Wonder by R.J. Palacio

Posted on October 26, 2016 by Diana P.

wonder_rjpalacio I recently finished the novel Wonder by R. J. Palacio. I had seen good reviews about this book and its ability to connect with readers from a wide age group. After reading the story for myself, I found a novel that was personable and heartfelt, teeming with life lessons. The book is about a 5th grader named August Pullman who was born with a facial deformity. It’s told from the perspective of various characters in the story, explaining how their lives are affected by August. August has been homeschooled his entire life, up until the 5th grade, when his mom urges him to attend a local elementary school. Apprehensively, August complies, and is hit with the expected reactions: stares, whispers, and giggles from his fellow classmates. Naturally, I began to develop a dislike for those characters who hurt August, and excluded him just because he looked different. I’d often ask myself how characters could be so cruel, how strangers could openly gawk at him with no shame. Unfortunately, the answer was simple; people are curious and often afraid of what’s different.

This novel really makes the reader inquire on what it means to be different. August dawns the same playful and curious personality of a 5th grader, just with an alternative appearance. One of my favorite quotes from the novel was “The only reason I’m not ordinary is because no one else sees me that way.” This line captures the essence of the entire story, reminding the reader that normality is simply an idea in one’s head. Differences are a thing to be celebrated; they make the world a colorful, interesting place. However, problems arose when characters in Wonder couldn’t just see August as a human being, similar to themselves. Flowers come in a multitude of colors, lengths, and locations, but they’re still flowers. August’s face does not fit the typical standard, but it doesn’t make him less of a person. August Pullman is different; one look and anyone could see. Nonetheless, at the end of the novel, students and parents came to realize that August Pullman is not lost cause, a sad story. Just because he dawns his differences on his face, it doesn’t make him any more unusual than the next person. I recommend this novel to anyone and everyone; it’s a well-written reminder that variety really is the spice of life.

-Diana P.

Wonder is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available for download on Overdrive.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Leila S.

As it seemed to Jane Eyre, she would never be equal to her cousins, neither in status nor in physical appearance. From all angles, she was just a plain orphan, whom Mrs. Reed kept under her care only at the request of her late husband, Jane’s uncle. Constantly chided, blamed for things outside of her control, or treated like a pest, Jane’s early life was not easy.

Before long, she was sent to Lowood, a boarding school for orphaned girls, where she experienced a whole new life, though not necessarily better than her former years. She no longer had any sort of family to return home and the living conditions at Lowood were not any to be rewarded. Her eight years as a pupil did not end, however, as she continued on to become a teacher, and eventually sought a governess position elsewhere in England.

That brings Jane to the center of her story: Rochester Hall, with the stern-faced master, elderly housekeeper, spoiled French pupil, and the mystery within plaguing its halls. Before long, Jane’s governess position becomes more complicated, as she deals with Mr. Rochester. To tell you what happens from there, I would be ruining the story. But this is not even half of the story yet, as Jane embarks on a sort of journey that changes her life. That sounds extremely cliché, but it’s what happens. The events Jane experiences are so extraordinary that they do not seem realistic, but at the same time, I loved the ending.

My favorite part of this novel was the blunt way everything was depicted. Though disguised in flowery, 19th century English, Jane is quite to the point about everything she notices, and Bronte’s storytelling truly draws the reader in. Admittedly, it took me a while to read the novel because adjusting to the older style of English was difficult, but I could not have been happier to finish the book!

– Leila S., 11th grade

Jane Eyre, both the novel and its numerous television and film adaptations, is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Ashes to Ashes by Melissa Walker

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Rebecca V.

Image result for ashes to ashes by melissa walker Callie McPhee is prepared to have a great summer. She has her boyfriend Nick, her best friend Carson, and a new BMW. Even though her best friend is still obsessed with ghosts, and Nick seems a little bit off lately, Callie knows that she is going to have a great summer before her junior year. Except when tragedy strikes while Callie is speeding and distracted by a phone call from Nick. This isn’t the summer she imagined.

Callie wakes up in something called the Prism, where she finds out she’s dead and is assigned a Guide named Thatcher. Callie isn’t a “normal” ghost, and develops a rebellious streak. She wants to live a little by hanging out with the “bad” group of ghosts and haunt on her own. But when the poltergeists, the bad group, starts turning more dangerous, Callie must figure what’s right. She has to watch her father, friend, and boyfriend go through different types of grief, and sort out her new feelings for Thatcher. When the poltergeists go past a boundary that Callie didn’t know was possible and Thatcher feared, they must do the impossible. Will the poltergeists stop? Read the book to find out.

I thought Ashes to Ashes was a great paranormal romance novel. Once you read this book, you have to know what happens next in the sequel, Dust to Dust. Ashes to Ashes makes you think a lot about ghosts. I will recommend this book to anyone who wants a good paranormal romance book.

-Rebecca V.

Ashes to Ashes is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Reeling Through the Roaring Twenties: A Bright Young Things Series Review

Posted on October 18, 2016 by Elaha N.

FLAPPERS, FRINGE DRESSES, JAZZ, AND DECADENCE!

The year is 1929. Eleven years have passed since the First World War. No longer is there any grief or sorrow among the former disillusioned youth. Instead, there is an air of decadence and desire among them.

New York, the cultural capital of the era, is ruled by the Bright Young Things. This new generation of young women chase their dreams, defying the traditional patriarchal society that once stifled their passions.

Cordelia Grey and Letty Larkspur, inspired by the culture of New York, escape their Midwestern town for the lights and ardour of New York City. However, the two girls leave much more behind than just their old homes. Ms. Grey, raised as an orphan by her authoritarian aunt, escapes from an untimely arranged marriage to find her infamously wealthy father, Dorian Grey. Ms. Larkspur, on the other hand, escapes her extremely religious family to become the next Broadway Babe.

All Cordelia wants is to be part of a wealthy, loving family, and all Letty wants is to see her name in flashing lights. However, the two girls soon find out that their positions are ones that many girls fight for-and will even kill for. The girls find themselves in a city much more glamorous, yet equally dangerous than they have ever dreamed of. Only with the help of the young flapper Astrid Donal do these girls finally assimilate into the rich culture of the metropolis. Raised differently than the other two girls, Ms. Donal seems to epitomize perfection–she is wealthy, beautiful, and her lover is Cordelia’s greedily rich brother, Charlie. Despite Astrid’s perfect life, she faces her own plights in New York. Together, the Bright Young Things endure through the harsh circumstances of the city.

Love, drama, illegal ventures, and decadent thrills soon become an everyday part of the girls’ lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Personal Notes from Reading The Bright Young Things Series by Anna Godberson:

The book is FULL of words to expand your vocabulary. A majority of the words are SAT-level words! (For reference, the SRI reading level of the books range from 1070-1250, which is a very high lexile range)
The book covers are to DIE FOR! Each book comes with a visual photograph of the character. Their style of clothing and their beauty astonishes me to this day. I never pass the Young Adult section of the library without picking one up and gazing at it
It saddens me that these books are so underrated! Everytime I check their availability statuses at the library, none of them are ever checked out. It’s not that they are unpopular books, it is just that they are overshadowed by Godberson’s more popular series, The Luxe.
I encourage all teenagers and young adults to read these books. Not only do you get to expand your vocabulary, but you also get to learn about the Roaring Twenties. It goes well with The Great Gatsby (a novel that most high school honors and AP students are required to read!)

-Elaha N.

The Bright Young Things series of novels are available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Webtoon Review: Flow by Honey B

Posted on October 12, 2016 by Sarah J.

Magic is normal. Rather, being born under a god is the norm. Some gods are weaker, others are stronger. To be born under a weak god means a lesser chance in both education and society, but a strong god means high school and training which later equals a higher status. There is only one thing in common. All of them can grant a single wish as long as the correct price is paid.

Yun Lee-Rang is a child of the cat. Not particularly bad but not strong enough for high school. His childhood friends, Suh Yul-Bi and Hong Ryun, are a pigeon and dragon respectively. Ryun, as he is a dragon, attends high school. Lee-Rang works with Yul-Bi in a delivery restaurant. He is satisfied with his life and has a crush on Yul-Bi. One day, when he is out on a delivery, Lee-Rang is severely beaten by students from a nearby high school, leaving him blind and paralyzed. Filled with despair, he wishes to turn back time. His cat god asks if he is sure and the answer is “yes.” It is done, but what Lee-Rang finds is that not only has he changed his fate but lives of everyone else. In this new timeline, Yul-Bi dies. Suddenly, the principal of Ryun’s high school invites Lee-Rang to enter his high school. Lee-Rang accepts in the hopes that he will learn to turn time again. This new timeline opens doors that shouldn’t have been opened and Lee-Rang learns that what is seen is not always what it is.

This is one of the earliest webtoons I have read and I have found it refreshing. It has a new twist to a power concept I have seen several times. There is a rollercoaster, which this webtoon takes you. There are the crazy light hearted monuments to the darkest of the dark time. The character are well developed and the changes in Lee-Rung personality and maturity is certainly strong. The artwork is simply beautiful. As webtoons are primarily released as color strips online (hence the name) artist have the opportunity to mix art styles and colors. Honey B uses a more realistic styles for the gods compared the the characters creating a incredible contrast.

It has been completed and the ending my opinion is quite satisfying. Of course, I cannot say that for you so why don’t you read it for yourself.

This webtoon is licensed by Line Webtoon and is free to read online.

-Sarah J., 11th Grade

Launch by Jeff Walker

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Phillip Xiang

When an Internet millionaire promises you the “secret formula to sell almost anything online, build a business you love, and live the life of your dreams,” how do you approach it?

With a very skeptical mind.

However, when I began reading Jeff Walker’s book Launch, I pushed away my doubts to try and learn a thing or two about online businesses.

To begin, Jeff Walker was a stay-at-home dad who created a successful online business using a technique he calls the Product Launch Formula. After discovering that his method was relatively unused by the rest of the business world, he began releasing training courses and books on how to emulate his success. According to Walker, the Product Launch Formula has been used by his students in a variety of different markets, from stock trading to dog agility training.

Essentially, the Product Launch Formula involves building an email list of people interested in your product, creating a close relationship with those people, and then building up anticipation to your product launch. Although I can’t personally testify to the formula, I think the book itself is very well written. Jeff Walker markets himself as someone who understands and relates to struggling entrepreneur, and not just some marketing god bestowing his eternal wisdom upon us peasants. When explaining any concept, Walker always provides at least one real-world example he’s encountered, often his peers’ success stories. Right in the beginning, he talks about a man who used PLF to sell over 600 copies of a board game using his technique.

The one change this book needs is more specifics to each step. Sometimes the success stories presented became repetitive. I would often finish the page knowing that the PLF model can work, but without knowledge of how to start. I’m sure he offers meticulous details in his online courses, but I won’t be paying thousands of dollars for those anytime soon.

For any budding entrepreneur out there, this book is a glimpse into one man’s road in online businesses. Even if Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula isn’t for your business, it might help you build your business knowledge for the future.

-Phillip X.

Partials by Dan Wells

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Anmol K.

Partials by Dan Wells is an action-packed novel about the remains of humanity after a devastating virus kills 99.99% of the human population. The story takes place 11 years after the virus, RM, is exposed. Kira. the main character, is training to be a medic and interns at the only hospital. There is no cure for RM, so when babies are born they die within a couple of hours. RM is said to come from humanlike creatures called Partials. It is believed that they have the cure since they released it.

The urge to cure RM becomes stronger for Kira when she discovers that her best friend, Madison, is pregnant. She figures that her best bet would be to capture a Partial and bring it back. After embarking on a dangerous journey, Kira manages to bring one back. She is given five days to study the Partial, and to collect as much data as possible. Unfortunately, she is not able to complete her research because of unrest among the remains of the human population. They are angered by their government, and have become restless after hearing that a partial has been brought back. After the riots settle down, Kira discovers a startling secret about herself. It may make her reconsider everything she has ever known.

Overall, the book had an amazing plot. Partials had one of the best plot lines among recent dystopian novels. A major problem with this book was it dragged on and on for pages at certain points. It was as if the author just put in extra filler pages. The only thing that kept me reading was the plot-line. I wanted to see what would happen and if the cure for RM would be found. Something that I also enjoyed about this book was the whole conflict between humans and Partials. Initially, they were groups against each other; by the end of the novel, that relationship changes drastically.

-Anmol K.

Partials is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Leila S.

What has made Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen’s 19th century book, so timeless? We no longer live in an era where the only way to do well is to marry well. But, as it turns out, not much is different.

People today hold prejudices, albeit of different scales. What makes this an issue is if a person acts on those prejudices, without getting to know the truth. For example, I don’t like papaya or kiwi. I don’t remember if I actually tried the fruit when I was younger, but to this day, I refuse to eat the fruit. Maybe I had tried one bad kiwi, or had been influenced when my sister got sick after eating papaya. either way, I never tried it again. My pride comes into play, because I never want to be proven wrong. What if I ate a kiwi and loved it? Then I would be embarrassed for my embargo that has lasted my whole life so far. So to me, it’s best to never risk it.

Thinking about it now, this is definitely the wrong way to go about things. It may not seem serious, but this issue becomes serious in other circumstances. What if, instead of hating a type of fruit, someone hated a group of people? Maybe this was only because of one bad experience they had (or even heard about). Sometimes this hate can even be unfounded. People constantly make generalizations about people, which add bias to their actions, and they forget the most important virtue: to understand.

People need to understand why another person might have acted a certain way. It’s unfair to make judgments about a person without actually getting to know them. Elizabeth, in Pride and Prejudice, proved this. She was cold toward Mr. Darcy the entire book, thinking him a stuck-up, unfeeling man, and she was content in thinking this. But she soon found how much she was missing, finding out what Mr. Darcy had actually done (rather than hearing it in rumors from Mr. Darcy’s “enemy”) and seeing how kind and good-hearted Mr. Darcy had been to help Lizzy’s sister. (Spoiler alert!) Once she got to know him, her opinion widely changed.

Before long, her prejudices were broken, though perhaps not entirely gone. Before, she was too proud to admit that she could be wrong, but by the end, she realized her mistake. She then had to convince others of her feelings, since her previous prejudices had rubbed off on the rest of her family. Long story short, she had a lot to learn by getting to know another person. Just by giving him a chance to explain himself, Elizabeth radically changed her (and Mr. Darcy’s) life.

Thus, a lot can be learned from Jane Austen’s novel. I mean, for me, I’m definitely going to try kiwi this weekend. But for the rest of my life, the message of Pride and Prejudice will stay with me. I hope that those of you who have read this classic will keep the message in mind. For those of you who haven’t read the book, I truly recommend it.

-Leila S., 11th grade

Pride and Prejudice is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Posted on September 26, 2016 by Aliya A.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, chronicles a few of the adventures of 12-year-old Tom Sawyer. Living on the Mississippi River, Tom lives with his Aunt Polly and his half-brother Sid. Tom gets into many misadventures and he just as deftly gets out of them. At times, when Tom is punished, one can see how he gets out of trouble and chores by manipulating his friends (though not necessarily in devious ways).

Tom and his friend, Huckleberry Finn (the subject of another book by Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn), get into all kinds of trouble, from seeing things they were not meant to see, to running away with friend Joe Harper to an island, to going treasure hunting and discovering a dangerous secret. Tom also indulges in more normal pastimes, like playing pretend and going on picnics (though he does get lost in a cave with Becky Thatcher, a girl he is trying to impress). Overall, I thought that this book was a good read, as it was relaxing in some places and funny in others. Plus, in addition to being a nice book about the adventures of a child in the past, it also had some moments where I was figuratively gripping the edge of my seat to see what happened next.

-Aliya A.

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is available to checkout from the Mission Viejo Library.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Posted on September 23, 2016 by Kaylie W.

Described as “the quintessential novel of the Lost Generation,” The Sun Also Rises is one of Ernest Hemingway’s first masterpieces that established him as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. Set in Paris in the 1920s, the novel explores the disillusionment and anxiety of the “lost” post-World War I generation. The story follows the unfortunate Jake Barnes, the ostentatious Lady Brett Ashley, and a disenchanted group of American and British expatriates on their journey to rediscover their purposes in life. From parties in Paris, to a fishing expedition, the group eventually finds themselves in Pamplona, Spain during a wild fiesta and bull-fight. The group’s encounters throughout the novel perfectly reflects the Lost Generation’s moral conflicts, spiritual disenchantment, unrealized love, and most of all, the tragedy of lost hope and dreams.

The Sun Also Rises was my first Hemingway book, so my expectations were quite high, especially because Hemingway is widely known as a literary genius. Upon first look, I personally felt that the novel was quite uninteresting. The characters seem to do nothing but drink and quarrel constantly. Although the writing is simple and very easy to understand, there is no plot and no climax. Although the group does journey outside of Paris and explores Spain, they ultimately end up exactly where they are when the book starts, stuck in Paris and wondering when love and adventure will find them. However, upon closer examination, I realized that this was Hemingway’s sole purpose, to portray the hopelessness and despair of the Lost Generation, men and women who served heroically in the war and returned only to find that they no longer had a purpose in life. Just as the title implies, the sun rises every day, and the novel’s characters repeat the same routine of drinking and partying and wandering aimlessly every day.

In retrospect, while the writing could tend to be lackluster in some parts, the book was quite enjoyable, and I can now appreciate the genius that Hemingway was behind the novel. He flawlessly depicts the Lost Generation and evokes the same feeling of confusion and aimlessness that the people during the post-World War I age experienced through his words, truly making The Sun Also Rises a literary masterpiece that should be experienced by everyone.

-Kaylie W.

The Sun Also Rises is available for checkout from the Mission Viejo Library. It is also available to download from Overdrive.

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