The Patron Saint of Butterflies

Meet Agnes and Honey, two very different teenage best friends with very different outlooks on life and religion. Agnes wants nothing more than living the clean, pure life of a saint, and, of course, become a saint when she dies. Honey, on the other hand, is desperate to get away from their religious commune called Mount Blessing. As far as Honey's concerned, it's not a blessing, it's a curse. Honey is the only orphan in Mount Blessing. As a result, Emmanuel, the cruel and manipulative leader, doesn't appear to have as much power over Honey as he does over everyone else. Agnes and Honey can't understand each other at all. Agnes is convinced Honey will become a heathen, while Honey thinks Agnes is ruining her life. When a horrible accident throws Agnes's brother, Benny, into danger, Agnes has to choose between the outside world and safety, or the only world she's ever known, not to mention her dream of becoming a saint. Join Agnes and Honey as they go on an adventure teeming with love, family, and self-discovery.

"The Patron Saint of Butterflies," by Cecilia Galante, is a truly amazing book - I don't think I've ever read a book quite like this one. The writing has a wonderful style and quality, shifting between two teenage best friends - Agnes and Honey - with very different outlooks on life, religion and almost everything. Agnes and Honey's voices, or points of views, will positively throw you right into their drastically different lifestyle and self-discovery. The vocabulary was age appropriate and easy for most people to understand. Though I felt the ending could have been done a bit better, perhaps by going a bit slower there, Galante did a wonderful job and I found the book very moving. You could almost picture certain scenes and the mood flowed perfectly. I have to say, I wouldn't be surprised if this book ends up winning some awards. I know, personally, that Galante's book has fought its way to the top of my favorites, shoving down even Harry Potter and Twilight. The theme of family, love, self-discovery, friendship and adventure is evident throughout, "The Patron Saint of Butterflies." I would DEFINITELY recommend, "The Patron Saint of Butterflies," to other people, as it happens to be the next BIG book - a total MUST read type.

Reviewer Age:13

Reviewer City, State and Country: Canton, Michigan United States of America

Disguised

Rita la Fontaine a 12 year old Dutch-Indonesian resident
living in the Dutch Indies had an incredible life. She
writes her own true, breathtaking story. When the Japanese
invaded their island, she and her family were informed that
they had to leave their home and move to a prisoner of war
camp. For fear of what the Japanese soldiers would do to a
young girl for fun, Rita's father guided her to cut her
hair and pretend to be a boy for the rest of the war. Rita
transformed herself into Rick. One of the most dangerous
things Rita did during that time was work closely with the
Japanese soldiers and leaders. It was very risky because
the Japanese culture shunned women and didn't allow them to
be equal to men, which was exactly what Rita was doing. At
the start of her book, Rita says, "It's easy to give up;
it's a challenge to persevere and to conquer." What would
you do if you were put in this situation? Give up or
Conquer?

Rita's true story entertains, offers historical
information, scares the nerve out of you, and inspires.
Rita shows strength and bravery as she fights for what she
wanted, what was right, and what was best for her family.
This story really helped me out with some things I have
been dealing with and I think it will help and inspire
others, as well. This book was a very fast read and had me
hooked the entire way through!

Reviewer Age:16

Reviewer City, State and Country:
Durham, North Carolina USA

Turn Up the Heat

Chloe’s boyfriend, Josh, works at the hot restaurant, Simmer. Simmer is five months old and Josh is working hard to get it past month six. Chloe is finishing up her master’s degree in social work, but missing her chef boyfriend who is working so hard and long he has permanent bags under his eyes. Then strange things start happening at Simmer. Knives go missing, people are stealing, and one of the waitresses has been killed. Chloe tries to use her social work skills to discover the killer. Is it Adrianna, Chloe’s best friend, or Adrianna’s fiancé, Owen? Maybe it’s someone in the restaurant itself! Will Chloe discover the killer, or will she be killed too?

This book was amazing. It was a page turner until the end. The ending was smooth and left you feeling satisfied. The characters were well developed. They seemed so real I felt as if I could travel to Boston and find them all there waiting for me. There was a little too much sexual content and bad language, but overall this book is on my list of top twenty books that I have ever read. I recommend this book to people who like mystery and romance in the same book.

This book has a lot of sexual content. There is also a lot of bad language, especially on the first page.

Reviewer Age: 13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Colleyville, Texas, United States of America
Rating: 8
Content: 2

Spud

John Milton soon finds a new world through his scholarship to boarding school. He spends his five workdays away from home, and returns to his psychotic parents on the weekends. As a fourteen year-old boy, "Spud" Milton acquires friends and enemies alike, including several simultaneous girlfriends. Spud deals with birthday punishments and death threats each day, new ways to life's challenges appearing right after he needs them. His particular journey through South Africa's political dilemma complicates his troubles, and his miraculous adventure through adolescence begins and continues throughout the novel.

The beginning of Spud landed me in the very middle of the plot, sucking my attention into the first of many chapters. Finding the humor in an adolescent's struggle can be challenging, but John Van De Ruit did a fantastic job of doing so. By finding the root of Spud's problems and twisting them into a comfortable tale, any reader would find new boundaries for a comedy. Enjoying the language of the British was different, and I learned a good deal of foreign terminology.

Language and sexual themes.

Rating: 8

Reviewer Age: 13

Reviewer City, State and Country: Eagle Creek, OR USA

The Corps of the Bare-Boned Plane

When Meline and Jocelyn are left orphaned in a train accident, they are both shipped off to live with their genius uncle on an island famous for its morbid history of airplane crashes. The two girls have completely conflicting personalities, and their uncle only exacerbates matters by ignoring them entirely. Life on the island is miserable for all involved-- that is, until one fateful day when a revelation occurs to Meline: "I know how to build a plane."

When you start this book, it may seem familiar, as if it were an odd mix of Lemony Snicket's "Series of Unfortunate Events," MT Anderson's "Game of Sunken Places," and Laura Numeroff's "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." This observation would be entirely logical, because Polly Horvath's plot takes elements from all three of these stories, whether deliberately or not, creating a final work that is unsettlingly recognizable. Horvath's tone is great, easy to read and at times intriguing, but her use of multiple points of view means that even the characters cannot be interesting to the reader, because all are over-explained and become redundant by the end of the novel. The children's uncle is perhaps the best example of where Horvath has missed the mark with her characters-- he is known as an extraordinary genius, but in his eyes and the view of others, he comes across as, at best, eccentric and socially inept. These flaws are even more disappointing when one looks at the potential that the book held-- but it can't be denied that as talented as Horvath is, she has finally created a book that is just plain long.

Reviewer Age:15
Reviewer City, State and Country: Maryland, United States

Fancy White Trash by Marjetta Geerling

Abby Savage lives in a one bathroom house with her sister, her niece, her other pregnant sister, her mom, and her moms boyfriend (who, by the way, might be the father of her sister's child). As you can imagine, life is not so pretty. Abby is left babysitting and cleaning up after her unruly family while they go along fighting and creating an embarrassing scene wherever they go. The only sensible people in sight are her best friend Cody and his brother Jackson, and lately Jackson's been away saving kids in another country. Abby struggles through her troubles at home and at school trying to discover herself and hoping that she is not going to turn out like the rest of her family.

Fancy White Trash is a wonderful book that will keep anyone turning pages to find out what Abby Savages quirky family will do next. It brings you into a world of a teenage girl being held back from who she wants to be by her family. The book explores common topics of teenage life such as family troubles, teenage pregnancy, relationships, and exploring ones sexual orientation. It was filled with vivid descriptions, hilarious content, and characters that were easy to relate to. Overall it was a lot of fun to read and I would recommend it for girls ages 12 and up.

Reviewer Age:14
Reviewer City, State and Country: Marblehead, Massachusetts USA

Looks

Meet Meghan, that is, if you can spot her. Even though she's enormously overweight, Meghan is practically invisible to everyone around her. Everyone except for J-Bar, who has been relentlessly tormenting her since junior high. Now meet Aimee Zorn. She has the opposite problem as Meghan, anorexia having made her rail thin. Despite her size, (or maybe because of it) poet Aimee is seen by perfectly peppy Cara Roy, who convinces Aimee to join the literature club. Meghan wants nothing more than to befriend Aimee, and a hate for one particular girl brings them together.

This beautifully written book is very true to life. While reading it, I could easily pick out the Aimee, Meghan, Cara, and J-Bar at my school. Madeleine George did an amazing job making all of the characters seem alive and I often had to remind myself that I'm not Aimee or Meghan. Although this book was slightly predictable, the poetic style in which Looks was written makes up for the plot. This book was fun to read and I will definitely read Looks again.

Rating: 10/10

Reviewer Age:12

Reviewer City, State and Country: Phoenixville, PA

Jack: Secret Histories by F. Paul Wilson

When 14 year old Jack and his friends, Weezy and Eddy, venture out into the forbidden pine barrens of New Jersey, they find a mysterious sight. Weezy leads her brother Eddy, and Jack to a long mound of crusted sand. Soon rain comes, and the threesome find shelter under a nearby tree, and erosion takes its toll on the eerie mound. After the storm, Weezy comes along a black artifact that can't be opened. Jack looks for one for himself, but doesn't necessarily come up empty handed; he finds the head of a deceased body relaxing in the palm of his hand. They run home as fast as they can, contact the police, but don't realize the mysterious friends, deaths, or suspects, right around the corner, waiting for them in Jack: Secret Histories, by F. Paul Wilson. Jack is confused by the Lodge, a building that contains many secrets. Is the Lodge linked to the corpse? Or what about the so-called old wives' tale, about a misty monster, the Klazen? He also remembered seeing Mrs. Clevenger, the town witch, but what do these links lead to?

I was amazed by the details and descriptions in Jack: Secret Histories, by F. Paul Wilson! It was a mysterious, fiction/legend that was on-the-edge-of-your-seat thrilling! It's one of the best books I've read since joining FlamingNet. I really enjoyed reading about the characters and their different personalities. I recommend this book to anyone who isn't scared of a lot of things! I hope you will experience the same feelings I had when I read this miraculous book.

Reviewer Age:11

Reviewer City, State and Country: Osseo, Wisconsin United States

A Walk Through

This book contains various poems covering a wide scope of
different topics. The author depicts topics such as growing
up, making choices, self-confidence, and how small things
can affect one's day. Many of the subjects of this book's
poems are important for adolescents and young adults.
Carefully chosen words and phrases come together to
illustrate essential messages. It is easy to understand the
point the author wishes to make in each of his sixty poems.
Adolescents and young adults will be able to identify with
many poems and find inspiration in this book.

While I appreciated the messages that A Walk Through
Life attempted to convey, I felt that these messages were
overpowered with the way in which they were presented.
Every poem had precisely the same construction: a rhyme
pattern of AABBCC and so on throughout the poem. This would
not pose a problem if it were not for the rhymes
themselves. Each rhyme was laboriously chosen, resulting in
the fact that the rhythm of each poem was lost in the
effort. It was common in this book for two lines to be of
completely different lengths and simply rhyme at the end.
Despite this, I enjoyed the author's attempt, though the
aforementioned criticism keeps the book from being what it
could be. Hidden within the book are the promises of what
it could be with a bit more effort; there were several
lines that fit perfectly and seemed to light the poems. If
one wishes to seek perspective and better understanding in
their life, I would recommend this book, but not for the
poetry itself.

Reviewer Age:14

Reviewer City, State
and Country: Melrose, MA United States

Not A Happy Camper by Mindy Schneider

Mindy Schneider is going to camp. In the past, she has gone to the strict and oppressive Camp Cicada. This year is going to be different. Mindy is headed to Camp Kin-A-Hurra where she hopes to find friends, fun, and possibly, her first kiss. While at camp Mindy stays with the picture perfect Dana (who's got looks, sings, and plays guitar), Autumn Evening (who can talk to the dead, and has had many boyfriends in her past life) and many other different girls who will form a bond that can only be made at camp.

In the beginning of the book, I wasn't sure if I would get hooked on it. I kept reading and soon fell in love with the characters and the camp. Since this book is a memoir, it made it all that much better. Knowing that all the things that happened in the book actually happened to the author was amazing. Anyone who has gone to a summer camp before will be able to find a little piece of their own camp in Not a Happy Camper.

Reviewer Age:14

Reviewer City, State and Country: Seaside, OR. US.