The Distance Between Us

The Distance Between Us by Kasie West

While working at her mother's porcelain doll store, Caymen Meyers has had plenty of opportunities to observe and mock the ridiculously rich. Her mom has taught her from early on that they are in different worlds, and that the rich have no time for nothings like them. So when Xander Spence walks into the store to pick up a doll for his grandmother, Caymen immediately notices he's drenched in money, and doesn't take his flirtations seriously. But soon they start spending time together, and Caymen has to reevaluate her opinions on the wealthy, and look her feelings in the face.

While she is busy hiding her budding relationship from her money-hating mom, she realizes that maybe her mom is hiding some things from her as well. All too soon, Caymen learns that there are quite a lot of things that she doesn't know. 

Kasie West is a wizard at young adult romance. This is an incredibly enjoyable contemporary novel, that isn't about embarrassingly dramatic teenagers. If sarcasm is your cup of pre-sipped hot chocolate, than Caymen is the perfect protagonist for you. Her dry humor and fast wit are perfect when she speaks to one of the affluent characters, who can't seem to tell that she's making a joke. 

There are realistic issues in this book, and it's not just about two teenagers being in love. Although to be honest, some of them would have been resolved more easily if they would just talk to each other. I also appreciated that the novel left some open-ended questions, but also feeling "complete." You don't have any questions about how things turned out, but you can speculate as to what might have happened next.

This book is a very quick read and is great for a time when you want something light and relaxing. 

Find it in the young adult section with more of Kasie West's novels!

A Cowboy Melodrama

 

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Girl In the Blue Coat

Girls In the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

Hanneke lives in Amsterdam during WWII. When she first went to work for the local undertaker, she never would have imagined that she would end up selling 'hard to find' items on the black market to those who could afford them. Although her main goal is to keep her family fed, Hanneke does find satisfaction in out maneuvering the Nazi regime.

When one of her elderly clients asks Hanneke to help her find a young Jew that she had been hiding in a closet and has now gone missing, Hanneke tells her she doesn't want to become involved and walks away. But the mystery of the missing girl keeps nagging at her and soon she is doing some research and trying to find the girl.

The atrocities of WWII are countless and yet there were those who did all they could to fight against Nazism. Although this is a work of fiction, it is an example of the difficult decisions and hard consequences that came during this dark time in history.

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Ready Player One

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

It's the year 2044, and nobody can stop talking about the 1980s. Fossil fuels have run dry and the population has exploded. Reality is a depressing ordeal for almost everyone, and so they have all turned to a virtual one. The OASIS is the largest virtual reality role playing game in existence, and most of society is plugged in almost 24/7. You can attend school, go shopping, play games, and more all from the convenience of a pair of gloves and virtual reality glasses. 

Eccentric billionaire James Halliday created this haven, and later revealed he had planted and Easter egg in the game for a special player to find and win all of Halliday's fortune. As soon as Halliday dies, the hunt began, and five years later nobody has gotten any closer to finding the first key. Halliday was obsessed with the 1980s, so the entire population has become obsessed to, hoping to find any clue to get them closer to the 240 billion dollars. Wade Watts is one of the obsessed "gunters" (egg hunters), and he's also the first one to make any progress in the game. As soon as he does, the whole world gets thrown on its head and the race to the egg really takes off.

This was and incredibly fun read! I loved reading about the game, and it was written in a way that you feel as if you're playing along with them. A big portion of the book is trying to solve a very elaborate puzzle, which is interesting and keeps you reading the book. It was one of those that is tough to put down, because you just want to know what's going to happen. It was also a fairly easy read, so the almost 400 pages went very quickly.

Wade grew up without his parents, and in a household that didn't really care much for him. He's socially awkward and a little on the heavy side. The OASIS provided a place for him to be anyone he wants. He can make his avatar more handsome, and it's easier to talk to people through a computer than face to face. Understandably, his whole life in consumed by the OASIS, and he spends every waking hour trying to solve the mystery and continue the game. While the nostalgia for the '80s is fun to read about, the fact that this one decade has taken over all of society is a pretty depressing concept. Nothing new seems to be happening. Everybody watches old movies, and plays old games, and listens to old music. Is anybody even making movies anymore? Is anybody trying to improve this dire world they live in? Or have they all just given up, and chosen to look to the past, and live only in the virtual present.

Ready Player One is a quintessential "nerdy" read. I give it 4.5 out of 5 chaos emeralds.

Find this book in the adult fiction section at the library!

Miracles From Heaven

Miracles From Heaven By Christy Wilson Beam

Annabelle was born with an incurable life threatening digestive disorder that has kept her in and out of hospitals for most of her young life. Though she was usually in pain and never felt too good, she loved playing with her two sisters.

One day while they were climbing an old cottonwood tree, Anna disappeared through a whole in the old tree. No one could imagine that the tree was hollow and that she had fallen almost 35 feet to land on her head in the center of the tree.

Anna was trapped in the dark hollow tree for hours as her parents and then firefighters worked on freeing her from the tree without endangering her even more. Days after she was rescued from the tree, Anna shared with her mom and a few others the amazing story of going to Heaven and meeting Jesus. And then an even larger miracle of being cured from an incurable disease that has left her many doctors and specialists baffled.

This is a truly inspiring story of a modern day miracle.