Andye Reads

A NOTE FROM ANDYE: I have NEVER heard my mom speak so highly of a book.  She seriously can't stop raving about this one!  I think I may have to read it, too! Hardcover : 400 pages Publisher : Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; 1 edition (May 17, 2011) Language : English Buy the Book:   Amazon Raised by an unstable father who keeps the family constantly on the move, Sam Border hasn't been in a classroom since the second grade. He's always been the rock for his younger brother Riddle, who stopped speaking long ago and instead makes sense of the world through his strange and intricate drawings. It's said that the two boys speak with one voice--and that voice is Sam's. Then, Sam meets Emily Bell, and everything changes. The two share an immediate and intense attraction, and soon Sam and Riddle find themselves welcomed into the Bell's home. Faced with normalcy for the first time, they know it's too good to last. I have been reading books for m...

ROOMIES by Sara Zarr & Tara Altebrando Age Range: 12 and up Grade Level: 7 and up Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers (December 24, 2013) Amazon | Goodreads The countdown to college has begun. When Elizabeth receives her freshman-year roommate assignment at the beginning of summer, she shoots off an email to coordinate the basics: TV, microwave, mini-fridge. She can't wait to escape her New Jersey beach town, and her mom, and start life over in California. The first note to Lauren in San Francisco comes as a surprise; she had requested a single. But if Lauren's learned anything from being the oldest of six, it's that you can't always get what you want, especially when what you want is privacy. Soon the girls are emailing back and forth, sharing secrets even though they've never met. With family relationships and childhood friendships strained by change, it suddenly seems that the only people Elizabeth and Lauren can rely on...

Reviewed by Janeth RECONSTRUCTING AMELIA by Kimberly McCreight Print Length: 400 pages Publisher: Harper (April 2, 2013) Buy the book: Amazon In Reconstructing Amelia, the stunning debut novel from Kimberly McCreight, Kate's in the middle of the biggest meeting of her career when she gets the telephone call from Grace Hall, her daughter’s exclusive private school in Park Slope, Brooklyn. Amelia has been suspended, effective immediately, and Kate must come get her daughter—now. But Kate’s stress over leaving work quickly turns to panic when she arrives at the school and finds it surrounded by police officers, fire trucks, and an ambulance. By then it’s already too late for Amelia. And for Kate. An academic overachiever despondent over getting caught cheating has jumped to her death. At least that’s the story Grace Hall tells Kate. And clouded as she is by her guilt and grief, it is the one she forces herself to believe. Until she gets an anonymous text: She didn’t jump. ...

Vengeance Fracture #2 by Megan Miranda Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Walker Childrens (February 4, 2014) Language: English Falcon Lake wants vengeance. And so, it seems, does someone else . . . An intense, heart-rending psychological thriller to accompany the chilling and seductive Fracture. When Decker drags his best friend Delaney’s lifeless body out of the frozen lake, he makes a deal: Anyone but her. Everyone but her. The lake releases her. It takes another . . . All their friends blame Delaney for Carson’s death. But Decker knows the truth: Delaney is drawn to those who are dying, and she would have tried to help Carson. Or so Decker believes until a body lies in front of him in a pool of water on his kitchen floor. Until he sees in Delaney’s eyes that she knew this would happen too – and she said nothing. Until he realises it isn’t the lake that is looking for revenge – Delaney is part of someone else’s plan. Vengeance is the sequel to Megan Miranda's book ...

Two of Three Things I Forgot to Tell You Joyce Carol Oates Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: HarperTeen (August 21, 2012) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy on Amazon It wasn't like she had not warned us. It wasn't like she had not prepared us. We'd known that something was wrong those last several months. But then, Tink hasn't actually vanished. Tink is gone, and yet--she is here somewhere, even if we can't see her. Tink? Are you--here? Once again, I've had the opportunity (?) to read another teen suicide story.  The group of girls involved are juniors/seniors in high school.  They are all from upperclass families and attend a prestigious private school.  All of the girls have pressures on them to make good grades, get into the right colleges, represent their families in the correct ways, etc.  Katrina Traumer, known as Tink, is new at school in their junior year.  She brings a whole new dynamic to their group of friends and quickl...

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys Age Range: 12 and up Grade Level: 7 and up Paperback: 368 pages Publisher: Speak (April 3, 2012) Buy the book: Amazon Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life--until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she imbeds clues in her drawings of their location and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive? Lina Vilkas lived quite happily with her father, mother and 10 year old brother, Jonas, in the city of Kaunas, Lithuania.  It  was June 1941 and Lina was looking forward to attending...

This Song Will Save Your Life by Leila Sales Age Range: 12 and up Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (September 17, 2013) Mark on Goodreads Buy the book: Amazon Making friends has never been Elise Dembowski’s strong suit. All throughout her life, she’s been the butt of every joke and the outsider in every conversation. When a final attempt at popularity fails, Elise nearly gives up. Then she stumbles upon a warehouse party where she meets Vicky, a girl in a band who accepts her; Char, a cute, yet mysterious disc jockey; Pippa, a carefree spirit from England; and most importantly, a love for DJing. I graduated from high school in 1970, over 40 years ago, but when I read some of these YA books the memories of those years seem all too clear. How well I remember the constant desire to "fit in", to be seen as part of the cool crowd, not to do anything that draws ridicule or gossip, to wear the right clothes. It was very hard to figure out ...

Nobody's Secret by Michaela MacColl Hardcover: 288 pages Publisher: Chronicle Books (April 30, 2013) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy on Amazon One day, fifteen-year-old Emily Dickinson meets a mysterious, handsome young man. Surprisingly, he doesn't seem to know who she or her family is. And even more surprisingly, he playfully refuses to divulge his name. Emily enjoys her secret flirtation with Mr. "Nobody" until he turns up dead in her family's pond. She's stricken with guilt. Only Emily can discover who this enigmatic stranger was before he's condemned to be buried in an anonymous grave. Her investigation takes her deep into town secrets, blossoming romance, and deadly danger. Exquisitely written and meticulously researched, this novel celebrates Emily Dickinson's intellect and spunk in a page-turner of a book that will excite fans of mystery, romance, and poetry alike. Nobody's Secret is a novel of historical fiction based o...

The S-word by Chelsea Pitcher Paperback: 304 pages Publisher: Gallery Books; Original edition (May 7, 2013) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy on Amazon Lizzie wasn't the first student at Verity High School to kill herself this year. But the difference is, she didn't go quietly. First it was SLUT scribbled all over the school's lockers. But one week after Lizzie Hart takes her own life, SUICIDE SLUT replaces it--in Lizzie's own looping scrawl. Photocopies of her diary show up in the hands of her classmates. And her best friend, Angie, is enraged. Angie had stopped talking to Lizzie on prom night, when she caught Lizzie in bed with her boyfriend. Too heartbroken to let Lizzie explain the hookup or to intervene when Lizzie gets branded Queen of the Sluts and is cruelly bullied by her classmates, Angie left her best friend to the mercy of the school, with tragic results. But with this new slur, Angie's guilt transforms into anger that someone is sti...

Winter White Belles #2 by Jen Calonita Hardcover: 368 pages Publisher: Poppy; 1 edition (October 9, 2012) Language: English Buy on Amazon Mark on Goodreads Isabelle Scott and Mirabelle Monroe are still reeling from the revelation that they share more than just the roof over their heads. The media has pounced on their story, and while Izzie and Mira have each put on a happy public face, someone is leaking their true feelings to the press. It seems as if the world is watching their every move, but at least the girls have each other. With cotillion season right around the corner, however, Izzie and Mira have barely had time to process their newfound sisterhood. Mira has dreamed of making her debut in a gorgeous white gown forever--now if only she had an escort... Izzie, meanwhile, is still struggling to find her place in Emerald Cove, which seems ever more impossible with EC mean girls, young and old, trying to keep her down. As cotillion preparations heat up, there are dance...

Skinny by Donna Cooner Reading level: Ages 12 and up Hardcover: 272 pages Publisher: Point (October 1, 2012) Mark on Goodreads Buy the Book: Amazon Find your voice. Hopeless. Freak. Elephant. Pitiful. These are the words of Skinny, the vicious voice that lives inside fifteen-year-old Ever Davies's head. Skinny tells Ever all the dark thoughts her classmates have about her. Ever knows she weighs over three hundred pounds, knows she'll probably never be loved, and Skinny makes sure she never forgets it. But there is another voice: Ever's singing voice, which is beautiful but has been silenced by Skinny. Partly in the hopes of trying out for the school musical - and partly to try and save her own life - Ever decides to undergo a risky surgery that may help her lose weight and start over. With the support of her best friend, Ever begins the uphill battle toward change. But demons, she finds, are not so easy to shake, not even as she sheds pounds. Because Skinny is stil...

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes Reading level: Ages 18 and up Hardcover: 384 pages Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books (December 31, 2012) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy the Book: Amazon They had nothing in common until love gave them everything to lose Louisa Clark is an ordinary girl living an exceedingly ordinary life—steady boyfriend, close family—who has never been farther afield than their tiny village. She takes a badly needed job working for ex–Master of the Universe Will Traynor, who is wheelchair bound after an accident. Will has always lived a huge life—big deals, extreme sports, worldwide travel—and now he’s pretty sure he cannot live the way he is. Will is acerbic, moody, bossy—but Lou refuses to treat him with kid gloves, and soon his happiness means more to her than she expected. When she learns that Will has shocking plans of his own, she sets out to show him that life is still worth living. A Love Story for this generation, Me Before You brings to lif...

Reading level: Ages 14 and up Paperback: 256 pages Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin; 1 edition (January 5, 2010) Language: English Buy the book: Amazon Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around. Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if ...

Alice Bliss by Laura Harrington Reading level: Ages 18 and up Paperback: 320 pages Publisher: Penguin Books (May 29, 2012) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy the Book Tomboy Alice Bliss is heartbroken when she learns that her father, Matt, is being deployed to Iraq. Matt will miss seeing Alice blossom into a full-blown teenager: she'll learn to drive, join the track team, go to her first dance, and fall in love—all while trying to be strong for her mother, Angie, and her precocious little sister. But the phone calls from her father are never long enough. At once universal and very personal, Alice Bliss is a profoundly moving story about those who are left at home during wartime and a small-town teenage girl bravely facing the future. For those of us who have no real experience with military life, Laura Harrington's book is a window into the lives of those who stay behind when a loved one goes to war.  It feels real.  It is filled with tension.  It is h...

Light From a Distant Star by Mary McGarry Morris Paperback: 336 pages Publisher: Broadway (July 17, 2012) Language: English Mark on Goodreads Buy the book It is early summer and Nellie Peck is on the cusp of adolescence – gangly, awkward, full of questions, but keenly observant and wiser than many of the adults in her life. The person she most admires is her father, Benjamin, a man of great integrity. His family’s century old hardware store is failing and Nellie’s mother has had to go back to work. Nellie’s older half-sister has launched a disturbing search for her birth father. Often saddled through the long, hot days with her timid younger brother, Henry, Nellie is determined to toughen him up. And herself as well. Three strangers enter Nellie’s protected life. Brooding Max Devaney is an ex-con who works in her surly grandfather’s junkyard. Reckless Bucky Saltonstall has just arrived from New York City to live with his elderly grandparents. And pretty Dolly Bedelia is a y...

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein Reading level: Ages 14 and up Hardcover: 352 pages Publisher: Hyperion Book CH (May 15, 2012) Buy the Book: Amazon Oct. 11th, 1943—A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun. When “Verity” is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn’t stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she’s living a spy’s worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution. As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage and failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough...

Reading level: Ages 15 and up Hardcover: 256 pages Publisher: Zondervan (March 6, 2012) Language: English Buy the book: Amazon Can love really heal all things? If Sam Carroll hadn't shown up, she might have been able to get to her mother in time. Instead, Allie Everly finds herself at a funeral, mourning the loss of her beloved mother. She is dealt another blow when, a few hours later, she is sent from Tennessee to Maine to become the daughter of Miss Beatrice Lovell, a prim woman with a faith Allie cannot accept. Poetry and letters written to her mother become the only things keeping Allie's heart from hardening completely. But then Sam arrives for the summer, and with him comes many confusing emotions, both toward him and the people around her. As World War II looms, Allie will be forced to decide whether hanging on to the past is worth losing her chance to be loved. Rachel Coker has written a novel with a Christian-based theme that is entertaining and interesting with...