The Drowning Girl

Kirsty and I went out shopping the other day for minor prizes for the Pursue 100 reading competition so I thought I'd take a few pictures to let [people know the sort of things they can win. As well as the 3 major prizes (The iPad, The Ipod touch and the Ipod Nano) we've got a whole heap of books, CDs, DVDs, and Itunes vouchers.

Just for a bit of fun we've got a few things like these little flash drives (I like the fish).

Remember you need to give us at least 1 review to win some of these things so if you haven't yet send one in. Something like the one below would be perfect.

The Drowning Girl

Margaret Leroy

This book is about a single mother’s struggle to understand what is wrong with her young daughter. Young Sylvie has violent tantrums, doesn’t relate well to others at all and it deathly afraid of water. Her mother Grace takes her to children psychiatrists but when money is tight she begins to feel like there is nothing she can do. It isn’t until Adam Winters begins to take interest that everything begins to become clearer in a journey that takes the three of them to Ireland in the hopes they can work out what is wrong with Sylvie.

This book started off really good. It begins with the most interesting prologue I have read, confusing but interesting, really making me want to read more. It then goes in to Grace and Sylvie’s lives; with Sylvie’s tantrums and issues quickly coming to play. As soon as it showed Sylvie’s fear of water I knew it had something to do with drowning, or near drowning. When Grace says about how she feels like her daughter isn’t really her daughter sometimes I was massively confused. All until the characters start to suspect Sylvie isn’t Sylvie, but another girl. This is when I predicted that she was another girl, one who had drowned years before and was now recalling her past life. Ordinarily I would think it a bit weird, but I was right on the dot. The annoying thing was the characters, Grace and Adam, didn’t seem to think as fast as I did and I then had to keep reading as they slowly...very slowly...worked it out. The time-line was a little slow, but then, the characters didn’t read the prologue like I did. The prologue where Grace was wondering what it felt like to drown. Good prologue, my favourite bit because it was so mysterious. This book definitely had the mystery element down, which definitely made me read right to the end and have the whole mystery solved. I so wanted to know if Sylvie ever came right (and she did).

(Reviewed by Toni)

Full dark, no stars

Stephen King

This is a collection of four novellas dealing with, as King puts it, ordinary people faced with extraordinary circumstances and how they deal with them. Being King novellas, the events faced are dark and disturbing (a wife's murder, cancer, rape, a serial killer husband) and the outcomes are not always pleasant or as you'd expect. There are some real gems in the collection, particularly "Big driver" which sees a cosy mystery writer attempting to avenge being attacked and left for dead while taking a shortcut home from a library talk. I can see decent films potentially being made of a couple of the stories, (like "Shawshank redemption" began as a King novella called "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank redemption"). An excellent collection for King fans, or people who enjoy dark tales.

(Reviewed by Angela)

A Bite to Remember

Lynsay Sands

Set in L.A. ‘A Bite to Remember’ is an ingenious novel based on the story that immortals/vampires originated from Atlantis. Atlantis was so advanced that they combined nano-technology and bio-engineering to create healing nanos that repair damage and keep the body in peak condition. In this novel an immortal, Vincent Argeneau, is being sabotaged by another unknown immortal and so he calls in Jackie Morrisey, a mortal P.I., to catch the saboteur. As the attacks escalate from property damage to bodily harm Vincent and Jackie discover they are life mates. But when the saboteur kills Vincent’s employees and kidnaps Jackie after she becomes immortal with the intent of killing her in a twisted irrational bid for revenge the race is on for Vincent to save her.

The character I most admire is Jackie because even though she has bad experiences with immortals she overcomes it in order to find her destiny. I would recommend this book to mature teens and rate it 8/10.

(Reviewed by Samantha)

New Teen books for a new Year

More New Releases

Look back in hunger: the autobiography

Jo Brand

British stand-up comedian, Jo Brand looks back over her life and the influences that made her who she is today. From a nice, well brought up little girl, she morphed into a teenage nightmare, skipping school, staying out all night and socialising (underage) in pubs. She talks with great humour about her early family life, providing many hilarious anecdotes about her childhood escapades with her two brothers. Brand studied towards becoming a psychiatric nurse, (even though she always aspired to do stand-up comedy) and she describes some of the places she worked and the people that she encountered – no doubt providing good material for her comedy routines in later life. She also recounts the horror of her first gig which marked the beginning of her career.

A really good read, lots of laughs.

(Reviewed by Jill)

The Undomestic Goddess

Happy new year everybody. It's time for another review from our teen summer reading competition. This ones a bit of chick lit, perfect for summer reading;

The Undomestic Goddess
Sophie Kinsella

Samantha is a high powered lawyer that is on the verge of being offered a partnership with her company until the most unfortunate thing happens, she loses her company $160 million dollars because she didn’t notice a note. She rushes to the bus station in shock and gets on a bus heading towards a small township. Trish greets her and thinks she is the new housekeeper. Unfortunately for Samantha, she doesn’t know the first thing about cooking or cleaning. Everything is great until she realizes that she had been set up.
This is a hugely hilarious book about Samantha and keeping her secret of being a top lawyer, it all goes fine until the press find out where she is and what she is now doing. To find out whether she keeps her job as a housekeeper or goes back to London you will have to read The Undomestic Goddess.
Samantha is a twitchy, jumpy person when she is in London, but when she is a housekeeper she becomes a happier, freer person. You wouldn’t want to work in the live of a person whos life is spilt up into 6 minute segments. Throughout this book as Samantha comes to understand what a different lifestyle is available you come to understand how horrid her old job was, Samantha also becomes a happier, freer person.
I would recommend this book to any girl who likes a light reading book that is a comedy and slightly romantic. It is a good book to read on a wet and cold day inside out of the weather.

(Reviewed by Stephanie)