A Greyhound of a Girl

A Greyhound of a Girl is your typical road trip novel--if your typical road trip novel is about four generations of Irish women on a midnight car journey. The four passengers range from twelve to ill to dead. Told in both third and second person from various voices and points in time, A Greyhound of a Girl can be confusing, not to mention slightly boring, but is altogether worth the read. Roddy Doyle’s writing is concise and has an almost other-worldly tang to it. A great mother-daughter read.

Rowan, 12

 

Poison Most Vial

In Poison Most Vial, this astounding tale woven together by suspense, pity, and mystery; author Benedict Carey accomplishes an unreachable goal: a story the equivalent of A study in Scarlett. The characters you will grow to love just as I did solve a mystery like no other. Ruby Rose and Rex must convince the world that Ruby’s father was not involved in a full-out murder. Their list of accomplices is not long: Simon, a strange character who likes it that way, Sharon, a fellow schoolgirl who is handy with a computer, and the old lady upstairs, Mrs. Whitmore, who knows a tremendous amount about chemistry. The odds may be against them but, well, who knows?

Simon, 11

The Five Lives of our Cat Zook

I love "Zook" but the book has a few really sad parts in it; so it is highly recommended for ages 9 & up, or for people who can stand a lot of sadness. 

The Five Lives of our Cat Zook is about a girl named Oona who has a beloved cat named Zook, short for zucchini, who gets very sick and she almost loses hope for him getting better, but can she get Zook back to health?!?! Read it and find out. 

Emily, 10

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes

Explorer: The Mystery Boxes is a thrilling graphic novel. It has many stories about a person that has or finds a mysterious box. These boxes contain everything from treasure to magic powers. It is sure to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting to find out what's next.

 Max, 10

Deviant

When Danny moves to Colorado he is expecting to go snowboarding and chill, maybe mope a little about leaving all of his friends. What he is not expecting is to be caught up in a terrible race of time, trying to find a serial killer before it starts killing humans. But sometimes people don’t like to be found, and in Danny’s search he finds that almost everybody has a skeleton in their closet. Very fast-paced and fun, I enjoyed Deviant greatly and was on the edge of my seat the whole time.

Jenna, 15

The Phantom Limb

In The Phantom Limb, Isaac is your generic new kid: he gets picked on, doesn’t have any friends, and is falling behind in school. His mom is in the hospital with a seizure disorder. Isaac’s fascination with optical illusions leads him to find a cool illusion called a mirror box, which helps amputee patients get rid of phantom limb pain. Soon Isaac starts seeing another hand in the box that isn’t his. The hand is clearly trying to communicate with Isaac. What is it saying? 

Lucy, 12

Misfit

In Misfit, Jael has lived the quintessential boring teenage life. And since it is just her and her father and they move a lot, she doesn’t even have any friends. But something in her life just doesn’t seem to add up and it all comes back to one person, her mother. Jael was told that her mother died in childbirth but after she starts seeing strange beings her father tells her something she never would have guessed: Jael’s mother was a demon. I enjoyed this book, though I felt it was a little on the light side - exactly what you would have expected from the back with very little plot twists.

Jenna, 14