Miss Lowe's Book Nook

Oh, Thanksgiving break! A great time to catch up on reading. I just breezed through Denton Little's Death Date  by Lance Rubin. It was not at all what I expected, and I was pleasantly surprised! Imagine a world in which you knew the exact day you were going to die. In Denton's world, that's exactly what it's like. When you're born, they take a bit of your hair and blood and do some scientific mumbo-jumbo and boom, they can figure out the day the Grim Reaper is going to come knocking on your door. Denton is what they an "early"- he's slated to die before he turns 21. Before he graduates high school, in fact, on the day of senior prom. He has been living his life as normally as he can, going to school and being an average joe. Two nights before his "death date", his average streak is shattered. After an alcohol-blurred night, things get weird. Strange people show up. Odd things start happening. Denton's death date is nothing like he imagi...

Wow, I am on a roll this week! Another book down. I sped through a newer novel this weekend- The Rest of Us Just Live Here , by Patrick Ness. I was pleasantly surprised by it! Have you ever wondered what the background characters in a book feel? In your dramatic fantasy novels, with zombie apocalypses and vampire love triangles, what is going on in the heads of the innocent bystanders? That's who this story was about. Mike, Mel, Henna, and Jared all live in a nondescript suburb of a nondescript city. They're not "indie kids", those cool-but-also-geeky types who always end up saving the world. They're just average. There are indie kids around, sure, but they don't really talk to the normal kids- too busy stopping soul-eating ghosts to mingle. But Mike and his pals have their own, less supernatural, problems. Anxiety, complicated family lives, teen love, and even more complex issues come up. The four friends just want to make it through graduation- but will th...

It's November! Less than two months until CHRISTMAS! I really really really love Christmas. So I started my holiday season off right, with an excellent re-read - Let It Snow , a three-part story by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle. I first read it last year around Christmas time, so I was looking forward to reading it again. It was just as good the second time around! Each author wrote their own story, but they all intertwined and overlapped, sometimes in unexpected ways. It was so fun to be reading one story and recognize characters from another. The individual tales centered on love stories, of course; specifically, Jubilee and Stuart, Tobin and Angie, and Jeb and Addie. All of stories took place within 48 hours- from Christmas Eve through the day after Christmas. They also all take place in the same town- the little hamlet of Gracetown, which is hit with an insane snowstorm, and because of it, six teenagers fall in love. The writers all brin...

Finding time to read in college is hard! But I finally finished another book, Rick Riordan's latest teen-hero extravaganza, Magnus Chase and the Sword of Summer. This is Riordan's first novel in a new series, one that deals with the Norse gods. He gained fame with his work with the Greeks, so I was interested to see how he handled the opposite end of the spectrum- the harsh Norse myths differ greatly from the fun-loving Greeks. With this in mind, I realized I know pretty much nothing about Norse mythology. All the information I had previously gleaned was from the Thor movies, and apparently those are not entirely true to the original myths. So I learned quite a bit on my journey with Magnus. Our adventure begins with Magnus Chase, a young homeless guy in Boston. He's orphaned, ekes out a life on the streets, and loves falafel. When people from his past start looking for him, he attempts to find out more about his family- most specifically, his Uncle Randolph, who his mo...

Gosh, college is busy! But I finally got around to reading another book. I just finished Anatomy of a Misfit by Andrea Portes. I expected a relatively lighthearted read, so it hurt even more when it took my heart and crumpled it up like a paper ball. Our main character is Anika, a tenth grader in Lincoln, Nebraska. Her dad is a famous Romanian professor, and she lived with him until she was ten. Then, she moved in with her relatively normal mother in the middle of America. She is, proudly, the third most popular girl in school. In her somewhat tenuous position in the social hierarchy, her life is a constant struggle between her outer bubblegum self, and her inner, self-described "spider stew". I quite liked Anika as a character. She's snarky, spunky, and has no idea what she's doing most of the time. She's real, and I related to her easily. Her predicament begins in the form of Logan McDonough. Last year's social pariah, this year Logan has a whole new look...

Last week I read David Lubar's classic Hidden Talents . This week I read the sequel, True Talents . It was another fantastic ride! This tale of the boys of Edgeview takes place nearly a year after the first book, after all of the boys have been released from the school. Trash, the resident telekinetic, wakes up in a lab, unable to remember how he got there. He escapes, and is soon fending for himself in the bustling metropolis of Philadelphia. Soon, the other boys find themselves drawn there as well, for various reasons. Problems and foes surround them at every turn, but the boys' talents, and more importantly, their bond, put them on top in the end. True Talents is a bit of a different creature than its predecessor. Though most of the story is from Trash's POV, several chapters are from the POVs of the other boys, which was a bit confusing at times. However, it was necessary for the story, so I was okay with it. The story is also more divided, with sections that...

Hello! I just started college, so I have been super busy, but this week I finally had time to finish a book! This one was actually a reread for me- Hidden Talents , by David Lubar. I first read this book in about 8th grade, so it was really like reading it for the first time again. I loved it just as much the second time! Hidden Talents tells the tale of Martin, a skinny young guy with an attitude problem. He's been kicked out of so many schools that he's on his last chance- Edgeview Alternative, a beat-up and run down dump of a school. He's suddenly surrounded by the worst of the worst, kids who have been kicked out of even more schools than he has. People like Torchie, his roommate, who is constantly setting fires; Cheater, who always manages to have the exact same answers as his neighbor; and Lucky, who can't seem to stop stealing things. But soon, Martin realizes that there may be something bigger going on at Edgeview, and he's determined to get to the bottom...