Breathtaking Book Cover: Entwined

Todays Breathtaking Book Cover is...

Entwined

by

Heather Dixon

Book Review: Hurricane Dancers by Margarita Engle

Title: Hurricane Dancers: The First     

      Caribbean Pirate Shipwreck

Author: Margarita Engle

# Of Pages: 160

Publisher: Henry Holt & Co.

Publication Date: March 15, 2011

Level: Middle Grade

Rating: 2 Hearts

Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

Quebrado has been traded from pirate ship to ship in the Caribbean Sea for as long as he can remember. The sailors he toils under call him el quebrado—half islander, half outsider, a broken one. Now the pirate captain Bernardino de Talavera uses Quebrado as a translator to help navigate the worlds and words between his mother’s Taíno Indian language and his father’s Spanish.

But when a hurricane sinks the ship and most of its crew, it is Quebrado who escapes to safety. He learns how to live on land again, among people who treat him well. And it is he who must decide the fate of his former captors.

My Verdict

The book starts out with a brief historical setting and list of main characters. With a historical fiction book I like when the author includes some sort of background on which they drew their ideas from. I also found the cast list to be very helpful since there were five main characters, all with complicated names.

The book was divided into six main sections: Wild Sea, Brave Earth, Hidden, The Sphere Court, The Sky Horse, Far Light, and told from five different perspectives.

• Quebrado, a young boy who was captured from home to become a slave on the seas.

“Sailors call me a boy

of broken dreams,

but I think of myself

as a place—a strange place

dreamed by the sea,

belonging nowhere,

half floating island

and half

wandering wind.”

• Bernardino, a ruthless pirate who wants nothing but riches.

“I once owned a vast land grant

with hundreds of naturals,

Indian slaves who perished

From toil, hunger and plagues.

Crops withered, mines failed.

All my dreams of wealth vanished.”

• Alonso, is the governor of Venezuela, conqueror of the tribes, and now he’s Bernardino’s hostage.

“There were days when my sword

killed ten thousand.

Now, all those dead spirits haunt me,

and I am the one on a ship

in chains.”

• Narido, a young fisherman who helps Quebrado after he washed ashore from the shipwreck.

“Everyone calls me River Being

because I catch so many fish

with my feathered arrows

and winged spears.

• Caucuba, a young girl who has stolen Narido’s heart. 

“When Narido is close,

my mind swoops

and tumbles

like the wind

in a stormy sky.”

I was quite disappointed in this book having read it right after Engle’s other MG book, The Firefly Letters, which really captured my heart. This time around I found the story lacking any emotional depth, I just didn’t connect with the story or any of the five main characters.

Tune in Tuesday: My Teen Years Edition #2

Tune in Tuesday is a weekly segment hosted by Ginger from greads that showcases music. 

Each week you post a new or old song in hopes to gain it more interest.

For the whole month of July, Tune in Tuesday is going old school. Instead of sharing any song we will be sharing the songs from when we were teens.

I'm sure you've all heard the name Jesse McCartney before, yes?

But did you know that he got his start in a boyband named Dream Street?

My sister used to love them and her love soon wore off on me and before you knew if we were both spending are days watching the Dream Street Live in Concert DVD. 

After the group spilt up a few of them continued to pursue music, and I continued to listen and love it =)

In 2003, Greg's first solo song came out.

In 2004, Jesse came out with this hit...

Breathtaking Book Cover: Crossing the Tracks

Todays Breathtaking Book Cover is...

Crossing the Tracks

by

Barbara Stuber

Book Review: I'll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Title: I’ll Be There

Author: Holly Goldberg Sloan

# Of Pages: 400

Publisher: Little, Brown Books

Publication Date: May 17, 2011

Level: Young Adult

Rating: 3 Hearts

Synopsis

(From Amazon.com)

Sam Border wishes he could escape. Raised by an unstable father, he's spent his life moving from place to place. But he could never abandon his little brother, Riddle.

Riddle Border doesn't talk much. Instead, he draws pictures of the insides of things and waits for the day when the outsides of things will make sense. He worships his older brother. But how can they leave when there's nowhere to go? Then everything changes. Because Sam meets Emily.

Emily Bell believes in destiny. She sings for her church choir, though she doesn't have a particularly good voice. Nothing, she feels, is mere coincidence. And she's singing at the moment she first sees Sam.

Everyone whose path you cross in life has the power to change you--sometimes in small ways, and sometimes in ways greater than you could have ever known. Beautifully written and emotionally profound, Holly Goldberg Sloan's debut novel deftly explores the idea of human connection.

My Verdict

The word that comes to mind when trying to describe this book would be different, and maybe even a bit strange.

Main characters Emily and Sam cross paths one day when Sam walks into a new church, where he sees Emily sing, directly to him. After this the two share a brief conversation (if you could call “Hey” and “Hi” a conversation) anyways the two supposedly “connect” during this moment before Emily turns around and hurls into the bushes, and Sam runs away.

After this, Sam’s thoughts are consumed by Emily, and Emily is consumed with finding Sam. This is where the story lost me, I didn’t really understand their whole connection to one another, and if a whole book is going to be about this couple that can’t live without each other than understanding what draws them together is very important.

The story was written in a way I’ve never come across before in YA literature. I believe it is called third-person subjective, which is when the narrator conveys the thoughts, feelings, opinions, etc. of one or more characters. In this case it was over a dozen characters. At first I didn’t mind this style, but by the end of the book the author had us going into the minds of every little side character, which got to be annoying.

Overall, while the story wasn’t great, I did enjoy it. My biggest complaint would be the length. There were plenty of parts that weren’t necessary to the story that I think should have been cut to help whittle it down from it’s beastly total of 400 pages.

Wordlover Wednesday: Billet-Doux

Todays wordlover word is...

Billet-Doux (bil-let-doux)

Noun- A love letter

Example- "Pete Hamill, journalist and novelist, loves his city and this novel is his billet-doux."

Origin- Late 17th Century. French. Literally meaning "sweet note."

Who knew their was a fancy word for love letter? But why complicate things? I'll just stick to calling it what it is, thank you very much. 

Book Review: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Title: Such a Rush

Author: Jennifer Echols

# Of Pages: 336

Publisher: MTV Books

Publication Date: July 10, 2012

Level: Young Adult

Rating: 2 Hearts

Synopsis

(From Goodreads)

High school senior Leah Jones loves nothing more than flying. While she’s in the air, it’s easy to forget life with her absentee mother at the low-rent end of a South Carolina beach town. When her flight instructor, Mr. Hall, hires her to fly for his banner advertising business, she sees it as her ticket out of the trailer park. And when he dies suddenly, she’s afraid her flying career is gone forever.    

But Mr. Hall’s teenage sons, golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson, are determined to keep the banner planes flying. Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business — until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers — and the consequences could be deadly.

My Verdict

My love of the gorgeous cover is the extent of my love for this book. It was slow paced, trashy, and full of annoying characters.

I couldn’t stand the main character of the book, Leah. While I admired her trying to make a better future for herself and get out of the trailer park life she’d grown up in, I just couldn’t stand her. She was always whining and complaining about being called the school slut (harsher word used in book), but does nothing to change it. In fact, she purposefully acts/dresses the way she thinks people expect her to. She gets mad at other people for thinking of her that way but thinks it herself. 

If I could use two words to describe the romance in this book I would say messed up.This is not your typical love triangle since Leah doesn’t actually have feeling for both guys. Leah’s been in love with Grayson since they were fourteen years old, but Grayson has never given her the time of day until now, when he blackmails her into dating his twin brother Alec. While Leah & Grayson’s feelings for each other deepen, they start to see each other in secret, while Grayson continues to make Leah go out with Alec, which made me furious!

The one part about the book I did enjoy was learning about the planes and details of flying. While I myself am terrified of heights and am afraid to ride on a plane, never-mind fly one. I found it really fun to read about someone as brave as Leah and her flying experiences.

As for objectionable content, there was an abundance of foul language as well as some sex scenes.

Overall, I wish I hadn’t wasted my time with this one. It was all very trashy in my opinion. I definitely won’t be adding any of Jennifer Echols other books to my TBR.