Teen Review Thursday: Quick Reviews

Just Ella 

Reviewed by Shun Yi 

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix is the retell of Cinderella with a twist. I liked it, because, instead of showing Cinderella as a helpless, poor girl who's always put down by her step-evils and was finally aided by her fairy godmother to the ball, Just Ella portraits Ella, a girl who’s not afraid to stand up to her stepmother, who’s very intelligent, and who saved herself at the end by taking control of her own destiny.

Princess Academy
Reviewed by Jessica

This is a amazing book about a young girl who is in an academy to be a princess, but she is faced with harsh competition and a cruel events. When the princess academy is threatened, she must find a way to save her classmates from danger. This is a great book that I recommend to everyone.

Ranger's Apprentice: The Ruins of Gorlan 

Reviewed by Julia

 A book about an orphaned boy named Will whose accepted into the Mysterious Ranger Corps, A group that the common folk believe practice the dark arts. Pick up this book today to follow Will in his first adventure.

Teen Review Thursday: Shatter Me

This book takes place in a futuristic world where everything has fallen apart. There is little food and everything is controlled by a group called “The Reestablishment”. “The Reestablishment” promised people a better future and told them they would fix the problems of the people. However, once they took power they did nothing to help the people at all. The book’s main character is a girl named Juliette. In the beginning of the book she is locked in an insane asylum but she isn’t insane. She has an ability that allows her to kill people just by touching them. This ability makes a person in a position of power in “The Reestablishment” interested in her.  This book follows her from the insane asylum onward and is written in her perspective.

I liked the book for many reasons. First, I thought it was interesting to hear the story from Juliette’s point of view rather than a third person point of view. It allows the reader to know what Juliette is thinking at all times. Also, I liked the author’s writing style. They had an interesting way of describing things. For example they used a lot of numbers and counting to express things which I thought was interesting. One thing I didn’t like was the fact that the end of the book was a cliffhanger. While I assume there will be a sequel it was still rather upsetting that the book just cut off during, in my opinion, a really important part. Overall, this was a very good book that I would recommend to other teenage girls

Kelly -   Age 16

Rating: 8

Teen Review Thursday: The Clan of the Cave Bear

In this extraordinary journey of a book we are taken back in time to the beginning of modern humans and into a vast Ice Age world where a massive earthquake has left a young girl named Ayla wandering alone in the dangerous and strange land.  She is found by a woman who belongs to a very different people, they call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear and to them Ayla looks peculiar and even ugly, she is one of the others. But Iza, a healer cannot leave this girl to die and takes her into the clan where she will do all she can to teach this strange girl the ways of her people.  Despite the challenges Ayla strives to learn and be accepted into this new home.  But, even in her progress she must face the hardships thrown at her by a cruel and brutal youth destined to be the next leader and prove that she is truly part of the clan. 

                Jean M. Auel has created a timeless masterpiece rich with knowledge, creativity, and a storyline that is exciting, gripping, and at times heart wrenching.  Each paragraph, sentence, and word will leave you with new and intriguing questions not only about the story and characters, but about life itself.  One of the best aspects about this book is how beautifully it is written.  Auel uses an elegant display of language that paints a vivid and realistic image in your mind.  The more you dive deeper into the book the greater sense of realism you perceive in each and every character.  I thoroughly enjoyed reading every page of this book and fell in love with the incredibly empowering story of Ayla.  It definitely gives you a different view on life and human behavior and is one of my favorites.      

Paige 

Age: 16

Rating: 9