How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff

Rating: 4

Pages: 194


Challenges: New Author, Read Your Own Books, Dewey Recommended, Young Adult, 2009 From the Stacks, 20 in 2009, Award (PRITZ)

Synopsis (and picture from BN.com)



“Every war has turning points and every person too.”

Fifteen-year-old Daisy is sent from Manhattan to England to visit her aunt and cousins she’s never met: three boys near her age, and their little sister. Her aunt goes away on business soon after Daisy arrives. The next day bombs go off as London is attacked and occupied by an unnamed enemy.

As power fails, and systems fail, the farm becomes more isolated. Despite the war, it’s a kind of Eden, with no adults in charge and no rules, a place where Daisy’s uncanny bond with her cousins grows into something rare and extraordinary. But the war is everywhere, and Daisy and her cousins must lead each other into a world that is unknown in the scariest, most elemental way.

A riveting and astonishing story.

Review
I really enjoyed this story. And was happy the end had a epilogue because I thought it ended abruptly. This was one of Dewey's favorites and after she posted about it I got the book from bookmooch, so it was good to read it!

Thirteenth Tale - Diane Setterfield

Rating: 3 out of 5 horses (average)

Pages: 432

Challenges: New Author, Audio, Support your Local Library, Dewey Recommended, Numbers, Book Awards, 20 in 2009

Synopsis (and picture from BN.com)

Margaret Lea works in her father's antiquarian bookshop where her fascination for the biographies of the long-dead has led her to write them herself. She gets a letter from one of the most famous authors of the day, the mysterious Vida Winter, whose popularity as a writer has been in no way diminished by her reclusiveness. Until now, Vida has toyed with journalists who interview her, creating outlandish life histories for herself - all of them invention. Now she is old and ailing, and at last she wants to tell the truth about her extraordinary life. Her letter to Margaret is a summons.

Somewhat anxiously, the equally reclusive Margaret travels to Yorkshire to meet her subject - and Vida starts to recount her tale. It is one of Gothic strangeness featuring the March family; the fascinating, devious and wilful Isabelle and the feral twins Adeline and Emmeline.

Margaret is captivated by the power of Vida's storytelling. But as a biographer she deals in fact not fiction, and she doesn't entirely trust Vida's account. She goes to check up on the family, visiting their old home and piecing together their story in her own way. What she discovers on her journey to the truth is for Margaret a chilling and transforming experience.

Review

I was disappointed in this book. I think that it is possible it was all the great reviews it has gotten, but also that I read it over a period of time. I think I might have enjoyed it more if I read it faster and would have kept the characters straight. Although the end of the book did surprise me which was nice.

Higher Power of Lucky - Susan Patron

Rating: 3 out of 5 horses

Pages: 160

Genre: Young Adult

Challenges: New Author, Audio, Library, Dewey Recommended, Young Adult, Award Winner

Synopsis (from BN.com)

Lucky, age ten, can't wait another day. The meanness gland in her heart and the crevices full of questions in her brain make running away from Hard Pan, California (population 43), the rock-bottom only choice she has.

It's all Brigitte's fault -- for wanting to go back to France. Guardians are supposed to stay put and look after girls in their care! Instead Lucky is sure that she'll be abandoned to some orphanage in Los Angeles where her beloved dog, HMS Beagle, won't be allowed. She'll have to lose her friends Miles, who lives on cookies, and Lincoln, future U.S. president (maybe) and member of the International Guild of Knot Tyers. Just as bad, she'll have to give up eavesdropping on twelve-step anonymous programs where the interesting talk is all about Higher Powers. Lucky needs her own -- and quick.

But she hadn't planned on a dust storm.
Or needing to lug the world's heaviest survival-kit backpack into the desert.

Review

I thought this book was cute, but thought it was a little slow until the last few chapters. It was a quick read!