Book Reviews

From amazon.com

Summary

Violet Paz has just turned 15, a pivotal birthday in the eyes of her Cuban grandmother. Fifteen is the age when a girl enters womanhood, traditionally celebrating the occasion with a quinceañero. But while Violet is half Cuban, she’s also half Polish, and more importantly, she feels 100% American. Except for her zany family’s passion for playing dominoes, smoking cigars, and dancing to Latin music, Violet knows little about Cuban culture, nada about quinces, and only tidbits about the history of Cuba. So when Violet begrudgingly accepts Abuela’s plans for a quinceañero–and as she begins to ask questions about her Cuban roots–cultures and feelings collide. The mere mention of Cuba and Fidel Castro elicits her grandparents’sadness and her father’s anger. Only Violet’s aunt Luz remains open-minded. With so many divergent views, it’s not easy to know what to believe. All Violet knows is that she’s got to form her own opinions, even if this jolts her family into unwanted confrontations. After all, a quince girl is supposed to embrace responsibility–and to Violet that includes understanding the Cuban heritage that binds her to a homeland she’s never seen. This is Nancy Osa’s first novel.

-From the hard cover edition

Review

Such a sweet little book. This was definitely a coming of age novel and just overall a really great book to read.

This was one of the books on my summer reading list for my Spanish course. This book does have many Spanish phrases, some of which you have to have the basic knowledge of Spanish to understand. But if you do not speak Spanish, you can still read this book because most of the words are really similar to the english word. I liked this effect because it made it really feel like you were really there and part of what was happening. It just added this effect to the book.

The story was really sweet too about a girl, Violet, and how she thinks she is different. She has all of these “half talents” and she doesn’t have a boyfriend and is a Sophomore in high school. Later she meets a boy who you have to assume later becomes her boyfriend. It follows her process before her quince party and what is happening in her life and how she is maturing.

There was also quite a lot of humor in this book. I had many laughs while reading it and I throughly enjoyed it. It is a shorter book which is nice as many books now are so large, a small one is a pleasant relief. But it does not have to be long to get the point across and for there to be a really nice story.

This is a really lovely book and I definitely recommend it and I hope that you enjoy.

Summary

A young girl, a winged horse, and a war of epic proportions make for an adventurous start to an exciting new trilogy.

When Pegasus crashes onto a Manhattan roof during a terrible storm, Emily’s life changes forever. Suddenly allied with a winged horse she’d always thought was mythical, Emily is thrust into the center of a fierce battle between the Roman gods and a terrifying race of multiarmed stone warriors called the Nirads. Emily must team up with a thief named Paelen, the goddess Diana, and a boy named Joel in order to return Pegasus to Olympus and rescue the gods from a certain death.

Along the way, Emily and her companions will fight monsters, run from a government agency that is prepared to dissect Pegasus, and even fly above the Manhattan skyline—all as part of a quest to save Olympus before time runs out.

-Amazon.com

Review

Definitely one of the easier books I have read for quite a while. It’s nice to have a shorter, big print book once it a while because always reading a bigger and challenging book gets old. Having something new and refreshing is nice and I thought that it was a nice break.

This story did have a nice mix of this world and the Olympian world but if you want to learn about mythology this is definitely not the book, but it is still a really interesting read.

I felt that the characters were not described well though. You kind of had to imagine what they looked like. The little girl and Pegasus were on the cover of the book so that was the only mental picture that you had. In other books about Olympus, they describe the grandeur of the God and of their home, but in this book they were talked about like they were more human. I felt that detracted from the story a little, but this is to be expected as it is a book for younger readers (Amazon says 8 and up) so they can’t have too many large words.

The storyline was an interesting with the secret organization that was evil and the different people that they met. So it was an interesting story line. The ending was a little weak though – really weak actually. There are other books (it’s a Trilogy) but I just felt it ended too suddenly. That was one of my complaints.

Overall this is a book for younger readers. If you want something challenging and to have good descriptions it’s not a great book for that, but it is still an interesting read.

Enjoy.

Summary

Daniel wants to spend one final summer with his beloved grandfather, before Daniel leaves for college and his grandfather succumbs to dementia. But when Da, a former systems analyst for the Department of Agriculture, starts to let things slip about people he’s killed and countries he’s overthrown, his old “friends” come back to make sure he stays quiet. Was Daniel’s grandfather really involved in a world of assassinations and coups, or is all this just the delusion of a crumbling mind? Daniel and Da take to the road, fleeing rom threats seen and unseen. Daneil doesn’t know if he can save his grandfather, or if Da even needs to be saved. Or what the transation might cost Daneil Himself.

Printz Honor author and National Book Award Finalist Christ Lynch explores two remarkable characters in this stunning teen novel.

-From Inside Flap of Book

Review

I do not have much to say on this book. I only got like 15-25 pages into this book. I really disliked it for one reason. The person view kept changing. It was in first person, then third person, then second person. I was just so confused as to what was going on.

I really just did not like the book. The summary made the book to be really interesting, but from the first sentence, I just could not stand it.

I am someone who really likes the entire book to just stay in one point of view. It is a creative idea, I will give the author credit for that, but my grammar/english teacher always corrected me on the person view changing so I find this to always bug me now.

I personally did not enjoy it but if you would like to give it a try, tell me how you liked it.

From goodreads.com