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Mysteries and suspense

Page history last edited by vanhookc@... 10 years, 2 months ago

 

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As we acquire more knowledge,

things do not become more comprehensible, but more mysterious.

Author: Albert Schweitzer 

Please start typing below this line.


Alex Cross

Kaylah Ward

Richmond, VA

The novel Alex cross is a fictional mystery when Detective Alex Cross crosses a path discovering that a beloved family has been brutally murder after celebrating. Alex Cross pledges to identify and hunt down this family’s murderer and defines that this isn’t they’re not the only victims.  Alex and his girlfriend, Detective Brianna Stone, are led to some important but dangerous people that are willing to do anything to keep their secrets safe.  Towards the end when Mr. Cross faces his victim’s murder, it ends with a twist leaving your mouth open wide with blow.

 I advise all of you readers to consider reading this book if you’re interested in mystery. This book would leave you with a tremor but it’s worth it. Personally I really enjoyed James Patterson’s novel. It left me pleased and willing to read it over again. James Patterson did create a movie called Alex Cross in October 2012 but I ensure you that you read the book first because its described with more details.

 


 

Devonta (Virginia)

 

Secrets in the Shadows

 

The characters in this book are roylin bailey he is the main character he lives with his sister amberlin bailey she’s a cheerleader at blueford high school and his mom. This can really relate too teens who have struggles in there life and don’t know where too turn for help and feel trap and alone in society.  He lives in a broke down apartment with an apartment manger who doesn't care about anyone but himself. His name is Tuttle.  Rollin hates his school and his life and doesn't have anyone to talk to but Mr. Miller, the guy that lives down the hall from him he knew him since he was little. I really felt his pain in the story. But the book switch up when  he met korie archer, the girl of his dreams they basally feel for each other and her birthday was coming up and he had no money and he knew she wanted a watch  so he ask Mr. miller when he went in his apartment he was dead so he took the money out his wallet and tuttle seen him coming out the apartment now Tuttle tried to bribe him to do work for free and he is not at the worst point in his life this is a very good book that had an interesting twist. It’s a must read.


 

 

Josh Evans (Virginia)-- LEVEL 26 by Anthony E. Zuiker. 

From the first chapter, you will not be able to stop reading this book.  The special circus has assigned agent dark back on the case of an allusive serial killer. Dark has been trying to track him down for years but cannot get close enough. But one day he finally gets a lead and follows it. He gets to the lead and finds a dark figure lurking in the shadows. He runs after it but is too late. Sqweegel has already gone and left. Dark gets back to his office and pulls out Sqweegel’s record. There is nothing on file but gruesome videos of Sqweegel’s torture to his victims. Sqweegel also leaves no DNA behind for the special circus to track him down. That is why Sqweegel is classified as LEVEL 26.

I enjoyed this book because it is one of the best Crime/mystery you will ever read. I would also highly recommend you read this book.

Book Project_Virginia High School


 

Callie (Iowa) --  The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. This novel is a very fun and interesting novel to read. It is very suspenseful, thrilling, and  captivating. I loved reading about the life that the main character Lily had to face. It was taken place during a different period of time, which made it very interesting to read. It's very neat being able to understand what life was like during a different period of time and learning about a life that is completely differnt from your own. The events that tie the story together are amazing, and some of them are very unexpected, which makes it that more intriguing. There were times where I was so involved with the novel that I couldn't put it down. You always want to know what is going to happen next!


CVH of Iowa -- The White Darkness A Novel by Geraldine McCaughrean
What a fine story...a trip to Hell and back...yet the destination is one of beauty both in reality and in the mind. Gotta read it! You will be heading on a cold, fascinating, dark but bright adventure! Congrats on winning Printz award...very deserving!

 


Spencer-- (Iowa) Silent to the Bone. E. L. Koningston. This book is about a boy who goes to a detention center because he is a suspect in the comma that his step sister went into.  This book keeps you wanting more.  You will never guess the ending.  It keeps you on your feet starting with the first page. 


 

 

Preston--_ (Iowa) The Twisted Claw. Franklin W. Dixon.  The Hardy Boys start out at home with their father out of town.  They get a phone call from their father telling them that he is coming home.  Their father tells them that there is a chain of museum robberies and at each museum only certain items are stolen which are called the DeGraw Collection.  They o on an adventure to find out where the two smuggler ships are taking the DeGraw collection and to stop the great-great-great grandson of a pirate emperor so they can return the DeGraw collection to the museums. Read this book for an adventure beyond belief.


 

 

Nolan--_  (Iowa) fake I.D.  This book is about a girl and her mom that are running away from everything.  When they get to a new town they go to a libary and her mom goes to one end of a shelf and she stays on the other end and her mom starts walking and she says stop.  Where ever her mom stops that is her name until they move to a new town.   In the end the girl and her friend find the guy that was looking for them and sent him to jail and they lived happily ever after.


 

 

 

Katlin (Iowa)--__ 5th Horseman_ James Patterson. This is a must read! Ever felt like you were wrapped up in the book. Kind of like you were one of the characters. that's how i feel with this book it's a great book that keeps you turning pages.


 

 

Dottie(Florida) - Code Orange - Caroline B. Cooney - This is an edge of your seat thriller about a young man who finds two scabs in one of the old medical books while doing research for a school project. They turn out to be scabs from the variola major virus, which has the potential to kill everyone in New York City. It has one task-to take over the cells of other creatures and spread......a great read!!!


 

  Ayla [Iowa] - 1st Hantelmann - Tell No One - Harlan Coben. From the first paragraph, you won't be able to stop reading this book. David Beck had lost his wife eight years ago, and everyday deals with people telling him to move on. Everyday he relives details of what happened between the horrifying screams, being at the lake, and the last time he'd seen his wife alive. Out of nowhere messages appear on his computer...and its things that only he and his presumably dead wife would know. Throughout this thrilling story you are kept on the edge of your seat, and in the meantime Beck's led to believe with a fleeting hope that his "dead" wife...is alive, and he has been threatened to tell no one. Its definately a suspense novel, extremely well written, you feel as if you're there, in the moment with the characters witnessing everything first hand for yourself. And to quote one of the books' reviewers Iris Johansen, "A thriller of runaway tension...Masterful suspense and explosive twists of fate." Its a must read if you like reading high suspense novels, and its worth the wait of reading and understanding the novel to find out how this most compelling story ends.


Grant [Iowa] - Angels & Demons - Dan Brown.  Professor Robert Langdon has been summoned to come investigate a murder at an international labratory in Switzerland.  When he finds out that an ancient, secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati are responsible, he is drawn into a far larger conflict involving one of the oldest battles of all time: Religion vs. Science.  Angels & Demons is a good mystery with enough fact tossed in to really make you wonder.  Once started, it is hard to put down.

 

 


Lindsey Wheeler

Lovely Bones Review

 

     Author Alice Sebold brings us one of the nation’s bestsellers, The Lovely Bones. Lovely Bones takes you into the life of Susie Salmon, a young girl who was murdered. It shows readers her experiences in her new life, heaven. This book will give readers a new perspective on how a tragedy can make or break a family’s bond.

 

     Lovely Bones is narrated through the main character, Susie Salmon. Susie gives readers her thoughts, her past, and what she witnesses happening back on Earth. The story mostly takes place in a small suburban town, but also, parts of the story take place in her heaven. Readers will watch the effects, with Susie, of the changes back on Earth after her loved ones suffer from her loss, how her siblings grow up, how her parent’s relationship shifts, the life of her murderer and how her murderer can slip away.

 

     The title had me interested, the metaphoric prologue intrigued me, and the first couple chapters had me glued, but then, a loss of interest. This was the sequence of Lovely Bones for me. The book had such a strong beginning and suddenly lost its excitement halfway through. I expected so much more, and it ended much differently than what I perceived was going to happen. At first I was attached to the way the author could write. After a certain number of chapters, however, I started having to re-read because I would get confused and nothing seemed to be connected.

 

     Alice Sebold did one thing right in Lovely Bones, she included many different scenes of suspense. Sebold lacks, however, at creating some of the characters to have believable character traits. Sebold was descriptive, effective, and had lyrical-like imagery that attracts many readers. For some, her descriptiveness may be too descriptive. Sebold will grab your attention with her lighthearted pieces much like this part in the story: “’You look invincible,’ my mother said one night. I loved these times, when we seemed to feel the same thing. I turned to her, wrapped in my thin gown and said: ‘I am.’” (Sebold 211)

 

      To improve this book, I would suggest many things to the author. I would suggest making Lovely Bones have a more exciting and interesting ending. I would explain how it could be improved by spreading out when to have slow paced parts, and when to pick back up, instead of having the entire book be fast paced just at the beginning. I would eliminate sections of the story that serve no purpose of making the book have better sense of connecting.

 

      I would give Lovely Bones a three star rating out of five. Despite much of my dislike for the book, it does have a captivating sense of writing style and strong attributes throughout certain parts. I would recommend this book to anyone over the age of 16, females will probably be more interested in this type of story than males. However, any reader who likes a suspenseful story with a good theme behind it should read the book Lovely Bones.

 


 

The Lovely Bones- Courtney Buck

            The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is a book about letting go and holding on to the ones you love at the same time. Susie Salmon was raped and murdered on a cold December day after school. She leaves Earth and goes to heaven, her own special heaven. In her heaven, if you desire enough, you receive. From heaven she watches life on earth go on without her. She watches her family and friends cope and her murderer not show an ounce of guilt as he dumps her cut up body in a sinkhole.

            We start off the novel on a pretty cold note from our narrator Susie Salmon, “My name was Salmon, like the fish: first name Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered on December 6, 1973.” Throughout the first 50 pages we learn that Susie isn’t an only child, she is one of Abigail and Jack’s three children. Susie is the oldest the next oldest is her sister Lindsey, who’s only a year behind Susie, and youngest of the three is Buckley. We watch Buckley grow from age four at the time of Susie’s murder to almost 13. The Lovely Bones is not a book to read to reach a point of happiness. It will make you cry and laugh in the same page. It is serious and heartwarming all at the same time. Alice Sebold did a wonderful job at not making it be a book only about rape and murder. It is much much more.

            From heaven Susie watches not only her family and friends struggle to let go, but realizes she can’t let go either. Throughout the novel Susie can’t stop watching her family, Ruth, and Ray. When she was alive she was in love with Ray and even when she reaches heaven still is. She wishes so much she could go back and kiss him just once more. Ruth and Susie were never friends on earth, but on her way to heaven, Susie and Ruth become quite close in an unexpected way. Ruth only has one way to cope with the things she hears and sees; her journal.

            The Lovely Bones is a novel for a mature reader. At 18 years of age, it was quite difficult to read at some points. The rape scene definitely could have been less descriptive and the reader would still get the point. Overall I happy I chose to read this novel; it allows the reader to realize that the world isn’t perfect. Bad things do happen to good people.

            Alice Sebold’s choices of words are amazingly effective and powerful. They really make you think past just the text. Is it possible? Are our loved ones looking down on us? Yes, some is a religious belief, but there is so much more there to think of. I suggest everyone who is mature enough to read past the rape and murder, READ IT.


Fake ID by Paige

 

I read the book Fake ID by Walter Sorrells.  The genre of this book is mystery. This book is about young girl in her late teens named Chastity.  Well that’s her name for now.  Chastity and her mother have been running for a really long time. Chastity and her mother go from town to town running from something but Chastity’s mother will not tell her why. Chastity runs into some really big problems on her sixteenth birthday. Her mother disappears and things start to go really bad. Now Chastity has to find her mother before it’s too late.

In the book there is Chastity and her best friend Ben. She and Ben are as close as can be, but not close enough to date. Brittney is a cheerleader and the sheriff’s daughter. She is little miss attitude and stuck up. She and Chastity aren’t so close. Allison is Chastity’s mother and they are very close. It’s always been just the two of them.

The setting of this book is in a little town called High Hopes, Alabama. It is a quiet little town. If something happened, everyone heard about it. The huge conflict of this book is for Chastity to find her mother and find out the reason they have been running for so long.

My overall feeling about this book was that I like it. It was a very good book. It had no dull moments. It never just went on and on with something. The author always kept the book alive and exciting. That is probably the main reason I liked the book. The author would end a chapter with something bad that happened to make you want to read more. The author liked to use cliff-hangers. I think that is a big thing that made me want to read this book even more. This book also met my goals of a book. A book is not good if it doesn’t make me want to read more. I think this book is good enough that I’m going to read the second one.

I think the authors writing style was very good. One of the main reasons I like the book is that made me want to read more.  I also liked how he had many different types of characters. None of them were real and all and made up. I like how there was brave, scared, mean, sad, mad, smart and all other kinds of other characters. None of the characters were exactly alike and I liked that. It wasn’t dull or boring at all.

This book was definitely a page turner. I read from page 90 to the very end. It was 313 pages. But don’t be fooled by how long it is. It is an easy reading book.

The only thing I would have changed was that we didn’t see much or know much about Chastity’s mother Allison before she went missing. I think the author should of give us more information on her so we could know more about the character and get to know her a little bit more.

So, what would you do if your mother disappears out of nowhere and you could get sent away or worse and you don’t even know your real name? I definitely think that if you like books that make you want to read more and it is an easy read.

 


 

Angelica Ippolito

 

Lovely Bones Review

 

Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold, is a captivating mystery about the murder of a 14-year old girl, Suzie Salmon. She tells the story of her own death, and the tribulations her friends and family go through with her gone. The idea that I got from this book is that death is not something to be scared of. It's just another stage, and ones that have passed away have to eventually let go; their loved ones will never forget them.

Suzie was murdered by her neighbor, George Harvey. Her dad, Jack, and her sister, Lindsey, are the only ones that know it was Harvey that did it. Suzie keeps sending them messages to prove Harvey murdered Suzie. However, the detective working on the case, Len Fenerman, doesn't buy it. He thinks Jack is crazy, and Jack's wife, Abigail, agrees with Len. It turns out that Len and Abigail are having an affair, and Abigail falls out of love with Jack. She eventually runs away to California.

The only thing bringing her home is when her mother, Lynn, calls and tells her that Jack had had a heart attack. When she is stepping off the plane, her two remaining children, Lindsey and Buckley, and Lindsey's boyfriend, Samuel, are waiting for her. Neither of her children gives her any respect whatsoever because she left them right after Suzie died.

Suzie tells the story of her death, in the first person, from Heaven. The story is creepy and ominous up until the middle of the story, when a girl from school, Ruth, and Suzie's old crush, Ray Singh, almost make the story seem delightful. They are two people that keep to each other, and Suzie enjoys watching them, the most. Ruth has a journal full of things she writes down about death and Suzie, and she also has amazing drawings that Suzie likes to look at in her spare time.

The setting does not change - it all takes place in a simple town, just like any other town in the country. The author makes it seem like this can happen to anyone, and almost scares the reader, because the book is so realistic, yet supernatural. Suzie has a kind of counselor, almost a substitute mother in heaven, Franny. She told Suzie that she will one day be able to move on; she just has to be able to let go. Suzie didn't understand how she could ever let go of her friends and family that she left behind on Earth. Her goal from Heaven is to let everyone go, and move on, satisfied.

I started this book unaware that I had read it previously. I was around fourteen when I read it for the first time, and now I'm seventeen. I believe that I've matured enough to read as deep a book as Lovely Bones. I think the reader has to be able to understand religion, love, and death, before reading this book. I've been trying for the past few years to figure out what I believe in -- now I've grasped it. Everything that happens in this book, with Suzie in Heaven watching her family, waiting to be satisfied and fulfilled enough to move on, is what I believe in.

I really enjoyed this book because it gives a good description of different religions. Suzie's crush, Ray Singh, was Muslim; Ruth was atheist. The author never told exactly what Suzie's religion is, because I think she was trying to help the reader understand that there are religions out there that people just… believe in. There's no explaining it, it just happens.

Alice Sebold allowed the reader to watch Suzie grow up - even in Heaven. She did an amazing job laying out her maturity, and how children often have too much trust for strangers. She allows the reader to have an open mind about how unsafe the real world actually is. Most fathers would react how Jack did, if their daughter was murdered. They may go crazy, stop talking, and try to intervene in the investigation - Jack did all three. I don't think she did a very good job in characterizing Abigail - most women wouldn't have an affair with the detective working on her first-born child's murder, then run off to a different state, never planning on talking to her family again. That part of the story was unrealistic and I think she should have made Abigail's character more innocent. However, the way she described every character, created a page-turner out of her book. The story was slow-paced, but I just didn't want to put the book down.

Lovely Bones gives the reader a hard hit of how much appreciation one's family should have. They are always there for you, and will never forget you. Another theme of the story is never to talk to strangers, because that is how Suzie was murdered.

This book is not meant for pre-teens. You should at least be mature enough to accept death, understand love, and be able to understand religion, no matter what you believe in. Lovely Bones is a good read for high school students - they should just pre-read it before they really decide they are going to keep going. I gave this book a five-star rating; I didn't want the book to be over when I got to the end.

 


 

Courtney Buck- Thirteen Reasons Why

 

     Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher is a novel about how deceiving appearances really can be. Throughout the novel a set of cassette tapes reveal the truth about a girl’s reasoning to end her life.

            The book starts with Clay, our main character, finding a set of cassette tapes from his former crush, Hannah Baker, who recently committed suicide. Each tape represents a person who had something to do with why she committed suicide. After he listens to the first tape, Clay has no idea what he could have ever done to hurt Hannah. He was secretly in love with her and could have never imagined hurting her. Throughout the tapes Clay is in awe after realizing things about people he would have never guessed they could do to a person.

Clay tells the story from his point of view and we hear Hannah’s voice from the tapes. The novel has a very serious tone with Hannah throwing in her sense of humor along the way. The setting of the novel is based on a map Hannah left behind. She left a map of their little town with red stars on the locations she wanted the person listening to go to at the time she says to. This is hard for Clay to follow because some places are hard for him to go to and realize Hannah is gone forever.

Thirteen Reasons Why is an amazing book! As an 18 year old senior in high school I would recommend this to any mature reader. It was hard to read with the fact I just lost a very good friend of mine to suicide this year, but in a sense it helped me realize it is okay to forgive him and miss him at the same time. I had this book recommended to me by a good friend and my expectations she set for me. She praised this book, said it was a have to read. I would agree with her a hundred percent. My expectations were met and exceeded by far. This novel never has a dull or boring moment; the reader constantly wants to read on, chapter after chapter.

The author does a fantastic job at setting up the characters and making it all a believable novel of high school students. He also does a wonderful job of painting the picture of the novel, the reader feels like they are right there walking down the streets with Clay, listening to those tapes. The reader can see the diner booths, the look on his mom’s face, etc. The word choice was also perfect in my eyes. It was very powerful and got the reader’s attention.  It was never slow or boring. I honestly don’t like the author could have done anything else to improve this book; it is perfect how it is. My suggestion is anyone who is mature enough to get the real story behind this novel, read it. Most definitely deserves a 5-star rating!

The theme that appearances are deceiving definitely fits this novel to a tee. Clay realizes how awful certain people are. How, for example, one can use a photography career to be a peeping tom in high school. It makes the reader wonder, are there people like that; that I know? I’m sure everyone has found out a secret about someone they would have never thought could do something so terrible. Try being Clay and finding out 13 in one night and dealing with the fact it is why his good friend is now dead. Could you ever face those people again? It’d be hard.  

 

 


 

 

Catherine Mercer

 

Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones is a great mystery novel about a young murdered girl. It is also about her family trying to accept what has happened to her.

The Lovely Bones is about Susie Salmon who has been murdered. Her parents, Buckley, and Lindsey are her loving but grieving family. They are dealing with her death as they are in their small suburban home town. Susie is telling her story and explaining what her family is going through while sitting in heaven watching them.

This novel is sad, scary, and happy throughout. It starts with Susie actually telling her murder and that Mr. Harvey is the murderer. She makes it to heaven and watches her family try to deal and investigate. The family’s lives are changing but also they all cope very differently. Mr. Harvey is also so close to the family it is kind of scary. When he leaves, everyone tries to move on but part of the family tears apart. It takes a near death to bring them together and accept Susie’s passing.

I think this novel is great. At first I was not sure if I would like it because it did not sound like a book for me. It was actually pretty interesting to read it from a girl who is in heaven after her death. I like how the story starts off explaining exactly what happened and who did it in the first chapter. It is a different way to go about a mystery but a good idea. The novel is fast paced for the most part but at times it is slow, you just have to keep reading.

Overall, The Lovely Bones was awesome. I was hoping that something would happen to the killer and that he did not get away completely. It did! You just have to read to know what came out of it. It is not what you would expect. I think this novel is appropriate for high school children of any age. It is interesting and keeps readers hanging on. I think anyone can enjoy it just as much as me. If you like mysteries and something a little different, then go for The Lovley Bones.

 

 


 

Daniel Patton

 

 

 

Acceleration

            Acceleration by Graham McNamee, was published in 2003 as a mystery novel. This novel is about a teenage boy named Duncan. He lives in Toronto Canada and works at the lost and found in the subway station. The author’s purpose is the past can be overcome by redemption.

            Duncan has two best friends, Vin is a boy that came to their school in junior high and always has his hand hidden in his pocket because he has a birth defect. Wayne is Duncans other best friend Wayne is Duncans not so good best friend. Wayne likes to get himself in to trouble he enjoys stealing stuff and doing illegal activities. The story is told out of Duncans eyes so it is a first person story. The setting changes periodically like he lives in “The Jungle” as Duncan calls it for the entire story but he travels around in Toronto many times.

            There are a couple conflicts Duncan has, one is an internal conflict. One day he was swimming out in the ocean on one of his days off and there was a girl swimming a little ways off from him and he could tell she was struggling to stay above the water and many people were swimming to save her but he was the closest person to her and when he finally made it to her it was to late she had drown and sunk into the depths of the water. The other conflict is external, Duncan finds a diary in the lost and found and he starts reading it and the more he reads it the more he finds out it’s a persons diary that is planning on killing three woman so he takes it into his own hands to hunt this man down.

            I am 18 years old and I started reading this book for one of my classes, Popular Fiction. The more I read the more I was intrigued with this book. It was hard to put down, I just wanted to keep reading to see what happened next. I had never read a mystery novel before but Acceleration was great and I will continue to read mystery ones now. I say it is a must read and I guarantee you, you will enjoy it.

            This book is very believable, everything that happens in this book could really happen to a person and it happens to many people everyday. The suspense is awesome, I do not even enjoy reading books but this book kept my attention on every page. I did not want to put it down. The writing style I would have to say is fast pace, but I think that this is why I liked this book so much. I do not enjoy books that go really slow and take a long time to get to the point. Acceleration is an easy and fun read.

            The book makes a reader wonder if people really do enjoy stalking people. It also makes readers wonder if someone is watching you and studying your every move. Maybe even thinking about killing a person even though they have done nothing wrong.

            If you do not enjoy mystery books or any violence I would say this is not a book for you, but if you like never knowing what comes next and always guessing than this book is the right book for you. This book was a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

 

 


 

Chelsea McCrum 

Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

 

 

Thirteen Reasons Why, written by Jay Asher, was published in 2007. This novel is about a teenage boy whose life changes through something as simple as a cassette tape.

 Clay is sixteen and receives a set of seven cassette tapes, turning out to be from Hannah Baker, his classmate and crush, revealing what happened in her life, which made her commit suicide two weeks earlier. Throughout the tapes she tells her story, and reveals thirteen different people explaining what they did that had an effect on her decision to take her life.

The story takes place in their town between multiple areas. The tone of the novel is very serious. The story is told from two different people. Clay in life as he knows it, and Hannah when he is listening to the tapes. The whole story in general is kind of spooky but interesting at the same time. There is no dull moment, and after each chapter it leaves you wanting to find out more. This book is mysterious through the unanswered questions and events you have throughout the novel.

Thirteen Reasons Why shows that no one can ever know what’s really going on in someone’s life. Someone can seem like they have the perfect life, but in reality they don’t. Suicide is a hard subject for many people to think about, especially those who have had to deal with it. As an 18 year old and a senior in Highschool, I have had to deal with several suicides throughout my Highschool career. One who was a dear friend of mine. This book showed there was no way anyone could know what is going to happen. It also shows that every action a person makes has an affect on more than just themselves. All in all, I thought the book was beyond exceptional. It really kept me glued to the book and it met all my expectations.

Asher did a very good job on writing the story. He really got to a teenagers level and made it very realistic. It was very easy to get the perfect picture in the readers head of how the town, characters, and events looked.

I think this book reaches to a mature audience. If someone is sensitive or is against suicide, this is not the book for them. The reader needs to be able to read the book without judging and jumping to conclusions. I definitely recommend this book.

I loved the ending of the book. It really took the whole novel and showed how it changed Clay. Everything thing happens for a reason, good or bad, and people need to learn to except it and learn from them so everyone can take the right actions to prevent the unfortunate, and I think that is what the books purpose is.


 

 

 

Zach Robinson

 

 

 

 

ACCELERATION

 

Acceleration, by Graham McNamee, is a mystery novel. This novel is about a boy, Duncan, who finds the diary of a psychopath murderer and how he will stop him. In the book Duncan learns all about “Roach” as he calls him, but not like everyone else sees him but from inside his mind. The theme from acceleration is persistence always pays off. He tries narrowing down suspects to find Roach but in the end Roach finds him.

Main character Duncan tells the story. There are Vinny and Wayne, Duncan’s friends, who all live together in “The Jungle” as they call it for all the noises the apartment building makes. Duncan works as a teller at the lost and found depot at the train station stacking lost items never to be claimed. His boss Frank, a grumpy old man “is a lifer” at the “dungeon” as it’s referred to. The problem in the story is one, there is a psycho Roach out hunting people on the subway, and two, Duncan is being haunted in his dreams by the girl he couldn’t save at the lake. So he makes it his mission to find Roach and stop him.

The book was a very fast read, which keeps you reading and it’s really easy to keep up with what’s going on for how descriptive the author is. I really liked this book, it was easy to read, it was fast paced, and it was a mystery and I like mysteries. My expectations for this book were it was going to be a slow dull book with little excitement, but I was very wrong. The book is filled with tense and raw thoughts from the diary, and how when Duncan finds the people from the diary to be real it becomes a whole different book.

The book is very suspenseful and reads really fast, almost like watching a movie. It is full of imagery to make the book seam like you are there. The story itself is very believable, a psycho murderer hunting people on the subway and keeping all his thoughts in a journal.

I think the ending ended too quickly, I think it should have been dragged out more to make it more suspenseful. The plot is very believable with the run down apartment building, the subway and the lost and found juncture that Duncan works at.

What would you do if you found the diary of a murderer? Would you hunt him down yourself, or would you let the police deal with it, it is there job to do that kind of stuff, even with no leads or hopes of them finding him and you having the conscience of a dead person on your hands.

I believe it is a very good book to read for anyone. It is a fast read and keeps you informed with the imagery. It’s a vey appropriate choice for someone to read that is in high-school. I give this book a 4-star rating.

 


 

                Nic Parker

 

 

 

Cell by Stephen King

 

 

The book Cell by Stephen King is a sci-fi mystery book set in Boston during the Zombie outbreak. The outbreak, called the "pulse", changes everyone with a cell phone into a mindless zombie.

                The characters of the book are; Clay Riddel, a comic book artist, Tom ____, a _____, Alice ____, a young teenage girl, Jason, a young teenage boy, and a zombie the group names the "raggedy man". The survivors (Clay, Tom, Alice, Jason) meet up at different parts of the book, clay and tom being the first to meet. The point of view is told by a narrator that knows only what Clay is thinking. The setting changes often as the group travels to different cities attempting to escape the zombies. The goals of the characters are to survive, and for clay, find his son.

                I'm sixteen and I'm reading this book out of interest and for my Popular Fiction class. Overall I felt like this book was a great book, a really well written book, getting me interested in Stephen King. I had heard a lot of good things about Stephen King, so I had high expectations. I'll say, for the most part, they were exceeded.

                The book characterized all of the characters very well, as if they were real people. The whole story, despite being an apocalyptic zombie invasion, was very believable. The whole book was suspenseful and a page turner. At times the book was a little slow, but at other times it was faced paced.

                One thing and only one thing I would have done to the book is change the ending. The ending was horrible, the worst ending I have ever read. It left a lot to be desired and left the book at a dead halt. It would have been interesting to see from another characters perspective, but not necessary.

                Cell makes the reader question what is going on a lot of the time. The book has the reader go back and read the sentence or two before again. It also has the reader wonder how it all happened.

                People who like mystery/sci-fi books, and people who like the movies Dawn of the Dead and the games like Left 4 Dead should read this book. It gives a new look at the zombie apocalypse.


 

 

 

 


Craig Brown

 

 

 

The Cell

Written by Stephen King

 

 

This is one of those books I could not put down; Stephen King writes this story in such detail, describing every little thing that goes on. King wrote the book as a mystery genre. I think what king was getting in this book is that someone should not give up hope in the most discouraging of times.

The characters did not have any connections at first then as the story goes no they start becoming friends then they seam to grow into a family. Tone of the story changes from pleasant to chaotic then it starts to calm down then right back to crazy. The setting is through Boston, New Hampshire, and Maine. The problem of the story is that every one has gone crazy by what some call a pulse in the cell phone and one of the normal people is trying to find is son in all the insanity.

King characterized his characters really well I could actually picture them as I read his description. This story is fiction and I don’t really think that it could really happen to the world. This book has its dull and suspenseful moments and when the part comes up it gets really suspenseful.

I would have changed the ending of this book, it just kind of ended, I really can’t tell how because that would spoil the ending. I also would have changed the perspective point because I would like to know what some of the other characters are thinking as the story when on.

I think the theme of this book is that some one should not give up hope on the most discouraging of times. This theme really applies to real world, for examples if some one was having a struggle in their life and they lost their job, or car, this book is really saying “don’t give up just keep trying to do your best.”

This book should be read by high school students and older. Not for the younger readers it has images showing bloody death, and also has images about a running in only sneakers. I give this book four and a half stars out of five, would have gave it a five but it kind of lost my attention at the end. I really enjoyed this book and if someone is into mystery genre, then I highly recommend this book to them.

 

 

 


 

 

 

Sara(Iowa)

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold is a mystery novel that instantly grabs your attention. In this novel you are reading about the death of a little girl. Throughout this story you watch her family unveil the secrets that were hidden surrounding her death. The author wrote this novel to represent the idea of “appearances can be deceiving.”

            Right from the beginning this story is told from the point of view of Susie Salmon. She was the little girl who was murdered and the story is about her watching her family find out about her death and cope with it and everyday obstacles. She is telling the story from her heaven, where she has everything she wanted on earth but couldn’t have. Susie’s family consists of Lindsey (her sister), Buckley (her brother), her grandmother, and her parents. They are the main lives she watches, but she also watches her killer, Mr. Harvey, as he walks about in his everyday life, looking innocent and acting like any other concerned neighbor in normal suburbia, where the story mainly takes place. The tone of the story obviously starts out very solemn, creepy, and serious. It then changes towards the end of the story as everyone learns to cope and let go of the past, and relief is felt by everyone.  

            This emotional and reflective novel was very interesting to read as a fifteen year old popular fiction student. It made me think a lot during the reading and after. It often left me with and eerie feeling because of the truth it exploited about the everyday world. I would rather have a honest story than a story that covers up all the bad things that happen. Before I started this book I thought it would be just like any other mystery, but it was different in the way it was told and I liked the variety it offered.

            The characterization in The Lovely Bones was very realistic. Lindsey for example closed up after her sister’s death like many people do. She didn’t open up to other people or let them see her being weak. Many characters were dynamic such as her parents, who were no longer the same from the beginning to the end of the novel. The suspense in the novel wasn’t very exciting but it was very descriptive, and was realistic, and real life isn’t always action-packed and fast-paced.

            I believe this book should be read by everyone once they enter high school. It would be too extreme and maybe a little disturbing to the younger crowd but it doesn’t hide the truth. This novel shows how a normal person, who you know and see in your everyday life, could really be someone who has a darker past that you would never expect them to have. “Appearances can deceiving” is exactly like “never judge a book by its cover”. This book also makes you realize how obscene the world truly is. “The penguin was alone in there, I thought, and I worried for him. When I told my father this he said, ‘Don’t worry, Susie; he has a nice life. He’s trapped in a perfect world.”(Sebold3) This quote is very true because it shows how Susie’s father was concerned about the world she would grow up in. No one knows what type of hardships and obstacles they will come by. The penguin was trapped in a world where nothing could reach him, a life many people wish they could have.


 

 

Allison Barloon

 

 

 

            The Street Lawyer by John Grisham is a fast-paced legal thriller that takes place in modern day Washington D.C. Michael Brock, the main character, is a lawyer at Drake & Sweeny and after a hostage situation, he soon realizes that wealth and greed can easily get in the way of happiness. The theme, wealth and greed can get in the way of happiness, is a premise in The Street Lawyer that ties all of the events together throughout the book.

            The story is about Michael Brock, a very successful lawyer, whose life, has his life drastically changed. Involved in a hostage situation, Michael decides to quit his luxuriously paying job and turn to life as a lawyer for the homeless. Throughout this time, he continues to have problems with his marriage to Claire. When he is about to leave Drake & Sweeny, he discovers a secret that could change the way that the firm operates. For the rest of the book, Michael tries to solve the case with the help of Morecai Green, a lawyer at the 14th Street Legal Clinic, who introduces Michael to how life on the streets can be and changes his perspective.

            When I first picked up this book for my Popular Fiction class, I thought it would just be another book about a lawyer trying to win a case. But soon I realized that it was something more than that; the author, John Grisham, actually had a story to tell. He was speaking up for the homeless and showing people about the injustices that are done to them daily, but are swept under the rug. The tone of the book was very solemn and straightforward, but this gave me a unique reading experience because I have never read a book quite like this. There were a lot of legal terms, but most were explained by the author so it wasn’t too difficult to read.

            The characters of the book were very believable, in that they showed their true feeling and their actions were realistic. In one chapter, Michael had just gotten a file he shouldn’t have and was walking out of the office, when he was spotted by a co-worker: “‘Hey!’ someone yelled from behind. I turned a corner, and glanced back just quickly enough to see a guy coming after me. The nearest door was to a small library. I ducked inside; luckily it was dark….Figuring I could run faster down the stairs than up them, I bounded down, even though my office was two floors above.” (162)  This was an extremely realistic action because if I was caught with a folder or file I wasn’t supposed to have, I would have run as well. Having characters that are believable makes this book easy to relate to and it also makes a page-turner.

            This book’s main concern was about the homeless and how they are treated. The Street Lawyer raises such questions are: Who helps the helpless? What do you do if you see an injustice? Do you stick up for them or just let it happen? How far would you go to help someone you don’t even know? All of these questions are brought up in the book, and different people will have different answers which makes this book a good discussion tool. Also, throughout the book, Michael realizes that you don’t need wealth to be happy. In the end, he believes that he just needs to enjoy his life to be happy and, for him, it was helping the homeless with their legal problems.

            I think that anyone who wants to should be able to read this book. It is a little more advanced than some of the books I’ve read, but if you are eager to read, pick it up. It is an appropriate choice for high schoolers because it raises questions and concerns that are very real and are problems in our world right now. The Street Lawyer by John Grisham will not let you down in suspense, compassion, and plot.     


 

Nathan Sander

 

 

Cujo Book Review

          This book review is about Cujo by Stephen King. This book’s genre is a thriller mystery. Cujo is about the progression of rabies through a huge Saint Bernard dog, named Cujo, along with the disappearances of several neighbors. As the disease spreads through his system, Cujo gets more and more digressed in brain activity. The theme of Cujo is that some things are more than meets the eye.

            Cujo is about Cujo, a giant Saint Bernard, who contracts rabies from a bat. His young master, Brett Camber, and Brett’s parents, Joe and Charity, don’t notice any differences in the actions of Cujo. The story also revolves around the story of young, Tad Trenton and his own struggles with his parents. His parents, Victor and Donna, don’t believe him when he says that there is a monster in his closet. As the book progresses, so does the rabies in Cujo’s mind. Then some irony is added, Charity wins the lottery and Victor gets a chance to fix his cereal scandal, Cujo completely loses his mind to the disease and starts to attack back at the sources of his suffering. That’s when the trouble really starts. The point of view of Cujo is 3rd person, omnipresent. The book’s tone is very dark, especially near the end. Cujo is set around the upper colonial states; Maine, New Hampshire, etc. The main conflict of the novel is between Cujo and the rabies. Cujo does not like his actions and is trying to stop in the beginning until he totally loses it.

            This book was very entertaining and it really kept me from putting the book down. This book was a little better than what I expected. I expected the book to be just another simple horror book but this exceeded and added a little suspense to the equation. I liked the book because it had enough blood-thirstiness for my horror loving mind.

            Cujo is a believable story because it is about the true aspects of what rabies does to the mind. The book also adds suspense in the form of a child’s fear of the monster in his closet. The book was a little slow-paced except during the action scenes. The books reading style was fairly simple because they did not have many high vocabulary words. The book gave the rabies odd and eerie human/demon characteristics and also has it appear for a boy as the monster in his closet which is odd because some people in the book then relate the “monster”/rabies inside the dog as the reincarnation of a horrible killer from years back.

            Cujo makes the reader think about what he about if what he sees is real or if it is something supernatural. This book is not for people who like to read calm mystery books because this book is not calm but action-packed and full of eerie suspense.

 


 

 

Elizabeth Denning

(Iowa)

The Pelican Brief

 

            The Pelican Brief, written by John Grisham, is a mystery that takes the reader on a thrilling ride full of controversy and investigation. The main character, Darby Shaw, is thrown into a world of death and money when she writes a brief describing who she thinks is responsible for the deaths of two Supreme Court justices. From big shot lawyers to people close to the president, the author takes the reader on an intricate journey to find who has committed these injustices. The author does a very good job conveying the idea that power corrupts.

            After the Supreme Court justices are killed, and the president and his loyal assistant, Fletcher Coal, celebrate in being able to restructure the court the way they would like to, the case catches Darby’s attention. She spends an extensive amount of time, and comes up with an obscure suspect no one else had thought of yet. She dismisses the brief as nothing but lets her lover, Thomas Callahan, look over it. Callahan was a law professor close to a member of the FBI. Once the brief gets into his hands and is handed up throughout the system, Darby is thrown into a world she never dreamt of. Once she sees someone close to her murdered she realizes the murder was really for her, and goes into hiding. Someone wants her dead, and she goes into an investigation with a reporter, Gray Grantham, of why her brief caused such destruction.

            I read this book, because I had previously read books by Grisham and had enjoyed them. This book, however, didn’t catch my attention as much as his other books. It was definitely a page turner, but parts of the investigation led to dead ends, and I grew tired of waiting for answers, but my need for answers kept me going with the book.

            Grisham’s style of writing was made to build suspense. He does it already with the first few lines: “He seemed incapable of creating such chaos, but much of what he saw below could be blamed on him,” (Grisham, 1.) He did a great job of making me want Darby, and me, to figure out the mystery before it was too late and Darby was found or killed. By changing scenes quickly and giving you other angles of the main story, he kept the story interesting and gave the reader more things to question and want to figure out. He isn’t a pretty writer, but he was detailed and although the reader wasn’t informed who was behind things, I was never confused about what was going on. However, I did lose track of names in the middle. Grisham used a lot of characters for his story, and keeping up with names and occupations had me looking back to remember who they were. Even though this was a thriller, I found it believable. Government conspiracies happen, especially when money or power is involved, and I could see this happening in the world today.

            I would only change a couple of things about this book. First of all, way too much was revealed on the back. I was still a hundred and fifty pages in when I knew what was going to happen because of the summary. Also, I wouldn’t have ended it so perfectly. I wanted to know what happened to the people involved that were revealed for their crimes and lies, but the book didn’t go much farther than to just say they were caught and being investigated.

            This book made me think about what else the government covers up that we don’t know about. They could keep so much from us and we would never know, because even though we may not believe everything they say, they can fool us even by what they’re wearing when they deliver speeches. When so much in the world is up to appearances, covering things up is easy, especially when money is involved.

            I think people who like to read should pick up this book. If a student didn’t really get into books that much and was looking for something quick, this would not be the book for them. This book would be more for a reader looking to spend some time reading a long book with a happy ending, and one who didn’t mind being clueless about the mystery for the majority of the book.


 

Cody Lee

 

Acceleration Book Review

 

The book Acceleration is by Graham Mcnamee who wrote about a 17 year old boy named Duncan. His friends get him into trouble. He works at a lost and found off of a subway train. I think that the authors purpose of this book is to make you think how easy it would be to find a crazy serial killer that is working on his first victim. How easy you could get sucked into finding them.

Duncan and his friends, Vinny and Wayne seem to get in some trouble. However, Duncan has some problems of his own. The story is told by Duncan. The setting takes place in New York. It’s always busy. It does not ever change. Duncan is looking for something to read when he is in a hurry. He grabs a little black diary. He starts reading and finds himself in a mystery, a serial killer on the loose.

I liked this book. It kept you on your toes. I never wanted to stop reading. It was always jumping from him reading the book to him and his friends hanging out. It did get confusing at times. I wanted to read this because Duncan is almost my age and maybe I could find something interesting. My expectations were met.

The book was very realistic. I always looked forward to turning to the next page and see what happens next. I got a good picture in my head through out the whole book. I thought that some of the writing was difficult. I had to re read every now and then.

To improve the book I would have kept the book more on the diary instead of bouncing back and forth from Duncan and his friends. It would have been cool to see what Duncan’s mom was thinking while he just found the diary, or what she thought Duncan was going through.

After the very first sentence, the rest of the book was a mystery. It always kept you thinking about what could happen next. You never could predict what would happen. I kept asking myself questions, who is this guy? Does he tie into Duncan somehow?

Over all I liked the book. If you like TV shows like CSI, you would like this book. You have to try to figure it out on your own with Duncan and his friends. It was a good choice for a high school student. It was not very difficult, but it kept me thinking to myself. It makes good images in your head, like a movie. I give this book a 4 star.


 

 

Jake S

Acceleration Review

 

Acceleration, written by Graham Mcnamee is a heart pounding thriller that will make you sit on the edge of your seat. It really shows how important friendship is in order to succeed at different aspects of life and also how determination can help you achieve great things that seem impossible.

            Duncan, a teenage boy, doesn’t just have your normal teenager tribulations; he is faced with a severe case of depression caused by an incident that still strongly affects him to this day. One day at work will turn all of this around for Duncan because he finds a diary that had been turned into the lost and found by a madman he calls Roach. While Duncan is reading he discovers that Roach has a serious problem and that certain crimes he plans to commit are going to happen soon. As he tries to figure out Roach’s next move he finally decides that this is too much work for one person, so he brings in his friend Vinnie who lives in the same apartment complex as him. With Duncan dealing with his job and psychological problems Vinnie decides to take most of the workload which helps to limit where they can find Roach.

            As a sophomore at the age of 16 and a not so casual reader I actually enjoyed the suspense that this book brought to the table. It was a well written thriller that started off a little slow but as the suspense got higher and higher I found myself not wanting to close the book. If there was one thing this book did for me, it was that it made me enjoy reading just a little bit more than I already did.

            Graham Mcnamee did an excellent job at characterization. I was able to really connect with each character because they were around my age group and acted like normal teens. This was a pretty believable story except I don’t think a normal teenager would pursue this kind of mystery in such depth and precision as Duncan did. Mcnamee also did a great job at keeping your mind wandering throughout the story and keeping you on the edge of your seat. The imagery in this novel was also very well done. I was able to visualize myself right in the story as it was happening.

            One thing this book lacked which wasn’t a huge deal but I would have liked to see was a better ending. I didn’t think the ending answered all of my questions and just came to an abrupt halt. Also I would have liked to be in the heads of some of the other characters and get their perspective on everything going around.

            Acceleration brings a lot of good points into reader’s minds but one that sticks out to me is the important of friendship. This book really shows how that if you have strong bonds with friends then you can have a greater chance of succeeding at difficult tasks and just having an all around happier life.

            I think this book could be read by readers of any age because it is an easy read and very well written. This is a very appropriate book especially for high school students. I’d give this book a 4-star rating.

           

 

 


 

 

By: Devin Gerhart

The Cell

 

            The book I am writing about is, The Cell by Stephen King, it is a mystery book. I believe this book is about how dangerous technology can be. In the very first page it is describing the event that happens on October 1ST at 3:03 P.M. That event basically makes this book what it is.

            The main Character in this book is Clay. He is on a business trip for the book he wrote and is taking it to a publisher to see if they want to publish his book, and then the event happens. There are also other people who come in to it such as Alice and Tom the other main characters. Alex is a young teenage whose mother became one of the phone crazies. Tom is a middle aged man who helps Clay in the beginning of the novel when he encounters a phone crazies. The setting is in Boston but they travel north through the states. Clay wants to find his son and Tom and Alice are just trying to survive.

               I thought this book was very interesting, and fascinating. I thought the author gave a very good layout of the book. It was a good page turner with action on almost every page. I liked his language because it was very down to earth and it made it feel more normal not so out their. I also liked all the action in this book because it made me not want to put it down. All in all I thought this book was very good and I didn’t want to put it down.

            I think this book was believable for the most part. I think it really could happen but there are some aspects of it that are just to out their for me. Like the concept that the phone crazies learn to levitate not even knowing it. I thought the word choice was believable their was a lot of cussing but in this time if it really happened their would be a lot of cussing. It was very suspenseful and a page turner I wanted to keep reading during class even when the period was over.

            I think one of the possible themes for this book would be “Technology can be dangerous when it is in the wrong hands.” It was believable on how the people wouldn’t just be able to camp out when there are those phone crazies are running around and they are murders and they don’t even know it.

            I would suggest this book to a small group because of the gore and language the violence can be graphic. I would suggest this book to people who are open minded and not worried about language or violence. I think it could be and appropriate for high school students it all depends on how mature they are. This book is most likely a book for boys. I give this book a 5 star.

 


 

 

 

Meredith Moore

 

The Lovely Bones Review

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is a mystery novel about moving on and how long it takes after a tragedy. In this whodunit mystery novel, Susie Salmon tells the story of how her family and friends cope with her death.

This story is based in a suburb in Pennsylvania in the 1960s. Susie states in the beginning of the novel that Mr. Harvey, a strange lonely neighbor, rapes and kills her in a field behind their neighborhood. Susie’s father is the first to suspect Mr. Harvey and battles to persuade his wife, police, and neighbors, who all think he is a nut, that Mr. Harvey is the killer of his precious daughter. Susie’s younger sister, Lindsey, is loyal to her father and takes care of him and her little brother, Buckley, while their mother copes with the death.

I am a 17 year old junior and read The Lovely Bones for an English class at my high school. I had a choice to read any mystery novel of my choice, so I choice The Lovely Bones. Before reading the novel, I expected it to be a very entertaining fast-past book. I was very satisfied with the first half of the book, but the second half I found it to be rather boring and slow-paced. Over-all, I think The Lovely Bones is an alright book.

            The Lovely Bones is a realistic novel, because any girl in any neighborhood could get raped and killed by a neighbor. The characters in the novel are actually really believable as well. Susie’s family reacts to her murder very similar to how any normal family would. The beginning of the novel is very suspenseful which makes it a page turner. The last part of the book goes by slowly and doesn’t have much dialogue so it was very hard for me to just sit down and read without getting distracted. The word choice is very lyrical at some points in the novel, especially the second half.

To improve this novel, I would definitely change the ending. I would also add in more dialogue and suspense during the end of the book. I wish that The Lovely Bones would show more about how Mrs. Salmon is feeling and maybe even have the story written from her perspective of things.

The Lovely Bones make the reader question how much time and effort it takes and how hard it is to let a loved one go. The reader realizes that it takes every person a different amount of time to let a loved one go, especially a young daughter.

A person should read this book if they love a whodunit mystery that is slow-paced. The Lovely Bones is appropriate for a high school student, as well as an adult. On a five star rating, I would give this mystery novel two stars.

 


 

 

 

 

Lena Giron

Fragments 

 

Fragments, written by Jeffry W. Johnson is a mystery novel the will bring you into the mind of a teenage boy, Chase, to try and figure out what happened before his terrible car accident. While trying to put the pieces together on what really happened that night, Chase has to deal with his brother leaving and his peers at school who also want to know what happened that night. A common theme most people would get out of Fragments is that forgetting sometimes makes things go away. It is also about regret and blaming yourself because you have no one else to blame.

 

            Chase, the narrator, can’t get his mind off of what happened that night and how none of his memories come together that night. He sometimes gets anxiety attacks about thinking about it and counts to calm him. While dealing with this, his brother, Ben, pops in occasionally and comforts him through the rough times. Ben went away because of an incident that happened that caused them to move away from their house, so he cannot be seen by his parents. While at school Chase is comforted by an outcast, Darla, who talks to him and helps him put together what really happened the night. The story is told from Chase’s point of view. Fragments brings a sense of mystery and Chase seems to be a little detached from reality when trying to figure out what’s going on in his life. A lot of the story takes place either at school or with his therapist. One major conflict that occurs during the book is his brother not being there with him and Chase always worrying about when he’s coming to see him or if he’s okay. Also Chase feels that the accident was his fault and he could’ve stopped it.

 

            I felt satisfied when I read this book. The events happen so fast that it was shocking to read and hard to put down. I read this book for Popular Fiction class and I felt that it was appropriate and there are people in the world that deal with the same issues Chase dealt with.

 

            Fragments is a straightforward novel that will keep the reader turning the pages until the book is finished. It’s straightforward and uses a lot of dialogue. Lively and simple vocabulary would explain the author’s style throughout the novel. While reading I also felt that it was effective. The characters are realistic to today’s society and that makes the book even better.  

 

            Fragments makes the reader question does everyone hide things to make them go away so they don’t have to deal with it anymore? The reader realizes that eventually the truth comes out and you have to deal and dwell on what’s going on to get through and move on.

 

            After reading the book I think that Fragments is an appropriate book for high school students. This is because the main character is a teenager and deals with things that teenagers deal with everyday.

 

             


 

Courtney Essy

The Lovely Bones Review

 

            The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold is a mystery novel about overcoming obstacles and portrays to the reader that there are more important things in life than retribution like forgiveness, love, and letting go.

            The beginning of The Lovely Bones is set in Pennsylvania in the 1970s.  Susie Salmon is a 14 year old girl who is a murder victim of her deranged neighbor that moves from town to town seeking out his next murder. Susie narrates the book from heaven, watching her family and friends try to move on with their life after her death. Each character in the book has a different way of coping with her murder. Her father has suspected the neighbor Mr. Harvey as the killer but has no proof to support his accusation. Her mother becomes withdrawn from her husband and two living children and finds herself having an affair. Lindsey, Susie’s sister, starts being defined as the girl with a dead sister and is also faced with consoling her young brother who does not understand that Susie is not coming home. The many other issues the family will face along the way to recovering from the murder of Susie makes the reader think about letting go and being a supportive family.

The murder of the main character at the beginning sets a somber, depressed tone throughout the first part of the book. Toward the middle the family starts to move on despite the recent change in family departures and the murder. At the end the family is moving on with their life and you can see the light at the end of the tunnel for the them.

The Lovely Bones is not your typical mystery novel. The author puts the murder right at the beginning so the rest of the novel is about her family and trying to overcome but yet get justice for Susie’s murder. This book exceeded my expectations of a mystery novel. The way it was full of twists and turns kept me wanting to find out more.

Sebold made the characters very realistic I could relate and connect with them. The pain the family was feeling through out the book was genuine and not to over done. The Lovely Bones was very descriptive which made me keep turning the page.

The Lovely Bones makes the reader question how you would be able to move on after such a tragedy in a family. This ties into the theme of forgiving and moving on. The family must forgive Mr. Harvey in order to move on with their lives.

This is a very unique style of mystery novel. I suggest this book to readers that have an interest in a page turning mystery novel that still tugs at your heart.


 

 

Marshall Hamilton Acker

 

 

Cell Review

Cell is a mystery novel written by Stephen King. It is about a graphic artist named Clay Riddell in the heart of Boston on a brilliant autumn afternoon when hell was unleashed before his eyes. Without warning, carnage and chaos reigned. Ordinary people fell victim to the basest, most animalistic destruction. And the apocalypse began with the ring of a cell phone.

The first character introduced was a guy named Clay with no importance to history he was in Boston on a business trip. The next main character introduced was a man named tom. He was just an average guy that was standing near Clay when all this began. After a while they went to a hotel that clay was staying at and a girl named Alice was introduced. The point of view in this book is told in third person omniscient. The tone of this book is mostly dark and serious. It is also very gory and violent. The major conflict of this novel is Clay trying to get to his son and all these zombie like things making it hard for him.

My overall feeling of this book I liked the action in it and it has a pretty well developed story but I would rather see it as a movie than a book, because its just one of those things I would like to visualize than think about. My purpose for reading this book was for Popular Fiction class for our mystery unit. My expectations for this book were met pretty well. There was a lot of action and gory violence which is what I expect from anything that involves this kind of story with the zombie like things.

Stephen King developed the main character very well. He was a very realistic person in this book because of the way he acted and his view on situations. the story of this book is a bit unrealistic because I don’t think that talking on a cell phone could make you turn into a crazy acting human being but maybe someone out in the world has that sort of technology, I dont know. For me this book was a mix of fast and slow paced, because there are parts that are full of action and make it a page turner but then there are parts that make it kind of dull so its half and half for me.

One question that I had during this book is what I would do in a situation like this. I couldn’t imagine what I would feel or do in something like this. Another question I had was, is it really possible for a terrorist group to actually develop this kind of technology and unleashed it on the world, that would suck.

The kind of people that should read this book are people how like action and bloody gore but also a softer side to the book and if you like the mystery genre. If I were to give this book a star rating it would most likely be a 3.5 and a half.

 


 

Acceleration Review

 

Acceleration, by Graham McNamee, really shows the readers that if they want to get something done they have to do it themselves. In this book the narrator, Duncan, is working his summer job in a subway train station in Toronto and he finds a notebook full of articles, pictures, and writings that he believes are plans to kill people. He goes to many people for help but he does not end up finding any other than his two friends, Vinny and Wayne.

I am a 17 year old kid reading this book for my popular fiction class and I do not consider myself an avid reader. Before reading this book I expected it to be pretty good from the summary my teacher gave me, and a few people told me that it was a great book. The book did not quite meet my expectations. I liked the book clear up until the resolution but I did not like the ending result.

At the beginning of the book and through the middle I found myself really wanting to keep reading because it was full of suspense. Some of the stuff Vinny did in the book seemed a little unrealistic for a kid in high school but for the most part it was believable. Overall I thought that the author’s writing style was pretty effective but every once in a while I had to read passages over because he seemed to switch subjects very quickly.

If I were to write this book I would write a different ending. Even though this ending was somewhat realistic I thought that it ended too quickly and could have been dragged out a little longer to make it better. I think that the perspective it was written in was good and got the job done.

Acceleration makes the reader question what they would do to get something done. The reader realizes that if he or she wants to get something done they need to take responsibility and do it themselves.

I think anybody that likes to read about crimes or potential crimes and like to try and solve them before they happen in the book would like to read this book. I think it is a good choice for high school students because it makes them think about real life situations and use high school skills and logic to perform tasks that are much deeper than what meets the eye.

 

Nick 


 

 

 

The Lovely Bones Review

Chloe Kruse

 

Iowa

 

 

Alice Sebold, the writer of the 2002 hit novel, The Lovely Bones, used her past 

 

experiences dealing with the rape she encountered in her teenage years to write a book

  

with a similar topic. She took a different turn as others like her may not have, to use her

  

tragedy and blossom it into an awareness-raising and mystery soaked novel that portrays 

 

a family trying to hold from breaking into pieces during crime and crisis.

  

Sebold shows an exotic look at life-after-death in individual “heavens”. The main 

 

character of The Lovely Bones, Susie Salmon, tells her story of her rape and murder from 

 

her eyes. In her afterlife she watches over Earth as her parents, and younger siblings, 

 

Lindsey and Buckley, try to overcome their loss of losing a family member to a malicious 

 

and unsolved murder. The novel begins to unfold as Susie tries unsuccessfully to point

  

her family in the direction of the murderer who is, many times, in the palm of their hands.

  

The tone of the novel begins to change as time passes and hope of solving the crime is

  

eventually lost. Internal and external conflicts begin to evolve within each family 

 

member in which they struggle with throughout the novel.

  

I am an 18 year old female and once hearing my teacher introduce this book to my 

 

Popular Fiction class, I was very intrigued to read it. After picking up the book, the first 

 

few chapters were a whirlwind of dramatic and fast-paced scenes once the murder took 

 

place. I read on as each character reacted and in my opinion, the novel is realistic in how 

 

a family carries each day with them the thought of an unexpected loss, but unrealistic in

  

how they deal later on in the novel with the affliction.

  

Although the middle of the novel was still at a nice and steady pace, and the well- 

 

written imagery remained, the believability began lacking. Therefore, it started making it 

 

harder for me to keep reading. By the closing chapters the novel transformed from a page

  

turner to a dull fairytale-like ending that was very unappealing to me.

  

Throughout the novel, and like many others, I was hoping for a complete 

 

resolution. I wanted the murder solved. And because that never happened, I would’ve

  

changed the book to have an alternate ending. I believe it would’ve left more readers like

  

me with a different taste in their mouth and feeling toward the book, I know it would 

 

have in my case.

  

I did however, never disagree with the strong theme of family trying to overcome 

 

being torn apart by a catastrophe. Many times parental relationships of deceased children 

 

falter due to post traumatic stress and the inability to move on. Quoted here from the

  

book we see the bond of Jack and Abigail Salmon, the parents of Susie, trying to stay 

 

above the water in hopes of mending their relationship, “To see them together was like a 

 

tenuous belief made real. My father could see glimmers, like the colored flecks inside my 

 

mother’s eyes - things to hold on to.”(Sebold 270)

  

I suggest this book to anyone who is interested in a mystery novel and who is

  

mature enough to deal with the topics involved. Some of the scenes are a little too 

 

descriptive and graphic. Even though it is common in teenage life, there were some

  

gratuitous sex scenes that some readers may not feel appropriate for a mystery novel and 

 

not want to read because of which. In all, I still would give this novel a 3.5 out of 5 stars.


 


 

Roger Hillabolt

 

Monster Book Review

    Monster is by Walter Dean Myers, this is a mystery novel. It shows a sixteen year old African American who is in jail on trial for being involved in a robbery that had resulted in the owner of the drugstore being murdered. The purpose that the author was trying to get across to the readers was to show how the American legal system works to determine who committed a crime and how the criminal is punished. Also he shows that everyone that enters the court system is innocent until proven guilty.

    Steve Harmon is the 16 year old boy on trial for murder, he is also the narrator of this novel that is told like a movie that he is making, and his lawyer is Kathy O’Brien.  James King is also on trial for the same crime as Steve Harmon.  The story talks place in a court room and in jail.  Problems that Steve faces are the cruel things that can happen in jail and the if he is proven guilty of murder he will have to spend the rest of his teen years in jail.

    I am a seventeen year old student and I read this book in popular fiction class. We were able to pick any mystery novel that we wanted to read and I chose Monster.  As soon as I heard what it was about I knew that this was the book that I wanted to read.  Throughout the novel it makes you wonder if Steve Harmon is innocent or guilty. The whole time there is evidence that makes him look innocent and then it turns and changes everything and it makes him look guilty.  As a reader I personally enjoyed reading this book. The whole time I was interested to find out what would happened to Steve, wanting to know if he was guilty or innocent.

    Monster was a believable story to me because of all the suspense of not really knowing what will happen next, not knowing the out come of Steve Harmon. The author creates a up bet, fast-paced style that was easy to read.

    Steven wasn't even in the store at the time of the murder had taken place. How guilty would that make Steven? Does his participation of being a look out make him a Monster? That is the question left up to the jury in this courtroom trial.

    I would have given Monster a four out of five stars.  As a reader I would recommend this book to any one that may have a hard time reading. 

 


Jamie Bortell

 

Beautiful Lies

 

Beautiful Lies, by Lisa Unger, is a dramatic, suspenseful story about the beauty of lies and the ugly, bitter truth. It explores the importance of choices and their effect on life’s course. “And yet I have come to believe that it was not one event precisely but an infinity number of small decisions that led me into the circumstances that have so changed me and those around me.” (Unger, page 14)

Ridley Jones is an average New Yorker living alone and working as a freelance writer. Beautiful Lies is told in first person letting the reader into Ridley’s mind. She is constantly looking back at occurrences in her life and the way her choices effect their outcome. One day she makes a few small decisions that lead to a complete unraveling of her life the way she knows it. A mysterious note arrives outside her door and she tells her new attractive neighbor, Jake, all about it. This choice brings her into a mess of danger and lies making her question her past and everyone in her life.

I picked Beautiful Lies at random out of the mystery section at the library for our mystery unit in a high school Popular Fiction class. I was intrigued by the title, but expected it to be more cliché and predictable than it was. This book exceeded my expectations and became a page-turner. Every time I thought I had it all figured out, there was a new unexpected twist. The story was fully detailed on a personal level while still involving outside forces as big as the Mob and the FBI.

Ridley is a wonderful, realistic character. She is faced with larger than life problems and rather than being the heroin, she makes several wrong choices in weak moments bringing more danger upon herself. There is not a dull moment in her life or the story, only intense moments and important memories. Lisa Unger’s word choice is powerful and dramatic, making the story interesting but not too difficult to read.

The prologue and first chapter are somewhat confusing; as both are out of place in chronology and don’t specify the people involved in the stories. The first chapter is an intense chapter of action that is literally taken out of the middle of the book and placed at the beginning. It was somewhat frustrating to know the story was coming to that point but not knowing when and having to return to the beginning to recall what happened when reaching the part of the story it fits into.

Beautiful Lies tells that memories are sometimes clouded by lies we are told. Ridley faces the false memories she has every time a new ugly truth is revealed to her. She is forced to look back and realize how selective her memory has been and what she missed by believing all the lies she was told.

I would give Lisa Unger’s Beautiful Lies a five star rating and recommend it to anyone looking for an intense page-turning mystery. Unger has also written a sequel, Sliver of Truth, continuing where Ridley’s story left off in the same powerful style.


 

 

Shelby Antelman(Iowa)

 Lucas

            In the mystery book Lucas, the author portrays a boy who lives in the woods on the small island of Hale. Kevin Brooks describes each incident in much detail with the most influential words to support the moments going on. The book tries to explain how looks are deceiving and it’s not always a good thing to fit in.

            Caity McCann, the main character, first spots Lucas walking at the end of the Stand towards the island. Her father also spotted him walking alone in a green t-shirt and baggy green trousers on their way home from picking up her brother, Dominic, from college. Jamie Tait, the celebrity of the island, takes Dominic, along with her best friend Bill, under his wing and into a world Caity wouldn’t have expected. When Caity first meets Lucas she is stricken by his beauty and how she is already comfortable around him.

            I chose to read this book for my popular fiction class because it reminded me a lot of the Twilight series which pulled me more into the book. I thought it was a good book because of how much detail the author put into each chapter. I really enjoyed hearing Caity’s way of describing how Lucas would look each time she saw him. I expected this book to be a bit childish with dragged on explanations but it ended up being one of the best books I’ve read.

            For a reader, this book is a bit boring in the first couple chapters with Bill, Caity’s best friend, trying to fit in with a crowd she doesn’t belong in. By the third chapter the book becomes more engaging with Caity becoming outraged when Bill’s friends start throwing rocks at the mystery boy on the Stand. That’s when everything begins to change in Caity’s world and the book brings Lucas into Caity’s life at the exact moment she needs it the most. The book becomes a page turner towards the end, when Caity tries to change the fate of Lucas. The author has a very descriptive way of writing this book and it is overall a very effective way of writing.

            Lucas makes the reader question how many times they have wanted someone out of their life because of looks or the way they act. The reader realizes that if one just takes a step back and get to know them, they usually aren’t bad people. Lucas also makes the reader question if a person can change the fate of someone else’s life. The reader knows by the end of the book how that turns out to work.

            I think that Lucas is a book for people who like a descriptive way of writing and enjoys reading. It’s hard to get through the first couple of chapters and then in the middle it starts to get harder again as well so a reader has to be able to push themselves through it. I feel that Lucas is a good choice for high school students because it mentions the groups that some high schools have. Overall Lucas was a very good book and I would recommend it to many people.

 

Elizabeth Denning

 

 The Almost Moon

            The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold is a dark novel that takes a hard, honest look at a strange relationship between a mentally ill mother and her daughter, who ends up being her caretaker and her murderer. This novel’s purpose is to show that no matter how difficult or unhealthy the relationship is, mothers and daughters will always have an inexplicable connection with each other.

            The beginning opens with the main character, Helen, telling the reader she murdered her mother, Clair,  an elderly woman who has been mentally ill and incapable of loving Helen for some time and also has colon cancer, “When all is said and done, killing my mother came easily” (3, Sebold.) As the book unfolds, it switches from past to present, showing the reader what lead Helen to do such an unspeakable act and also takes the reader through her current relationships. The novel is played out mostly in Helen’s childhood home. Her mother, previously a lingerie model, can’t let go of her past dreams to go to New York and slowly slips from reality, becoming an agorophobe and unable to leave her home. Following the murder, Helen brings up several demons and angels from her past all while trying to escape the situation she has caused.

            As a high school student in a healthy relationship with my mother, I could never imagine doing this to her even if she had become as incoherent as Clair. My grandfather had Alzheimer’s and doing that to someone who can’t help what is happening to their mind is cruel. I found the book overly depressing and rarely ever found a happy moment for the main character. Even the happy moments were somehow tied back to a small tragedy in Helen’s life. I didn’t enjoy it as much as I normally do novels, but I think a big part of that is because I had nothing in common with the main character, except gender, and just didn’t understand her actions.

            Even though I didn’t understand Helen, I could see this happening in a real family. Helen grew up with little to no compassion or emotion from her mother, which grew worse with her phobias and dementia. Some people can’t take that their whole lives without snapping. Sebold’s honesty is shocking at times, and she didn’t try to hide any character’s flaws. Curse words were frequent and their thoughts seemed real than most novels. The writing was mostly fast-paced, moving quickly between scenes, though descriptions of her childhood experiences were more in-depth at times. Sebold was effective in her attempt to make the reader believe the characters could exist in this world, instead of creating a perfect heroine.

            The ending was a cliffhanger, which I normally don’t like, but Helen didn’t really have many options at the end, so inferences were easy to make and an ending wasn’t really necessary. The only thing that would have made this book more interesting was if the book flipped between Helen’s thoughts and perceptions to Clair’s to give more of an explanation as to why these two women became who they were by the end.

            The relationships between mothers and daughters are complex but permanent. This book shows that by taking the hardships forced on Helen by Clair and showing how Helen just can’t leave her mother to fend for herself. Even after the murder, Helen wants to spend time with the body to say goodbye. This book begs the questions: At what point does a mentally ill person quit taking responsibility for their actions? Also, do family ties ever break if someone has been hurt enough?

            This book is not for the faint of heart. It is by no means light and tackles serious issues. It is appropriate for high school students, but mature readers who can handle abuse, dark language and ambivalent subjects that would create many different opinions. In my personal preference, I’d give it a two out of five, but as for the author’s job on what they were trying to get across in their novel, I’d give it a four out of five.

 

 

 

 

 

The Dead Zone Review

 

The Dead Zone by Stephen King is a mystery book narrated by a teacher named Johnny Smith that gets into a serious car accident after a date with a girl named Sarah that puts him into a coma. After four and one half years of being in a coma he makes a miraculous recovery and wakes up just fine with the exception of one thing, he can see into somebody’s future if he touches them or touches something of that person’s. This skill then starts to get him into trouble in all sorts of different ways. The tone throughout this book is very mysterious.

I am a junior in high school and I am reading this book for Popular Fiction which is a reading class in my high school. Coming into this book I knew it was going to be pretty good because I have read a few Stephen King books before this and they were great books. My expectations were met while I was reading this book. I really liked this book because like all Stephen King books it is very descriptive and the reader is able to paint a very clear picture in his head about what is going on in the book.

Stephen King makes his characters average people that most people come across in our society which makes the book a lot more believable because the reader can put him or herself into the character’s shoes. Everything in this book is realistic to me except for the fact that the main character wakes up from a coma and can read people’s futures; however, some people believe that people can do that so I know that many people would say that this book is totally something that could happen in real life. The Dead Zone was a real page turner because of Stephen King’s descriptive and fast-paced writing style. Stephen King’s word choice throughout this book was very effective and it kept me tuned into the book without letting me lose interest.

There is one thing in the book that I would have liked him to change but what he does keeps it believable and more like real life, however, I can’t say what it is because it might kind of ruin the book for people that have not yet read this book.

The Dead Zone really makes the reader question what they would do with a lot of power or if they would abuse power and fool people into believing or doing things that are not right.

I think that anybody that is in high school or mature enough to handle adult scenes could read this book. I would definitely give this book a five star rating.

 

-Nick

            The Knife of never letting go is a book by Patrick Ness about trying to find out about ones past and family. For the reasons that history was never allowed to be taught in Prentistown, and for the other reason that all the women in Prentistown have died of a disease called Noise.

            The character in the story are Todd Hewitt who is a boy infected with Noise which makes you able to hear the thoughts of other people. This is the same disease that is “deadly” for women to contract. Todd is often followed by his trusted dog named Manchee who Todd can also hear the thoughts of. The next characters are Ben and Cillian who are pretty much Todd’s parents in Prentistown. Then there is the quiet spot which is found out to be a girl about 14 and is named Viola. Other characters in the town are the boys older than 13 who are consider men along with the men and the mayor.

            The book over all was a good read because the author is good at making suspenseful situations for the characters. The age group for this book would have to be Middle School and up for the reason that it can get a little complicated for the words in the book are spelled like they are trying to say it. It also has pages as to when they have a mass jumble of words to show the noise that Todd hears. It in my opinion wants to have people read the sequels just because of how interesting it is.

            The writing style of this author is weird for anyone because he writes as the characters talk. Like he spells tenshun for tension and other words like that. I think that if we can get the advanced enough technology that it could happen but overall unbelievable for the most part. The suspense in this book is just trilling because it got to some points that I just could not put the book down. If anything was missing I would have liked to have a little more background as to what happened to the females of Prentistown.

I think the theme for this book is that what you may have been told may not be what happened. The questions that popped in my head as I read this are why would something like this accrue and only affect one side of the sex and not the other. Also the reason why anyone would be able to get as far as the people of Prentistown surprises me. The next thing is that you may never like what you may have been told to believe.

Overall, I believe the book deserves a 4.5 because it was a good book. I mean if you like to read I recommend this book for the people who like to read. This book did not disappoint me at all. This book is for sure easy for a high school student because of the big print and space he leaves on the pages so you don’t get overwhelmed.

            The Knife of never letting go is a book by Patrick Ness about trying to find out about ones past and family. For the reasons that history was never allowed to be taught in Prentistown, and for the other reason that all the women in Prentistown have died of a disease called Noise.

            The character in the story are Todd Hewitt who is a boy infected with Noise which makes you able to hear the thoughts of other people. This is the same disease that is “deadly” for women to contract. Todd is often followed by his trusted dog named Manchee who Todd can also hear the thoughts of. The next characters are Ben and Cillian who are pretty much Todd’s parents in Prentistown. Then there is the quiet spot which is found out to be a girl about 14 and is named Viola. Other characters in the town are the boys older than 13 who are consider men along with the men and the mayor.

            The book over all was a good read because the author is good at making suspenseful situations for the characters. The age group for this book would have to be Middle School and up for the reason that it can get a little complicated for the words in the book are spelled like they are trying to say it. It also has pages as to when they have a mass jumble of words to show the noise that Todd hears. It in my opinion wants to have people read the sequels just because of how interesting it is.

            The writing style of this author is weird for anyone because he writes as the characters talk. Like he spells tenshun for tension and other words like that. I think that if we can get the advanced enough technology that it could happen but overall unbelievable for the most part. The suspense in this book is just trilling because it got to some points that I just could not put the book down. If anything was missing I would have liked to have a little more background as to what happened to the females of Prentistown.

I think the theme for this book is that what you may have been told may not be what happened. The questions that popped in my head as I read this are why would something like this accrue and only affect one side of the sex and not the other. Also the reason why anyone would be able to get as far as the people of Prentistown surprises me. The next thing is that you may never like what you may have been told to believe.

Overall, I believe the book deserves a 4.5 because it was a good book. I mean if you like to read I recommend this book for the people who like to read. This book did not disappoint me at all. This book is for sure easy for a high school student because of the big print and space he leaves on the pages so you don’t get overwhelmed.

 


Jaqkeita (Virginia)

Ghost Huntress

In my book there are multiple characters but the story is mostly about Courtney Langdon. Courtney at the beginning of the story is with family and friends relaxing with Mrs. Lockhart. They began having conversations about ghost stories, and Mrs. Lockhart told Courtney about a tragedy that happen with 2 young girls. The next following day came and Courtney went to a psychologist named Karl Zener. Karl did a card reading on Courtney, and afterwards Courtney and Emily were having a conversation about Ken Kindberg. Ken’s mother had cancer that’s why Emily couldn't go to college. Emily explained all the chemo and radiation treatment expenses. Courtney was saddened by the new about Emily’s mother and she wished her the best. A couple days later Courtney had started experiencing strange things around her home. Courtney then starts doing some ghost hunting to find clues to why things are happening this way. Courtney then sees something crazy and can’t seem to get her thought together to think of what to do next. Dare to read more check out Ghost Huntress and find all the untold mysteries.

 

 


 

Comments (4)

vanhookc@... said

at 5:36 pm on Jan 9, 2014

Great book review, Josh Evans! Sounds like a great mystery!

Janel Schnur said

at 2:18 am on Jun 13, 2010

Deception Point--Dan Brown

One of the "forgotten" books by Dan Brown. Here is a review I found provided for a class I'm taking. Thanks for the read.

Struggling to rebound from a series of embarrassing blunders that have jeopardized its political life at the start of this lively thriller, NASA makes an astounding discovery: there is a meteor embedded deep within the arctic ice. And it isn't just any meteor. Inside the huge rock, which crashed to earth in 1716, are fossils of giant insects proof of extraterrestrial life. Yet, given NASA's slipping reputation, the question arises: Is the meteor real or a fake? That uncertainty dogs NASA and its supporters in Brown's latest page-flipper, a finely polished amalgam of action and intrigue. Trying to determine the truth are intelligence agent Rachel Sexton and popular oceanographer Michael Tolland, both among the first to suspect something is amiss when the meteor is pulled from the ice. Their doubts quickly make them the targets of a mysterious death squad controlled by someone or something that doesn't want the public to hear the meteor may be a fraud. Together, Sexton and Tolland scramble across arctic glaciers, take refuge on ice floes, are rescued by a nuclear submarine, then find themselves trapped aboard a small research vessel off the coast of New Jersey. All the while, the nation's capital is buzzing as to whether NASA has engaged in deception. Or is NASA just a dupe for aerospace companies that have long wanted a bigger share of space contracts?

A rip-roaring action thriller by the author of The Da Vinci Code. This is a stand-alone focused on a Presidential election, NASA and a remarkable discovery. Another non-stop ride.

Janel Schnur said

at 8:39 pm on Jun 7, 2010

Deception Point--Dan Brown

One of the "forgotten" books by Dan Brown. Here is my review provided for a class I'm taking. Thanks for the read.

Struggling to rebound from a series of embarrassing blunders that have jeopardized its political life at the start of this lively thriller, NASA makes an astounding discovery: there is a meteor embedded deep within the arctic ice. And it isn't just any meteor. Inside the huge rock, which crashed to earth in 1716, are fossils of giant insects proof of extraterrestrial life. Yet, given NASA's slipping reputation, the question arises: Is the meteor real or a fake? That uncertainty dogs NASA and its supporters in Brown's latest page-flipper, a finely polished amalgam of action and intrigue. Trying to determine the truth are intelligence agent Rachel Sexton and popular oceanographer Michael Tolland, both among the first to suspect something is amiss when the meteor is pulled from the ice. Their doubts quickly make them the targets of a mysterious death squad controlled by someone or something that doesn't want the public to hear the meteor may be a fraud. Together, Sexton and Tolland scramble across arctic glaciers, take refuge on ice floes, are rescued by a nuclear submarine, then find themselves trapped aboard a small research vessel off the coast of New Jersey. All the while, the nation's capital is buzzing as to whether NASA has engaged in deception. Or is NASA just a dupe for aerospace companies that have long wanted a bigger share of space contracts?

A rip-roaring action thriller by the author of The Da Vinci Code. This is a stand-alone focused on a Presidential election, NASA and a remarkable discovery. Another non-stop ride.

Carol VanHook said

at 7:50 pm on Apr 5, 2009

Five star book reviews! What an outstanding job! You reviewers have done an excellent job!

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