Speak

Secrets are not always easy to keep. They can eat away at you and slowly take over your mind, body, and soul until it consumes your every thought and movement. No, secrets are definitely not good to keep. . .

Laurie Halse Anderson's Speak is all about one gigantic secret kept by Melinda Sordino, the quiet, antisocial girl in school.

After a classic, parents-out-of-town summer party, Melinda's world is turned upside down and muted. The party starts to get out of control for her, and all she can think of doing is calling the cops. Unfortunately, everyone at the party shuns her for ruining it, including her very best friends. Melinda becomes the outcast.

Now, it's the first day of high school and instead of having new friends, all Melinda has are some new pencils and notebooks. Not even her old friends speak to her anymore.

Although she doesn't mind being alone, her thoughts haunt her. They take her back to that night at the party where her deep, dark secret still remains.

So when a new girl comes to school and latches herself onto Melinda, she feels a little bit grateful to finally have a friend. But her new friend discovers Melinda's "status" in high school and feels that it's best if they aren't friends after all, for the sake of her reputation, of course. Once again Miss Sordino is alone.

Being alone is not the end of the world, but she needs a way to release her emotions somehow. The secret almost burns through her skin on some days. When the art teacher suggests that she use art to liberate her feelings, Melinda finds this is a fairly good strategy.

But even as she purges her emotions, her secret continues to follow her. . .

Speak is an excellent novel about speaking up for yourself and what you believe is right, even if it's the hardest thing you ever have to do. Exceptionally well written, this book is full of typical high school drama and daunting trauma that is so real, readers actually feel with the leading lady, Melinda. Her story is so memorable and this book is defintely a great read for high school students and anyone else who has ever kept a secret.

The Lucky One

Being a part of the U.S. Marines, you have to face a lot of different, scary, and unforgettable things; a little luck can go a very long way.

In “The Lucky One,” by Nicholas Sparks, Logan Thibault, a U.S. Marine, finds just what he needs to bring him some luck.

When Thibault first finds the photograph of the pretty young woman in the dirt in Iraq, he decides to post it up at his base camp hoping that someone will claim their lost picture. After a few weeks with the picture still hanging up unclaimed, Thibault is struck with an urge to keep the picture for himself, safe in his pocket.

With the photograph safely by his side, he finds himself carrying some newfound luck as well. Not only does he win a few rounds of poker, but he also is miraculously saved from deadly combat.

Once Thibault arrives home, he concludes that the luck he was given in Iraq was no ordinary luck, so he sets out with his dog Zeus to find the woman in his picture.

With a few clues from the writing on the back and the images behind the woman in the photograph, Thibault finds himself in Hampton, North Carolina face to face with his lucky charm.

Elizabeth is her name, and she’s a divorced mother living with her son, Ben, and her Nana. The three of them run a dog kennel, and when Thibault finds her, he has an impulse to apply for a job at the kennel.

Beth and Thibault spend more time together after he starts work, and he is surprised by the way he begins to feel about her. He even becomes closer to Ben, which Beth finds admirable in this new mystery man.

The closer they get, the closer Thibault clings to his secret about the photograph and the reason he came to meet Beth in the first place, but her ex-husband won’t rest till he discovers Thibault’s secret. . .

“The Lucky One,” is another great read by Nicholas Sparks that naturally tugs at the heartstrings. Filled with tender loving moments, and suspenseful edge-of-your-seat surprises, this novel is an excellent read for anyone who has ever fought to find their true destiny and their soul mate.

Jodi Picoult

With beautifully crafted words and uniquely real characters in seventeen skillfully written fiction novels, Jodi Picoult has definitely deserved all her success.

While her journey began at Princeton, where she studied creative writing, she published two short stories in Seventeen magazine. Jodi worked numerous jobs after graduation, ranging from technical writing for a Wall Street brokerage firm to teaching eighth grade students.

Jodi then married Tim Van, whom she met at Princeton, and then preceded to craft, Songs of the Humpback Whale. This first novel was created while she was pregnant with her first child and was only the beginning of her very thriving writing career.

Throughout her years as a novelist, Jodi has won several awards including: the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association, the Book Browse Diamond Award, a lifetime achievement award for fiction from the Romance Writers of America, Cosmo’s Fearless Fiction Award 2007, Waterstone’s Author of the Year in the UK, a Vermont Green Mountain Book Award, a Virginia Reader’s Choice Award, the Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award, and a Maryland Black-Eyes Susan Award.

Along with her seventeen novels, she also wrote five issues of Wonder Woman for DC Comics, and her novel My Sister’s Keeper was made into a movie by New Line Cinema. The Pact, Plain Truth, and The Tenth Circle, were also adapted into television movies.

Jodi Picoult knew her desire of writing and followed that dream all through college and beyond. Now look at all she has accomplished. Her story proves that a solid college education can certainly go a long way!

http://www.jodipicoult.com/

Baby Proof

When you find your perfect match, life can’t get any better. You fit so well together that you share most of the same views and ideas of the world. Then naturally you would fall deeply and madly in love, plan a wedding, and then start a family. That’s the way it always works.

In Emily Giffin’s Baby Proof, this is exactly what happened to Claudia Parr. She met her perfect match, Ben, on a blind date, no less. What made him even more perfect was the fact that he shared the same views on children as she did. Neither one of them wanted any.

Two years after Claudia and Ben’s marriage, when they are on a ski trip with their mutual friends, Annie and Ray, Annie announces that she is eight months pregnant. Even though Claudia should be happy for her friends, she can’t help feeling betrayed knowing that they had felt the same way about children, and now, here they are, having a child of their own.

Ben, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier for them. Then he talks to Claudia about having a baby. That throws Claudia for a loop and she asks him if he wants to be her husband more than he wants a baby. The look in his eyes tells her that he really wants a baby. Slowly, their marriage falls apart.

The two go their separate ways in divorce, Ben with his new girlfriend and Claudia with Richard, her boss.

Despite Claudia trying to move on and deal with the fact that Ben has found another woman already, she can’t shake the depression that creeps up on her every once in a while. She knows she still does not want children whatsoever. But she misses her Ben.

Although Richard is handsome, wealthy and perfect in most women’s eyes, to Claudia, he is no Ben, and they will never work out. She can’t help thinking that maybe she made the wrong decision, and she can’t stop worrying about Ben’s new female friend.

Baby Proof is entertaining, heartfelt, and thought-provoking. Emily Giffin’s characters are so realistic and Claudia is the ideal heroine. This novel is definitely appropriate anyone who has ever loved and had to make sacrifices for that love.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

Remember: Pants = love. Love your pals. Love yourself.

In The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, by Ann Brashares, four best friends discover that they will be separated all summer long, for the first time, ever. As all four of their mothers were best friends and pregnant at the same time, the girls have been together since before they were born. Carmen, Lena, Tibby, and Bridget are more like sisters than friends.

Naturally the girls promise to write each other while they’re all away, but sometimes letters just aren’t good enough. When Tibby spies some thrift store blue jeans lying unnoticed on Carmen’s dresser, she finds herself drawn to them. Usually Tibby likes unsightly clothes and with Carmen’s backside from the Puerto Rican side of her family, there was no way the pants would fit Tibby’s long legs and narrow hips. But they did.

Lena and Bridget also tried the pants, and the magical pants fit them all. These pants were going to be the thing to keep them together throughout the summer; the summer of the Traveling Pants.

Lena is off with her sister to spend their summer in Greece with their grandparents. She spends her time exploring the beauty of Greece and painting, when she meets Kostos, her grandparent’s neighbors’ grandson. Lena has never been very graceful with boys. Kostos tries to pursue her and even though Lena finds him attractive as well, she doesn’t know how to handle his boyish charm.

Tibby, unfortunately, is stuck at home working every day at Wallman’s. She mopes around every day, thinking about how much fun her friends are having, and then she meets a 12 year old girl named Bailey. She impresses Tibby by wanting to help her create her documentary. Although she is annoyed with Bailey at first, they soon develop an unlikely and unforgettable friendship.

Carmen gets to spend her summer with her father, whom she hasn’t really seen since her parents got a divorce. She is so excited to be with him and spend time with him, until she gets to his house in South Carolina and discovers he has a new house…with a new family. Carmen is so mad that her father kept his second family from her, and she doesn’t like her new step-mother and sister.

Bridget’s summer consists of soccer, soccer, and her cute new crush, Eric, in Baja California. Eric is a tad older than Bridget and happens to be one of the soccer coaches at the camp, but that doesn’t stop her. She spends every minute trying to impress him with her soccer skills and does everything she can to get him to notice her, even if it includes breaking some rules.

Throughout the summer, the four girls write to each other and send the pants to each other. Each time one of the girls has the pants, they become empowered and feel like they can do no wrong. The pants gives each girl a confidence that they’ve never had before, and a summer they’ll never forget.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is a funny, friendly, and heartwarming tale of four best friends who share a sisterhood of a lifetime. This novel is definitely for anyone who can laugh endlessly with her girlfriends and understand that some best friends are better than sisters. As the story was turned into a movie, as well, both stories are worth reading and watching.

The Time Traveler's Wife

Imagine that you could travel back in time. With the blink of an eye, you’d be gone from today and back into the days when Barbie’s were on every little girl’s shelf and all the young boys had cooties. Maybe you could have a second chance. Maybe you could change something in your past that you weren’t too fond of. Or maybe you couldn’t control when you time traveled. What if you relived your past over and over again? What if you couldn't stop it from happening? Would you want to leave your loved ones behind?

In Audrey Niffenegger’s book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, the man of Clare Abshire’s dreams is, in fact, a time traveler.

While visiting the Newberry Library, Clare stumbles upon someone she never thought she’d find in a library: Henry DeTamble. She loved him more than life itself and knew he felt the same, but here, standing in front of her, he had no idea who she was. In the present he is 28, and she is 20, but the present Henry has yet to meet his loving Clare.

Clare first meets Henry in a meadow. She is 6 years old, while he is 36. She colors and hums to herself, oblivious to his presence, until she hears someone humming along with her. Thinking it’s her pesky brother, Clare throws her shoe into the woods toward the sound. The voice she hears is not her brother, and she becomes frightened. Henry tells her not to be afraid, and when he uses Clare’s name she’s startled by how he knows her. Instead of running away from this stranger, like a normal 6 year old should, Clare is intrigued by this new time-traveling friend.

Henry continues to visit Clare in the meadow. She even hides a box full of clothes near the woods where he always appears, since he can’t take any belongings with him when he time travels. While Clare wants to know more about the future, Henry only tells her very little. She finds out that in the future, Henry is married and she becomes jealous because, even though she is still a young child, she has become very fond of him.

As Clare becomes older, Henry visits less and less. He stays in the present more with the future Clare. He can’t control when he time travels and where to. It always just happens, and it’s never very pleasant unless he time travels to wherever his sweet Clare is.

While Henry is gone, Clare finds it very difficult to be without him. Although she has many secret rendezvous with him when he is with her, her friends and family begin to wonder why she doesn’t date any boys in school. Clare knows that she can’t tell them the truth, but keeping the secret of Henry only strengthens the love she has for him.

And now, in the present, she has found her Henry again.

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a miraculous novel of love through the ages of time. This novel explores the depth of love, trust, and patience as Henry and Clare battle through the years of his appearing and reappearing. This book and movie will definitely lift its readers’ spirits, make them laugh, swoon, and sometimes even cry. There is no other tale like the one of Henry DeTamble and Clare Abshire. Travel back and forth through time in this one-of-a-kind love story.

Material Girl

You are the Vice President of your dad’s huge and successful company. You handle all the important business deals, flirt with all the big business men, and travel all over the world to see what kind of clients you can gain for the firm. The mansion you live in is big enough for you and ten other people, and your vehicle happens to be the flashiest Mercedes on the block. You’re definitely living the dream with your beauty and your money, and you have the world at your fingertips. What could possibly go wrong?

In Julia London’s Material Girl, Robin Lear has this exact jet-set life. Everything is going perfectly until she discovers that her father has cancer. Robin’s world begins to unravel at once.

Although Aaron Lear, her father and founder of Lear Transport Industries (LTI), has never been the easiest man to get along with, Robin drives down to her family’s ranch to see him.

Aaron requested that all three of his daughters come to the ranch, where he is now staying, to visit with him. He knows now that he was never the father he should have been to his girls, and with his cancer slowly taking his life, he plans to help his daughters with theirs.

Of course, as Aaron has always been quite arrogant, he insults Robin in the worst way possible, demotes her from her VP position at LTI, and makes her abandon the range without a second glance back.

On top of all of that, Robin gets arrested on her way back home, discovers that her office burned down, has to work for her toady ex-boyfriend in packaging, and finds that she is totally infatuated with Jake Manning, her sexy contractor who is no way her type.

Despite all the disastrous things that have been happening to her, Robin still manages to stay her prissy, sassy, and arrogant self. Yet every time she’s around Jake her world shifts ever so slightly. He takes pleasure in the simple things in life, he’s extremely handsome, and he’s not afraid to put Robin in her place. Jake is everything Robin has never had in a man. He sure knows how to distract her and keep her grounded at the same time.

Since Jake is constantly in her presence, as he is renovating Robin’s spacious, empty house, there’s absolutely no way to escape him, but she finds that she doesn’t really want to. . .

Material Girl is an absolutely stunning and riveting book. Each character brings the story to life in the perfect way, and Robin Lear is a remarkable leading lady. This novel proves that money can’t buy you love and opposites attract in the most peculiar ways. Definitely a worthwhile read, this book will thrill its readers, move them to tears, and keep them laughing out loud with the rises and falls of the material girl, Robin Lear.