Quick Review - Camp Boyfriend

Title: Camp Boyfriend
Author: J.K. Rock
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary, 2013
ISBN: 9781939392503
Pages: 324

Lauren Carlson spent the past school year with the popular crowd after a makeover and cross-country move allowed her to shed her former nerdiness. Now with summer looming, she faces a difficult choice: Should she reconcile with her past and convince her usual camp boyfriend, Seth, to become a more permanent choice or embrace her new life completely and stay with her jock boyfriend, Matt, who's decided to join her at Camp Juniper Point? Lauren spends the summer vacillating between the two boys. She claims that the popular crowd is superficial and confining, but she's the one who doesn't let others know who she truly is and chooses not to dig too deeply into her relationships. She's dated Matt for nine months and yet seems completely surprised by him at camp when he shows interest in anything that's not sports-related. The teens in this book don't speak with authentic voices and are never fully developed as independent characters. The subplot about Lauren's bridezilla older sister turns out to be nothing more than a device to have a big, feel-good ending. The pacing is slow and drawn out, exposing readers to contrived situations and extraneous supporting characters. A forgettable cookie-cutter teen romance with nothing new to offer.

For more information on this book:

Book profile on Amazon.com
Book profile on Goodreads
Book profile on Alibris

The Fly

Title: The Fly
Author: Elise Gravel
Publisher: Tundra Books, 2014
ISBN: 9781770496361
Pages: 32

The Fly by Elise Gravel is a fantastic picture book sure to delight and disgust young readers! This informational text includes lots of facts about flies but delivers them with great graphic lettering for emphasis and lots of humor. The illustrations are simple, straightforward, and eye-catching. This would be a good book for group story-time, one on one reading, and reading alone.

Update

Life has been a bit crazy of late! My husband and I have moved across the state of New York, I've found a new job, our cat has been very ill... It's just been nuts. But I'm back now! I've been reading and I can't wait to share more book reviews with you. 

In addition to the usual, long posts I've also decided to add some shorter, quick reviews which shall be called... Quick Reviews! These will be one paragraph reviews which touch on plot but mainly focus on my critique. 

I look forward to sharing what I've been reading with you and can't wait to discuss your thoughts in the comments section! 

Thank you! 

Hate List

Title: Hate List : A Novel 
Author: Jennifer Brown
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-316-04144-7
Pages: 408

Why I choose this particular book: Along with an English teacher at the local high school, I help run a teen book club at my library. I'd read this book before and thought it would be a great choice for the club. October is National Anti-Bullying Awareness Month and this book is a great way to start a conversation. I requested this through my library's catalog and received it through inter-library loan.

Hate List is a hard read but not because of the writing, rather the subject matter is difficult to get through. The book picks up about six months after a shooting at Garvin High School. Valerie (Val) is heading back to school after her boyfriend, Nick, shot and killed several students and one teacher as well as wounding more students before shooting himself in the head. Val, in her attempt to stop Nick, was also wounded which incidentally (purposefully?) caused her to save the life of 'Miss Perfect' Jessica. Though Val's been cleared by the police for her actions leading up to the shooting Val, and most of the people in her life, still blame her for having been the mastermind behind the Hate List - a list of students, teachers, situations, actions, or whatever Val and Nick decided they hated. Val used the List as a coping device to deal with the problems she had at home and the bullies she faced at school and never dreamed that Nick would take it to such an extreme level.

Bad Girls Don't Die

Title: Bad Girls Don't Die 
Author: Katie Alender
Publisher: Disney, Hyperion Books, 2009
ISBN: 978-142310876-4
Pages: 346

Why I choose this particular book: I was looking for more books to read and came across this one during a library catalog search. It seemed like a quick, creepy book. I requested this through my library's catalog and received it through inter-library loan.

Started reading: June 29, 2012 at 1:01 AM.

First impression: This may not be as creepy as I thought. It's published by Disney. Then again, you never know. The cover art is kind of disconcerting, though. 

Finished reading: June 30, 2012 at 8:32 AM.

Bad Girls was alright. It's definitely a Young Adult book who's target is teenagers. The story was simplistic and the main characters weren't really developed; they were very reactionary and didn't question what was happening, they just went along with the plot. The adult characters in the book are stereotypes - the mother an overbearing workaholic, the father a man-child, the high school teacher a petty creature who treated the 'outcast' students poorly but who played nicely with the popular kids. There was almost no deviation from the stereotypes set out. Once an adult was cast a certain way that's how they stayed throughout the book.