3 and 1/2

All Your Twisted Secrets was a full four before the end for me...it just seemed to get a little text book with the Amber's thoughts at the end...but again, just me.  Kept my attention throughout though!  A good one for keeping ones mind off of the current state of the world and a really important message about bullying and social media...just a little too preachy I thought...at the end. 

That was some party...

The Party was a good, I-want-to-keep-reading book.  The characters were real in that they weren't all good or all bad.  I especially liked Jeff. 
I know this book is an adult book, but I also think it could be enjoyed by older teens.  It's a toughie.  It isn't a literary book, but it is a quick read. 

Hello Stranger

is an Emmylou Harris song.  Goodbye Stranger is a book by Rebecca Stead that I really enjoyed.  I am one of the very few who didn't like When You Read Me or Liar & Spy but I was really, really glad to have listened to this one.  I think this one was more of a 4.5 for me. 
As an FYI, Hello Stranger by Barbara Lewis is one of the
BEST
SONGS
EVER.

Ripped from the Headlines

Sadly Tease, though fiction, is very real.  It's one of those ripped from the headlines kind of deals. And while some people seem to have said that they didn't like it because there was slut-shaming and the main character didn't take responsibility...well, I think that was the point!  I mean, I don't think Amanda Maciel was writing this to show that the main character and real-life people who do what the main character did SHOULDN'T have responsibility-- I think she is point out that sometimes they don't and what their thought process is.  I mean...it just seemed really weird to me that people would criticize the book for this reason.  So weird.  In any case, I really liked this book a great deal.  It mean, it was painful and sad.  But it was honest and real.  And yeah, it was really good.

Good Old Fashioned Teen Mystery

One of Us is Lying was just a good old fashioned Whodunnit, I think.  Not old-old school, but more like a Lois Duncan without the paranormal.  I cared about the characters, even though they weren't all nice.  I mean, after all one of them WAS lying, right?  And I can't say that I had an easy time figuring it out.  I was surprised by the result.  But not to the point where it was not believable.  Good stuff.

Super Super Book

My boss asked me what a good book for the "if you liked Wonder when you were younger, what should you read now?" and that next week I happened to find Posted and I recommended it to her right away. I read this one because I absolutely loved John David Anderson's Mrs. Bixby's Last Day.  This guy is just a great, great writer.
This book helps to convince me even further that technology is neutral, sorry Miss Turkle!  Kids can be cruel with or without social media.  And post-it notes can be just as harmful as tweets.

Emoticons

Unfriended grabbed me with the cover and I am glad it did!  Rachel Vail is the author of the Avery Sister Trilogy and I really enjoyed them and had forgotten to check to see what she had written lately!  So this was a very good discovery!  This book gives a really good lesson, but  not preachy or overtly, about bullying, in particular, cyberbullying.  It also just shows how there are really no "all good" or "all bad" people.  I loved the reasons shown behind the actions of Natasha, the "bad, but not all bad" one, that kind of thing.  And of course, Hazel, who probably did things that were more heinous, but yet, it was easy to see how people make bad choices from a place of pain.  Good stuff.

is this the end?

Twice as Nice is the fourth book in the Almost Identical series by Lin Oliver.  I remember I was in love with the series from the first one and they just got better as they went along.  If this is the end of the series, it was a great way to wrap it up, but I will miss twins, Sammie and Charlie very much.

Powerful

,

Tom Leveen continues to grow as a writer and I am always excited to see what he has brought forth next.  Random was an incredible story, sure to be popular because of the subject matter.  Tori and her friends are being prosecuted for their influence in causing another teen to commit suicide.  This is a tough, tough book.  What I love about Leveen's characters, as I said in my review of manicpixiedreamgirl, is that they not all good or all bad.  Just like real people, they are complex.  As heinous as Tori's crime is, I still found myself feeling sympathy for her.  The night before she is to give her plea, she answers a wrong number on her cell phone and the boy on the other end is contemplating suicide.  Their all-nighter conversation reveals a lot about Tori, to us and to herself.  Tori and her friends did much of their bullying online, which makes this book even more relevant.  Random comes out later this year, many thanks to Simon Pulse for providing the eARC through Edelweiss. 

Tarot Cards

I admit, tarot cards interested me when I was a teenager.  I had a friend who would do readings and I was always looking for some hopeful sign that I would meet the man of my dreams.  These days I don't mess with them or anything that I think might cause me to have faith in something other than God.  I know for sure He is the way to go.  No, I don't think that the devil or any other evil spirits will possess people.  I know that the devil isn't strong enough for that.  This book isn't about tarot cards, though, not really.  It's about that time in life that most of go through, when we are unsure of ourselves, unsure of what we believe.  It's a powerful story that reads really true to life and honest.  It's filled with terrifically drawn and complex characters, especially the main one, Cass and her brother, Eric.  Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always is a great book for Christians and non-Christians alike and it is bound to bring up a lot of great discussion.  I can't wait to read more from Elissa J. Hoole.