Ashes of Twilight by Kassy Taylor

Wren MacAvoy is a coal miner. She is a lower class shiner forced to work in order to maintain the royals luxurious way of life. Coal keeps the giant fans running, along with everything else because Wren s world is a giant dome. The royals and everyone else were sent here long ago, in the hopes that they could protect and preserve the bloodline of the royals after a giant comet struck the earth and set it ablaze. As far as anyone inside the dome knows, the outside is still engulfed in flames but the dome s coal is running out, and conditions are worsening. Wren has always thought there was something more outside the dome, and she is even more certain after her good friend, having attempted to escape the dome,  gives her his dying words The sky is blue. Is there really hope for a better life outside the dome? Wren is determined to find out.Ashes of Twilight is a great dystopian romance/adventure, with twists that keep you entertained and a familiar theme rebellion against a controlling society presented in a unique way. . . for the most part. I found a few uncanny similarities to other books, but they were small and maybe they were just coincidental. Other than that, I enjoyed Ashes of Twilight. I would recommend it for a middle teen crowd. My final verdict: a good read.Some of the romantic scenes are questionable for younger readers.Reviewer Age:12Reviewer City, State and Country: Tigard, OR USA

Wooden Bones by Scott William Carter

This book is about a boy named Pino.  He carved a lady puppet and it turned alive.  Angry neighbors all wanted their deceased ones back.  Pino ran away with his father, Geppetto.  They had many adventures that had good and bad consequences.  But every time Pino used his magic to create something from wood, his hand turned into wood.  What will Pino and his father do?Pinocchio s story is back, except this time, he can create wooden people.  I liked this book because of the characters.  They were trusted and realistic.  I find the book has strong words and plenty of excitement.  If you like to have an adventure in a book, this is the book for you.  I don t recommend it for people under 10.Reviewer Age:12Reviewer City, State and Country: Leesburg, Virginia USA

The Adventures of Benjamin Skyhammer (eBook) by Nicole Sheldrake

Benjamin Skyhammer goes relic hunting for a relic collector on his home planet Pingala. While he relic hunting he meets creatures that also want this relic for its magic powers. When he gets back home he is thought to be a Retrograph Sorcerer . He goes to find the real Retrograph Sorcerer but learns that she was killed. He goes back to Quansity to find the ceremony is sabotaged because all magic is replaced with technology.


This book was excellent. I wish the author would write another book in the series so he could expand on the story. It was too good for just one book.  I loved the relic hunting parts, they remind me of searching for treasures in ancient Egypt ,one of my favorite time periods.
Reviewer Age:11Reviewer City, State and Country: Glen Burnie, MD USA

Mary of the Aether (eBook) by Jeffrey Aaron Miller

Mary of the Aether is a thrilling book, centered around a teenage girl who discovers that she' s not as normal as she thought. Before turning 14, Mary had lived a completely boring life, with some unexplained moves between states and houses, along with not knowing anything about her mother. But when she discovers Aether, and the magic she has within her, everything changes, and she finds out more of her past than she ever hoped to know. Sadly, after discovering the power of Aether, or magic, Mary also finds out that there are magic-craving demons after her, willing to kill her to get what they want. Using all her strength and courage, Mary will have to either destroy the demons or have the last remains of Aether leave the Earth. Join Mary on an exciting adventure as she works to save the remains of magic in this adventure and action-packed book!

I found this book to be absolutely brilliant! After the first couple of pages it really picked up, and I could hardly put the book down as I felt like I, myself, was in the book alongside Mary! Mary of the Aether carries a tone of mystery, as the puzzle is never quite finished, but it does include all the right details at the same time. The book is perfect for the selected age group, but also has some brilliant words and dialect. Mary of the Aether may not be the next Harry Potter, but it is very good! This book uplifted me as I found that it portrayed the message that if you believe in yourself and work hard, nothing is impossible. I would most definitely recommend this book to others, and I found it to be a pleasure to read!

Reviewer Age:13
Reviewer City, State and Country: Middlebury, CT United States

My Beginning (eBook) by Melissa Kline

In the book My Beginning by Melissa Kline, the world has changed as we know it. The main character, Ivory, has been raised in an institution for children after the world was plagued by a deadly virus. The children are taught their entire life that they must remain inside institution walls at all times or risk catching the virus and dying. Inside, one of the most important rules is that boys and girls must no t mingle. For Ivory, that has never been a challenge, until Aiden the mysterious new boy who catches her eye, is transferred to her institution after his was overrun by the plague. They soon begin to fall for each other and meet in secrecy, but when they are discovered lurking in the broom closet they are both severely punished. Their options suddenly become clear: stay away from each other forever or run away. They choose love and run from the institution, soon discovering not everything is as they were told. Over the course of the story, we follow Ivory and Aidan as they fight to find a way in the world for love, and fight off the all controlling evil. They prove love really does trump all.

In the book My Beginning, Melissa Kline tells an inspiring story where love can defeat all evil. It is a long story, with a twist in the middle you would never guess. I thoroughly enjoyed it and believe that any teenage girl interested in Sci-Fi will instantly fall in love with it. Ms. Kline keeps you on the edge of your seat with little interludes throughout. I couldn't wait to reach the ending of Ms. Kline's story, since I was anxious to figure out how Ivory and Aidan overcame to mounting obstacles laid in their path. It comes to an overall pleasing ending that you may not have expected from the beginning. I can't wait to recommend this book to my friends the moment the opportunity arises, and I would recommend this book to every teenage girl, even those hesitant to dive into Science Fiction.
The book made a few references to sex and violence.

Reviewer Age:14
Reviewer City, State and Country: Glendale, Arizona United States

The Pack by L.M Preston

A century in the future, scientists on Earth decide to launch a project where they observe criminals and others for 5 years and if they approve of them, they are sent to Mars as a 2nd chance or to be groomed for the upscale police force, or the Security Force Elite. Shamira, the daughter of two members, becomes blind at a young age due to an unfortunate accident. Despite her setbacks, she tracks down villains and make them pay, while still being a good sister to David, her younger brother. She goes to Earth to regain her eyesight and when she comes back, it is worse than she imagined. Shamira must solve the case of why Monev, an evil organization, is kidnapping kids and she can't do it alone.

I've always liked mystery books, TV shows, and movies. I mean, my favorite TV show is Psych! Add a little sci-fi and suddenly, it is unique. The casual way LM Preston slipped in things like," she lived in the dark most of her life", or "since they were part of the Elite team", almost like she was explaining something to a friend and wrote down the conversation. Even the cool technology found its way into the rhythm of the book. It was a fairly interesting and fun to read, in fact,my only problem with the book was the way some of the names were cliche. Why was it called the Pack, anyway?

Reviewer Age:13

Reviewer City, State and Country: Leawood, Kansas United States

Thou Shalt Not Road Trip by Antony John

When 16-year old Luke Dorsey's book, Hallelujah, becomes a bestseller, his publisher decides to send him out on a book tour. Sounds good, right? Well, come to find out his chauffeur is going to be his crazy, unpredictable, older brother Matt. When Matt decides to liven up the trip, things start to go downhill. Without Luke knowing, Matt makes a few tweaks to the driving plan, so that they're driving on the legendary Route 66, and he decides to add a few companions: his girlfriend Alex and her sister Fran, who happens to be Luke's ex-crush/crush (he hasn't quite decided) . Soon this book tour turns into a journey about finding yourself and then staying true to yourself. Add a little site-seeing, a little faith, and a lot of humor, and you get Thou Shalt Not Road Trip.

Ok... I had VERY high expectations for this book since I loved Five Flavors of Dumb, by Antony John, and I have to say I don't think it lived up to all of my expectations. First, let me say the road trip didn't go so smoothly. The first 136 pages were quite bad, so much so that I didn't know if I wanted to finish the book. Now saying that, I'm glad I did because it got a lot better,but only because Fran became more of a prominent character. That's what really saved the book for me. Let's just get the first 136 pages out of the way. In those pages it was quite boring and you start to wonder if there's really a plot. The characters aren't well developed and don't have enough depth. That does change after page 137 but Fran really is the most well put together character and I have to wonder if the book should have been from her perspective. Now this might be because she reminds me of Piper from Five Flavors of Dumb, but still...


Also, there is a lot of language throughout the book (look in warnings for full description) and a vivid scene of self abuse on page 92 (also in the warnings). For the next warning I'm going to be very, shall we say vague, in how I say this, but it definitely needs to be addressed. So here goes. On pages 133 through 135 there's an interview hijacking. The interviewer is a local frat guy. It starts by slamming abstinence and ends with an inappropriate discussion about masturbation. Overall it was very crude, disgusting, and thoroughly disappointing. This is the worst part of the book in my view, and as I said before I am seriously disappointed in Antony John because that did not have to be in the book.


On to the second part of the book, pages 137 and on. I definitely think that the characters got stronger and the plot got rolling. There were a lot of good things, especially the realization that Luke made about himself, others, and his book. Luke grows and learns that disappointing people is part of life if you want to stay true to yourself and your beliefs. Now for the bad part. There's a lot of lying and Luke does dig his own grave a few times by lying. Even though the lying is wrong, I think it made the book more realistic. In the end when everything came to light Luke had to deal with it and learned that telling the truth would have been a lot easier and he would have hurt a lot less people. It also showed how much freer he felt when he told the truth. The end was not a fairy tale ending. It ended with him on the road to forgiveness, not at the end of the road. So, I felt that it was much more realistic.


Overall though I have to give it a 5 because it's right in the middle for me. The first part is not worth your time and had some negative things in it, but the second part was funny and pretty good, still having some negative things in it but to a lesser degree. Therefore, right down the middle.

1 goddamned
8 crap
4 Damned
13 hell
10 freakin'
1 for Christ's sake
12 screw
10 heck
1 son of a bitch
2 God
2 oh my God
1 oh God
1 dick
2 pissed
1 ass
1 dang

WARNINGS: There are several scenes with underage drinking and talks about sex. In one scene Fran is drunk and sticks a needle through her ear (there's a lot of blood). I already told you about the radio interview in the review. Oh and a possum gets run over.

Reviewer Age:14

Reviewer City, State and Country: Sharpsville, IN USA

Here (eBooks) by Ella James

Strange, mysterious and captivating are all words I would use to describe the story Here. In Here Milo is like any other girl with good friends and nice clothes. Milo lives on a large wind farm in Colorado and has just recently taken over her dead father s deer tracking project. All alone in her cold tree stand is when she met him. Within a matter of minutes he turns Milo s world upside down. And when Milo s life has been spun a complete 360, others around her get spun out of control too. In the middle of it all though, Milo still carries that feeling that there' s something that he isn' t telling her and that there 's something she ought to tell him.

I really enjoyed Here a lot more than I thought I would. As soon as I started it I got sucked in and didn 't want to put it down. The mystery was excellent and kept me entertained the entire way through. In my opinion the ending was a little disappointing but satisfied me enough to be done with the book. I think the characters were very realistic and well-developed along with the plot. Overall, I was very happy with my choice and would like to see more published works from this author in the future.

Reviewer Age:15

Reviewer City, State and Country: Hopkins, Michigan United States

See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

Fern lives in a family of five. She is 12 years old and feels like no one cares. Her mom is always off meditating and her dad is always making new commercials for the family restaurant, Harry's. When a tragic accident rips Fern's family apart, Fern blames herself. Can she help get her family back together?

Personally I did not like See You At Harry's. As I read it I thought boring all the way. I am a big fan of adventure books so See You At Harry's was not my style. It was a serious book with no humor. There was not a vertex in the plot and the book never urged me to pick it up and read it. I did like how the author wrapped up the book though. People who like drama books would enjoy See You At Harry's. It's definitely a tear-jerker. I would not recommend this book to any of my friends although I like how the author describes the characters.

I gave it a 2 because it talks about being gay,so you should be able to ask if you don't know what that is.

Reviewer Age:11

Reviewer City, State and Country: Uniontown, OH USA

Scandalous! by Hallie Fryd

Have you ever been at party and heard a group discussing a shocking new event, but were unable to join in because you were fuzzy on the details? This book is your cure. Scandalous! is a comprehensive guide by Hallie Fryd which explores the particulars of a century of outrageous scandals. It includes fifty events, which are broken down into an easily digestible format. Scandalous! is basically all you need to sound intelligent at your next party.

I m usually not one for nonfiction, but I really liked Scandalous! The format, which breaks each scandal into an easily read format, is very conducive to actually remembering the events. For each incident there are well placed boxes with the major people involved, quotes, a picture, related events, and other helpful additions. I really liked that each event ended with an insightful section called Why We Still Care, which I found to be very helpful in seeing the cultural impact of the incident. The book covers a lot of ground, starting with a 1906 murder and ending with the 2000 Gore-Bush election. I can honestly say I walked away with a ton more knowledge, even about familiar events.


For reviewing purposes I read it in long blocks, but I think the best way to enjoy it would to be to read a scandal or two here and there, because reading it for an hour like a novel can get a bit tedious. I think it would be a good book for the coffee table or bathroom, because of the simply divided sections. Overall, if you want to become more informed on the most infamous scandals of the last century, this book is a great choice

This book is recommend for 14+ but some may find some of the stories about kidnapping, crimes against children, or murder a bit unsettling.

Reviewer Age:15

Reviewer City, State and Country: Tigard, Oregon United States