Book Review Monday - Week 1 and 2

My friend Nicole and I have started a challenge. 52 books in 52 weeks! (She came up with the idea. I'm just along for the ride!) It's pretty simple. We are going to read a book a week for an entire year! They are books of our own choosing, so it will give me a chance to read the mountain of books I have piled up at home that are unread. (Side note: we are also going to be reading the Book of Mormon, but that will only take us 4 months if we're reading 2 chapters a night). I tell you this for a couple of reasons:

1. Every monday will now be a book review of what I have read the previous week. So if you don't want to know about it, come back on Tuesdays.

2. I think it will help to keep me motivated and on task if I tell more people about it.

Today, however, I am playing catch-up so I will be reviewing 2 books.

Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Summary from back cover: Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens--until the day its complacency is shattered by an act of violence. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened before her very own eyes--or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show--destroying the closest of friendships and families. Nineteen Minutes asks what it means to be different in our society, who has the right to judge someone else, and whether anyone is ever really who they seem to be.

My take: Jodi is an excellent writer. I have read several of her book, and she never leaves any details out. This book would have gotten 5 stars, except for the fact that it was such a sad book! Jodi always has a twist at the end of her books; something you wouldn't expect to happen. In this book, I definitely didn't see it coming (no spoilers) but even with the twist, it was just a sad sad story. I'm a sucker for happy endings. But she is such a great writer that she actually makes you feel sorry for the boy who committed this heinous crime, and personally, I could actually see why he did what he did. Overall an excellent book, if you don't mind a bit of graphic detail and some language.

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Summary from back cover: You just can’t keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods. Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. Easy as pie. Sure, she hasn’t mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she’s real good at loop-the-loops. Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma’s at her wit’s end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents’ farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities. School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. (Plus all the homemade apple pie she can eat!) But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences. Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore. At turns exhilarating and terrifying, Victoria Forester’s debut novel is an unforgettable story of defiance and courage about an irrepressible heroine who can, who will, who must . . . fly.

My take: This was a really cute book. It was very simple, and I think it's appropriate for ages 12+. It has a truly inspiring protagonist. As Stephenie Meyer said, "It's the oddest/sweetest mix of Little House on the Prairie and X-Men." One of the main things I got out of it was listen to your heart because it has all the right answers (cheesy, I know). Overall, great story line. The book could have been much longer, and there were several things I would have liked more details on, but it was sweet and to the point.