This was a nice 30 minute, no thinking read. Still, I hadn't realized that thousands rode on zeppelins quite frequently before the Hindenburg disaster. Even small children's books can teach us all something new!

This book is exceptionally hard to rate. Nujood's story is necessary, tragic, and strong all at once. Her story is the story of hundreds of thousands of child brides. However, Nujood had the courage to try to change the hand that fate (her father and her culture) dealt her. Sadly, all doesn't end as the book suggests. Nujood is still the victim of her family's whims and has faded from the public eye. Now near 19, married and with two daughters of her own, her story shouldn't end with this book. We should never close the pages of her book and think she won her freedom. We have much work yet to do.

Richard Chamberlain was without a doubt my grandmother's favorite celebrity crush. I cannot begin to count the number of times I watched The Thorn Birds with her. I was excited and intrigued to find this memoir, expecting to see both biography and a glimpse into what it was like to be both a celebrity, experiencing a fascinating acting career, as well as some subtle picture of what it was like to grow up different in the mid-century. I was not disappointed by this book at all. It had extremely useful and reflective statements about religious thought and how to see humanity and divinity in others. However, about half way through the book, these became somewhat redundant to me and the biographical element of the book began to wane. From about 80% of the book onward, I found myself skimming large portions, thinking, "oh, that again". I definitely enjoyed the book and Richard's unique perspective, even if he did seem somewhat haughty on occasion and rarely said anything substantive or negative (and therefore probably truthful) about his coworkers, especially the women. I found the majority of the book interesting and don't blame myself for skimming through what I didn't. I'm sure I'll think about some of Richard's beliefs for a while yet, so that in itself is a reason to read this book.

My students stumbled upon this author about a month ago, and since we do the Accelerated Reader testing program at my school in the states, I had to read the first book in the series to create a test over it for the students to get credit for their reading. A.R. often discriminates against independently or self published books, so that means I get more exposure to them in order to make up for the shortcomings of that program. I was hoping to see the author grow in his style and ability between the last book and this one. I wasn't completely disappointed.

I believe the target audience for this book must be teen girls. Unlike "Just Friends", this book is a bit more racy in its content. Although there's no graphic descriptions whatsoever, there's a lot about sex. If Will and Zac aren't having sex, they're being asked about it, or they're being congratulated or teased about it. It's not bad. That's life. I simply don't find it completely appropriate in relation to the target audience.

Still, this book has, in my opinion, better defined male characters and less defined female characters, compared to "Just Friends". Although Zac's humor and quirky personality are a lot like Ethan's, he has more depth. The male best friend, Ted, also has a surprising and likable depth of character.

The book also has a nice start. The characters drive the plot in this book. Over half of the book elapses before any true action develops, but that's not problematic because the characters are fun and engaging. I was surprised by the direction in which the plot turned, expecting something entirely different to happen. But after that, the ending was very predictable to me. Then again, I'm older than the target audience and they probably wouldn't see it coming.

I have two minor issues that kept me from enjoying this book to its fullest possibility. The first one being that the book doesn't quite fit its target audience. Either the style of writing needs to be aged up to a later teen / early adult category, or the innuendo and references should probably be lessened. The second issue is one that this book shares with its predecessor. Billy Taylor needed an editor, or a better one. I bought the Kindle edition of this book and it was riddled with errors. I'll admit that I teach Literacy, so I'm more of a stickler than the average reader, but several mistakes distracted me. Often words were transposed, such as "if you don't want to be me with" instead of "be with me". An editor would have easily fixed those errors. I also believe the author may have some sort of dialect in which "was stood" or "was sat" are acceptable. It should either be "sat" without the "was" or "was seated". This isn't the acceptable form in my area, especially when the typical verb tense in the rest of the novel doesn't match that form. I also caught a few issues with subject/verb agreement, such as "is" instead of "are". Noticing these things distracted me from the flow of the book, which was generally quite good.

There are some cliches in this book, that's par for the course with young adult romance. I don't fault the author for them. I'm glad to see that he developed a female character in his first book that had ambitious academic and career goals and another in this book that did not. So many teenagers can relate to Zac in that way. That bit of diversity tells me that this author has promise. I look forward to seeing what may come in the future.

A nice, quick story to make one think. We do not have to be the most intelligent in the world to be successful. Success comes in many forms.

This volume of the saga raises the question what makes us human and are we still worthy of the title without bodies or regardless of our actions? Questions like this are what keep me coming back to this series time and time again.

This is one of those rare books that is difficult for me to review. I realized by the end of the book that I had been dreaming my grandfather, a Vietnam veteran, into the story, with the characters. I often found myself wondering, after reading an interview with the author, about what was true and what wasn't. Then I realized that it didn't matter. It was all real in one way or another, in a way that transcended what O'Brien calls the "happening-truth". By the end of the story, I was doing exactly what O'Brien had done; creating a space, a story, trying to save my grandfather's life in story the same way he had done for Linda and the various other characters.

My review falls short. In its barest essence, this is a book everyone needs to read. I feel like my grandfather's war, Tim's war, is the same in its barest components as my husband's war in Iraq. I'll never understand, but in this way, perhaps I can at least see.