abundance of red. It’s pooling at her feet, from the trail of blood that followed her into the room.”
  • Rhine tells her former husband that she and Gabriel did not have intercourse while they were at the mansion.
  • It turns out Rhine and Rowan were created via a vitro fertilization.

Violence

  • Cecily is convinced Vaughn wants to kill her. She says she will murder him before he has the chance.
  • It turns out that Rowan, Rhine’s brother, has bombed a few research facilities. He is called a terrorist. The “explosion comes . . . I can feel the heat of the flames . . . I turn around to watch the burning building that just moments ago was the Lexington Research and Wellness Institute.”
  • Rowan thinks Rhine was killed for science. “She was lured into some primitive makeshift laboratory . . . her heart began to palpitate first. And then her throat swelled shut; her eyes started to bleed. And when she died, several agonizing minutes later? Her body was dissected for even more“
  • It is discovered that Vaughn lied to Madame, telling her that her husband and daughter died in a car bombing by pro-naturalists. He then kidnapped the daughter and told her both her parents died in the same bombing, so she would have nowhere to run.
  • Rowan undergoes the same medical treatments as his sister, which includes having a needle inserted into his eyes.
  • Lindin hits his head during a plane landing. “Linden puts his hand to his temple, and it comes back bright with blood that’s trickling down the side of his face . . . and then he’s falling. I swear I can hear the sound of his bones hitting the dirt. Blood is frothing in his mouth, and his eyes are closed and he’s having convulsions.”
  • Cecily shoots Vaughn twice in the chest with a small gun. “A load crack splits the air . . . Vaughn puts his hand to his chest, and that’s when I see the dark stain of blood on his shirt. Another shot comes, and then he drops to the ground, astonished eyes open and unblinking.” Cecily and Rhine then make it look as though someone broke in and murdered him.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Reed smokes.
  • When Cecily asks Reed if he has enough formula to care for the baby, he jokingly says, “Formula? . . . A boy his age is ready for rum.”
  • Vaughn gives Rhine pills. “I’m barely conscious by the time we land . . . I see the oriental rug rushing toward me as I fall, and then someone is holding me by the arms and I’m eased into a wheelchair.”

Language

  • Cecily calls Reed a moron for smoking near her child. “I’m pregnant, you moron . . . and in case you’re blind, there is also a five-month-old baby sitting next to you.”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

by Morgan Lynn

If I Stay

In an instant, everything changes for seventeen-year-old Mia. A horrific car accident kills her family and leaves Mia struggling for her life. As her injured body is taken to the hospital, Mia hovers between life and death. Mia sees herself and is able to walk through the hospital and listen to the living.

Mia roams the halls of the hospitals and listens in on family, friends, and others. As she contemplates her life, she struggles with the loss of her family.  In the end, she must decide if she will stay.  Can Mia face life with possibly crippling injuries? Is her love of friends and family enough to make her stay? Is her life worth living if her family is gone?

Readers will be captivated as Mia reflects on her relationship with her family, boyfriend, and friends.  Told from Mia’s point of view, teens will relate with her as she navigates the difficult decisions about college and boyfriends. If I stay is geared for older readers who are ready to read a book with mature themes and sexual material.

Sexual Content

  • Mia talks about her boyfriend. “. . . We hadn’t done much more than kiss. It wasn’t that I was a prude. I was a virgin, but I certainly wasn’t devoted to staying that way.”
  • Mia’s mom took her to Planned Parenthood to get birth control pills and told Mia to have her boyfriend get tested for various diseases. She gave Mia money to buy condoms.
  • Mia’s friend goes to a Jewish summer camp each year. Her friend calls it “Torah Whore, because all the kids do all summer is hook up.”
  • Mia’s mother talked about dating in high school. “There’s only so many times a girl wants to get drunk on Mickey’s Big Mouth, go cow-tipping, and make out in the back of a pickup truck.” Later on, the story talks about Mia and her boyfriend’s relationship. “It was nothing like the drunken roll in the back of some guy’s Chevy that passed for a relationship when I was in high school.”
  • A girl drops out of high school because she is pregnant.
  • At a New Year’s party, Mia’s boyfriend kisses her. “And I kissed him back so hard, like I was trying to merge our bodies through our lips.

Violence

  • Mia’s family is in a car accident. Her parent’s bodies are described in gory detail. Mia sees her father’s body. “. . . As I walk toward him, the pavement grows slick and there are gray chunks of what looks like cauliflower . . . Pieces of my father’s brain are on the asphalt.”  She also sees her own injured body. “One of my legs is askew, the skin and muscles peeled away so that I can see white streaks of bone.”
  • Mia and another girl fight. “She charged me like a bull, knocking the wind out of me. I punched her on the side of the head, fist closed, like men do.”  The two end up becoming friends.

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Mia’s father would get “wasted” to help him deal with stage fright. Her father said, “I don’t recommend that for you. . . Social services frowns on drunk ten-year-olds.”
  • Mia’s boyfriend can’t get into the hospital to see Mia. His friend suggests he “fake a drug overdose or something so you wind up in the ICU.” He replies, “this is Portland. You’re lucky if a drug overdose does get you into the ER.”
  • Mia and her boyfriend go to a New Year’s party where he gets drunk. Mia has one beer.

Language

  • Profanity is used often and includes asshole, bitch, crappy, damn, dicking, goddamnnit, piss, hell, motherfucking, fucking, and shitty.
  • A medic said that they need to get Mia to the hospital quickly even if they “have to speed like a fucking demon.”
  • Mia’s boyfriend tells her, “I love that you’re fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass. Hell, you’re one of the punkiest girls I know. . . “
  • Someone asked Mia about playing cello with others. “I don’t mean to sound like an asshole, but isn’t that how you get good? It’s like tennis, if you play someone crappy, you end up missing shots or serving all sloppy. . .”
  • When Mia’s friends are in the hospital, they ask about another patient. Mia thinks, “I’ve never heard any of Adam’s friends talk so PG-13 before. It’s their sanitized hospital version of ‘holy fucking shit.’”
  • Mia’s mom said, “Love’s a bitch.”

Supernatural

  • Mia is in a coma and can see and hear living people. She must decide if she lives or dies. Her living is “not up to the doctors. It’s not up to the absentee angels. It’s not even up to God who, if He exists, is nowhere around right now. It’s up to me.”
  • Mia describes memories that she has from before she was born. Mia thinks of her grandmother and, “that maybe I was there as an angel before I choose to become Mom and Dad’s kid.”

Spiritual Content

  • Mia’s grandparents talk about guardian angels. Mia thinks, “maybe I’ll tell Gran that I never much bought into her theory that birds and such could be people’s guardian angels. And now I’m more sure than ever that there’s no such thing.”
  • Mia thinks back to a funeral that she went to with her parents. The person giving the eulogy, “concluded by reassuring us that Kerry was walking with Jesus now. I could see my mom getting red when he said that, and I started to get a little worried that she might say something. We went to church sometimes, so it’s not like Mom had anything against religion, but Kerry did. . .”

 

Where She Went

Three years ago, Mia’s life changed forever. Mia lost her family in a devastating accident. And when she woke up from a coma, she decided to walk out of Adam’s life. Forever.

Now Mia is a rising star at Julliard and Adam is a rock star, with a celebrity girlfriend. They live on different sides of the country, but fate brings them back together for one night. As Mia and Adam spend an evening exploring the city that is now Mia’s home, they revisit the past. But is one night enough time to open their hearts to each other? Can they build a future together or will Mia walk out of Adam’s life one more time?

Told from Adam’s point of view, Where She Went focuses on Adam’s emotional state. After Mia left, Adam relies on prescription drugs and sex to cope with life. The story is emotionally gripping but darker than the first book in the series. Where She Went deals with many adult topics and not all readers will be ready to dive into the book.

Sexual Content

  • A reporter asks Adam about his girlfriend. “. . . Are you and Bryn Shraeder having a baby?”  Adam replied, “Not that I know of.”
  • Adam thinks about seeing Mia’s eyes, “in the eyes of every other girl I laid on top of.”
  • When Mia and Adam talk, she mentions staying the night at a man’s house. Adam feels “sucker-punched” and thinks, “You’ve been with so many girls since Mia you’ve lost count, I reason with myself. It’s not like you’ve been languishing in celibacy. You think she has.”
  • An actress was nominated for “The Best Kiss Award” but did not get it. She said, “I lost to a vampire-werewolf kiss. Girl-on-girl action doesn’t have the same impact it used to.”
  • Mia talks about her friend who would like to get married, but gay marriage isn’t legal in the state where she lives.
  • Adam and Mia go back to his place. “The minute the door clicked shut behind us, she’d pounced on me, kissing me with her mouth wide open. Like she was trying to swallow me whole . . . as she kissed me, my body had begun walking up to her, and with it, my mind had gone, too.” Before anything more serious happened, Mia started crying and then left.
  • Mia invited Adam to her grandparents’ place and she kissed him. “Not the usual dry peck on the lips but a deep, rich, exploring kiss. I’d started to kiss her back.” Adam remembered Mia’s tears the last time they were together and stopped.
  • When Adam is on the road with his band, he had sex with a string of different girls. One time, “. . . with Viv’s hand playing on the small of my back, I was rearing to go. I spent the night with her at her apartment. . .” The next morning one of his friends said, “Good thing I hit Fred Meyer for the economy box of condoms before we left.”
  • Mia and Adam have sex. The scene is described in detail over several pages. “I run my fingers along her neck, her jawline, and then cup her chin in my hand. . . And then all at once, we slam together. Mia’s legs are off the ground, wrapped around my waist, her hands digging into my hair, my hands tangled in hers. . .”

Violence

  • None

Drugs and Alcohol

  • Adam takes an anti-anxiety prescription drug when he’s feeling “jittery” and sleeping pills.  However, he still has trouble sleeping despite “a medicine cabinet full of psychopharmacological assistance.”
  • When talking to a reporter at a restaurant, Adam orders three beers.
  • Adam thinks about famous rock stars who “drugged themselves into oblivion. Or shot their heads off. What a bunch of assholes. . . You’re no junkie but you’re not much better.”
  • Adam goes on a date with a girl and they “sat on the beach, sharing the wine straight out of the bottle.”

Language

  • Profanity is used often throughout Adam’s thoughts and characters’ words. Profanity includes: ass, crap, damn, dick, pissed, prick, shit, and fuck.
  • Adam thinks that “there is no fucking way” he will fly on Friday the thirteenth.
  • Adam gets angry with a reporter and yells, “This has fuck to do with music. It’s about picking everything apart.”
  • Someone calls Adam a “Prissy, temperamental ass.”
  • Mia said, “Your professor sounds like a dick!”

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

  • None

 

The Breathless

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

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

Spiritual Content

  • None

The Selection

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

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

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

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

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

Sexual Content

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

Violence

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

Drugs and Alcohol

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

Language

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

Supernatural

  • None

Spiritual Content

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

 

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