Secrets of My Hollywood Life 6: There's No Place Like Home Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)One of the first rules of writing is to write about what you know. The author has worked as a Hollywood journalist for years, interviewing the hottest teen idols in the business. What was so enjoyable about the series (okay, I only read #5 and #6) is that Calonita creates likeable protagonists, likeable antagonists, and likeable support characters. It is also a clean read, worthy of Disney Channel's ratings. Rather than giving a lot of fluff I can pick up in any gossip magazine, Calonita gives the reader an interesting story and peppers it with Hollywood Secrets, scripts from plays, commercials, or television series, and (most entertaining) media interpretations (read: gossip articles).
The sixth book is the culmination of the previous five where Kaitlyn Burke is a star that is highly sought, driven beyond exhaustion by her mother/manager and wonders how it would be to have a normal life. She has a great boyfriend, supportive best friends, a fantastic career, and Jimmy Choos shoes to die for. Heck, she has Jimmy Choos. My best shoes come from Nordstrom Rack. But she is not making any of her own decisions. Her personal assistant insists she go to college. Her mother pushes her to take on two major movies during her hiatus along with double booking her for whatever event gives her media exposure (like taking her driving test), her agent and publicist have another agenda while Kaitlyn doesn't know what SHE wants to do. So she follows the yellow brick road and gets in a car crash, wakes up, and she's normal. In fact, she has cooties.
The fresh take on this reverse Cinderella story is that Kaitlyn finds things in her new life that she loves, defines her priorities and then makes changes in her new life to help her friends and family members. She isn't Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life who ends back on the bridge having made no headway whatsoever. There is no fairy Godmother or Clarence or Glinda. It's Kaitlyn winning over friends and influencing people. Yes, she grows a backbone but I won't tell you how.
It's a fun, quirky, teen, chicklit read.

Click Here to see more reviews about: Secrets of My Hollywood Life 6: There's No Place Like Home

After her brilliant run on Broadway and surviving the harsh concrete jungle of New York City, seventeen-year-old Hollywood "It Girl" Kaitlin Burke is back in L.A. starting a sitcom with her former-nemesis-now-BFF, Sky. The show is a huge success! In fact, maybe a little too huge, Kaitlin realizes, after a bad run-in with aggressive paparazzi puts her boyfriend Austinin danger. She wishes, once again, that she could have a normal life. But what Kaitlin doesn't realize is that her Hollywood life has had a positive influence on just about everyone she loves, and it takes a minor car accident and a nasty concussion to truly grasp how lucky she is. In Jen Calonita's sixth and final Secrets of My Hollywood Life novel, Kaitlin learns at last about the price of fame, the unending upside of friendship, and that there really is no place like home-even if it's Tinseltown.

Click here for more information about Secrets of My Hollywood Life 6: There's No Place Like Home

Read More...

Shine Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)It is October, 1998. I am close to the end of the first semester of my senior year of college, just a few months away from beginning my student teaching experience and one month away from my 21st birthday. Early in the month, the news is dominated by the story of Matthew Shepard, a boy the same age as me, who has been tortured and left for dead in a field in Laramie, Wyoming. His crime? Being gay. On October 12, Matthew died in a hospital, unable to recover from his injuries. This crime haunted me then and still does today. How is it that human beings can be so cruel to one another? What drives someone to act out so violently just because someone else is different?
Reading the first pages of Lauren Myracle's Shine brought back all these emotions. The book begins with a newspaper clipping, "stunned residents of Black Creek, North Carolina, pray for seventeen-year-old Patrick Truman, beaten and left for dead outside the convenience store where he works." The article goes on to describe the abuse Patrick suffered, clearly the victim of a hate crime. All the emotions I felt in college hearing about Matthew Shepard came back at once. This introductory article would not be the last time this story brought me to tears, Patrick's story is agonizing and, unfortunately, very familiar.
Shine is narrated by Cat, one of Patrick's friends, who struggles with feelings of guilt for not having been a better friend and anger at the abuse he suffered not only the night he was beaten, but daily as he was the victim of school bullies. Unsatisfied with the attention the local police are giving this crime; Cat takes it upon herself to investigate and to bring justice to Patrick, who lies comatose in the hospital.
Myracle is a master story-teller with an uncanny insight into the human experience. None of her characters are stock, none are uncomplicated. Readers will recognize in the characters the complexity of the human experience. In flashback, Cat describes a particularly terrible instance of bullying that took place on the first day of high school. Patrick is pushed into the boy's bathroom and tormented by some of the school jocks. Instead of helping her friend, Cat turns a blind eye, afraid if she stands up for him, she will also become a victim. Those are the kinds of choices humans, whether teenagers or adults, are faced with every day. How many times have you turned a blind eye to something because it was easier than getting involved? We all know what the right thing to do is, but sometimes are unable to speak up for fear of drawing attention to ourselves. Through Cat's journey, readers will be inspired to take a stand and will be forced to evaluate their own actions towards others.
Equal attention is paid by Myracle to creating a cast of supporting characters who are every bit as human and imperfect as Cat. She brings to life the reality of living below the poverty line in the south. The school Cat attends is divided sharply down socio-economic lines. Patrick, as it turns out, is not the only one who has been the victim of bullying. Cat has also experienced torment, though she suffers her victimization silently, afraid of the ramifications of standing up to a rich and powerful family in the town. What would happen if her aunt, with whom she lives, is fired because she speaks up against her boss? Again, Myracle deftly illustrates the painful decisions we are faced with every day.
Beyond her mastery of characterization, Myracle is a master of words, able to paint beautiful or terrifying pictures with her words. Through her brilliant use of imagery, she is able to draw readers into the scene and set the mood. "Patrick's house was a ghost, dust coated the windows, the petunias in the flower boxes bowed their heads, and spiderwebs clotted the eaves of the porch. Once I might have marveled at the webs--how delicate they were, how intricate--but today I saw ghastly silk ropes." These first lines of chapter one paint a beautifully haunting picture and let readers feel the pain Cat is feeling--a house that once was beautiful and full of life is now empty and somber, symbolic of both Cat and Patrick. Myracle is indeed a master wordsmith.
To say Shine haunted me would be an understatement; I struggled to write this review hoping to do justice to the book. The story is both tragic and inspirational and is one that needs to be read. Parents, kids, teachers, everyone needs to read this book--the story is too important not to be heard. After reading Cat's tale, you will see the world differently, you will be different yourself. This may be the most important YA release of 2011.
Review from [mymercurialmusings.com]

Click Here to see more reviews about: Shine

Click here for more information about Shine

Read More...

A Hard Day's Knight (Nightside) Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)Fans of Simon R. Green may have been a little disappointed with his Ghost of Chance novel this year, but don't lose faith just yet because Green's latest in the Nightside series, A Hard Day's Knight, is fantastic!
I had been losing a little interest in the Nightside series lately, I felt like since the Lilith wars, John Taylor hadn't had any big surprises or quests to deal with. Yes, he did defeat demons and gods, but he seemed to indestructible to beat. Of course when you introduce King Arthur into the picture then everything gets a whole new look. But besides introducing the gallant King Arthur, A Hard Day's Knight also introduces some very surprising and interesting twists to the series. I can't say what they are but it will definitely effect that rest of the series in a significant way.Of course besides these new characters and twists in the overall story, I felt A Hard Day's Knight was a better story overall compared to some of the most recent books in the series. Fans of the series will get back to what they initially loved about the series, tricks, magic, violence, and a sarcastic wit. We finally get to see Taylor back in the real world and have to face down some thugs without his magical gift. Suzie gets to play a bigger part in this story than she has in the last few books, and I found the overall wit and tone of the book much more to my liking.
Of course if goes without saying (but of course I will say it) that readers who haven't read the series should start from the beginning of the series, but overall I very much enjoyed A Hard Day's Knight, and I can't wait for the next book in this revitalized series.
[...]

Click Here to see more reviews about: A Hard Day's Knight (Nightside)

Click here for more information about A Hard Day's Knight (Nightside)

Read More...

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book II: The Hidden Gallery Review

Average Reviews:

(More customer reviews)I got hooked on "The Mysterious Howling," and I have given it to young ladies as gifts -- that 11- or 12-year-old with literary taste is the perfect recipient.
This book, The Hidden Gallery," is interesting and clever, the narrative asides are good but not overdone, the children are smarter, and the book is obsessive about ferns. How I miss ferns, living here in Arizona.
I particularly like the way the book blends the gothic English governess elements with the purely ridiculous.
The concept of "optoomuchstic" was well explained and well-used, without going overboard. My favorite advice from Agatha Swanburne: "No Panicking. No Complaining. No Quitting."
Please, I hope there will be a third book, to discover more about the Ominous Landscape, the attic room, the red hair, and Agatha Swanburne.

Click Here to see more reviews about: The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book II: The Hidden Gallery

Click here for more information about The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book II: The Hidden Gallery

Read More...