Look Again

Look Again

Lisa Scottoline

Quarter 4, Book 3

I could not put down this thrilling book! A mother sees a missing children flyer and cannot take her eye off one child who looks nearly identical to her adopted son. Scared of losing her son forever, she secretly finds the child on the flyer's parents and follows them around, being careful not to let them see her. This book showed me how unbreakable a mother to child bond is, and how much a mother will go to keep it intact. Some of my favorite moments in the book were when the mother and son spent time together like when they went sledding. The son's character is most interesting to watch develop, especially at the end of the book when he is taken from his mother, babysitter, and everything he knows as home. The mother sacrifices her love for her son to make sure his life is comfortable and steady.

Saving Henry

Saving Henry

Laurie Strongin

Quarter 4 Book 2

In this extremely moving true story, a dedicated mother explains her son's illness, fanconi anemia, a rare illness that runs in Jews. I feel so lucky to have had the opportunity to read this spectacular book. I never knew it was possible for one human to love another so passionately. Strongin was the first woman to try pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), a procedure in which she had to inject herself with various hormones to create eggs with a perfect match to Henry and without the gene for FA. This mother sacrificed so much for her child including, TIME, money, body strength, and her heart. Besides learning about their relationship I learned about life-changing medical procedures in a can't-stop-reading fashion. I could connect with Henry and his interests because one of his favorite places is also one of mine: Rehobeth Beach in Delaware. I give so much credit to Strongin who has created a foundation in her son's name which i hope to donate to someday.

She's Come Undone

She’s Come Undone

Wally Lamb

Quarter 4: Book 1

There is much to learn from Lamb’s novel about a confused and conflicted girl named Dolores. Dolores copes with death after death, as her mind starts to waver. Soon after her dad leaves her, she is forced to live with her grandmother, and then her mother dies. After dropping out of college she goes to a mental institution for seven years. When she leaves she tracks down her ex-roommate’s ex-boyfriend and moves into the same apartment building as him. After she divorces him, her grandmother dies, and her favorite teacher passes away her life blooms. I found it amazing that after witnessing everyone close to her escape from her life Dolores came to love life at its fullest. Maybe Dolores needed all of those close to her, who she was trying to understand and help, perish so she could live her own life. The book ends happily with Dolores getting remarried to a man in her night college class.

Cat & Mouse

Cat & Mouse

James Patterson

Quarter 3

Book 5 (I think)

This mystery focused on two killers, one who had previously appeared in an Alex Cross book. One murderer is trapped in the subway routes underneath Penn Station by the main detective Alex Cross who is then forced to kill him to protect himself. The other killer is a FBI agent in disguise. I was SHOCKED when it was revealed that this man portrayed as a great detective with a sixth sense for interpreting crime scenes and a feeling of sorrow for the death of his wife was a mass murderer on a rampage. He was the one that killed his wife because she cheated on him and she was the only thing he loved. He then killed various people whose first initials of their first or last name spelled out the name of his wife. It was great when Alex solved the case!

A Prayer For Owen Meany

A Prayer For Owen Meany

John Irving

Quarter 3

Book 4

In this coming-of-age story about a attentive boy Johnny, the town of Gravesend and the people living in it are narrated. Johnny focuses his story on his best friend Owen Meany whose voice is high pitched, squeaky and characterized by ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Owen seems like a normal boy, but is viewed by his friend Johnny as a miracle. Owen is the smartest boy at Gravesend Academy, and despite getting kicked out for vandalizing school property, goes onto being a military official. Owen dies by saving Vietnamese children in an Arizona airport, foreseen in his ever-so-real dream. Owen knew the date of his death since he was 11 and dreamed about it on the stage of a Christmas show put on by Johnny's step-father, which is ironic because his family owns a marble company which makes grave stones. I wondered why Owen followed the Vietnamese children and saved their lives instead of saving his. Owen could have escaped to another state on the date of his death and let someone else save the kids, instead of taking his own life. I think it was because Owen was very religious and did not want to hurt G-d in any way. If I knew the day I would die I would not be able to lead a normal life like Owen did.

A Time to Kill

A Time To Kill by John Grisham

Quarter 3

Book 3

In this impossible-to-put-down law analyzing novel, Grisham traps the readers' minds at the very beginning when a ten year old black girl is raped in the Mississippi woods by two white men with criminal records. The father of this girl is thrown in prison after he kills the rapists while they are being led back to their cells after a trial. The novel concentrates on the attorney, Jake Brigance, and his struggle to prove the father, Carl Lee, innocent. The long anticipated verdict of a mostly white jury is that Carl Lee is not guilty. I would have voted that way as well, but i am biased because I read about all of the emotions felt by Carl and Jake. Many feel that if Carl was white he would not have been put on the trial in the first place. This is a fair argument to make because throughout the book the KKK threatens Jake and his assistant, who is hired along the way. Jake's house is set aflame and his assistant is attacked while driving home. Grisham did a great job of incorporating historical elements of the 1980s in the racist south. I loved the book, but some parts in the middle were slow. Each character had their own distict personality. One unique character was Lucien, a retired lawyer who previously owned Jake's office. Jake can rely on this drunken retiree to vent to and provide housing for him when he needs safety.

Contagious Scott Sigler

Quarter 3

Book 2

In this thrilling sci-fi book, a flesh eating bacterial disease is on its way to spread throughout the world from a tiny suburb town in Michigan. A tech-savvy team attempts to control the bacteria, which control the mind and allow people with the disease to talk to each other with their thoughts, with the help of the only treated patient with the disease. The symptoms of the disease range from intention to murder, to getting large pustules and triangles on your body. The team of doctors, scientists, and truck drivers set off to fight the disease and the people with it. The team, working with the President, try to keep the disease hidden from the public. In Detroit, the last battle against the "crawlers" the President is forced to issue a bomb to be dropped on Detroit to prevent the disease from spreading worldwide. The main lesson from the book is that you have to do things that you do not want to do and are unethical to prevent worse things from happening. Along the way the team loses loyal men to the disease and because people with the disease kill them.

Testimony Quarter 3...1st book

Testimony

Anita Shreve

Quarter 3

The reputation of a prestigious high school in Vermont, along with the town it’s in and many people living in it are affected drastically after one event depicted in this book. Three boys on the basketball team at Avery Academy (which is just getting better after recruiting a few boys) decide to blow off some steam by pulling a freshman from a school dance into one of their dorm rooms. As the night progresses, the boys who are very drunk, do not realize the state and federal law they have broken by sleeping with a girl who is 4 or 5 years younger than them. The actions taken during this one night affect the boys’ future and many others. One boy, Silas, was in a relationship with a compassionate violinist and his family was well respected in the town, owning a productive farm. Another was accepted, early decision, to Brown University. The girl was so scared she changed her name and moved across the country. The lesson that you can take away from this book is to always think ahead. Of course you need to live in the moment but our judgment and decision-making skills are there for a reason. Not only were the boys’ lives affected but those of their parents, school instructors, and friends.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

The Road explores the outcome of an almost barren world with next to no people living and food to be eaten. A little boy travels with his caring, smart, and resourceful father. They wheel a cart with bare necessities (food, fire, blankets, a tarp, and water) down a long road until they reach the coast stopping at night and various other times when they are exhausted. There are a few themes explored in this book including father-son relationships, trust, not giving up, and acts of sympathy. The boy develops a relationship with his father in which he adheres to all orders given to him and is scared to share dreams with him. The circumstances change their relationship--the boy in forced to trust his father because he has nothing else to believe in. The duo never gives up on their journey. Even with little sustenance they continue traveling and they find more food whether it is in the basement of an abandoned house, or a ship stuck in the ocean near the coast. When the father and son pass by a weak man that they both realize will die, the boy wants his father to give him food even though they need that food too. This act of kindness pays off because at the end of the book, when the father dies, the boy is taken in by another family of a mother, father, and two kids who will feed and look after him.

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This classic had a fairly slow plot, but I enjoyed reading about the relationship between two men, Lennie and George, as they traveled from farm to farm in California getting jobs. The book explores friendship and loneliness through the interactions of the men and actions done on their own. George agrees to travel with a man like Lennie who is forgetful, and hard to look after because he has almost no common sense. George fears being lonely, traveling around himself like all of the other men on the farm who find it interesting that George and Lennie agreed to stay together. Lennie had an incident at one of the farms the two worked at, he refused to let go of a woman’s dress and she started screaming out of fear Lennie would do something else. At the farm focused on in the book Lennie does something similar, but doesn’t want the woman to start screaming so he covers her mouth and winds up killing her. George does not want to be associated with a possible murderer so he finds Lennie in the place he told his friend to hide and shoots him after they reminisce about a farm they want to own. Now George wants to be alone, while Lennie prefers to be with a friend or pet a soft animal. Lennie wants to find comfort in soft material objects, or taking that as a symbol he wants to lead a quiet, but calm life.