Book Blog #8 If I Stay by Gayle Forman

 Premise

If I Stay, is a realistic fiction novel written by Gayle Forman. Mia Hall and her family decide to go to Portland to visit their grandparents. While her father is driving, they argue on what station to play. Her mother, Kat, wants NPR, her dad, Denny wants Frank Sinatra, her little brother, Teddy wants Spongebob and she just wants to hear classical music. When Mia closes her eyes for a second, her life had changed. She sees her car is eviscerated, all torn apart and destroyed. It was all quiet around her, except for Beethoven's Cello Sonata no.3. It still was playing from the car stereo. Frightened of her view, she searches for her parents and Teddy. Mia spots her father with a pipe in his jacket pocket. Next she finds her mother, who is left with no blood, has blue lips and red eyes. Her parents are both gone. Teddy was her only hope then, so she searches for him. Under the car, she finds an arm, but it wasn't Teddy's. It was her own lifeless arm. After a while, the ambulance and paramedics finally arrive. They pick up the pieces of their bodies and rush her to the hospital. She goes through many surgeries and doesn't know whether she should stay or not.

What I Just Read

Mia's boyfriend, Adam Wilde, was playing in his rock band concert, and he gets the news about Mia being injured at the hospital. He rushes out as quickly as he could. Once he gets there, he wants to see Mia, but the nurse tells him that only family members are allowed to be with her. So then, he tells his band to distract the nurses for the longest time they can. They agree to it, but they didn't distract the nurses for enough time. Adam gets caught and almost gets sent to prison.  But then, the nurses think that there is a chance that he can wake her up from the comma. So he is then with her in the room and tries his hardest to wake her up. He plays all of Mia's favorite music on his iPod and hopes that she will wake up. I really liked that part because it showed that Adam really loves her. He would do anythink for her.

Book Blog #7 Dreamland by Sarah Dessen

Premise
Dreamland, is a realistic fiction novel written by Sarah Dessen. In the book, Caitlin, the main character, falls in love with a guy named Rogerson. She met him at a vacuum station with her friends after a cheerleading meet. They start hanging out a lot and eventually become a couple. But after a while, people notice that she is not acting the same. They know that Rogerson has been in trouble with the law and suggest her to not be with him. But, Caitlin doesn't listen to them. She also lost interest in cheerleading and quit. After a while, she calls him a "little kid" in a playful way, but Rogerson gets mad and punches her.  She was hurt, but couldn't do anything about it. She didn't want to break up with him either. Eventually, Caitlin is abused by Rogerson and gets a lot of bruises. She barely talks to anyone but Rogerson. He smokes and sells pot to a lot of people during parties. Caitlin then starts to smoke pot too. Her appearance changed a lot.

What I Just Read
After a cheerleading meet, Caitlin goes inside Rogerson's car. He was kind of mad that the banquet of cheerleading took long. He hated to wait. Then he asked her why she didn't show up in the afternoon. Caitlin explained everything to him that had happened when Rina was having an enormous crisis about breaking up with her boyfriend. He then is okay and tells her that he was worried that something was wrong. She told him to not be "such a big baby." and not to worry about it.  But Rogerson gets really mad and punches her hard in the face. He tells her to never talk to him like that. Then he starts the car and tries to go drop her off, but the traffic is so long. They don't say anything the whole way home. Once Caitlin gets home, she is worried about what her mother would say. She makes an excuse that someone accidentally punched her eye with their elbow and her mom believes it. I was surprised that Caitlin doesn't break up with him after he abuses her so much. I found out that the reason why she doesn't break up with him is because she can't stand to be with him.

Book Blog #6: Ripple by Mandy Hubbard

Premise
In the novel Ripple by Mandy Hubbard, Lexi is the main character. She has a curse of being a siren, which is a person who is attracted to any body of water. While being in the water, she just starts singing. That is how she accidentally killed Steven, the guy she loved. On her 16th birthday she had a party at her friend's house and was hanging out with Steven. All of a sudden, she couldn't resist the water, so she went to go swimming with him for a while. She started singing and didn't know why she was even singing. The song tricks anyone near her to drown in the water. She finds out that Steven was dead. After that, Lexi lost all of her friends on purpose so that she wouldn't harm anyone. She was still attracted to water, but she knew that she should never go back to the beach. Instead, she went in the woods and found herself a lake, which became her lake. She thought that no one would find it. After 2 years, Cole, Steven's best friend, tries talking with her. She was afraid he might fall in love with her so that's why she tried to ignore him. But that fails and they become friends. And then they start dating, but Lexi hasn't told Cole about her being a siren. She's afraid she's going to loose him, so she decides to keep it a big secret. But then Erik comes in the story, and he says that he could break Lexi's curse.

What I Just Read
Ever since Steven died, Lexi has been visiting Steven's grave. She talks to him and always cry because she misses him a lot. All of a sudden, Sienna comes to the grave and is disappointed when she sees Lexi there crying. Sienna is Steven's sister and Lexi's ex-best-friend. She thought that Lexi didn't care of his death, and she blamed Lexi just because she was there when he died. Sienna even asks Lexi why she didn't tell her. Lexi says that she thought it would be easier if she just hated her. But she couldn't tell her about her secret. After Sienna understands, she becomes friendly with her. Even Lexi's classmates have changed and stopped bullying her. But soon, she realizes that Sienna and her are close to being friends once again. She can't let that happen since she knows that she can accidentally let out her secret and she can hurt Sienna.

Book Blog #5: The Upstairs Room by Johanna Reiss

The Premise

The Upstairs Room is a non-fiction book written by Johanna Reiss. Annie, the main character, and her family are Jews. She has two sisters, Rachel, the oldest, and Sini, the second oldest. Her father wanted to go with the family to America, but Annie's mother was too sick and she refused on going. After a while, trucks came by to pick up Jews and give them work in camps. That's when their father started looking for places to hide at. He had found a place for Annie, Sini and Rachel at the Hanninks. But, Rachel didn't want to go because she wanted to take care of her mother. So the girls left their home, and were separated from their father and Rachel. After living with the Hanninks for some weeks, Mr.Hannink told them that they had to move to the Oostervelds. He doesn't want to be in more danger even though he knew how dangerous it was to hide them. But Mr.Hannink said they'd be with them for a couple of weeks, and it actually turned out to be more weeks than that.

What I Just Read

In chapter 10, the Germans have entered the Oostervelds' house. They were searching the house and were very close to Annie's and Sini's hiding place. The girls tried holding in their breaths so that they wouldn't be heard. As soon as the soldiers left, the girls barely moved since they were really scared. Opoe, the mother of Johan (who's the owner of the house) told them that the soldiers have taken away some cloth and a pig. Luckily, the girls weren't found. Later that day, the Oostervelds find out that another group of Jewish people were found because someone has told the soldiers. Johan ended up killing the man so that there would be less danger. Again, the soldiers came back to ask for a place in their house so that it could be their headquarters. Johan let them have the rooms in front of the house and thought that it would be a good idea to have them there. It surprised me a little bit that Johan let them have a part of the house for a while. I thought that the girls would get caught while the Germans where in the house, but instead they weren't. Johan had an idea that no one would suspect Jewish girls living in their house if Germans where also in the house. But it was a dangerous thing if they got caught.

Book Blog #4: See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

The Premise
See You at Harry's is a realistic fiction novel by Jo Knowles. Fern is a twelve-year-old girl who feels ignored. Her dad made a business called Harry's Homemade Ice Cream and Family Restaurant. But since hardly any people come, he decides to want to make it become busier by making commercials. Fern's mom keeps on leaving to go to meditate. Holden (who is Fern's brother) gets bullied because he has a boyfriend. Sarah (her sister) helps work at the restaurant but tries to make excuses so that she wouldn't work. And Charlie is the youngest child in the family who gets the most attention. But one day, he gets really bored that he starts to want to distract Fern while she was doing her homework. Since she was busy, she couldn't and didn't want to play with him. All of a sudden Charlie starts running away until something terrible happens. He got hurt but he didn't whine about it. And that all leads to something much terrible to happen the next day, which destroys the family.

What I Just Read
In chapter 5, the phone rings. Mom gets a phone call from Fern's dad and he says he has a big surprise for the family. Fern thinks it's going to be something that will embarrass her family, since most of the surprises are embarrassing. Her siblings also know that it's not going to be a good thing. Once the family is out in the driveway to see their surprise, they open their mouths wide open and are speechless. They see that the ice-cream truck has a huge photo of Charlie's face while he was licking his ice-cream. Which really shocks Charlie but his dad thinks that it will draw attention for people to come to the restaurant. Sure it does, because everyone comes just so that they could get a picture of Charlie while he says his phrase, "See you at Hawee's." At first I was excited because I thought that Charlie would be so happy, but I actually found out that he was shocked.

Book Blog #3: Choke by Diana Lopez

The Premise
Choke is a realistic fiction novel by Diana Lopez. Windy is an eight grader and is the main character in the book. Her best friend's name is Elena. But at times, Windy didn't like her because she was a nerd and brought a lot of stuff with her to wherever they went. After spring break, a new girl named Nina came to their school. Nina was a kind, pretty girl that every girl wanted to be like. Eventually, Nina became friends with Windy and Elena who  aren't at all popular. They didn't really expect that because they were in the "general public" group and Nina automatically got into the "in-crowd" group (which is really hard to get into). Since Windy didn't like Elena as much, she started to hang out with Nina more often and made more friends. Nina didn't like Elena at all, but she just acted like she did, so that she would be able to become friends with Windy. Later on, the two girls get so close to each other. Nina begins saying that she bets the popular girls don't know what a breath sister is, but Windy doesn't know what it is either. She then finds out that Nina has been playing a game called the "choking" game. It also involves being a breath sister. And then Nina wants Windy to play the game too. But once Windy starts playing the game, she notices that it was a bad game to play, since Nina has gotten into  trouble at her other schools. She also notices other weird things, that shouldn't happen.

What I Just Read
In chapter 8, I read that Nina and Windy were at the shopping mall, and putting on make-up in  the restroom. That's when Windy finally asked Nina what the choking game was. There were a lot of names for the game such as the knockout game and the flatliner. Since Windy wanted to be Nina's breath sister for life, she decided to play the game. Before she got to play, she had to swear to Nina that she wouldn't tell anyone about the game (since Nina's gotten in trouble for playing it). Windy told Nina to stop so quickly because she couldn't breathe. So then Nina said that she did a great job, but will eventually make it all the way through. Windy was confused on what she meant by "all the way." Nina explains that the whole point of the game is to pass out, and get a high, floaty feeling. After they left the restroom, Windy felt that she had changed and left her old self behind. Once they went outside, Windy's and Nina's parents were supposed to meet each other. But then Nina reminded Windy that she had told her that she was grounded and made an excuse to go help the elders. It surprised me at first because I thought that Nina was just telling lies so that she would end up killing Windy, but she didn't. Then I found out that she has been playing the game with herself, which means she chokes herself when nobody is around.

Book Blog #2: Girl, Stolen by April Henry

The Premise 
The book Girl, Stolen is a realistic fiction novel. Sixteen year old Cheyenne Wilder, was asleep in the backseat of the car, while her stepmom, Danielle was going to get her antibiotics from the pharmacy. Someone jumps into the front seat and start driving away. Cheyenne realizes  that it was not her stepmom. She was being kidnapped! The person who had kidnaped her, was a boy around her age. He only meant to take the car, but accidentally took her with him. When he saw her in the backseat, he didn't know what to do. If he let her out, she would get help from someone, and he would soon be arrested. Cheyenne is bought to the boy's house which is in the middle of nowhere. She finds out that the name of the kidnapper, had been Griffin. His father, Roy was about to let her go, but he sees the details of Cheyenne. He finds out that Cheyenne's father is the president of Nike,  so he decides to keep her for ransom. Cheyenne tries to escape, but she can't because she is blind.

My Favorite Character
Griffin is my favorite character in the book. He is a teenager that is about the same age of Cheyenne. He dropped out of high school and began to work with his dad on stealing cars. I would describe Griffin as being caring and kind. When Cheyenne was really sick, he gave her some medicine that would help her fever temperature drop down. He also gave her glasses  of water, and food. His dad, Roy had two other employees that worked for him. They tried to hurt her, but Griffin would make sure she was safe and protected. When he tried to help Cheyenne escape, he knew he could get caught from his dad. But he was risking himself, so that she could escape and be safe.

SPOILER ALERT!
In the end, Cheyenne starts to think about escaping. When she found a wrench, she hit him twice on the forehead, so that he would loss his conscious. Then she gets out of the house and takes Duke (Griffin's dog) with her. Griffin had once told her about a road where there were people, and she hoped to find someone. As she was walking, Cheyenne heard someone following her. It turns out to be Griffin. He had wanted to help her escape. While Griffin was guiding her, his foot got stuck in a hole and he twisted his leg. Cheyenne was then on her own to escape. When she gets near the road, she meets up with a police. He tells her to go inside a car, but as soon as she got inside , she felt that something was wrong. Roy had been acting as a police and changed his tone into a deeper voice, which had tricked Cheyenne. Later, she locks herself in the car and dials 9-1-1 on Roy's cellphone. Soon she is safe, and Roy ends up going to jail. At the very end of the book, Griffin calls Cheyenne to wish her a happy new year. I think that the ending of the book was really good because I always wanted to find out what was going to happen. Also, the ending was very detailed.