Dirty Little Secrets by Cynthia Omololu

Two Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt

Wake Unto Me by Lisa Cach

A haunted castle, a handsome young man dead for four hundred years, one heck of a scary portrait of a witch, and a treasure hunt -- not to mention a princess for a roommate! -- all await 15 year old American girl Caitlyn Monahan when she earns a scholarship to a French boarding school.

There are secrets behind the stone walls of Chateau de la Fortune, buried for centuries along with the mystery of who killed Raphael, the charming ghost who visits Caitlyn at night. But as Caitlyn unearths the history of the castle, nothing scares her as badly as the secret she learns about herself, and the reason she was chosen to come to the Fortune School. And nothing breaks her heart as badly as falling in love with a dead guy.

Wake Unto Me is a book that isn't easy to give justice to. It's by far one of the most mysterious books I've read, with an utterly beautiful element of historic romance.

It's an original storyline and so epically researched that you could probably close your eyes and think you're sat in the same room as the characters. The mystery element whilst dropping VERY SUBTLE hints along the way is one that you don't thoroughly understand until the very end, which by then, you're sitting on the edge of your seat, desperately trying to figure everything out!

By the last few chapters, I was tearing up every other page just at the sheer emotions that Caitlyn is experiencing. Cach seriously knows how to keep her readers on their toes, and if you think you can get through the book without falling in love with Raphael, you're so wrong!
Honestly you will not be disappointed by this book!
Rating: 5/5

Positively by Courtney Sheinmel

Emerson Price cannot remember a time when life was ordinary. She was four-years-old when she and her mom were diagnosed as HIV-positive – infected with the virus that causes AIDS, and eight when her parents divorced. Now she is thirteen and her mother is dead. Emmy moves in with her father and stepmother, but she feels completely alone. Even though everyone has always accepted her, no one – not her father, or stepmother, or even her best friend – understands what it’s like to have to take medicine every single day, to be so afraid of getting sick, and to miss her mom more than she ever thought she would.

When Emmy’s dad and stepmother send her to Camp Positive, a camp for HIV-positive girls, Emmy is certain she is going to hate it. But soon she realizes that she is not so alone after all – and that sometimes letting other people in can make all the difference in the world.

I can safely say that this is probably the most moving books I have ever read. I felt I was on the verge of tears nearly the whole way through, not because it was heartbreaking all the time (though there are moments) but because Courtney's writing makes you FEEL how Emmy is feeling.

I loved that on the surface Positively seems like a story about AIDS but really it's SO much more than that. It's a story of bravery, courage, love and loss. Not only is Emmy living with AIDS - with all the stigma that comes with that - she's just lost her mother, had to move in with her father his new wife and gaining a baby sibling in a mere couple of months.

The passion that Courtney feel's for the subject is evident throughout the entirity of this book, I am a person that gets emotionally tethered to books but I have never been as tethered as I felt whilst reading Positively.

I wish there were more books as heart-wrenchingly true as this.
Rating: 5/5

Crash Into Me by Albert Borris

 Owen, Frank, Audrey, and Jin-Ae have one thing in common: they all want to die. When they meet online after each attempts suicide and fails, the four teens make a deadly pact: they will escape together on a summer road trip to visit the sites of celebrity suicides...and at their final destination, they will all end their lives. As they drive cross-country, bonding over their dark impulses, sharing their deepest secrets and desires, living it up, hooking up, and becoming true friends, each must decide whether life is worth living--or if there's no turning back.

Crash Into Me is a book I've been meaning to read for a really long time, and now I've read it, I keep thinking WHY on earth did I wait so long?

Suicide is a taboo subject and isn't a subject that I can see many teenagers picking up. Crash Into Me doesn't glorify suicide in anyway, it's more about helping to understand how young people feel when considering and how even as unconventional of a friendship the four characters in this book have, friends CAN help.

Whilst keeping to it's serious subject, the novel does have many funny moments and the flashbacks to IM chats - which help us understand some background of the characters.
I guarantee you will fall in love with at least one of the characters, if not all. The whole truth about Owen's story will rock you to your core and the final chapters will leave you sitting on the edge of your seat, literally holding your breath.

This is a novel, you can't really say much about without giving the ending away but just know that you will NOT be disappointed. Seriously.
 Rating: 5/5

Prep By Curtis Sittenfeld

This is a stunning novel in the great tradition of American coming-of-age novels from "Catcher in the Rye" to "The Secret History". Lee Fiora is a shy fourteen-year-old when she leaves small-town Indiana for a scholarship at Ault, an exclusive boarding school in Massachusetts. Her head is filled with images from the school brochure of handsome boys in sweaters leaning against old brick buildings, girls running with lacrosse sticks across pristine athletics fields, everyone singing hymns in chapel. But as she soon learns, Ault is a minefield of unstated rules and incomprehensible social rituals, and Lee must work hard to find - and maintain - her place in the pecking order.

 
I've read many books set in Boarding Schools (I'm a bit of a Boarding School fanatic) but this is the first I've read that is aimed towards an older audience.

Prep is one of the most poignant and true books I've read in a very long time. It only took about 3 paragraphs for me to have fallen in love with Sittenfeld's writing and to be able to really feel the setting of Ault.

The main character, Lee, is an utterly loveable character. She observes the world around her with such intensity, something that Sittenfeld brings across with such ease. Her insight to life is probably what I loved most about the book, it took me back to my own teen years when everything around you seems so melodramatic and extreme.

The other thing I loved about Prep was that when I'd finished, it felt right. It ended in the most perfect way. When the book begins, Lee is 14 and just starting at Ault and by the end of the book, she's graduated and her and the rest of her class have entered their adult lives. Throughout the book, Sittenfeld has Lee describe events that will eventually happen in her later life, something I thought was a little confusing at first but it added so much depth to her story. No stone was left unturned.

Overall, a thoroughly enjoyable novel that I honestly cannot believe I waited this long to read!
Rating: 4.5/5

2011

One of my goals for 2011 is to keep an account of the books I read this year. You'd think as a Bookseller, I'd find this a simple thing to do but I'm so bad at actually making time to write about the books I've read.

In 2010, I read 167 books. I think I have reviews (proper, longer than 30 word ones) for about 20 of them.

This year I want to acknowledge the books I've read, rather than just ticking a box that says "read". I want to write about how the authors writing made me feel, how the plot affected me, whether I bawled my eyes out or laughed to high heaven on a train.

My first read is Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. So far, I'm thoroughly enjoying it, I'm a bit of a sucker for boarding school stories but this is the first I've read where the author is writing for an adult audience. It's certainly interesting!

Here's to an up-to-date account of the reading material of 2011!