TSHS Book Reviews

Martin was sitting on the front stoop of his apartment building minding his own business when he was arrested for something he didn’t even mean to do. Five months later, he’s still locked up on Rikers Island, in a New York City jail. Just when it seems things couldn’t get much worse, Martin is caught between two warring prisoners, and his face is slashed. Now he’ll be forever marked with a prison scar. One good thing comes from the attack: Martin is transferred to a different part of Rikers where inmates are required to attend high school.

Ever since she was child, Jem has kept a secret: Whenever she meets someone new, no matter who, as soon as she looks into their eyes, a number pops into her head. That number is a date: the date they will die. Burdened with such awful awareness, Jem avoids relationships. Until she meets Spider, another outsider, and takes a chance. The two plan a trip to the city. But while waiting to ride the Eye ferris wheel, Jem is terrified to see that all the other tourists in line flash the same number. Today’s number. Today’s date. Terrorists are going to attack London. Jem’s world is about to explode!

When high school sophomore Jessie’s long-term best friend transforms herself into a punk and goes after Jessie’s would-be boyfriend, Jessie decides to visit “the wild nerd yonder” and seek true friends among classmates who play Dungeons and Dragons.

May and Pearl, two sisters living in Shanghai in the mid-1930s, are beautiful, sophisticated, and well-educated, but their family is on the verge of bankruptcy. Hoping to improve their social standing, May and Pearl’s parents arrange for their daughters to marry “Gold Mountain men” who have come from Los Angeles to find brides. But when the sisters leave China and arrive at Angel’s Island (the Ellis Island of the West)–where they are detained, interrogated, and humiliated for months–they feel the harsh reality of leaving home. And when May discovers she’s pregnant the situation becomes even more desperate. The sisters make a pact that no one can ever know.  This is a novel about two sisters, two cultures, and the struggle to find a new life in America while bound to the old.

Mia is in an awful car accident – her parents are killed, her brother is critically injured. As she has her out-of-body experience she debates whether or not she should just let go and be with her parents, knowing the pain she’ll endure if she stays with the living

I read General Winston’s Daughter by Sharon Shinn this past weekend.  I really enjoyed the book.  It kept my interest from the first page.  The plot took several turns & spins.  It also gave a different side to war that you usually don’t see.  I would reccommend this book to any of the students.

  Zoey and her friends encounter evil in an unexpected place when they learn that Kalona, the newest member of the House of Night, is hiding a deadly secret.

Zoey Redbird’s life at the House of Night prep school for fledgling vampyres gets a lot tougher when she loses all three of her boyfriends and her group of friends turns against her, which makes it all the more difficult to get anyone to listen when she discovers Neferet has declared war on humans.

Zoey Redbird, a fledgling vampyre, becomes confused about who to trust, with friends becoming enemies and enemies becoming friends at the House of Night prep school, and the need for caution becomes increasingly important when she finds herself juggling three boyfriends, and vampyres start turning up really dead.