The Girl Is Murder, by Kathryn Miller Haines (2011)

Pop's leg was across the room when I came downstairs.  

New York City.  1942.

Iris Anderson is 15 years old.  She used to go to an elite private school, but she now attend public school.   She used to live on the Upper East Side, but now she lives on the Lower East Side.  She used to live with her mom and dad, but now she just lives with her dad.

Iris' mom died nine months ago.  Her father was in the Navy and lost one of his legs in Pearl Harbor.  Iris is just trying to survive her new life.

On her first day of school she met a handsome boy named Tom Barney.  A few weeks later, Iris learns that her father, a private investigator, has been hired to find Tom.  Iris decides to secretly help her father solve this case.

What Pop needed was someone who could blend in, whose age and appearance meant they were easily ignored...I was going to help Pop.

The Girl Is Murder is a good mystery for teen girls.  The slang and imagery really painted a picture of NYC in 1942.

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*sexual references, suicide

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Steelheart, by Brandon Sanderson (September 2013)

I've seen Steelheart bleed.

It happened ten years ago; I was eight.  My father and I were at the First Union Bank on Adams Street.  We used the old street names back them, before the Annexation.

David is now 18 years old.  For ten long years, he has dreamed about revenge.  Everything has been destroyed by Epics, humans who developed super powers when the spaceship Calamity arrived.  One Epic in particular has taken over Chicago.  Steelheart now rules Newcago.

"I have claimed this city, little Epic.  It's mine...Give me your loyalty or die."

David has studied all of the known Epics.  Each Epic has at least one weakness, and David is determined to seek revenge on the Epic who killed his father.

Can David avenge his father's death?  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars

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Not available at NOLS...yet!

Will Grayson, Will Grayson, by John Green and David Levithan (2010)

When I was little, my dad used to tell me, "Will, you can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but you can't pick your friend's nose."  This seemed like a reasonably astute observation to me when I was eight, but it turns out to be incorrect on a few levels.  To begin with, you cannot possibly pick your friends, or else I never would have ended up with Tiny Cooper.

In a strange set of circumstances, two strangers meet.  Both are named Will Grayson.  Narrated from each teen's point of view, climb into the world of Will Grayson.

Rating:  7 out of 10 stars
*language, underage drinking, sexual references, gay slurs, crude humor

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Three Times Lucky, by Sheila Turnage (2012)

Trouble cruised into Tupelo landing at exactly seven minutes past noon on Wednesday, the third of June, flashing a gold badge and driving a Chevy Impala the color of dirt.  Almost before the dust had settled, Mr. Jesse turned up dead and life in Tupelo Landing turned upside down.

Tupelo Landing, North Carolina.  Population 148.

Miss Moses LoBeau is a 6th grader.  She lives with the Colonel and Miss Lana.  They are the closest things to parents that Mo has.

I was born eleven years ago, during one of the meanest hurricanes in history.  That night as people slept, they say, the rivers rose like a mutiny and pushed ashore, shouldering houses off foundations, lifting the dead from graves, gulping down lives like fresh-shucked oysters.

Some say I was born unlucky that night.  Not me.  I say I was three times lucky.

Lucky once when my Upstream Mother tied me to a makeshift raft and sent me swirling downstream to safety.  Lucky twice when the Colonel crashed his car and stumbled to the creek just in time to snatch me from the flood.  Lucky three times when Miss Lana took me in like I was her own and kept me.

Trouble comes with Detective Joe Starr comes to town.  And then Mr. Jesse is murdered.  Three Times Lucky tells the story from Mo's point of view of her quirky town as she solves the mystery behind Mr. Jesse's murder.

I loved this book!

Rating:  10 out of 10

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An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green (2006)

The morning after noted child prodigy Colin Singleton graduated from high school and got dumped for the nineteenth time by a girl named Katherine, he took a bath.  Colin had always preferred baths; one of his general policies in life was never to do anything standing up that could just as easily be done lying down.

Child prodigy Colin Singleton has only dated girls who are named Katherine.  And he's been dumped by 19 girls named Katherine.  His best friend Hassan tries to help Colin with the aftermath of Katherine XIX.

Hassan stood up and abruptly moved to serious mode.  "So, what's the problem exactly?"

"The problem exactly is that she dumped me.  That I'm alone.  Oh my God, I'm alone again.  And not only that, but I'm a total failure in case you haven't noticed.  I'm washed up, I'm former.  Formerly the boyfriend of Katherine XIX.  Formerly a prodigy.  Formerly full of potential..."

Hassan has a solution to help Colin's heartbreak.

"Kafir, you have a very complicated problem with a very simple solution."

Follow Collin and Hassan as they go on an adventurous road trip.  I literally laughed out loud while reading this novel.  

Rating:  8 out of 10 stars
*language, sexual reference, crude humor

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Anson's Way, by Gary D. Schmidt (1999)

In a small sod house scooped out beneath an embankment of hedges, a master teaches fifteen or sixteen students.  Sometimes there are more, sometimes fewer, depending upon the farm season.  The house - if it might be called a house - is invisible against the embankment.  Nevertheless, one boy stands hidden on guard.

Anson Granville Staplyton has always wanted to be a Staffordshire Fencible.  

I've waited for this day all my life, he thought, and here I am in it.  Drummer for the Staffordshire Fencibles, just like my father, and his father, and his father before him.

He is sent from England to Ireland to keep the king's peace.  In England, anyone said to be teaching superstitions and "the evil customs of his nation" are seeds of Irish rebellion, in violation of King George II's laws.

No one may tell an Irish tale.

There are to be no schools, no, places of learning, no teachers, no lawyers.

There are to be no Catholic churches, no priests, no saying of the Mass...

No Irishman may own a horse of value.

No Irishman may apprentice to a gunsmith.

No Irishman may travel abroad for schooling.

And no Irishman may own the fields he works.

Anson sees the beauty in Ireland and learns that things are not so simple.  And when he is faced with a decision, will Anson remain loyal to the Fencibles, or will he find another way?

Rating:  8 out 10 stars

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Promised, by Caragh M. O'Brien (2012)

Gaia notched her arrow and drew back the taut string of her bow.

Book 3 of The Birthmarked Trilogy begins where Prized left off.  Gaia is the Matrarc of the people who fled Sylum.  They have crossed the Wastelands and are back at the Enclave.  

"What was I thinking, bringing us all here?" she said.  "This is insane."

"It wasn't all your decision, remember?  And it's not insane," he said.  "It's less insane than staying to watch us all die off in Sylum.  Not one girl born this past year.  Not one."

Not only does Gaia need to ask the Protectorate for refuge, she learns that her former home has changed.

Rating:  6 out of 10 stars

*sexual references, sensitive issues related to adoption/fertility

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