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Another year has passed, and Alexa is pleased to be going back to Bridewell for the summer. Though her father has a strict litany of rules for her to follow, she fully intends to get into at least a little trouble.
Upon her first visit to the Library, she wistfully dreams of escaping through the secret tunnel out into the wild, but she knows it’s not possible, now that the tunnels are patrolled. Naturally, when she hears a knock on the wall behind her, she’s therefore quite alarmed. When she opens the door to find her friend Yipes dangling there, she knows everything is about to change.
With instructions in a letter left for her by Warvold, Alexa leaves behind and enclosed letter to her father, and escapes through the tunnels with Yipes, narrowly avoiding capture. Excited to be on another adventure, she’s also unsure. When one of her new companions turns out to be a convict, she becomes even more uncertain, but she decides that if Warvold trusted him, she can too.
Along the way, new secrets are learned, and Alexa comes to realize that whatever this mission of hers is, it’s huge. Save the world as she knows it huge. Daunting, to say the least.
With the help of her assorted companions, human, animal, and giant, Alexa makes her way to the dark kingdom at the edge of the land, only to find that everything is even more different than she had thought. And while the group earns itself some success, their journey is really just beginning, as is their battle.
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Sookie Stackhouse has always led an interesting, if not fulfulling, life, thanks to her “disability.” Able to hear the thoughts of others, and not necessarily to shut them out, trouble has followed Sookie whether she wanted it or not.
As a waitress in a local bar, she does her best never to hear the minds of her co-workers or boss, and while she hopes to block out the clientele as well, she doesn’t have much luck. So when a vampire starts frequenting the bar, sitting in her section, and she realizes she can’t hear him, he becomes heaven on earth.
She’s intrigued for other reasons of course, as are most of the town. But as strange events start coming to town, silence becomes more and more a commodity. Sookie is forced to hear the things people think of her, her relationship with Bill, speculations on the spree of murders and her brother’s possible connection to them.
Despite doubts and well-meant advice, Sookie clings to her relationship with Bill, all the while trying to solve the mystery herself, to clear those she cares about, as well as to save herself.
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Fanboy’s school life has been less than stellar, especially after the forced move to a new school, where he got off on the wrong foot and never got right. While he had his moments, like The Great Ecuadorian Tortoise Blight, all in all, he could really do without daily interaction with his classmates.
When Mitchell Frampton starts pounding on him daily in gym class, it seems unusually cruel, and yet perfectly normal for his life. The middle-of-the-night IM he receives about it isn’t. Against his better judgement, he agrees to meet the mystery writer, who he realizes must be the black and white blur who’s been watching his gym beatings.
Life gets even stranger, after Donnie and Kyra meet.
She’s moody, she likes graphic novels, but makes fun of the ones he reads, she’s always showing up in a different car and driving recklessly…on top of it all, she’s his first female friend, and only his second friend in town, period. Despite all her quirks, he likes her. Enough to share his work-in-progress, a graphic novel his only prior friend doesn’t even know about.
The more involved Fanboy and Goth girl get, the worse things seem to go. While he’d like to be different, Donnie is still first and foremost a guy. And while Goth girl is different, she’s also first and foremost a person with feelings and sensitivities.
There’s no shortage of tension in this story. But it’s also full of laughs and deep thoughts and great anecdotes. Self-realizations and epiphanies. And while it’s a story about a comic book geek, it’s a story that any book-lover should enjoy. Myself, I’ve never gotten into comics or graphic novels–it’s not a style I can manage to read. But this book was great. I had a blast reading it, and I’ll be looking forward to Lyga’s next work.
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Nick’s been dumped, and he’s not over it. So the last thing he wants to see at the show is his ex walking in with another guy. When ex and said guy are approaching his location at the bar, he panics, turns to the girl next to him, and asks if she’d like to be his girlfriend for the next five minutes. Norah, who has her own set of issues and recent mishaps running through her mind, answers by kissing him, and thus begins their journey.
Told in alternating chapters from Nick and Norah’s point of view, this story follows the path of their all-over-the-place night, from that first kiss, to their first fight, to the seeming end and then their reunion.
I really liked Nick and Norah as characters. They’re both quite real, and you might find yourself nodding your head to some of the things they go through feeling. Fun book to read.
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Alexa Daley has always been curious, and gotten into trouble because of it. But when her old friend, and the founder of life as they know it, suddenly dies, Alexa finds herself in an ever-growing web of trouble she isn’t sure how to deal with.
Alone with Warvold at the time of his death, there are those who suspect Alexa of knowing some secret. But all she really has are questions. Why did Warvold tell her that story about the blind men? What does it mean? What’s really outside the city walls?
Little does she know that the answers to those questions will only bring more confusion, as her adventures take her beneath her home and out into the wild, where the animals are waiting to inform her of further impending danger to life as she knows it.
Interesting take on how our actions can have unexpected consequences, including giving us the opposite of the outcome we’d intended.
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Goshen Public Library & Historical Society | 203 Main St Goshen, NY 10924 | Phone: 845.294.6606 | Fax: 845.294.7158 | RCLS Member
