Chasing Boys by Karen Tayleur

Genre: Realistic fiction

Ariel Marini, also known as El, is troubled. For some unknown reason, she has had to leave her old house, and her old school, and start over again. Although we don't know why, El's father is gone, and her family now has money problems. At the beginning of this story, El is unhappily living in a cramped apartment with her stressed mother and college-aged sister, and trying to fit in to her new high school. Things aren’t all bad, though. She has a couple of new best friends, Margot and Desi, and a “thing” for school cutie Eric Callahan. The only problem is that Eric is already dating someone else--and Angelique is the daughter of a model! Things get even more complicated after El meets Dylan at school. He is a mysterious, and kind of irritating, artist who has started hanging around her. Will El come to terms with her problems, and will she get together with either of these guys? Or neither of them?

Despite this book’s trite title, Chasing boys is not just about love-sick girls chasing boys around. It is about the many different problems families face, making and losing friends, and the types of choices we sometimes have to make in life. I found El to be an interesting and complex narrator: one whom I really came to care about.

If you like mysteries, you will also appreciate this book’s surprise ending. This is a great read that girls will really go for!

Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson

Genre: Realistic fiction

Lia is ill: both physically and emotionally. She has issues with her family, a history of starving herself, and her best friend, Cassie, dumped her for reasons we learn about during the story. After Lia gets some terrible news about Cassie--on the book’s very first page--we discover that Lia worries that it is all her fault. What happened between the girls, what happens to Cassie, and how Lia deals with it all drives the plot of this story. Will Lia finally go over the edge?

For me, the thing that really stands out about this book is its intensity of emotions. That Lia is suffering is obvious; her pain is so intense we are able to feel it, too. As her pain increases, we have to go along for the ride as Lia spirals further and further down into the pit that is anorexia nervosa. Be prepared, because it is a bumpy ride.

Lia’s story speaks to so many of us (girls, especially) that her story should be read and widely discussed. If you are interested in “issues” stories or stories about friendship gone wrong, and you do not shy away from illness and intense feelings, read Wintergirls. You'll be thinking about this story long after you've turned the last page.

100 Cupboards

Poor Henry. His globe-trotting parents disappear and he is shipped off to an aunt and uncle he has not seen since he was four-years-old. He arrives in a very small town in Kansas and moves into a dusty attic bedroom on a farm. And then there are the annoying girl cousins.

Soon things take a turn away from boring into terrifying. Something is trying to break out of the wall into his room. Soon Henry discovers a huge wall of oddly shaped cupboard doors hidden behind a plaster wall. And there are things and worlds to be discovered when you go through the doors!

This story also tugs at your heart. Henry truly doesn't know who he really is or where he came from, although he does know that the people who have cared for him as his parents really don't care about him. He finds a new loving family with his aunt and uncle but then it is ripped away from him. I was so concerned for Henry that I had to immediately read the sequel by N. D. Wilson called Dandelion Fire.

Jolted; Newton Starker's Rules for Survival

The Jeremy Potts Academy for Higher Learning and Survival is located in Moosejaw, Canada. The students wear traditional Scottish kilts and take some really unusual and dangerous classes. Newton Goddard Starker believes that this is the perfect school for him. After all, for hundreds of years every member of his mother's family has been killed by lightening.

Newton is raised in a very protective environment (and one that does not attract lightening) so it is natural that he finds himself something of an outsider. Following his mother's death (zapped, of course), Newton is determined to succeed and survive at his new school. Jeremy sets out to overcome his fears and deal with his sadness. Along the way he makes some real friends and acquires an adorable and strangely intelligent, truffle-hunting pig named Josephine.

Hang on! This is a fast-paced and funny ride with lots of unusual characters. I really hope the author, Arthur Slade, brings Newton back for Year Two.

Tennyson by Lesley M Blume

Tennyson and Hattie Fontaine live with their parents in a falling down shack of a house hidden deep in the woods near the Mississippi River. In 1932, the country is mired in the Depression, but Tennyson and Hattie live an unconventional and happy life. They don't attend school but their parents, who are writers, teach them at home. Then, one day, their mother disappears. Their father sets off to find her, but first he leaves the girls with his old, eccentric Aunt Henrietta who lives in the ruins of their old plantation house named Aigreoux. Aigreoux almost exists in the deep past, surrounded by trees hung with Spanish moss.

Tennyson begins to discover the secrets the house holds - secrets that reveal the lives of the family members who lived at Aigreoux before them, including the family slaves. Tennyson also comes up with a plan to earn the money the family needs to save the house.

Lesley Blume has captured the sights and smells of an old plantation house. Ghosts are almost visible has Tennyson pokes at the past life of the house and its inhabitants. Tennyson herself is a talented writer, recording the stories found at Aigreoux. The result is a story which at times seems both poetic and hypnotic.

Cabinet of Wonders; The Kronos Chronicles Book 1

Twelve-year-old Petra lives in a fantastical version of Sixteenth Century Boehmia, with magicians, peasants, gypsies and metallic robot inventions. Petra's father is a gifted metalworker who built her a special tin spider, Astrophil, as a companion and friend. He also built a powerful magical clock for the Prince. The Prince fears her father's abilities so he removes his eyes. Petra is determined to find the missing eyes so she secures a job in the palace as a maid. The eyes are hidden in the Prince's Cabinet of Wonders along with many other fantastical items. At the palace, Petra has to deal with the Prince's relatives, spy magicians, and dangerous gypsies. Fortuantely she finds new friends and allies to assist her.

The author, Marie Rutkoski, has created an amazing and fantastical world. Although there is a satisfying conclusion to this story, you will want to read the next book in this series to discover more of Petra's adventures. As you read, keep track of all the characters you meet through the book's cover art. If you liked Harry Potter or the Golden Compass, this may be the book for you!

The Christopher Killer

Seventeen-year-old Cameryn Mahooney wants to be a forensic pathologist. She has an advantage - her father is the coroner of in Silverton, Colorado. Despite her grandmother's complaints that she is too young to be witnessing a crime scene, Cameryn convinces her dad that she should be his assistant. What she doesn't expect is that one of the first victims she sees will be a friend of hers.

The Christopher Killer is the first book in a series of forensic mysteries by Alane Ferguson. They read like an episode of the television show CSI. Don't pick on up if you have a weak stomach!