ROTTERS by Daniel Kraus-REVIEW

When Joey’s mother is killed he is sent to live with the father he never met – Ken Harnett. In addition to dealing with the grief of losing his mother, he has to suffer through high school as the new kid where he immediately becomes the target of ridicule and pranks. No one in town likes Harnett and now, by association, Joey. To make matters even worse, Harnett doesn’t even speak to him. Joey doesn’t have food in the house, he sleeps in the corner of a dark and dirty cabin, and spends most of his time alone since his father leaves for days at a time for “work.” After a while, Joey can’t stand it any longer and decides to follow Harnett to see what he does when he leaves the house. Harnett is a grave robber. Now, Joey knows. He doesn’t know whether to turn in Harnett or ask to go with him.

Eventually, Harnett begins to train Joey in the art of grave robbing. He forces him to practice digging, learn the history of the profession, and research where the best graves will be. Soon, digging is his only relief since school is nothing but continuous torture. Joey learns the ins and outs of being a Digger and even meets others from around the United States. When one of the best Diggers suffers a mental break he begins to endanger all the Diggers. Will Joey and Harnett be able to stop him and prevent the Diggers from being revealed?

ROTTERS isn’t for the squeamish. The book is filled with death and detailed descriptions of what the body goes through during decomposition. The life Joey is forced to live is heart-breaking and I was brought to tears several times toward the end of the book. Never would I have thought I could call a book about digging up dead bodies beautiful, but ROTTERS is. Daniel Kraus does a fantastic job creating characters that you definitely feel for. Harnett is an especially surprising character and maybe even my favorite from the story.

I listened to ROTTERS on audio and it was fantastic. I have looked at this book on my shelf for a while, but finally moved it up my list when it won The Odyssey Award for Excellence in Audiobook Production from YALSA in January. I’m very glad I did.

Sexual Content: None
Language Content: Moderate
Violence Content: Moderate

 

TOUCH by Francine Prose - REVIEW #1

Maisie has always been best friends with Shakes, Chris, and Kevin. She hasn't ever had "girl" friends and it has never seemed strange to her that she always hung out with the three boys. They treated her just like one of the guys - until Maisie goes away for a year to live with her mother. After deciding living with her mother and her new husband isn't going to work out, Maisie decides to move home to live with her father, even if that means living with her evil step-mother, Joan. Maisie is different when she comes back. Not in the way she acts or feels inside, but in the way her body looks. While she was away, Maisie developed large breasts. She isn't comfortable with them at all and the thing she dreads the most about them is how they might change the way Shakes, Chris, and Kevin react to her.
Never has she ever been more right. The boys act totally different and as much as she tries to return things to the way they used to be, it never feels the same.

The friendship between Maisie and the boys change even more after an incident on the school bus. But, what really happened? Every time Maisie tells the story it seems to change until she can't even remember what happened anymore. All she knows for sure is she feels desperately alone. All of her classmates avoid her and worst of all, she doesn't have her best friends to rely on anymore.

TOUCH is a good example of how stories can take on a life of their own. Unfortunately, after the first version gets out, there is usually little a person can do to stop it. Maisie learns first hand how it feels to be the focus of the entire school - and not in a good way.

WISH YOU WERE DEAD by Todd Strasser-REVIEW

A person can only take being treated like dirt for so long. Str-S-d (Stressed) has had it. She creates a blog in order to vent her frustrations and post reasons why the "popular" kids at school are making her life miserable. At first she just complains about things in general, but it doesn't take long for her to zero in on particular people at school. Lucy is the first name she posts on her blog. Lucy is the Queen Bee of the school and treats Str-S-d like garbage. After a particularly bad day, she posts that she wants Lucy DEAD!!! She just wishes she would die.


Little does Str-S-d know, someone is reading her blog posts. Soon, Lucy disappears. Vanishes without a trace. The small community of Soundview is scared. One of their best and brightest is gone.

Madison Archer is a great girl. She manages to be nice and friendly and stay away from the gossip and meanness that most of her crowd relishes in. She is Lucy's friend and one of the last people to see her alive. Like everyone else in town she is worried and hopes for Lucy's safe return, but doesn't have a good feeling. It doesn't help when she starts receiving mysterious notes telling her that her friends are in danger. Who could be sending her the notes? Is it her anonymous Internet stalker, the new boy at school she kind of has the hots for, or the one responsible for Lucy's kidnapping?

Soundview goes into panic mode when two more students go missing. The two other names that Str-S-d added to her blog. Two of Madison's close friends. Madison gets pulled into the crazy killer's world. She puts herself into dangerous situations and puts her trust into someone she doesn't know in order to save her friends. Will she be able to get them out alive or will she be caught like her friends?

Will Str-S-d realize what is going on or will she continue to add people to her list?

WISH YOU WERE DEAD is a an edge-of-your-seat thriller. Once you start you won't want to put it down.

THE CHRONICLES OF VLADIMIR TOD EIGHTH GRADE BITES by Heather Brewer-REVIEW

Vlad is in the eighth grade. Vlad is fodder for the bullies. Vlad is half human and half vampire. His mother was human and his father was a vampire.


Vlad’s parents have both died. He lives with “Aunt Nelly” who isn’t his real Aunt, but was his mother’s best friend. Nelly is trying to give Vlad a “normal” life. She is a nurse so she is able to bring him blood from work. She hides the blood in different forms so that Vlad can live like other teenagers. She will place it in a cup and call it “tea”. She puts capsules of blood in his sandwiches so that he can remain nourished throughout the day. Vlad has never tasted blood straight from the source…well with one exception. When he was 8 he bit his best friend Henry. Henry is the only human besides Nelly that knows that Vlad is a vampire.

When one of the teachers at school is missing and feared dead scary things start to happen for Vlad. First is their new substitute teacher. One of the first things he wants the class to do is write a presentation on a mythical figure. Vlad picks Werewolf out of the hat, but right before his eyes the words transform into the word “VAMPIRE”. Other things happen that make Vlad fear that this new substitute may be onto his secret and may even be the reason that the teacher is missing and also may be responsible for the death of his parents.

Through reading his father’s old journal Vlad discovers that there is a whole vampire world that he never knew existed. Can he discover who killed his parents and why?

Eighth Grade Bites was entertaining. And I look forward to seeing how Vlad developes as we go with him through the twelfth grade.

NOTHING by Janne Teller - REVIEW

NOTHING by Janne Teller is a dark and disturbing story of a group of Danish seventh graders who are forced to define “meaning.”  When one of their classmates leaves school one day after he announces, “Nothing matters,” they pull together to find a way to prove he is wrong.

The class decides to use an abandoned sawmill to organize their project.  At first, they add simple things to the Pile of Meaning by volunteering items, but soon the stakes are raised and people start choosing who goes next and what they have to put on top of the pile.  It is frightening how quickly things escalate.

As the school year progresses and the Pile of Meaning grows higher, Pierre Anthon, the boy who started it all, continues to taunt the class. Soon, there is no going back and the worst possible thing happens.

NOTHING is grim.  It is depressing and creepy. You definitely have to be in the right mood to read this story.  At times, the translation seems a little awkward, but it doesn’t really take away from the book.  I felt the need to read it, but not out of enjoyment.  I felt the need to read so I could see how gruesome the sacrifices would get.  At 240 pages, this is a quick read; so, if you don’t mind totally depressing stories, give it a try.

MODELS DON'T EAT CHOCOLATE COOKIES by Erin Dionne - REVIEW

Celeste Harris used to not think anything about her weight. But when a girl named Lively starts calling her names and when her aunt enters her into the Miss Husky Peach pageant Celeste decides it is time to do something.

Not wanting to be in the pageant Celeste plans on losing weight so that she will no longer be the type of model that the judges for Miss Husky Peach are looking for.

Losing her best friend to her tormentors only cements Celeste’s determination to lose weight even when the chocolate cookies call to her.

Celeste agrees to enter the first round of the Miss Husky Peach contest with plans to sabotage her ability to win. There are things though that she likes about the pageant. She meets some new girls that are also competing that are encouraging to her. She has a stylist that helps her with her make-up and hair style. As she realizes that she isn’t all of the names that she has been called she slowly gains confidence in herself.

Being able to overcome the heart-break of losing her best friend and to withstand all of the teasing from her tormentors we are able to see Celeste grow up and gain confidence in herself. There were some humorous parts in the story. I especially loved when it comes out that Lively wears water-bra’s in order to enhance her bust! It made for some very humorous incidents. Even though that makes for great poetic justice though, I think Celeste’s ultimate triumph is learning to be comfortable with who she is.