If I Stay by Gayle Forman

Mia is in love with her boyfriend Adam, the rocker. She is in love with the cello, her first passion - the one that is going to take her to Juilliard. She loves her family dearly. Her mother and father who are still in love, her much younger brother, Teddy. Her best friend, Kim, is someone else that she loves. She is surrounded by so much goodness.

School is canceled one morning. Another great day?

It might have been, but a brutal car accident robs Mia of her whole family in one brief moment.

As she struggles with the choice of staying on earth or returning to her coma bound body, Mia flashes back to every single thing that makes life on earth worth living. Recognizing that no one else survived the accident, she thinks on the little ways that her family influenced and touched her life, the stories and experiences that connected them. As Mia wades through the toughest decision she will ever make, return to her beat and battered body and endure life without the people she loves the most or choose to die and go on to the unknown, readers are introduced to a tender and gentle story about love, loss, and the blessing that is family.

My friend put a caveat on this book, and I completely agree: read it with kleenex nearby.
It is stunning.
Stunning!

For more information on this title, click here!
For more information on this amazing author or to watch the booktrailer, click here!!
For more information on how this book is being turned into a movie, click here!!!

Bad Girls Don't Die by Katie Alender

Kids are always, ALWAYS asking me "where can I find a scary book", and I love suggesting The Devouring by Simon Holt. Now, however, I will be glad to hand over Katie Alender's brand spanking new novel, Bad Girls Don't Die. (Shoot - just check out that cover...that alone would sell it!!!)

Our main character, Alex, has a somewhat dysfunctional family. Dad - disconnected. Mom - workaholic. Sister - her sister is sweet and Alex genuinely loves her. Alex herself is shut off from people. Pink haired rebel, she doesn't have many/any friends at school.

Alex begins to notice things around her house and about her sis. Something isn't quite right, but she can't put her finger on it. Alex begins to wonder if she is going crazy, or if she's really experiencing the things she thinks she is. She starts noticing small things - like the pasta boiling on the stove top...the stove top that she never turned on...or did she?? And what's up with the changes in her sister?

As we race with Alex to find out the truth, we learn we are minutes away from a deadline that will change everything.

Readers of supernatural thrillers won't be disappointed with this ditty.
Chalked full of interesting twists and turns, you will be unable to put this book down, fully engaged until the last page!

Watch the incredibly creepy trailer by clicking here!
Enjoy!!

Two Girls of Gettsburg by Lisa Klein

We often hear historical tales of brother fighting brother during the Civil War. Author Lisa Klein takes it a step further in her new novel, Two Girls of Gettysburg. Cousins Rosanna and Lizzie are average teenage girls living in Gettysburg when the novel starts. They attend school, they have crushes on boys, they have families.

When the Civil War begins, driven by their convictions, all of Lizzie's family joins the Union cause. Her father joins the Union and her brother sneaks off in the night to follow him.

Rosanna runs away back to her family home in Richmond and aligns her convictions with those of the Confederacy. These two girls who were best friends, now find themselves on opposite sides of the war.

Immature Rosanna is married, widowed, and becomes a field nurse, finding more courage and confidence than she would have thought possible.

With all of the men in Lizzie's life gone, she must pick up the mantle and run the family business until things "return to normal". She must face tough choice that will affect her whole family and face down issues that will change lives forever.

When a battle of epic proportions converges on the town of Gettysburg. Each girl will be tested.

As each girl grows and changes within the context of a war that tore apart the country, the reader is taken on a historical journey of remarkable heroism and hardship.
Klein does a spectacular job of creating a fiction work that maintains accuracy while weaving a fascinating plot.
It is a slow and thorough read, as you do not want to lose even one detail included in the writing.
More than that, however, this novel plants some very good ideas about how things were for women left at home when the war commenced: their fears, their hopes, the stories that we don't always hear because the battles were so horrific and took up the focus of the nation.
It is a novel about women facing down very serious choices and persevering during immense personal hardships. It is a novel about both contributions and sacrifices.

Find out more about this amazing author by clicking here!

Freeze Frame by Heidi Ayarbe

So this book, Freeze Frame, had been sitting on my desk awhile. I didn't know anything about it, just that it was on my reading list. From the MINUTE I opened the page, Ayarbe had me completely hooked. I could not put this book down. I just knew that if I stopped reading, I would be haunted by Kyle's next move and I couldn't take it.

We begin with best friends Jason and Kyle horsing around at breakfast. After they push things too far with Kyle's sister, they decide to head out to the woodshed and see what treasures they can find.

What they find is Kyle's father's gun. And somehow that gun goes off and Jason is shot in the chest. At 10:46 he dies.

Kyle feels like he should be put on trial and convicted of murder. Things can't get any worse than how he already feels. How is he ever going to get over this? It is too large.

While waiting for his trial, Kyle meets with a shrink, a lady that he can't quite get comfortable with. He tries to write the scene of what happened that day, the day when he shot his best friend, but he simply can't remember. When he finds out that his only punishment is to have a parole officer that he meets with in addition to the shrink, he can't wrap his mind around it. How can they just let him go? He should get the death sentence. And maybe that is what the kids at school are for? They don't let him off the hook as easily as the justice system does. They ostracize him, beat him up, force him to stand up for himself...which only gets him into more trouble with his parole officer.

Along the way, though, Kyle forms several cathartic relationships. One is with Jason's younger brother, Chase. Kyle promises Jas that he will watch over his little brother, and it is a promise that he intends to keep. He meets Chase every day after school to protect him from the bullies. Chase dubs him the Orange Dragon because of his shoes and his "job" as bouncer.
Kyle also gets to know the school librarian through In-School-Suspension and through lunches where he doesn't quite feel comfortable enough to eat in the caf. While exploring life's truths through the novels Mr. Cordoba gives him, Kyle starts to learn about what it means to be a friend, to have a friend, and ultimately, to lose a friend.

Love, loss, personal ownership of deeds, and healing are all written so well by Ayarbe that you can't help but get involved in Kyle's life and his feelings.

As a side note, when I wrote the author to tell her how much I enjoyed her novel, she wrote back and was very appreciative. She also shared that Freeze Frame was just announced as the IRA's 2009 Children & YA Fiction Award. Kudos to a job well done!!

To read more from the author about this fantastic book, which is middle and hs appropriate, click here!!