![]() Tara Westover grew up in a paranoid, survivalist, Mormon family on a mountain in Idaho. She did not step into a classroom until she was 17 years old, yet has earned at least three degrees of increasing prestige since then. This memoir takes the reader into her, at times, outlandish and dangerous upbringing. This book is a hot read right now, so I requested it at AADL like three months ago. It is much sadder than the books I typically choose to read, but once I began, there was no stopping. The way Westover narrates the events of her life give real voice to the thoughts of a person experiencing abuse and the challenges of changing an entire worldview. While jarring, this makes the memoir powerful and gripping.
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![]() Similar to the concept of minimalism, in this book McKeown proposes living with a focus on only the essential matters in our lives. He believes, and puts forth solid evidence to support, that humans are happier and more successful when they put effort into "What's Important Now," and a few other handy guidelines. I think Chelsea Handler recommended this book through her Instagram account, so I went right ahead and requested it at the AADL. In general, I do not enjoy "self-help" books. I tend to read the chapter and section titles and flip right to the end. However, this was not a "self-help" book by my standard. It was too Gladwellian for that. The integration of science and the intelligent discussion of the concepts had me feeling like I was reading an instructional essay rather than a sappy magazine article. ![]() This novel is about a set of siblings who visit a fortune-teller as children. The woman tells them the days on which they will each die. Fast forward several years at a time and the novel follows each sibling in the years, months, and days leading up to their death. I did not like this book. Folks are raving about it. Internet book clubs highlight it. My mom loved it. I even had to wait on hold a few months at the library to get it. Perhaps it is because of this hype that I am underwhelmed. And that's just it: I'm not excited about this story and it fell flat for me. One aspect of the book that I thought more deeply about is the paradox of predicting one's death date. The characters live their lives knowing the day they will die, so do they live differently because of that knowledge? For the one who knows he will live to 25 years, is that why he lives so aggressively? Or does he die because he is so reckless? I still don't know, but this may be a topic for further discussion. ![]() All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven is about mental illness . Two teenagers named Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of their school’s bell tower. They both want to commit suicide, but stopped each other from doing it and started having a relationship. I would give the book a 3 out of 5 because the ending was very sad. I still like it because it talks about social issues and I love to read books about it. I would recommend this book to people ages 14 and up. -BS, grade 10 ![]() Because You’ll Never Meet Me, by Leah Thomas, is written in letter format from the point of two boys with differing medical conditions. Ollie has an allergy that causes him to have severe seizures when he comes in range of anything electric. This forces him to live as a “hermit in the woods.” His penpal, Moritz, has a pacemaker for his weak heart, along with other hindering conditions for which he is bullied in school. Even though they are in constant communication, they can never meet. Moritz’s electric heart would trigger Ollie’s seizures. Turning off the pacemaker to spare him would send Moritz into cardiac arrest. Their only correspondence is through these letters in which they share their story with joy, anger, hurt, and confusion. They learn to give advice and to trust one another through dark times as they learn how they are connected. I really enjoyed this book. It was given as a presentation by one of my peers for book groups in our class. It immediately caught my interest and when it wasn’t selected for a group, I added it to my reading list. I recommend it for anyone looking for a story that is humorous and heartfelt at the same time. -MR, grade 10 ![]() Anna Fox is stuck in her home. She has agoraphobia which is the fear of going outside. She spends most of her time drinking wine. While being stuck in her home, she has found entertainment in watching her neighbors through cameras until one day she saw her neighbor do something very strange. She went outside to investigate and ended up passing out due to her phobia. Following this, law enforcement looks into her very crazy past. Be prepared, this book will have you questioning what are facts and what aren’t… I chose this book out of recommendations from some fellow classmates. I was definitely intimidated by the amount of pages at first, but I was super into the story and read the book pretty quickly. I would give this book a 4 out of 5 stars. It is a quick read if you’re into crime fiction/ psychological thrillers. This book kept me in constant suspense and I think I may have suffered some paranoia like Anna Fox did. I highly recommend! -LJ, grade 12 ![]() Slaughterhouse V, by Kurt Vonnegut, is an anti-war novel with a unique idea that it's center around. The 4th dimension, the main character, Billy Pilgrim claims to have met these aliens called the Tralfamadorians. Who explain them their perception of time where they see time all at once, so they would generally focus more on happier moments in time. Also, death isn't as big as humans make it be, Tralfamadorians explain that if someone were to die they're simply dead at that moment, but alive in another, which is why Billy Pilgrim always says "so it goes" at every death of the book to prove the insignificance of death. As the reader goes through the book they explore Billy Pilgrim's life out of sequence because of how he's "unstuck in time". So one chapter can be taking place at the battle of the bulge then transition to him being in a plane crash. I chose this book because I kept getting recommendations from friends to read stories by Kurt Vonnegut. So I picked this book and Cat's Cradle. I love the way Slaughterhouse V is told it's so light-hearted and the serious moments in the book are taken more relaxed than they should be. This is mainly due to the central idea of the 4th dimension which is a very brilliant way of telling a story, and could be interpreted in two different ways, a PTSD victim or someone who actually had an alien encounter. This is a solid 10/10 book. -AD, grade 12 ![]() Jersey tomatoes are the Best is a realistic fiction novel that is about two teenage girls who live in New Jersey. 16 year olds Eva and Henry have been best friends since they started school. Both of them are excellent athletes. Eva is an elite ballet dancer and Henry is really good at tennis. Henry is getting watched by colleges for her tennis and gets invited to a tennis camp in Florida. Eva also gets invited to a ballet camp in New York City. When the best friends are apart Eva faces some challenges. Eva is obsessed with physical perfection and she starts heading towards the path to anorexia. Henry and Eva’s parents are very competitive. Henry’s dad is overbearing but very dedicated to helping Henry with her tennis. Eva’s mom is very involved in Eva’s ballet dancing and advocates for her. I chose this book because I liked the summary and I also chose it because my dad grew up in New Jersey. I thought that reading this book would give me a better insight on what life is like in New Jersey. My dad said that people from Jersey are tough so I wanted to see if that was the same case in the book. Overall I really liked this book! Usually I find books boring but this one I liked to read. I give it a five out of five. -AM, grade 10 ![]() Dear Evan Hansen is about a boy who struggles with anxiety and depression. He struggles socially, so his therapist gives him the assignment to write encouraging notes to himself every day. One day, Evan has a strange run-in with Connor Murphy, who struggles with similar issues, and Connor takes Evan’s note. That night Connor commits suicide. His parents find him with the note and mistakenly think that Connor wrote the note to Evan because they were friends. Evan gets caught up in a tangle of lies and becomes close with Connor’s family, especially his sister Zoe. He gains popularity as a result and starts a project to remember Connor and raise awareness about depression. Through this experience, Evan slowly gains confidence and his mental health starts to improve, but he also realizes he cannot continue to lie forever. Before reading this book, I had already listened to the music from the play, which came before the book, and I really liked it. Reading the book, I could see where the music come in, and some of the conversations were the same as song lyrics. I thought this was a good book and the topic is very interesting and important in today’s society, but I do think it is better suited to a play. Many of the scenes would be more entertaining acted out rather than described, especially the scenes with dialogue between Evan and the Murphy’s, Zoe, his mom, and his other classmates. I enjoyed the book, but I would love to see the play and I think I would like it even more. -SMS, grade 12 ![]() This book is the sequel to Beartown and it is quite possibly even more riveting. We follow many of the same characters, and a few new ones, in the rural hockey community, learning more of their triumphs and heartbreaks in a pulsing narrative. This book is sort of about a hockey team, but really it's about community and society and life and friendship and love. I loved this book. Ms. Deacon and I had a bit of a race to see who would get to read this one first, and I won. Backman's narrative in these novels is like a clinic in characterization: every passage is about a person before it is about an event. This technique really shapes the story for me as one of the human spirit and what it means to survive and thrive. Five out of five stars. |
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June 2020
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