Ocean City Free Public Library Book Blog

James Eragon   by  Christopher Paolini A great fantasy book for all ages. The story is written well and shares the life of a young farm boy who is cast into a world of magic and dragons without much say in it. Losing his family and loved ones while fighting off evil forces with his blade. The choices the main character has to make also makes the reader question what would be the best option, and how it’ll affect the story. My Hero Academia by  Kohei Horikoshi  A heart warming yet intense story of superheros and a sense of rags to riches is within this Japanese comic. The story of a young boy born without powers in a world where everyone is super, makes him lesser for being different. The story  is based off of him wishing to be a great hero. Eventually gaining the abilities to achieve his dream he embarks on a journey of entering a super school to learn how to become the best hero he can be. Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agen...

      ***       The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters presents the story of Olivia Mead--a young suffragist in 1900 Portland, Oregon whose headstrong and determined ideas regarding women's rights cause her father to hire a performing hypnotist to hypnotize Olivia into being a more docile and submissive woman. Unbeknownst to her father, the hypnotist instead unlocks Olivia's mind to the ability to see people beyond their physical appearance and into their souls to see their true nature and intentions, while continuing her fight for women's rights.       I was drawn into this story right away with the presentation of Olivia Mead. She is the daughter of a dentist who is a prominent man in the city of Portland, and has to live up to her father's expectation that she be the perfectly well behaved and content with her place in society of being subservient to all the men in her life. Unfortunately for her father...

      Paper Towns by John Green was first published in October of 2008, and was his third novel. With the announcement that Paper Towns was going to be adapted for the screen, following the success of the film adaptation of Green's latest novel, The Fault in Our Stars, I decided it was a perfect time to reread the book.       Paper Towns follows the story of a highschooler named Quentin "Q" Jacobson and his friendship with an eccentric girl named Margo Roth Spiegelman. The bulk of the novel is Q following clues left behind by Margo after she runs away from home several weeks before they were to graduate. Along the way Q finds himself forced to reevaluate his perspective about his town, his friends, his classmates, and his idealised image of Margo. ***       Rereading this YA novel, I immediately remembered what it was about Paper Towns that set it apart from other YA novels. There are a lot of stories in the Y...

Second in the Hunger Games trilogy, Catching Fire picks up right where Hunger Games left off. By cleverly tricking the organizers, Katniss and Peeta have just managed to survive the deadly games created by the Capitol that forces teens to murder one another for the entertainment of the masses. Instead of celebrating their joint victory, Katniss is targeted by the President for cheating the system. I don't want to spoil the second 1/2 of the book, but lets just say that Katniss and Peeta's nightmares are far from over... I thought this was a tense follow up to the 1st book and I can't wait for the final part.

In the wake of Twilight's massive commercial success, some YA works have been generating a lot of buzz. If I Stay is one of those books (there's already discussion of a movie deal), though there are virtually no reasonable comparisions between the two in terms of plot, character development or theme. In spite of this confusion, If I Stay remains a short and sad tale about 17 year old Mia who is hovering between life and death in a coma at the hospital. While on a winter drive, an oncoming car smashes into her car, killing her parents and younger brother. Mia must decide if she wants to "leave," that is, die and be with her family, or if she will "stay," and live a life of an orphan. I won't ruin the ending, but I will say that this book did make me tear up a few times, especially considering that all of the characters in the book are just so nice. Flawed, but genuinely nice. I'd be curious to see how the film stacks up to the novel.

Jay Asher's debut novel has an interesting premise - Clay, a high schooler receives a mysterious package of audiotapes in the mail. They are from Hannah Baker, who committed suicide a few weeks earlier. On the tapes, Hannah narrates the 13 reasons that led her to kill herself (i.e. the people that caused her such anguish). Clay was "lucky" enough to be on Hannah's list and must pass off the tapes when he is finished listening to them. The story is obviously told in flashbacks that detail several indviduals who were just awful to Hannah. Pretty much any kind of bad high school experience is on Hannah's tape-drinking, sex, bullying. Though this is a YA book, the amount of teen angst is a little too much at times. Hannah herself doesn't really come off as a fabulous (or even likeable) character considering that suicide is an inherently very selfish act and she spends 250+ pages blaming everyone else for her death. The only character that you feel kind of bad for...

Let me start off by saying that it takes a lot for me to cry (or laugh) over a book. As in, it rarely happens and I don't even know if I can remember the last book that elicited that emotion. However last night when I finished Die , I was actually sobbing like a fool (seriously, it was kind of embarassing). The novel follows Tessa, a 15 year old girl with a terminal illness as she attempts to get the most out of life before the cancer gets her. She constructs a list of 10 things she must get done and the beauty of this is that they're things that anyone would want to do - fall in love, be famous, have sex, etc. What makes this novel so heartbreaking is not Tessa's deterioration, but seeing how her illness has affected her family and friends. Even though you know how the book ends, it's still a shock. Downham's novel is targeted and marketed to the Young Adult demographic, but honestly, I think anyone would enjoy it. Just be prepared - Terms of Endearment an...