Looking for Alaska by John Green

2012  

 

Miles Halter is sent to a boarding tertiary college. He is a shy young man who is fascinated by the last words of famous people. His father attended the same college and Miles has much to live up to: his father gained top marks and was also a quitter a rebel and trouble maker. Pranks were the order of the day.   

He tries to fit in and is befriended by other teens who smoke, drink and are pretty good at pranks. He learns how to join in. This includes Alaska Young.

Alaska is a feisty young woman who lives on the edge and is also a huge fan of literature. She seems incredibly confident but she has the impression that she always messes up.

And then she really messes up big time. It takes her friends a while to realise that she left abruptly one evening because she had forgotten to put flowers on her mother’s grave. She always blames herself for her mother’s death, and believes that her father does too: as a young child she wasn’t able to call 911 when her mother collapsed at home. Other mistakes in life, she believes, stem from that one incident.

She is over the limit when she sets off and crashes her car into a stationery police car that is attending the site of an overturned lorry.

The head teacher of the school followed her and reported that she didn’t even swerve. It could have been suicide. That is never fully established.

Whatever has happened, the friends she’s left behind will never be the same again.  

John Green really gets into the minds of these young adult and in particular into Miles’s.  

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The Space In Between by Jen Minkman

2017 

upper secondary, tertiary, Key Stage 4, Key Stage 5, ages 14 -17, Minkman Jen, YA, New Adult, supernatural, time slip, relationships,      

This book is set in Bangor, a place I know well. Moira is studying fine art there as a part-time student.

She, her twin sister and her brother get on unusually well. 

Moira has a controlling boyfriend and the story is partly about this.

There is a strong relationship with the paranormal and this is quite appropriate for North Wales - a place of mystery, intrigue and old legends.  

Moira has to make some difficult choices and a time-slip element also kicks in. She is able to make the right choice and this saves a person she has begun to love. Ironically in choosing her course of action she has cut herself from any further romance.

The book is of an average length for new adult / young adult.    

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Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you,  may go to Bridge House Publishing.   

 

               

Mermaid Academy, Cora and Sparkle, by Julie Sykes and Linda Chapman

 

2023 

The Mermaid Academy is in many ways like any other school. Students learn and friendships are important. There are challenges. Cora and Issy are twins but are forced to attend different classes.  Issy is the older twin and Cora is worried when her magic appears before Issy’s. Cora’s closest companion is Sparkle, her dolphin.

There is also adventure and mystery.  Cora and Sparkle seek to join Cora’s friends who are trying to work out what has damaged the coral reefs. This brings them into danger as well. They discover the terrible secret about what has been happening.

All is well in the end. Issy and Cora are reconciled.   When dolphins and mermaids bond their tail fins match.  This happens for Cora and Sparkle at the end of the story.  Cora is also reconciled with her twin sister and at peace with her friends. Then she decides to do what she had always really wanted to to do:  she joins the music group. Her friends, her twin and Sparkle are all happy about this.

The book is 107 pages long. It has a blocked text and uses a serif font with difficult ‘a’s and ‘g’s. It is, however, double- spaced. Monochrome illustrative pictures are integrated into the text from time to time.  Each chapter heading has a decorative border.  

This is part of The Mermaid Academy Series 

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Note, this is an affiliate link and a small portion of what you pay, at no extra cost to you,  may go to Bridge House Publishing.  

Fairfield Amish Romance: 15 Story Amish Romance by Diane Burkholder, Elanor Miller, Susan Vail and Isabell Weaver

 Grab your copy by clicking on the image

2016  

These are very gentle, heart-warming romances.  They also give some insight into the Amish way of life.  For many readers the stories will be too simplistic. For some they will come as escapism and reassurance. There is also a suggestion that life is predestined by an omniscient God though the way the stories unfold suggest rather a God  who had ideas for us but who leaves us to choose  whether  or not to go along with his suggestions.    

There are a lot of grammatical and punctuation errors in the text but not so many that they detract from the progression of the stories.  Neither does some loose writing or that fact that in one story two characters’ names are confused. The stories retain their value anyway as they show us an alternative way of life.  

The chapters within each story are short and the stories themselves are not too long.

This comes as a Kindle book only. The Amish may have a simple way of life but they are quite enterprising. A newsletter and other books are offered at the end of the book.  

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares

2002, first published 2001  

The traveling pants of the title are a pair of jeans bought from a charity. The four friends, Bridget Carmen, Lena and Tibby pass them on to each other during a long summer in which each of the girls grows up a little.  So, we approach the bildungsroman of the young adult.

Bridget embarks on a forbidden relationship with an older boy a coach at her summer camp. Carmen behaves badly when she is confronted with her father’s new family. The beautiful but rather shy Lena causes a misunderstanding between her and Kostos, the grandson of friends of her grandparents.  Tibby works at Wallman’s and befriends Bailey, a younger girl who is dying of leukaemia.

The pants develop a spiritual quality and bring luck and meaningfulness to each girl as she wears them        

Each chapter contains glimpse of each of the girls and is headed by a quote usually from literature though there is also a quote from a bumper sticker.

The book is 304 pages long.  The chapters are quite short. The text is blocked and in an adult serif font. Other fonts are used for had-written notes, giving each girl a different sort of handwriting. 

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Indigo's Star by Hilary Mckay

                                                         

 

 

2003   

This is the second book in the series about the Casson family. It’ is mainly Indigo’s story as the title suggests. However, younger sister Rose also plays an important part.

The family is to a large extent is dysfunctional.  Mother is absent-minded, sleeps a lot and often forgets to buy food. Father lives away from home. Both parents are artists, each eccentric in their own way.  However, there is a lot of love between the siblings.

Indigo is bullied at school but largely copes with it. He is also recovering from glandular fever. Rose wants her father to come home and she does not want to wear her new glasses.

New boy Tom arrives at the school. He now becomes the focus of the bullying and takes some of the attention away from Indigo. He has other problems. He is staying with is grandmother as he has not been getting on with his father, stepmother and stepsister. He bounces a ball a lot, likes climbing on to roofs and plays guitar. He longs to own a rather expensive guitar he sees in the local music shop.

All comes good in the end: Indigo confronts and overcomes the bullies, spurred on because Rose is in danger. Tom is reconciled with his family when his step-sister becomes ill. Rose accidentally breaks his guitar and in her panic phones her father who rushes home.  Money is little object to him and he buys the expensive guitar for Tom.

Tom goes home. Rose and Indigo climb on to the roof. Rose can see the stars now because she is wearing her glasses.       

The book is 244 pages long.  The text is blocked but double-spaced. The font has a serif. The chapters are quite long.