Book Review: Joyride by Amy Ehrlich

In the book Joyride, Nina is used to moving around. Her mother, Joyce, sometimes just packs up everything and takes Nina and herself to the newest town. Now that Nina is growing older, she starts to wonder why she has to keep running away. Why can't she stay and keep her friends, stay on the basketball team, and be best friends with Sam Gordon? Her mother doesn't explain, and after one too many moves, Nina finds out a secret that will make her question her entire life.

I really enjoyed this book because it was a thriller and a bit mysterious. I loved the fact that Nina and her mother had to move a lot, because the author did a very good job about describing the city, it made me feel like I was there too. In the beginning, the book started off a little slow, but towards the middle and right up until the end the book really was a joyride. I had no idea what was coming! This book is geared more towards a teen and adult audience and will leave you speechless!

-Elisa A.

Book Review: TFOB Author Matt de la Pena

It's March which means it's time once again for the Tucson Festival of Books! We've got a bunch of great authors coming and I'm particularly excited about Matt de la Pena. This California native made his writing debut with the book "Ball Don't Lie," which came out in 2005, and was promptly turned into a movie with Ludacris and Nick Cannon. Since then he's published three other great books: "I Will Save You," "We Were Here," and "Mexican White Boy."  You'll be able to see him both Saturday and Sunday throughout the day. Check the TFOB website for his schedule.  

His newest release, "The Living," is the start of an adventure series. Don't be fooled by the cover! It totally looks like a survival book but it's not! It's actually more of mystery/thriller/adventure type of book. Yes, there is a massive earthquake that destroys the West coast and a tsunami that casts all the characters adrift but that's only a small portion of the book. The book actually revolves eighteen-year-old Shy who decides a job on a cruise ship will be a fun and cool way to earn some money to help out his family. (Sunshine, parties, and swimsuit-clad hotties sounds like the best job ever.)  Then suddenly one night a drunk passenger, ranting confusedly, jumps off of the ship. Shy, who was there and tried to save the man, finds himself haunted by his death. Then a mysterious man starts asking questions about the suicide and rooms start getting ransacked. Why did that man jump? What does it have to do with Shy? More importantly, can Shy survive what's to come?

Magic and the Mafia

 White Cat, by Holly Black, is part mystery, part dark urban fantasy, part twisted romance, and part mob story.  I hope you like your fiction dark and bruised, because this story doesn't pull any punches.  It takes place in a world very much like our own, except everyone has to wear gloves to protect themselves from curses.  And our dubious "hero," Cassel Sharpe, knows a little more about working curses than your average Joe.

Cassel wakes up on the roof of his fancy high school dorm and nearly falls to his death. He's been sleepwalking again, and now the school is threatening to expel him as too much of a liability.  Was he really sleepwalking, or was he cursed? He dreamed of following a white cat....

Cassel is the only nonworker in a family of curse workers.  Since curse working was outlawed in the 1920s, most curse workers are employed by the mob.  At first, Cassel thinks he's only got to con his school into letting him back in.  Then he begins to think that the dream about the white cat might be related to the girl he loved when he was fourteen; the girl he killed. At least, that's what his two brothers told him after they dumped the body.  Cassel doesn't remember why he killed her, only that he was standing over her bloody body.  Now Cassel thinks his brothers are hiding something from him, something important.  To learn the horrible truth, he'll have to find the white cat from his dream. But the truth is a dangerous thing when the mob is involved, and Cassel finds himself caught between murder and treachery in the underbelly of curse worker society.

If you like White Cat, the curse workers series continues with Red Glove and Black Heart.

Happy reading.
~gothbrarian

My father's a serial killer, how about yours?!

What would it be like to be raised by a serial killer?  Not a question I ask myself very often but one that must have come up to Barry Lyga, the author of "I Hunt Killers" (I guess after he explored all his questions about superheroes and goth girls, Lyga moved on!).  Jasper "Jazz" Dent lives in the small town of Lobo's Nod, trying to have a normal life after his father was convicted of one hundred and twenty three murders about four years ago.  He is dealing pretty well with school, his girlfriend Connie, his wise-cracking hemophiliac friend Howie, and his crazy-but-harmless grandmother--until dead bodies minus a few fingers start showing up.