The Testing by Joelle Charbonneau ( Abe Book)

I LOVED this book. I finished it over the weekend and I was so mad I couldnt start the sequel immediately. While this is another dystopian thriller I found it to be innovative and exciting. I never felt as if the author was stalling to keep the story moving yet I couldn't stop after each chapter. I think LP students will LOVE this book as much as I did.

Amazon Summary
It’s graduation day for sixteen-year-old Malencia Vale, and the entire Five Lakes Colony (the former Great Lakes) is celebrating. All Cia can think about—hope for—is whether she’ll be chosen for The Testing, a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest new graduates to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. When Cia is chosen, her father finally tells her about his own nightmarish half-memories of The Testing. Armed with his dire warnings (”Cia, trust no one”), she bravely heads off to Tosu City, far away from friends and family, perhaps forever. Danger, romance—and sheer terror—await.

Winger by Andrew Smith ( Abe Book)

I enjoyed this book. I had been hesitant to read it based on the cover and description but I certainly enjoyed it at the end. If you can get past the perverted jokes of a 14 year old boy I think anyone would like this heartfelt journey as Ryan Dean begins his journey of Junior year in O-Hall and grows up to being quite a friend and person.

Amazon Summary

A teen at boarding school grapples with life, love, and rugby in a heartbreakingly funny novel.

Ryan Dean West is a fourteen-year-old junior at a boarding school for rich kids. He’s living in Opportunity Hall, the dorm for troublemakers, and rooming with the biggest bully on the rugby team. And he’s madly in love with his best friend Annie, who thinks of him as a little boy.

With the help of his sense of humor, rugby buddies, and his penchant for doodling comics, Ryan Dean manages to survive life’s complications and even find some happiness along the way. But when the unthinkable happens, he has to figure out how to hold on to what’s important, even when it feels like everything has fallen apart.

Filled with hand-drawn infographics and illustrations and told in a pitch-perfect voice, this realistic depiction of a teen’s experience strikes an exceptional balance of hilarious and heartbreaking.

Sorta Like a Rock Star by Matthew Quick

I loved loved loved this book. Ms. Savage read it a few days ago and told me she cried her eyes out. I was anticipating a cry and boy did I cry. Amber Appleton is one of the best characters I have ever read and experienced and I wish I could know her in real life and call her a friend. This officially makes Matthew Quick by new favorite author as I loved Boy 21 and Forgive Me, leonard Peacock as well. Well done!!!

Amazon Summary
Amber Appleton lives in a bus. Ever since her mom's boyfriend kicked them out, Amber, her mom, and her totally loyal dog, Bobby Big Boy (aka Thrice B) have been camped out in the back of Hello Yellow (the school bus her mom drives). Still, Amber, the self-proclaimed princess of hope and girl of unyielding optimism, refuses to sweat the bad stuff. But when a fatal tragedy threatens Amber's optimism--and her way of life, can Amber continue to be the rock star of hope?

With an oddball cast of characters, and a heartwarming, inspiring story, this novel unveils a beautifully beaten-up world of laughs, loyalty, and hard-earned hope. The world is Amber's stage, and Amber is, well...she's sorta like a rock star. True? True.

The Radiance of Tomorrow by Ishmael Beah

I loved Ishmael Beah's Memoir A Long Way Gone and couldn't wait to read his first novel. The book is very depressing about building a life after war. As an American it is hard to understand what life is like in an undevelopedplace for corruption and theft are in charge. Oftentimes while reading this book I found myself feeling defeated for the characters and their families.

Amazon Summary
  At the center of Radiance of Tomorrow are Benjamin and Bockarie, two longtime friends who return to their hometown, Imperi, after the civil war. The village is in ruins, the ground covered in bones. As more villagers begin to come back, Benjamin and Bockarie try to forge a new community by taking up their former posts as teachers, but they’re beset by obstacles: a scarcity of food; a rash of murders, thievery, rape, and retaliation; and the depredations of a foreign mining company intent on sullying the town’s water supply and blocking its paths with electric wires. As Benjamin and Bockarie search for a way to restore order, they’re forced to reckon with the uncertainty of their past and future alike.
     With the gentle lyricism of a dream and the moral clarity of a fable, Radiance of Tomorrow is a powerful novel about preserving what means the most to us, even in uncertain times.

Escape From Camp 14 by Blaine Harden (Abe Book)

Escape from Camp 14 is the story of the first known person to be born inside a North Korean prison and escape. This was a hard book to read in the sadness and conditions that the prisoners withstand. The author points out that the type of cruelty and treatment of these prisoners is worse than the Holocaust and has been going on for much longer than any other type of genocide worldwide.

Amazon Summary

North Korea’s political prison camps have existed twice as long as Stalin’s Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. No one born and raised in these camps is known to have escaped. No one, that is, except Shin Dong-hyuk.

 

In Escape From Camp 14, Blaine Harden unlocks the secrets of the world’s most repressive totalitarian state through the story of Shin’s shocking imprisonment and his astounding getaway. Shin knew nothing of civilized existence—he saw his mother as a competitor for food, guards raised him to be a snitch, and he witnessed the execution of his mother and brother.

The One by Kiera Cass ( Book 3 of The Selection)

I have been dying to finish this series and it did not disappoint. I read this over the weekend and used every free minute to read and get to the end. I was secretly hoping as I was reading that this would be turned into a movie so I could love America, Maxon and Aspen on the big screen. Fingers crossed.

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I loved Eleanor and Park and Fangirl and could not wait to read this book. I certainly enjoyed the book but I did not love it like the other two.

Amazon Review
In sweet, silly, and incredibly long digital missives, best newsroom pals Beth and Jennifer trade gossip over their romances—Beth with her marriage-phobic boyfriend, Chris, and Jennifer with her baby-mania-stricken husband, Mitch. What they don't know is that the newly hired computer guy, Lincoln, an Internet security officer charged with weeding out all things unnecessary or pornographic, is reading their messages. But lonely Lincoln lets the gals slide on their inappropriate office mail and gets hooked on their soapy dalliances, falling head over heels for the unlucky-in-love Beth. Debut novelist and real-life newspaper columnist Rowell has the smarts for this You've Got Mail–like tale of missed connections, but what doesn't work so well is the firewall between the traditional narrative reserved for Lincoln's emergence from shy guy to Beth's guy, and heroines who are confined to the e-epistolary format. Despite the structural problems, there's enough heart and humor to save these likable characters from the recycle bin.