Pretty Little Liars

Pretty Little Liars By Sara Shepard

Over the summer I read the realistic fiction book Pretty Little Liars the first book in the Pretty Little Liars series by Sara Shepard. This book is about four girls Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily who all live in Rosewood Pennsylvania. They were also friends with a girl named Alison. Alison was the leader out of all of them, but only Spencer was the one that wasn’t afraid of her. Aria was quiet, Hanna wanted to be like Alison, and Emily was lost in her own problems. All the girls trusted Alison; with all of their secrets.

A main external conflict was that it wasn’t until the day that they found Alison’s body. After three years of being missing, and the girls separating, the four friends went to Alison’s funeral and got a mysterious message from ‘A’. The mysterious ‘A’ was just like Alison; she knew of all their secrets. ‘A’ was following the girls every move, they knew everything. But before Alison disappeared she made bracelets for all the girls so they would all remember that they would keep each others secrets and the biggest secret between their friendships for as long as they lived. And even ‘A’ knew about that. As they were trying to keep there biggest secret by blaming Toby Cavanaugh for the Jenna thing, the secret started to unravel. As they try to hide ‘A’ more and more the more secrets that are being told.

Eventually the girls thought that ‘A’ was Alison’s killer but secrets that ‘A’ knew showed that it wasn’t. “A’ didn’t’ just know the secrets Ali knew but they also knew the secrets that the girls were making at that very moment, they were watching them, they could have been in their school, or maybe even their friends. ‘A’ was right in front of them.

The story goes back and forth between Aria, Hanna, Spencer, and Emily. In the begging of each book and sometimes in the beginning it shows a part of an event when Alison as still alive and as if she still was. I would recommend this book because it is suspenseful, exciting and full of secrets and drama. Anyone that likes secrets and drama should read this series.

"Shooting Star," by Fredrick McKissak Jr. - Evan Shlom - Spoiler Alert

            Probably the best football story I have ever read is Shooting Star, by Fredrick McKissak Jr.  It is a touching story that both reveals what steroids can do to your life, and meanwhile, still manages to include moments of triumphant glory.  The novel begins with Jomo Rodgers, a sophomore strong safety on his football team, failing to win a battle for the championship trophy of the state.  Being a nation-wide famous varsity team, written down in history many times before, the team goes into momentary depression.  That is, until Jomo’s best friend, Jayson, the team’s star running back only in sophomore year, inspires everyone with a minimally-worded speech, followed with a group chant to pump the team back up into a positive state of mind.  Meanwhile, Jomo fails to absorb the joyous emotions that fill the room.  The teams head coach, Coach McPherson takes major note of Jomo’s seemingly effortless care for the team’s potential success, and along with that, his potential success with the team.

Here lies the temporary problem between Jomo and his coach, and even partially within Jomo’s self confidence and mental indifferences that grow between him and his friends and family.  He needs a way to get him to the top.  A path that will lead him to victory, even among his fellow players.  His coach later assigns him a workout program to follow, instructed by a woman name Jeri who knows what she’s talking about, being a former professional biker.  .  After becoming one of the “Top 5 prospects” in the newspaper, along with his best friend Jayson, he realizes his spectacular potential.  Although there was one negative about him that Jomo was hearing constantly: he was too small.  At around five feet seven inches, and one hundred and sixty pounds, Jomo was a very small player, compared to his cohorts.  Jomo knew that he didn’t have time for pointless workouts giving him minimal results.  He needed something that would spark his body and send him rocketing through the competition.  He was a small kid…but that just wouldn’t work for him.

            Out of all his fellow football players, there was one who pretty much the entire team considered a “walking drug store.”  His name being Casey Fitzgerald, everyone called him Fitzie.  Fitzie had “the knowledge of every supplement known to man.”  Because of Fitzie’s heavy involvement in muscle enhancers, Jomo guessed that Fitzie would even have connections to steroid dealers.  He was right.  Fitzie had connected Jomo to a dangerous, lying “skin head.”  This punk’s name was Ganz, a man who could con anyone into becoming his permanent customer.  He had so many tricks up his sleeve, that the only way Jomo was able to escape Ganz’s grasp of scams and traps was by attempted suicide, which obviously revealed his secret to his parents.

            But before this, Jomo experienced the nightmarish life of what it is like to abuse anabolic steroids.  He experienced a couple of the biological side-effects, like acne breakouts and rapid production/growth of sex hormones causing him to lose his beloved girl friend, Miranda.  He also experienced other major impacts on his life from his steroid overuse, like “roid rage,” which ruined many of his relationships with other teenagers and relatives.  His own uncle (who was also his boss) almost fired him from his luxurious job.  He even got in a gigantic brawl with one of his former-buddies, Harper, except Jayson broke it up right before Jomo was literally about to kill him.  So even though Harper was had the role of the “leader” of their former clique, once on steroids, Jomo could’ve easily overpowered him.  As a matter of fact, the second Jayson got complete control of Jomo, Harper immediately dashed around the corner of the hallway, as Jomo fought his way out of Jayson’s tough grasp.  Once free of Jayson, Jomo roared at Jayson, aggressively emitting a colorful vocabulary.  So…all of these awful dilemmas are occurring throughout Jomo’s childhood, and in return for what?  Big muscles?  Because no one in the whole wide world should believe that tradeoff is actually worth it.  Jomo’s family-life and friendships become torn apart as he completely undermines his father’s reputation and confidence.  His beloved girlfriend storms out on him because of the steroids messing with his mind.  And, of course, he clearly breaks the rules of his football league, by taking anabolic steroids.  This book is a compellingly true example of what steroids can do to you, let alone the fact that anabolic steroids can have a numerous amount of other side-effects than the ones included in this breathtaking novel. 

            I really loved this book so much that I can definitely say that, without a doubt, this is by far the best novel I have ever read.  I recommend it to anyone who has any involvement in sports, of course particularly in the famous sport of football.  I give it a solid five-star rating.

Video:

- YouTube Video - Fun, but still informative video which includes Mario and Peach and the downsides of taking anabolic steroids.  This video has been reviewed and used by High School Health classes for finals focused on drug abuse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSom8Pfv-9U

Ashley M. Shannon Hale, The princess academy

In the book The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale the main character Miri is a mountain girl who works in the fields to support her family, but little did she know that her village would be chosen for the prince to find his princess. The main challenge is that Miri had to compete against her close/ not so close friends to win the prince’s heart. She must study as hard as she can to make a good impression and meet the standards of a princess. There was only one problem; Miri was in love her best friend Peder from her hometown. In order to find out if Miri wants to try and be the princess or if she wants to be with Peder; Miri has to find out how Peder really feels about her.
Peder has a huge impact on Miri’s life because the decision she makes will change her whole life completely. She ends up going back home to visit everyone and ends up spending a lot of time with him he finally makes his a move and kisses her. I would defiantly recommend this book to any teenager that wants a new book because it’s a very lovely story and has a great ending.

Megan C. Getting Revenge on Luaran Wood.

The realistic fiction book I read over the summer called Getting Revenge on Luaran Wood by Eileen Cook, really held my interest because it is about teenage girls. The situation that takes place in this story is what many girls would be familiar with the drama that goes on and could relate to then feelings of the main character Helen or Claire. I personally could relate to the heart sinking feeling when your BFF or now EX-BFF back stabs you. That is why I highly recommend this to every teenage girl to either help them with their struggles with girls or prevent girls from ruining their relationships.

The main characters in this book are Helen/Claire and Luaran Wood. Theses characters took a great part of this book and had differences which made each there stand out even more. For example, Luaran Wood is considered a mean/popular girl of the high school, and is very narcissistic and most of all… selfish. See Helen was the complete opposite until she let her grudges get the best of her. By Eileen Cook putting Luaran in the book she used foiled characters.
A few of the conflicts both external and internal are that Helen has to keep her cover and not let her secret identity be revealed. Helen’s main internal conflict involves her feelings towards her new friend and Luaran. Her conflict is whether or not she should be in a relationship because she was afraid it would get in the way of her plan to get revenge.
In the book there is a main lesson Cook tries to send out towards the reader by showing that holding grudges, always lead to no good. Cook made the book like a dairy so you could connect to Helen’s feelings. By Cook doing so, it much easier comprehend what is going on inside Helen’s head.

I would tell teenage girl readers to give this book a chance because I truly enjoyed reading this book, enough for me to finish it in two days! Teenage girls should use this book as a guideline of how to not handle drama.

Replay by Sharon Creech

In the beginning of the school year, I read a realistic fiction book called Replay by Sharon Creech. This book is about a boy named Leo, and how no one pays attention to what he says, or does. Leo is a very imaginative person, he day dreams when he think he is the hero of the situation. When in reality he isn’t, he is mostly the cause, of the situation. That why his sibling, family members, and sometimes teachers call him sardine or fog boy, but one day his drama teacher called him the dreamer. Which made Leo very proud of himself because he the only one who doesn’t care what around him

Leo’s main external conflict is that he and his whole family don’t get along together. He always in the middle, of something like when his brother and sister fight, or when his mother or father can’t find something, they accept him to know where it is. When he asks about Rosaria he should know who she is, and what happened to her. The main internal conflict that Leo has is that he feels invisible to the people around him, and he feels his talents are no good to people.

I think the author’s overall message is if you are good at something you should follow your dream, even if you think no one thinks you up for the challenge. The story was mostly about Leo, and the love he has to tap dance and act. This makes the reader think, that Leo was more like his father, when he was a child. But his father hates tap dancing and acting because it reminds him of his childhood. The unique thing about the author’s writing style is when the characters have a long dialogue; the author would make it into a script type of way. When Leo reads his father autobiography he wrote when he was 13 years old, the things that happened to his father would be in italic, so the reader knows who is speaking Leo. The literary devices the author used were mood/tone to describe the daydreams Leo had. Also ambiguity, so the reader wouldn’t know why the family was sad when Leo said the name Rosaria.

My overall opinion, of the book is the meaning ,of the book, which is to never give up on your dreams. It’s good to be very imaginative because you have an open mind of everything you want ,or dream to do. I would recommend it to kids or teenagers, who feel that they aren’t good at anything. When you find something your good at go for it, and don’t let no one stop you from achieving your goal.

Boy by: Roald Dahl

Last Year I read the book Boy by Roald Dahl. This book is an autobiography about Roald’s life. Also because it is and autobiography Roald is the main character. In the book Roald tells us the persuaded, informed and entertained information in the 1900’s. At first he lets us know that at a certain point in his life is that he is sent to boarding school were all the headmasters are evil. The did not treat him right, they hit him every chance they got to. Next he talks about the 1900’s to let us know that things are much different here than they are there. On the first page Roald’s dad fell of the roof and a drunken doctor thought it was a dislocated shoulder but when in fact it was a fractured elbow. The doctor said he had to pull it out and he got men from the street to help pull. His arm came right off his body; this wouldn’t have happened if there were proper doctors in the 1900’s. Finally he through Roald’s life he tells us about his funny pranks he used to pull on people and his sarcasm by entertaining us through the story. There was this time were someone had a conversation with Roald he asked him about his future, “What is your greatest wish in life, little boy? What is your absolute ambition? To be a doctor? A fine musician? A painter? A writer? Or a Lord Chancellor? I would have answered without hesitation that my only ambition, my hope, my longing was to have a bike like that and to go whizzing down the hill with no hands on the handlebars.” (28). I thought that was very hilarious.

I would recommend this book to others. The story Boy has a powerful meaning and a lot to give. Roald is a great character because he has had a book worth of experiences to share to everyone who picks up this wonderful book. In the end Roald Dahl has a great imagination and when he gets a pen he can’t put it down until a masterpiece is finished like in his other books but this is not just a book, not just a story, this is his life.

By: Trey Davis

13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

This summer I read a book called Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher. This book is about how one girl, named Hannah, took her life, and thought she should share thirteen reasons why she did. So right before Hannah killed herself, she made thirteen cassette tapes. Every tape was meant for a specific person, including the sad, lost Clay Jensen. Clay never really knew Hannah, but there was always something that fascinated him about her. As Clay sets out to find the real reason why, and the real story why Hannah did what she thought she had to, he discovers how he feels about Hannah, something he really never knew before. This is a heartbreaking tale about how high school sometimes may turn out.
Asher uses strong mode and voice throughout this book. Hannah has a strong, empowering voice that is just mesmerizing to hear. This book also sets this deep mode throughout the book. It’s sometimes happy, or funny, but then it may make you want to cry. Asher does a very good job at creating his characters. He is very descriptive about them, so you feel like you know them. Like you can feel what they are going through, or you can hear what they hear. You feel close to them, and then to realize that, in Hannah’s case, they’re gone; never coming back. This book makes you want to jump in and say, “It could have been different if you wanted it to be!”. Asher definitely knows how to move you through the book.
I would definitely recommend this book. It teaches you very valuable lesson, and you never want to but it down. This is a great book, and if you do choose to read it, I hope you end up enjoying it as much as I did. I absolutely feel in love with this book, and all the characters in it.
-By lauren Sanfilippo