Beautiful Creatures (book review)

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia

You may have seen the movie version of this in the theatres, you may not.  Either way, you should pick up this book – the first in a four book series.

Ethan Wate is a high school student living in the small Southern town of Gatlin.  He’s lived here his whole life and he’s bored to death.  He can’t wait to graduate and leave as quickly as possible.  That’s until he meets Lena Duchannes, the new girl in his school who is completely different from anyone he’s met in Gaitlin.  Not only does she dress and act differently from the other girls in town, she also has an odd connection with Ethan.  He’s been dreaming about her since before he set eyes on her and soon after they meet he discovers that they can communicate by thought.

What are the special powers that Lena seems to possess?  What is the mysterious family curse that she seems obsessed with?  What’s the deal with her uncle who only appears at night and never ventures into town?

You’ll be hooked from the first chapter.

Place a hold on Beautiful Creatures from the Calvert Library catalog.

 

Daughter of Smoke and Bone (book review)

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

17-year-old art student Karou is seemingly living an idyllic life in
the breathtakingly beautiful Prague.  But her life is much more than meets the eye; she has a job that her art student friends couldn’t begin to imagine.  Karou travels the globe collecting teeth for a monster with ties to another world.  In exchange for these teeth, she is given wishes.  But Karou would continue to do this job even without payment.  The monster, or chimera, sending her on these assignments is as close to a parent as Karou has ever known.  As the story moves along, Karou encounters an angel and begins to develop feelings for him.  Angels are the mortal enemies of chimera and before she knows it Karou is swept into the ancient and deadly rivalry between angels and devils. This is the first in what is sure to be an outstanding trilogy!

Place a hold on Daughter of Smoke and Bone from the Calvert Library catalog.

The Gathering (book review)

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong 

Sixteen-year-old Maya is just an ordinary teen in an ordinary town. She lives with her adopted parents in a tiny isolated medical-research community on Vancouver Island. The only link she has to her past and her background is the odd paw-print birthmark on her hip. Other than that she has no information on her birthparents and her past. One day things begin to change.

Strange things begin to happen in her claustrophobic town. Unexplained deaths have happened. Mountain lions have been approaching Maya. Maya’s best friend seems to have a hidden talent of feeling people and situations out. She also is starting to be attracted to the new bad boy in town. Maya has also learned some new information and a mystery dealing with her biological parents.  Finally strange people have been sneaking around town.  What kinds of skeletons are hidden in the town’s closet?

Place a hold on The Gathering from the Calvert Library catalog.

Wings (book review)

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

…is about tenth grader Laurel, a girl made unusual by her dislike of most colorful foods and beverages, her fair skin that allows sunlight to shine through, and now, to her horror, the bump on her back that soon blooms into a flower with foot-long petals.  She’s sure that her parents don’t have any of these unusual features and spends most of her time hiding them from the world.

Enter Tamini, a really handsome guy that she meets out in the woods.  He starts trying to convince Laurel that she is a faerie and that faeries resemble plants more closely than humans.  He tells her that her parents aren’t her biological parents and that the land that her family owns houses a portal

to the faerie world.  And right now that that portal is being threatened by a band of evil trolls.

Although Laurel is very attracted to Tamini, she knows that believing him means that the world as she’s known it will be turned upside-down and the relationship she’s just started with her crush David will be at risk.  Will she join in the fight for the world of faeries—a world that she belongs
This is the fast-paced start to a four book series. to but has never known?

Place a hold on Wings from the Calvert Library catalog.

Flash Burnout (book review)

 

Flash Burnout by L.K. Madigan

Blake’s dad is a medical examiner who absent mindedly leaves autopsy photos and tools on the family’s breakfast table.  His mom is a hospital chaplain fond of saying “Actions have consequences.”  Older brother Garrett enjoys helping with his dad’s work at the morgue and giving ninth grade Blake a brotherly hard time.  Enter Blake – amateur photographer, deeply in love with his girlfriend Shannon, and, deeply involved in the fractured family life of his friend, who is a girl, Marissa. 

 Social expectations clash with friendships and realities. Choices made amidst the swirl of ninth grade friendships, love, sex, school, risk taking and family relationships, lead to conflicts and heartaches.  Ultimately his mother’s words ring true as Blake comes to personally understand that ‘his own actions have very real consequences.’  

This is a good read for high school boys as well as the girls and parents who would like to understand them better!

Place a hold on Flash Burnout from the Calvert Library catalog.

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (book review)

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs is a book is worth checking out just to look at the creepy photos.  But it’s also definitely worth reading. 

Jacob is really close with his grandfather who dies mysteriously right at the beginning of the book.  His grandfather always told him these weird stories about kids with strange abilities and claimed they were real.  He even showed Jacob old photos of these kids.  Now, after his death, Jacob thinks he’s being hunted by a monster that he’s pretty sure he saw kill his grandfather.  But nobody will believe him.

Because of a mysterious letter, Jacob visits a remote island off the coast of Wales where his grandfather grew up.  It’s a strange  kind of island and the residents all stay away from this one side of the island which happens to be the location of his grandfather’s old boarding school: Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. 

Drawn there despite the warnings from the locals, Jacob begins exploring the old, run-down building and discovers that the children that supposedly lived there all of those years ago with his grandfather somehow still do live there. 

And they do have strange abilities. 

And some of them are dangerous.

Place a hold on Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children from the Calvert Library catalog.

Desert Angel (book review)

Ahh… back-to-school time. Doesn’t it just make you want to commit murder?

What?! What do you mean yes? What’s *wrong* with you?

Look, we can’t help how you feel, but we can try to offer up some suggestions that won’t land you in juvey. How about instead of actually following through with your academically-induced homicidal tendencies, you try this alternative: reading about homicide.

Here’s one good one. In Desert Angel by Charlie Price, we find that one morning, 14-year-old Angel wakes to find that her mother has been… murdered!

Worse yet, Angel knows the killer – her mom’s boyfriend, Scotty.  Scotty is a hunter and tracker and Angel knows he is after her.  Angel takes off, knowing she will not get far without water or a weapon in the California desert, but she finds strangers that are willing to help.  She doesn’t want Scotty to hurt the people helping her, and they cannot call the police because some of them are illegals so

Angel decides she must track down Scotty on her own.  Just thinking about it gives me the shivers.

Read this fast paced thriller that depicts a young teen’s life or death struggle and see if she really can track down an expert tracker.

Place a hold on Desert Angel from the Calvert Library catalog.

How to Impress Potential Dates This Summer

Imagine, if you will, your friend’s backyard pool party coming up soon. While everyone is taking a break from the splashing, giggling and snackage, the following conversation takes place:

Your bro, munching on some nachos: “So what’ve you guys been up to this summer?”

Cute girl: “Not much. Summer job. Summer reading. You know… stuff.”

You: “Yeah? Me too. I just read this book Wildwood written by the Decemberists lead singer about a rescue mission through the Oregon wilderness.”

Cute girl: “I love the Decemberists! And did you say Oregon? Have you seen Portlandia? I ❤ that show!”

Your bro: “. . .”

You: “Oh my god yes! Fred Armisen is awesome, but I really love how artistically malleable Carrie Brownstein is.”

Your bro: “. . .”

Cute girl: “Wh..what? Did you just use malleable in a sentence? You’re amazing. I want to be your girlfriend immediately.” 

So that was a true story I just made up, but it proves a very true point: Summer reading will not only improve your life and your vocabulary, but will also impress the heck out of girls and guys alike with your malleabale gray matter. Give it a shot!

To help you choose amongst the many thousands of great books we have, we’ve compiled a list of all the great YA books we’ve read recently, including Wildwood. Check it out and then hit the pool parties!

Clockwork Angel – Teen Summer Book Blitz for July

It’s July and time for our second (and last) installment of our Teen Summer Book Blitz! Join us for an evening of book discussion, snacks, and getting to know each other. This month our selection is Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare (you can come even if you didn’t read the book – BUT we give the book away for FREE! Find out how at the end of the post).

When 16-year-old Tessa crosses the ocean to find her missing brother, she has no idea that she will soon become immersed in Victorian London’s supernatural underworld.

Upon arrival in England, Tessa is kidnapped by the Pandemonium Club, a secret organization of vampires, demons, warlocks, and humans who are very interested in her ability to transform into other people. She seeks refuge with the Shadowhunters and together they must fight the Pandemonium Club and their magical army of clockwork demons.

Thursday, July 26
7:00 – 8:30pm
Calvert Library
Prince Frederick

The first ten participants to register for our Book Blitzes receive a free copy of the book. Contact your local Calvert Library branch to sign up, then stop by for your free book. If you don’t register in time to get a copy of the book for free, you can always check it out for free. Find Clockwork Angel in the Calvert Library catalog.

Teen Summer Reading Suggestions [based on what Calvert teens are reading for 2012]

Happy July, everyone! Summer is officially in full swing, and we just know that you’re spending every moment of it indoors reading, right?

Riiiiiiiiiight?

Ok, ok, we get it. There’s plenty of fun activities going on in the summer or you might have a busy summer job, either of which leaves you wondering who has time for summer reading anyway? We feel your pain. We have to come to work everyday in the summer, leaving us librarians asking ourselves that same question.

Still, lucky for you: our job is to collect great books that will make you want to make time to read. We love our crazy summer job! 😀

The brochure images are links to the .pdf of our Summer Reading Suggestions for this year.

How did we put the list together?

Awesome question!

We dove deep into our circulation data for 2012 and pulled out some of our most popular YA titles based on number of times checked out throughout Calvert County.

So what was the big winner on that list? No surprise there: The Hunger Games was by far the most requested and checked-out book of 2012 so far. Close behind that was . . . The Great Gatsby? I guess you guys heard that the movies is coming out this year, huh? Oh, and the teens at the Southern Branch really like horror stories. There’s a section just for that. (You’re welcome, creepy kids.)

Want to know the others? Stop by your local library for a copy of the brochure, or check out the .pdf. We hope it inspires you to find something new based on the stuff we know you already like.