Tuck Everlasting

The first week in August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning."

If you have a chance with forever what would you do? This is probably how I will summarize Natalie Babbitt's Tuck Everlasting. A novel for those who thinks that living forever to be a good and exciting idea. It's a story about 10-year-old Winnie Foster stumbling upon the spring of life while exploring the woods. She met Jesse Tuck where she got intrigued with the unusual life he lives with his parents. The Tuck family was the only one who knows it, until Winnie came along.

Winnie got kidnapped and along the way helped a murderer out of jail. When she was offered the ultimate gift she finds that she doesn't know whether to accept or not. I really loved the part where the author makes us realize that there is a natural cycle of life and we shouldn't really interfere with this idea by escaping or avoiding the idea of death. It's a good fantasy story with interesting adventures that readers will surely like.

Sarah, Plain and Tall

Here is one book of Patricia MacLachlan that I particularly enjoyed and realy loved. I guess the awards and honors it gathered throughout the years are enough proof that it was well-loved and well-received. It is about widower Jacob Whitting, his children, Anna and Calab and their quest to fill the emptiness left by their wife and mother who just died. So Jacob posted an ad in the paper seeking for a wife and got a response from a certain Sarah Elisabeth Wheaton from Maine. After numerous correspondence with each other, Sarah decided to go to the Whitting's prairie home.

Of course there were adjustments upon Sarah's arrival. Questions were flying such as "can she really fill in their mother's shoes?" or "can Sarah get used to living in the farm away from the ocean far away from her loved ones?" It is a warm story of people that are learning to live with each other and becoming a family in the end simply because they've grown to love each other. In the author's simple language, she gave us vivid images and meaningful story.

I Am The Cheese

This is the type of book that I will definitely would want to recommend to everybody written by Chocolate Wars author, Robert Cormier. It tells of Adam's story and his quest to find his father after finding out that his family is part of a witness protection program. His parents has been keeping secrets from him all these years. As he struggles to determine who he is, he is faced with a terrifying truth of a government more willing to protect its own power than protecting life.

This is quite a psychological and suspenseful book that became controversial in earlier times. The story is told through flashbacks in some chapters but at the beginning we are informed that Adam is riding his bicycle all throughout. This is a very engaging and gripping novel that made me really think because it is unlike other young adult's literature books. I guess with the funny title some people didn't really thought it could be a good read but if you read the book you will find out why.

Sushi For Beginners

Marian Keyes always write good books with good plots with interesting and loveable characters. It revolves around the lives of three different women in Dublin. There's Ashling Kennedy, nicknamed "Little Miss Fix It" by Jack Devine. She is very practical and is always ready to help colleagues from simple stuffs as bandages to hairsprays. Lisa Edwards, Ashling's bitter boss who felt she was demoted after being transferred to Dublin to launch a brand new magazine from her previous glitzy London editor job. And there's Clodagh Kelly, a beautiful working woman married to a handsome, successful man with two equally beautiful babies but can't seem to be satisfied with her husband and seems to be having the urge to kiss a frog!

Sushi for Beginners is a wonderful chicklit about the search for happiness and the continuous search for it. Unlike Keyes previous novels, this one does not tackle alcoholism, drug abuse or violence because this is more of a family roots examination and its impact to the working women's lives. As usual, Marian Keyes delivers a funny, poignant tale that might be predictable at times but a satisfying read at the very end.

The Truth About Forever

Often, our lives are mapped out way ahead with all the plans and dreams we have intricately written. Then something comes between it that we are force to rethink our plans. Macy Queen was supposed to spend all of her summer working at the library while her boyfriend is away in some Brain Camp. On her free time, she will study for her SATs or thinking about the recent death of her father, which she personally witnessed. She might look so composed and everything with all the stuffs that happening in her life but deep inside, she is actually drowning.

All of this have changed though when she met the Delia who runs a catering service named Wish Catering after her late sister who died of cancer. She runs the business with her nephews Bert and Wes with Kristy and Monica. They are everything that Macy isn't. They live for the moment, fun albeit chaotic most time and endearing. Macy ditched her summer job in the library and is soon spending all her time with the Wish crew. Plus the romance between Macy and artistic Wes is interesting. Go ahead and find out why when you read Sarah Dessen's enjoyable book.

Stargirl

I read this book a long time ago that I don't really remember much what it's about. So recently, while I was on a vacation, I collected all the books I wanted to read (and reread) every book that I've ignored and books that I've missed over the years. And so Stargirl has come back to life. She is not your average 16-year-old for she possessed a mysterious, almost magical personality. She is not one to conform in the popular crowds, in fact with everything. Who brings their pet rat and ukelele in school everyday, dresses in long prairie skirts, decorates her desk with flowers and cheers on the other team during school games.

At first the studen in Mica High were in awe with her, she's different, eccentric and egoless. Her classmates doesn't know whether to love her for her guts or hate her for having the gall to break the school rules. She caught Leo Borlock's attention upon her arrival, the narrator of the book. It's a book about conformity, acceptance, free-spirits, friendship, love and diversity. When someone is different from us, we tend to outcast them and make them feel so left out just because they have a totally different outook in life and does not go with the flow. It's a book that can be read and enjoyed both by young and the old!

Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging

The first book among the series about a 14-year-old Georgia Nicolson who is so much like a younger version of Bridget Jones. She thinks that most things in her life are very wrong. Like a bedroom that smells a little because of her little sister who tends to leave wet nappies at the foot of her bed, her cat Angus causes terror to neighboring animal pets, parents who embarrassed her and friends that think she is an alien after having accidentally shaved her eyebrows!

Despite all this, and trying to survive an all-girls school everyday, life is pretty much normal for Georgia who has great interest in boys: meeting them, attracting them and likely snogging with them! This book is so funny I really had a great time reading it and learning some British expressions along the way. It's enough to make anyone laugh, even the "most pofaced bloke" (sad looking guy). I couldn't agree more. Share it with friends and you'll never regret it.