Absolutely beautiful.

I've been talking with several students lately about mental health and their personal experiences. One of my students recommended this book to me. It feels like an accurate portrayal of "Pure-O" OCD. Sam still has compulsions, but it's easier for her to hide those. Her main challenge is obsessions and intrusive thoughts. This book doesn't romanticize Sam's illness. It shows that it is terrifying for her, and sometimes for those who love her.
Sam also deals with normal high school issues. She's learning to create an identity that she likes, instead of one she's fallen into. She has friends who don't act like friends to her and finds a new group to secretly meet up with as well. Sam is no stranger to living a double life, but that doesn't make it any easier for her.
This book will throw you for a loop. That loop didn't seem to fit with Sam's diagnosis, and it's really never fully addressed beyond a statement of that fact. I would have liked to see more about what that means for Sam.
This book will make you cry, so read it with some tissues on hand. It will also give a broader perspective on the dignity and humanity of those mental illness, the beauty of therapy, and the power of family and friendship despite all of our imperfections.

This was a fun read. I went into it not really trying to figure out the twists. I just wanted to enjoy the ride; and I did! I find it difficult to compare this book to One of Us is Lying. I think I can see that the author has grown as a writer in this book. The plot feels more solid and the characters feel more like McManus's own, instead of partially borrowed from other sources. I also like that the book just sort of ends, as far as Ellery is concerned. She doesn't have her whole life figured out, and that feels right.

Overall, definitely a worthy read.

Although short, Anne Frank: Little Guides to Great Lives is full of information, beautiful illustrations, and helpful maps. I have taught the dramatized version of The Diary of Anne Frank for four years now, and even I learned something new from this book. I am excited for its full publication so that I can share it with my students and incorporate it into my curriculum. The maps and simple explanations of often difficult subject matter will help my lower-level readers understand the content of the play and hopefully inspire my students further to read Anne's diary for themselves and to see others by our similarities instead of our differences.
I look forward to reading more books in this series on Little Guides to Great Lives.

*Thank you, NetGalley for an eBook advanced reader's copy of this title. I was provided with this title prior to publication in exchange for an honest review.

Meh.

This whole series, man.

I like Kenji. I actually do. His voice sticks around in my head and I find myself thinking like him, even though I'm not an older teenage boy. He doesn't have inspiring thoughts or magnificent prose. He just... is exactly what he is.

That said, this novella felt like one big expression of Kenji's sex drive instead of true plot. But then again, that's how most of the series is. It's just characters trying to shag each other, trying not to shag each other, and thinking about shagging each other - all while the world is apparently in a major revolution and people have superhuman abilities.

I honestly don't know why I keep reading this series.

It might be the most childish thing I've read in years, and I make a living of reading and teaching children's literature, so that's saying something. The hormones may make this book seem mature, but the plot is anything other than that.

There's just no way that the children of world leaders would act this way, or that the world leaders themselves would even allow situations such as these to happen. I keep hoping for the plot wholes to patch themselves up, but instead they become ever-widening sink holes and each book plunges them deeper and deeper.

I loved the first 20% or so of Shatter Me. The premise is GOOD. The writing is BAD.

Of all the Harry Potter books, this one was, for the past however many years, my absolute least favorite. My favorite character does not survive through this book, and at the point in my life when I first read Order of the Phoenix, I identified that character very strongly with my grandmother. At that time in my life, she was all too quickly slipping away from me. I mourned the death in this book just as truly as I soon mourned hers. For fifteen or so years, I haven't touched this book at all, even when re-reading the rest of the series.

I picked it up again a couple of weeks ago and decided to listen to the audiobook. I got to a few chapters from the end and couldn't continue listening. I had to pick up the book, put it back in my hands, and face it. I've never felt a connection with another character like that. Although I'm no longer a child, it still affects me deeply.

Despite my absurd emotional connection with this book, this time I was able to enjoy a lot of what I had forgotten. The D.A. is superb. I greatly enjoyed reading about Fred and George and their attempts to get at Umbridge. This book may very well be the best written and most identifiable in the series, as far as Harry's character is concerned.

Well, continuing on now to book six...

Upon my second reading of this book, I still feel the absolute sense of loss and the overwhelming emotions I felt when I first read this book thirteen years ago. Harry's loss of innocence came at a time for me when I was losing my own childlike innocence and watching my grandmother succumb to Alzheimer's.

Spoiler

I will admit I cried on my second reading today at the scene where Harry decides he will not return to Hogwarts after Dumbledore's death. Harry's innocence is gone and there will be no more reading about silly conversations, boring classes, or peaceful times at Hogwarts.

This book is one of my favorites in the series, just for the ending alone.

I wish I could put my thoughts into better words, but even after thirteen years, I'm still left mostly speechless by this masterpiece of a book. How great it was to grow up with Harry, as each book was published when I was roughly the same age as Harry in each new installment. What a gift.

This is my first foray into the Grishaverse. I'm late to the party, I know!

I feel like this book got off to a slow start. I wanted more world building. I like how the world is Russia-inspired, but I felt that it still needed more building for me to understand exactly what Alina understood.

I wasn't terribly impressed with Alina. She thinks she's plain and boring, so she really comes across as sullen. I do like her sass and sarcasm, but I'm a bit over the "oh, I'm so plain" trope that all brown-haired girls in YA literature seem to feel at the moment. She also doesn't seem very smart. She doesn't realize anything deeper going on for the first 2/3rds or so of the book. As someone who worked with the military, I would expect better from her.

The two love interests in this book are presented as either fully good or fully evil. I don't like that as far as characterization goes. It's sloppy. I feel like this sort of representation doesn't give us a full view of either Mal or the Darkling.

Maybe this book was a victim of high expectations. Everyone I've talked to (or read) seems to be IN LOVE with this series. For me, this one was okay. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't very good either.

4.5 Stars

A fun read. I didn't realize this was Volumes 1-4, so I'm glad I only bought this one and not any of the others, or I would have had duplicates that I couldn't do anything with.

The story is fun. The cast is very diverse. The characters' queerness isn't an issue and isn't even discussed. It's just a part of the characters, like their eye color or their height. I hope to be able to put this in my classroom library, but I'll have to keep reading to see if the sport continues to be the highlight or if romance takes over. I hope that fencing remains the focus.