Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

3.5/5
The sequel to Hunger Games starts slow but finishes strong. Katniss is back at home and trying to make sense of her victor lifestyle. Her defiance of the capitol during the games has sparked uprising in the districts. The government is trying to control the districts through her and her tour as victor. In a desperate attempt to reign in the districts the capitol celebrates the 75th hunger games by pitting previous victors against each other. Good action as usual but the romance seems cheesy and a bit forced. The questions that remain will leave most "hungry" for the final book.

Make Lemonade by Virginia Wolff

4/5 Stars
LaVaughn needs a job so that she can earn money so that she can go to college. She sees a posting for a babysitter and calls the number. When she shows up for the job she meets Jolly a teenage mother of two. LaVaughn has a bad feeling from the start that this won't be the money making opportunity that she imagined. She watches the kids and begins to be-friend Jolly. The two girls struggle and fight together to learn how to change their circumstances. It is written in a prose format that makes it easy to read. This is a touching glimpse of urban life.
Grades 8 - 11.

Grave Shadows by Jerry Jenkins

Grave Shadows is one of my favorite books I have read this summer. I decided to read this book because there are many other books like this one in the Red Rock series that I liked. The genre of Grave Shadows is mystery and Bryce and Ashley are trying to figure out 2 mysteries at once. Bryce and Ashley’s friend Jeff has cancer and his dream is to be able to ride a 200-mile bike ride to raise money for cancer research. But the doctor doesn’t think Jeff can make it through the bike ride. But Jeff is a kid with a lot of determination .Can he prove the doctor wrong? While Bryce and Jeff ride the bike race together on a two person bike, Ashley is trying to find Jeff’s missing sports memorabilia. At the same time Ashley is also trying to find her friend Haley’s missing cousin .Can the two mysteries be connected? I really liked this book and if you like mysteries you will too. I give this book 5 out of 5 stars.

Compound by S.A. Bodeen

Paper Towns by John Green

Bliss by Lauren Myracle

3/5 Stars

The cover got me with this book. It is a bit creepy looking and I was interested to read a book written by the author who wrote the ttyl series. So my expectations were pretty high for the book. The book is about a girl named Bliss who has grown up on a commune but who is dumped off with her grandmother to attend a real high school. She has all the normal insecurities of starting a new school and a whole new way of life. Also, she discovers at school that she has the ability to understand the dead. An evil ghost is haunting the school and is eager to combine power with Bliss. The ghost communicates with another girl at the school who tries to manipulate Bliss into cooperating. Overall I would say the book is a three out of five. It is creepy but the pace of the story is slow and the characters are not very well developed. The end of the story almost had me gagging. If you read this please share your thoughts. Grades 8 - 11.