Review Crew - book reviews by teens, for teens

This book is a heart-wrenching story about how you don't need a fairy tale situation to fall in love. Mr. Green's descriptions in this book are so good then even weeks after reading it, you could still have vivid images of the characters and settings. You may need a tissue or even book club friends to help you get through some of the moments and chapters in this book.
Overall A+ amazing book with exciting adventures and life lessons

In the book Strange Fire it went over a story of two brothers who are fighting over different causes years after most humans died off. When I first started reading the book I was a little confused about the plot but as I kept reading I started understanding the plot of the book. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who is willing to read it. I would even read the book again when I am just looking for a good book to read.

This book follows the three teens, Jack, Bree, and Ally. With all different backgrounds and personalities, they are brought together by seeing an eclipse of the sun all while realizing their true destinies and priorities of life. Very great book if you like an adventure, but with some emotion behind it. It may be a challenging read if you cant follow perspective changes by chapter.
Overall very heartfelt yet exciting and adventurous.
8th grade

15-year-old Matt Gratton and his two best friends, Sean and Coop have been friends since kindergarten and have set summer goals for themselves since they can remember, though this year that goal almost seems impossible.

Trying to reach it gets them into situations and adventures you couldn't imagine happening to just some Lower Rockville Razorbacks of the Rockville Swimming Association.
I find this book a really great choice for a summer read, very relatable for most teens and also funny beyond all beliefs. It can get a little inappropriate for those under 15, though if you are comfortable with that kind of humor, it is hilarious. It is also a very great book for a swimmer to read, though you do not have to be a swimmer to understand everything or enjoy the book.

I really enjoyed the concept of this book. The idea of reading old diaries to find out secret information about your mother is a super interesting concept and it reminded me of the musical Mamma Mia at first. The book seemed to have a lot of potential at first but the more I read, the less interested I was. I don't know if it was the character of Lina or the plot in general, but the book seemed to lose steam which was really disappointing. I had hoped this would become one of my favorite books. I'm glad I read this book though because I really did like the concept of it and I'm hoping the sequel, Love and Luck, will manage to keep me entertained throughout the entire story though.

I think this book could easily be one of my all time favorite books.
I love the "and if anyone asks you how it ends, just lie" was a really cool concept that I didn't get until the end. I'll admit there were parts of this book that felt like weren't anything groundbreaking and like it could've been like any other book on my bookshelf, but probably around the last fifty to seventy five pages, there was no way I could put it down. At the beginning of the book it truly does seem like it'll be just another teen-beach-romance story but it truly is so much more and there's so much more than I could've ever expected to happen in a rather short book like this. I always have a hard time reading stand alone books because it always leaves me wanting more, but I feel like this book doesn't need anything else. It was a super easy read too, I believe I read it over the course of two days. I even recommended it to a friend who doesn't like reading at all, and she said she truly loved it and would read it again. If that's not enough to convince someone to read this book, I don't know what is.

The Romantics is one of the cutest rom-coms I've ever read. The book is unique because the narrator is Love, who goes into detail about the different types of people when it comes to relationships. The Romantics revolves around a character who I immediately adored. His name is Gayle and he's had a good relationship with his girlfriend Anika. When Gayle told her he loved her, she freaked out because she obviously hadn't quite felt the same way about him.
One day Gayle decides to bring flowers to Anika as a kind gesture where he finds her looking at his best friend Mason but not in an ordinary way. She is looking at Mason intimately as if they were about to kiss. Gayle's heart is shattered into a million pieces. He spends his time watching movie after movie, trying not to think about any of it. This book is about moving on, forgiveness, and love in unexpected places. Many times we don't realize someone we are meant to be with even if they're standing right in front of you. I enjoyed Leah Konen's creativity of using Love as the narrator because it really put things in perspective and shows how different love is viewed from every person's perspective. Read this book, you'll fall in love with the characters and the twists and turns and will ultimately be unable to put it down.

This was a great book that I loved. This book is about the children, the orphans and and the abandoned children of Venice, Italy. As Bo and Prosper find their way into the city and into the arms of the generous Thief Lord they find that all is not as it seems. Secrets, plots, and magic rule this labyrinth of of canals and allies. What will happen to these children as this plot of deception unravels its self? And what lengths will they go too, to survive?

"It's not that things aren't scary. They are, and they will continue to be. But each of us has to come to a deep, personal realization that God has already conquered fear - and by the power of His Spirit we can live completely free from fear."

Daughter of the star from Duck Dynasty, Sadie Robertson shares her personal testimony of overcoming fear and anxiety while she was a teen. Fear, anxiety, and depression are just a few struggles that teens deal with today, so through personal stories of her experiences on Dancing With the Stars, Winter Jam, and growing up as a celebrity, along with interactive questions, helpful Bible verses, and challenges, Sadie demonstrates for us how to be rid of our fear through the power of Jesus Christ. She also shows us how to embrace our individual purposes and pursue our passions, ignoring and putting away the fear that's trying to hold us back. As Sadie discusses in her book, sometimes our fear can become SO great, that it causes us to miss out on amazing opportunities and fulfilling our full potential. So if you're tired of having fear hold you back from things you are longing to do, I strongly recommend this book to you!!
Reviewer Grade: 9

My friend recommended this book to me and I was a little weary after hearing her description. Once I actually managed to pick the book up and read it, I instantly fell in love with this book. The subject matter is super heavy as the main character, Lia, struggles with an eating disorder and self harm but this book still managed to have me laugh once or twice. The story follows Lia after she finds out the news that her former best friend had died from her own eating disorder. I think this book is truly an amazing read because not only is it a good source of entertainment, it manages to help people who haven't gone through what Lia has get a better understanding of eating disorders and self harm. The way that Lia's calorie intake is marked in the book and her hidden thoughts helped to make the book stand out and be unique from other novels I read. While I can fully admit this isn't a book that everyone can stomach, it's a book that managed to make its way to my top ten favorite books of all time. I'm glad my friend recommended it to me and I would gladly recommend it to someone else.
Reviewer Grade:12

This summer, I had the chance to read many new great books. One of my absolute favorites was 3 Willows. This is a sweet book about friendship, and how even though people continue to grow and branch off, your roots will always be intertwinded with those who were with you since the beginning. Ama, Polly, and Jo are great friends who met in second grade, running off from the school after waiting for what seemed like hours for their parents to pick them up after school. In third grade, they planted 3 willow trees together, and as they grow, so do their symbolic trees. All three of the girls go through very different struggles the summer after 8th grade, and they began to branch apart.
Ama strives to be as great at academics as her sister, who attends a ivy league school. She is book-smart, but the wilderness is not her strong suit.
After winning a grant after doing great on an academic contest, she was expecting to get to go to a cool class on what she loves, academics. However, she instead gets picked to go to a wilderness expedition camp, which she struggles with.
Polly still acts like the sweet girl they all were when the three were younger. Wanting to act older and fit in, she attends a modeling camp, where she learns a lot about herself, while coping with her mother's alcohol addiction.
Jo spends the summer at her beach house and gets a job as a busboy at a local ressteraunt with a new crowd that she tries to fit in with. As Jo deals with falling in love, being betrayed by her friends, her parents divorce, and the death of her little brother, she realizes who true friends are.
The three realize as they grow apart, you can't get rid of where your roots begin, or untangle them from your past. This heartwarming sweet book is one of my favorites, and Ann Brashares magically tells this beautiful story.
I recommend this book for anyone who loves coming of age stories, or can relate to any of these girls at some point in their lives.
Reviewer: Grade 6

Oh MY GOSH this book was incredible!! It reminded me a lot of the Boy in Striped Pajamas, because it's told innocently from the perspective of a child in WWII. It was heartbreaking. Few books make me cry, but I was on the verge of tears in this book. The characters had depth and complexity, they weren't 2d with one personality. They were like real people-- irrational, scared, kind, sly. I loved it so much, you won't understand until you read it.
So when Anna's Jewish father is killed when the Nazi's invade Poland, she finds herself in the care of the Swallow Man-- dubbed so because he reminds her of Soloman, but it wouldn't be wise to call him that in the time of WWII.
He insists on keeping up the pretense that they are father and daughter, because he is coping with the premature death of his daughter, who is around Anna'a age (7 years, I think). They travel across Europe on foot, with seemingly no predetermined destination. The Swallow Man says that keeping still makes it easier to be found, and one should never be found. It is better to be lost than to be found in times of war, he says. So the Swallow Man instills wisdom and new ideas into Anna, and teaches her how to survive by talking the language of Road, which is essentially not telling the whole truth, or maybe sprinkling in some truth to a big lie, or just convincingly lying to get what you want. So they pass checkpoints, borders, and strangers, talking Road and surviving. Then they find a Jew, who is used to horrors, but ignorant on how to avoid them. He entertains Anna with Jewish prayers and songs while they walk. The end leaves a lot to want, it was heart-wrenching and sad, but I won't give it away (you're welcome).
Reviewer Grade: 7

I LOVED this book! It incorporated a love and talent for storytelling perfectly, and infused it with a colorful and entertaining story. As an aspiring writer, I cherished reading about another storyteller, and how it changed her life.
Marjan is a young, crippled girl around the age of 13 in medieval Persia, where the there is a strict class contrast between prosperous sultans and poor beggars. She's loved telling stories, and admires Shahrazad. Her husband, the sultan, forcibly married a young girl every night and murdered the following morning, because he was convinced all women were despicable after his wife betrayed him. But Shahrazad stays alive by telling a story every night, keeping him intrigued and saving her life by morning, living another day. But after a thousand and one nights, she begins to run out of stories to tell, and so she enlists Marjan to find stories. Marjan seeks out a begging storyteller she saw in the market, and suddenly is thrust into a world where she has to become sneaky and smart in order to stay alive.
All in all, Shadow Spinner was really intriguing and I loved reading it.
Reviewer Grade: 7

The Axis Tour may be over, however Yael's journey is far from over. Blood for Blood starts right after Yael shot Hitler only to realize it was a skin shifter portraying Hitler. As Yael escapes SS men she can’t help but wonder how many skin shifters exist. Unsure who is real and who is a skin shifter she doesn’t know who to trust. Yael doesn’t even know if operation Valkyrie worked.
Luka witnessed Adele Wolfe shoot Hitler, or so he thought. The girl he thought was Adele Wolfe over the course of the Axis Tour was someone entirely different. In search of the true identity of inmate 121358ΔX Luka chases after her, whoever she may be.
Who is inmate 121358ΔX? How many other skin shifters exist? After a daring race around the world, and Hitler appearing dead, will the world fall apart?
Blood for Blood focuses so much on the relationships and development of the characters. Blood for Blood made me feel the characters emotions. The development of Yael over the series is incredible. At the beginning of this book Yael couldn’t face her history, but in the end of the book she conquers her fear and the past. I really enjoyed seeing different side of Luka and Felix. For example the feelings of Felix as he underwent interrogation. The ending was unexpected but fitting to the series. I highly recommend this book and series. I already want to read it again. If you have read Wolf by Wolf then you need to read Blood for Blood, it is totally worth reading.
Reviewer Grade: 9th

Richard's cousin, Malley, has always been rebellious. However, this time Richard is really worried about her. Malley ran off with some guy that she met online and the cops can't find her. Richard knows that he can find her so he embarkes on an adventure along with Skink, a moderately sane one-eyed wandering vigilante. Skink No Surrender is awesome. Complete with daunting storms, poisonous snakes, giant gators, flying bullets, and a supposedly extinct woodpecker. Skink No Surrender is full of twists and turns that makes it impossible to put down. I read this book in under two days and I highly recommend it for any middle schooler or high schooler that is looking for a great adventure story.

Every day, by David Levithan, is about a boy who wakes up every morning in a different body, he knows he is himself, but he is also somebody else. Because of this lifestyle, the boy, who named himself A, has never had a relationship with anyone for more than a day. He knows that he must not get too involved in the life of the body he's inhabiting because he knows no relationship will last for him. One day, A wakes up in the body of someone named Justin. It would be easy for him to come up with an excuse to tell Justin's parents so that he won't have to go to school, but A feels up for a challenge. Once at school A meets Justin's girlfriend, Rhiannon, and immediately realizes that this girl is not treated the way she deserves to be by Justin. Justin likes the idea of Rhiannon more than he actually likes her. Justin uses her as a way to feel accepted. A becomes instantly intrigued by Rhiannon and wants to give her one day. One day that she deserves with Justin. One day where Justin sees her true beauty. After the perfect day that "A as Justin" and Rhiannon share, A realizes that he's falling for Rhiannon. He knows the risk of telling her the truth but he feels that she deserves to know. Will Rhiannon believe him? Do they have a chance of being together? This book, Every day is very well-written and meaningful. It's a book that is like no other in so many ways. I would like to recommend this book to fans of romance novels, and dystopian-like books as well.

Having seen the movie before reading the book, I didn't have very high hopes. However once I finally managed to read the book while on vacation, I was pleasantly surprised. I haven't read any other books that were quite like this one. It was easy to get attached to Mia, whether she was talking about her boyfriend, her family, or even her thoughts while she was in the hospital searching for her family and trying to decide if she wanted to stay or not. The entire thing was amazing and it was really a unique read for me, and I truly did enjoy the book. My only issue with the book was the last line, it was such a massive cliffhanger. Although, it did make me immedietely want to go out and buy the sequel.

Huckleberry Finn is a rebel against school, church, and the respectable society that wants to civilize him. Therefore, after faking his own death, Huck embarkes on a raft journey down the Mississippi River along with Jim, a runaway slave. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel full of shenanigans, adventures, schemes, and pranks in addition to deep contemplation that gives some great advice. This adventure is truly a classic and I highly recommend it for any middle schooler or older since there is something in this book for all ages.

This book was great, I loved it! How would it feel to be a newborn vampire if
you weren't like Bella? No super self-control and changed only for the
purpose to destroy? Destroy others like you, to be the puppet, the pawn, to
be expendable? Bree was just an average girl, she was one of the dregs of
society. she was nobody special. but then Riley showed up. he took her to
'her'. After she was changed she joined the others, newborns like her as they
reek havoc on Seattle they learn what the where created for. Bree and Deigo
find out, only she survives, what will happen to her now?

This was one of the best books this year. It is full of action and twists that you never saw coming. As Edward and Bella find their love for one another they prepare to be married, they are happy. But the Volttri have something deadly in store as they find the Cullen's, and Bella as her newborn self, guilty of a crime that they never committed. as new joy and new danger lurk just around the corner how will they escape the false Rath of the Voltti? How will they do it without loosing anyone that they love?