June '17 Reviews

A Waltz for Matilda by Jackie French. Review by Riya

It starts off in August 1894, I chose it because I've never really read anything historical. There is this girl called Matilda, she used to live with her aunt and her mother, but then her aunt died and now her mother is really sick, so she has to wake up really early and go to work at the jam factory. She only gets a little amount of money so she can only afford food for her mother. So she's trying to keep her alive. Every month she writes letters to her dad for money. At the start of the story he has stopped replying. One day when she arrives home sick with hunger, her mother tells her the story of her own father, who she never lived with but saw as a golden man. Her mother never finishes the story because she stops breathing and dies. Now Matilda sets out on her own to find her dad.

 "I'm not going to rate it yet because I am still reading it! It's kind of weird, but the way the author has written it, but I imagine that is how the people of that time would speak, the language is really posh. It's really good writing."
  
The One Memory of Flora Banks by Emily Barr Review by Olivia

It's about a girl called Flora Banks. She was in a car crash and she has short term memory loss. She can remember everything before the accident, but very little of anything since. So her friend Paige's boyfriend is moving back to somewhere cold, they throw a party with all of their friends, and she kisses her friend's boyfriend. Then her friend's friend took a photo and showed Paige. Paige gets really angry with her. Her brother Jacob is in hospital in Paris because he has cancer. So her parents are going to visit him but they aren't taking Flora. Paige is supposed to be staying with her to support her, but because she is so angry with her, Flora is on her own, struggling to remember enough to get by. She knows important things like where her house is, because she lived there before the accident. She has a note which says "I kissed Paige's boyfriend" and this is the one memory she can't forget. With the money her parents have left her, she books a flight to find him, and unravel the truth.

Rated: 4/5 Memories. "Its really good"

Carry On: The Rise and Fall of Simon Snow by Rainbow Rowell. Review by Wei Li.

So this is one of the first romance genre books I've read. The story revolves around a homosexual relationship and the setting is basically Harry Potter in an alternate universe, with different characters. This guy Simon is basically the Harry of the world, and he does not want to be the chosen one. Technically, Carry On is a continuation of a non-existent book series which I was really sad about because I thought it was real because it includes publishing dates and everything. Simon's arch nemesis in the school of magic, Baz is basically Draco Malfoy, but he may also be a vampire...

I really liked how everyone is stuck in the closet but not really and it's also action and adventure crossed with romance the entire time.

Rated: 5/5 Vampires. "So it's a book in the guise of a fan fic which doesn't exist!  I really loved this book. Rowell also wrote Fan Girl which is an amazing book, you should definitely read it!"


Trouble by Non Pratt. Review by Natasha

It's about a girl called Hannah, who is fifteen and pregnant. It's one of those books where there is a typical high school with the jocks and the mean girls. So Hannah and her best friend Katie are very outgoing and adventurous with their clothes. One day a new boy, Aaron comes to school and they become friends. When she becomes pregnant, everyone wants to know who the father is. They make a Facebook page where they discuss it and call her all these names. So Aaron decides to pretend to be the dad to stop the bullying, but he actually becomes more involved in the pregnancy than he anticipated.

Rated: 4/5 babies. "Really interesting"

Tuesdays With Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man and Life's Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom.

It's about this university lecturer who is a psychologist, who basically questions everything about humanity, it's great. He becomes permanently ill, he has MND, motor neuron disorder. He becomes the link between life and death for everyone. He talks about what it's like facing death and having your body betray you. He becomes famous and one of his old students sees him on TV. He decides that every Tuesday, he will fly over from a different city to visit him and talk. Every time they meet they talk about a different topic on life and death, like family, suffering and things like that. It's really sweet. It's a different take on death. Because a lot of people treat death as a villain, but this guy Morrie isn't scared he's accepting of it, it's a completely different discussion.

Rated 4.5/5 Deep and meaningfuls ."It's amazing you should read it. At the start I was sort of skeptical  of his take on death, but the more he talked about it the more I came around to his unique take on it"

Whisper To Me by Nick Lake Review by Nika.

I haven't finished it yet, but it's about this girl who is walking along the beach with her dad when she finds a foot. She takes it to the police and is really shocked by it, and then this voice starts talking to her. The voice is really threatening, if she doesn't obey it she and those she loves will have to suffer.

Rated: 3/5 Feet. "It's really confusing right now, and I don't know how much I like it yet but the writing style is really great and I want to know what happens."


Raven's Gate: The Power of 5 by Anthony Horowitz. Review by Ari

It's a new series, well not really new, but separate from his main Alex Rider series. It's about this kid named Matt, who ends up getting involved in gangs. He gets caught stealing from a warehouse. He is arrested and his foster parents are really mean and he hates them. He ends up joining the LEAF project, which is about rehabilitation through fostering. He goes to this weird lady and she is pretty scary. She has a mysterious aura and everyone in town seems to be scared of her. He falls ill with pneumonia, he thought it was a dream, but he saw the villagers helping her make a snake venom potion. He goes for a walk in the forest and finds an old nuclear testing facility, he meets a guy there who seems to be the only one conscious of what is going on. He promises to tell him the truth if he returns tomorrow...

Rated: 4/5 snakes "A very good book, a classic murder mystery with a twist of ancient, mythical evil"

More Than This by Patrick Ness, Review by Sam.

Ness is a genre jumper. When you start reading this book, you see it as an apocalyptic, lonely search story and then you get to part two and it's sci fi, bam, right in your face. It's about this guy named Seth who kills himself. When he wakes up he finds himself in his old home in England, even though he moved to Washington with his family years ago. He wonders whether he has arrived in hell. The place seems abandoned, he walks around naked, breaks and enters and takes whatever he needs. He has vivid dreams of his old life. Of his friends and his lover. Then he meets Regine and Tomasz.

It's a really good book, but it loses a point for me because I disagreed with how the author portrays suicide. The characters sort of guilt Seth because their lives were terrible and they didn't choose to die. Regine says that he chose to kill himself because people weren't thinking about him constantly. It's really weird how they deal with the topic, I don't know whether it just wasn't handled properly. That made me feel really uncomfortable.

Rated: 4/5 vans.

                                    
Finding Nevo by Nevo Zisin, Review by Louise

It's about this person named Nevo who identifies with the pronouns they and their. This is their autobiography, and it's really good. its about their life and what they went through in dealing with their gender identity.

Rated: 4/5 Journeys. "It's really interesting and well written"