An Overwhelmed Creative

I saw this book in our school library first. Something about the title and cover caught my eye. Our librarian had it on display and when I took my class to their weekly library time one day. I took it and read the blurb. It caught my attention, I took a picture of the cover, and I showed it to my eleven year-old daughter when I got home. She was interested. So was I. A few months later we had the book fair at the school, and at my school, teachers always get a $20 voucher to spend books. Not just that, we also get the buy one get the second one half price. Well, I saw this book on the shelves and I had to get it. My daughter read it first and she said she had really enjoyed it and recommended it. So, when we went on our beach vacation I took it with me. The book is written by James Nicol, and as you read it you can feel you are in England just by the prose. I felt a little bit as if I were watching a Nanny McPhee movie or Mary Poppins by the dialogue. The characters were very ...

What a great series! Even when part two wasn't my favorite, it all came full circle with "Champion". The plot seemed to be going one way, but then it gave a turn for the unexpected just like with the other two books. The ending was very exciting and I had a plethora of emotions as the story came to an end. The characters are so well written and, even when they were forced to grow exponentially, it was still super believable.  Perhaps that is my only complaint, that because everything happens so fast and the characters are forced to grow up so quickly, the rest of the world sometimes seems to not exist at all. Almost like you have to imagine what the rest of the world is going through even when it's not very explicit in the story. Especially the ending. Either way, I highly recommend these books. They are YA post-apocalyptic worthy. cheers!

This book just wasn't for me. I decided not to register any one star reviews anywhere. Instead, I'm just going to talk about why it wasn't for me and try to explain that, the fact it wasn't for me doesn't mean it's not for everyone. I got this book as a gift from my sister-in-law. She gave me this book and my husband the companion book for dads. Our daughter is eleven and my sister-in-law has a girl two years older (and one two years younger) than our daughter and thought we would benefit from it. We got it in the mail and were initially excited by it. It took me a while to read it, and when I did, I found I couldn't get through its pages. One of the reasons I didn't think this book was for me as a mom is because it was written in 2010, and although it does mention a bit about digital media, it feels out of time and unreal with what middle schoolers are dealing with now. Still, I basically didn't connect with this book where the author talk...