Check out these reviews written by the staff of the Marathon County Public Library, featuring books and DVDs for teens! (For reviews of books for all ages, visit our main Staff Reviews webpage.) Staff book reviews also are published at Goodreads.com; follow us for the latest updates. The book reviews on this website represent the personal opinions of the individuals who created them and do not represent any official views of the Marathon County Public Library.
In "The Here and Now" we meet Prenna, an immigrant not from another country, but another time. Leaving behind the future dying world that has been ravaged by a plague, those few lucky survivors emigrate to the present day. They bring with them twelve strict rules they believe will protect the world they saw destroyed. But when Prenna is frantically warned...
This is the companion book to "If I Stay". This story picks up a couple of years after the first book ends and is told from the point of view of Mia's former boyfriend, Adam, who is now a rock star. This story tells the aftermath of Mia's choice from the end of "If I Stay". There are sometimes no words for a book where at the end all you can...
Forman leaves us wondering just which choice we would make in the same situation as Mia. This touching young adult novel has it all, from love, to heartache, and devastating loss. I was gripped not only by the story line, but also by the way Forman was able to make me hear the music of the novel simply through words on a page. The emotions...
In this fast paced teen dystopian novel, aliens have invaded and Cassie, one of earth's last surviving humans, must fight the odds to rescue her little brother, Sam. Cassie has remained on the run, trusting only herself, since her parents were killed, until she meets Evan Walker. The mysterious Evan may be Cassie's only hope for survival, but is he really...
Audience: teens | Genre: fiction, science fiction, survival
Cath and Wren are identical twins entering their freshman year of college. Wren jumps into the party scene while Cath dives into her favorite hobby: writing fanfiction about the literary phenomenon Simon Snow. Wren and Cath used to write it together, but Wren is slowly drifting apart from her twin, wanting to make her own identity apart from Cath. Feeling...
Sage, an orphan boy in the land of Carthya, is mysteriously bought by nobleman Conner, along with three other boys. As they start on their journey to Conner's estate, Conner reveals a plot to prevent civil war in Carthya. He wants to make one of the chosen boys into a false prince to replace the missing Prince Jaron to keep the other regents and noblemen...
This story follows the main character, Miles, a.k.a. “Pudge “ as he leaves his public school in Florida and travels to Culver Creek, a boarding school in Alabama. He is on a quest to seek his “Great Perhaps,” or his greatest journey that could be if only he just tries. He is paired with the roommate, who goes by “The Colonel,” and...
Audience: teens | Genre: fiction, romance, tragedy, award-winning, printz award winner
We can’t choose the families that we are born into but we can choose our destiny. Born to a prostitute mother and an unknown father, and living in a brothel with her mother in the French Quarter, Josie Moraine appears to have the cards stacked against her. While cleaning rooms at a brothel, working at a bookstore, and being tangled up in a murder...
Cath and Wren are identical twins entering their freshman year of college. Wren jumps into the party scene while Cath dives into her favorite hobby: writing fanfiction about the literary phenomenon Simon Snow. Wren and Cath used to write it together, but Wren is slowly drifting apart from her twin, wanting to make her own identity apart from Cath. Feeling...
Marina's mother, Sveta, is the Soviet Union's star ballerina in 1986. When Sveta has visions of a horrific USSR secret, she mysteriously goes missing. Marina and her father flee to Brooklyn to escape the KGB, the Soviet Union's secret police. Marina and her father must adapt to life in Brooklyn without Sveta, but Marina's father can't let her disappearance...
