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Winnetka Public Library Teens

Winnetka Public Library Teens

Winnetka Public Library Teens!

This shelf is always a work in progress. Titles on the shelf are owned by the Winnetka Main Library.

FYI: "Wish List" titles are books that have been ordered and are coming soon.
  • Winnetka, IL, USA
  • member since February 21, 2008

Reviews

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Displaying 1-10 of 66 reviews
  • Numbers
    • Rated 3 stars

    “
    Londoner foster kid Jem can see the day people will die. Her ability leaves her in a bad spot when she and semi-friend Spider are hanging about the London Eye. She starts seeing matching death dates in passersby...and they're all for that day. Jem manages to get Spider to run from the scene just before a terrorist bomb goes off, but that leads to new complications. Now they're on the run through the country, Britain's Most Wanted, suspected terrorists...and Jem know Spider's death date is just over a week away. Can destiny be cheated?

    A quick read that would be great for fans of Lisa McMann's Wake series.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Wednesday, April 7, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Vintage Veronica
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Almost sixteen year old Veronica got a job at a clothing-mega-thrift store for the summer by conveniently omitting her age (also related: the fact that she's only going to be a sophomore in high school) during the hiring process. She's one of those beat-of-your-own-drummer types that wouldn't seem out of place in a Rachel Cohn/David Leviathan pairing. Oh, and also, she's fat. The way she tells it, her yoga-teaching mom is constantly harping on her appearance, but we (the reader) encounter Mom so infrequently in the book that it's almost like hearsay.

    Because she's FAT and WEIRD, OMG, Veronica doesn't have friends, and she likes it that way. Or so she says. Working to sort incoming clothing in EMPLOYEES ONLY! helps her hermit tendencies. But when she captures the attention of two Florons (floor workers), including the larger-than-life bully Zoe, it seems like maybe that's about to change? Unfortunately, skinny coworker Len aka Dead Boy Walking that they sic her on is about to inspire feeeeeeelings in Veronica. Now she's got to tread carefully.

    Liked it enough to finish it, but it never really connected with me. Maybe it was the oh-so-convenient lack of adult authority figures. But it did also capture what it's like to be fifteen, alone, and wanting to please everyone. Tepid.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Wednesday, April 7, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Rikers High
    • Rated 4 stars

    “ Ages 13+ (language in jail is rough, yo)

    Gritty and realistic, the story follows Martin, a teenager who is locked up in Riker's Island Prison for "steering" - telling an undercover cop where to buy drugs in his neighborhood. His court date has been delayed three times, and following vicious fight he found himself in the middle of, he's been moved into a new building. He's got two weeks before he goes back to court. Can he make it just a little longer?

    Martin isn't given a "good kid who made a bad mistake" rep here, and it's not clear what he his life was like re: crime before he ended up in jail. (Other than his Pops being a jailbird himself.) But it is clear that the charges that were brought against him were the kind that would be tossed off if he had enough money to make bail or get a real lawyer (implied that it would have if he were white instead of black). There's all sort of injustice here, in a story that will appeal to kids who aren't minorities. Rougher than Strasser's Boot Camp (I'm pretty sure dudes weren't jerking off into vaseline-smeared rubber gloves in that one) but a good readalike for those who want more tales of incarcerated teens.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Monday, February 15, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Monstrumologist
    • Rated 4 stars

    “So the story goes, the author is called to a nursing home whose oldest resident has recently died. Among his remaining possessions are 13 handwritten notebooks. The Monstrumologist is comprised of the first three.

    12 year old Will Henry is the Monstrumologist's Apprentice, an orphan boy who has been taken in after the death of his parents in a fire. The Monstrumologist himself, Dr. Pellinore Warthrop, is less of a mad scientist than a man with a passion for monsters. When a grave robber makes a horrifying find, Will Henry and the Doctor must face the fact that Anthropophagi - hunters of men with sharklike jaws in their torsos and no head - have invaded their community. They must not only discover why the beasts have come but stop them as well.

    Although it took me days to read (an uncommon though not unheard of shift in my habits), I would call the Monstrumologist engrossing. The language, stylized as it would have been in the 1880's, is not commonplace in YA lit. Neither is the story. It is a blood-sotted horror with next to no female characters, gloom lit by a kerosene lamp, and oh. Oh. If only I had Will Henry's other ten journals in my possession, for I would worry my way through them tirelessly.

    4.5 stars. It's slow to pick up pace, but perhaps that's only because it's a bit outside of my genre. Objectively, probably one of the best books written in 2009.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Bad Apple
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Another student accuses her of having an affair with her art teacher (an incident weird-girl Tola denies ever occurred). But this isn't a book about illicit relationships, more about family dynamics and the drama that comes with being her high school's resident weird girl. Sort of about cyberbullying, sort of "the things adults worry over/believe," it kept me reading quickly but never really cohered. Maybe it was the flat characters (especially the adults). A good plot and a few good moments keep it entertaining, but the ending just made me sigh.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Destroy All Cars
    • Rated 3 stars

    “James, a 17 year old high school junior, has no use for cars. He has no use for CONSUMERIST AMERICA as a whole. He wears thrift store clothes and sweaters with the elbows cut out as his classmates pop the collars of their Abercrombie polos. He sort of has use for Sadie, his ex girlfriend, his school's leader of the Activist Club. Through various manifestos (disguised as papers for his AP English class) he rants about cars, parents, nature, and girls. Manifestos aren't the whole book, but they're the best parts.

    Good for young activists and march-to-the-beat-of-their-own-drummers. A quick read. Three and a half stars.”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Deadly Little Secret
    • Rated 3 stars

    “A mystery boy saved Camila's life...then disappeared. A new school year rolls around, and Camila discovers her savior is Ben, new guy in school. Bad news? His last girlfriend fell off a cliff while he was with her, and he was accused of her murder. When Camila starts getting mysterious stalker letters there's a slew of male suspects, and bff Kimmie (a drag queen trapped in a high school girl) thinks Ben is at the top of the list, given his past. But Camila can't help but be drawn to him. Can he protect her? The story is peppered with anonymous ramblings (diary entries?) of the stalker, and the reveal is underwhelming. Must be popular enough, though, as a sequel is coming this winter.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • The Everafter
    • Rated 3 stars

    “Ages 12+ (for PG-13 language and violence)

    Madison is dead. She knows this for sure. She is floating in a dark space she refers to as Is. Is is filled with lost objects made of light that float through the ether. By touching these objects, Maddy can return to the points in her life where she lost them. That's how she knows she was no older than 17 when she died...but how it happened? She can't remember. Will it stay that way, or will she find the object that holds the clue to her demise?

    Maddy is sure that her death is somehow tied to Gabe, her boyfriend. Other slightly ominous figures hover in her memories: Dana, Gabe's ex. Tammy, a childhood friend turned drug dealer. Mrs. Simpson, the seemingly Munchausen suffering mother of her best friend, Sandra. The narrative travels non-chronologically through moments of her life as she touches the lost objects, bringing her closer to the truth, and her end.

    Slow to build and with secondary characters that never become fully fleshed out, The Everafter doesn't pack the emotional punch of similar not-quite-dead titles Elsewhere or If I Stay. It's still a good read for girls who like dramatic stories and would work as a readalike for both. ”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, January 21, 2010. ( reply | permalink )
  • Thirst
    • Rated 5 stars

    “The first three books of the awesome 90's series The Last Vampire are back in print!!

    In case you have not read them/read them a long time ago, here's the gist of the series: 5,000 year old Sita is a 98 lb blonde haired, blue eyed vampire who was born in India (back when the Aryans were in India) and met Lord Krishna, who was actually some sort of space alien. The books are all filled to the brim with Hindu mysticism, which I remembered from my first readings, plus a healthy dose of Christian mysticism, which I did not. Sita is about as kickass as you can get, having had tens of thousands of canonical lovers, and probably tens of tens of thousands of victims. But she is mostly REMORSEFUL? Of course, this does not stop her from engaging in such gleeful actions as:

    - smashing skulls between her bare hands
    - twisting multiple necks Jenny Calendar style, notably breaking EVERY VERTEBRAE in the neck every time
    - destroying a bunch of Los Angeles in a battle with the police and military, then stealing a helicopter.
    - nuking an American military base (it was in the DESERT, okay?)
    - involving herself in at least one situation per book that ends a description of being drenched in slippery body gore.
    - etc

    The books are filled with Deus Ex Machina (sometimes literally) and tons of RIDICULOUS plot twists that Pike seemed to invent as he was writing.

    I am 99% sure that none of the series would stand up to even a gentle critical breeze. Somehow, they are as compulsively readable as they were when I was sixteen, and about a million times more EXPLOTASTIC than any current Popular Vampire Series That We Are All Tired of Hearing About (Yes, Especially Librarian Me).

    If you can't wait until the second compilation is reissued in 2010, check your library, as they can definitely get the old editions of the later titles in this fantastic series.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Tuesday, October 13, 2009. ( reply | permalink )
  • Whip it!
    • Rated 3 stars

    “An rollergirl ode to Austin, Texas with enough name and place dropping to make expats teary. (dude, the book mentions Tamale House AND voxtrot.) Maybe not as much appeal for midwestern teens, and the real Austinites could be too jaded, but who knows... light on the plot, but still snappy and entertaining enough.

    In 2007, I called the then-titled Derby Girl "an optional purchase for places where hip clientele is heavy. (also notable for feat. blue haired protagonista, like Alex Bradley's 'hot lunch')"

    In 2009, with the film just over the horizon, it will probably be more in demand.

    --Ann”

    Winnetka Public Library Teens wrote this review Thursday, September 24, 2009. ( reply | permalink )
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Displaying 1-10 of 66 reviews

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