Teen review: Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Sometimes the love of your life isn’t quite normal. This is what happens to Ethan Wate when he falls in love with Lena Duchannes in Beautiful Creatures, but she isn’t just an outcast, she’s a caster. A caster is like a witch but at the age 16, they get claimed by either the dark or the light side. As Lena’s 16th birthday gets closer, Ethan helps her prepare for her fast approaching birthday. Along the way, they find a locket that causes them to have visions of a caster and a mortal just like them! now, they also have to figure oout why they are seeing this and what the visions mean.

 This book was amazing! It had fear, bravery, love, mystery, humour, light and darkness, and they all blended together perfectly to form a beautiful book...pun intended.

~lyndsey

Review: Zombies Don't Cry

          Zombies Don't Cry by Rusty Fischer

          Maddie was never popular, that is her best friend’s job, so when the hot new boy in her art class invites her to party, she had to say yes. When her dad is asleep, she sneaks out and starts to walk towards the party…in the middle of a storm. Then zap! Lightning struck too close for comfort for Maddie, and she wakes up a little while later face down in the puddle and realized that the party must have been canceled. When she gets home, she slowly realizes that the lightning didn’t strike near her, it struck her and she was now a member of the living dead. She later finds a few zombie class mates who help her survive and teach her that not all zombies are nice, there are some that you have to stay away from. This book was amazing and I couldn’t put it down! With the perfect amount of supernatural and (somewhat) realistic events, this book is a must read for any zombie lover!

~ Lyndsey

Kat's note: HPL doesn't own this title, however, did you know we can order you books from other library systems? True! Use the Interlibrary Loan form to request any title you like and we'll do our best to get it for you! 

Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

The Selection by Kiera Cass

America Singer wants no part in the competition for the prince’s heart, she doesn’t even want to try...

In a world that is separated into the rich and the poor, the Singer family is nowhere close to the top. In fact, they are only three castes (levels based on wealth and jobs) away from the bottom and are always struggling to make ends meet. So, when 16 year old America Singer gets a letter stating that she is eligible to join the selection and has a chance to compete with all of the other chosen girls for Prince Maxon’s hand in marriage, her mother tries to persuade her to enter. The problem with this though, is the fact that America already has a boyfriend that she loves, but has to keep a secret from her mom because he is in a lower caste. After some persuading, she decides to enter the selection, after all, every girl in the country will be entering and only 35 will compete. Of course though, America isn’t that lucky and ends up getting brought to the castle to compete against 34 other women, and eat as much of the palace’s food as she can before she gets kicked out!

I absolutely loved this book! It was a romantic story with just the right amount of conflict and fairy tale. I would recommend the selection to anybody who liked the Hunger Games and a lot of romance.

~ Lyndsey

Review: Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

Jessica’s Guide to Dating on the Dark Side by Beth Fantaskey

Jessica Packwood is a ‘mathlete’(aka really good at math!) who refuses to believe in anything that can’t be explained by logic and facts. Her parents however, are researchers who have always been supernatural fanatics. They are so obsessed with the supernatural that years ago they went to Romania to witness a ritual of a cult that they were researching. While they were there, the cult was threatened and so they were asked to bring Antanasia Dragomir (a baby of one of the cult members) back to America to keep her safe. This is the story that Jessica has heard her entire life, how she was born in Romania and adopted into a vegan family in rural Pennsylvania, but when a new student shows up in her school during senior year, the story changes drastically. Jessica’s adoption was her deepest secret, only her best friend knew it, but suddenly the creepy foreign exchange student who claims to be from a royal family arrives, and he too knows her secret. Lucius Vladescu is from a royal vampire family in Romania and was betrothed to Antanasia, the daughter of another royal vampire family, at a ritual before she was brought to America. While Lucius is trying to teach Jessica how to act more like a vampire princess and trying to win her trust and affection (with a little competition from her crush), Jessica will be teaching Lucius how to act more like an American teenager.

This book was an amazing story that had a perfect balance of a fairy tale romance, a mysterious new vampire, and a girl trying to accept the unbelievable in order to find out who she really is... and she thought that her senior year was going to be easy!

 ~lyndsey

Review: Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult and Samantha Van Leer

Delilah is a high school student who is obsessed with a book intended for kids. The book in question is a fairy tale about a prince named Oliver, who was born without courage. Oliver decides to go out on an adventure to save a princess named Sarafine. This is what happens while the story is being read, but when the book is closed and the characters are free to do whatever they please, Prince Oliver does not love Sarafine, in fact he wants nothing to do with her. He's to busy trying to get the attention of another girl, the one on the outside named Delilah. Delilah is reading the book one day, like she does so often, when she notices that some things are different this time, was that chessboard there the last time she read it? Was it just her imagination, or did Prince Oliver just write the word help in the rock? Slowly Delilah realizes that there is more to the story than is normally seen, and she begins to fall in love with Prince Oliver. Together, the two try whatever they can think of to get Prince Oliver out of the book and into the real world so that they can create a better happily ever after together.


I loved this book, it gets the reader thinking about what really goes on in the picture books when you close the pages, it shows the amount of bravery a man born without bravery can actually have, and it was a classic long distance romance novel with a magical twist. The only question is...how will the leaving of the main character affect the story?

~ Lyndsey

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

For so long the stories that his grandpa told him were just that, stories.

                Jacob Portman had always been close to his grandfather, he envied the adventures he went on, and he liked the pictures he showed, but his favourite things were  the stories that his grandpa told him. Grandpa Portman grew up during the war in an orphanage off of the coast of Wales, and the stories were always about the kids that he grew up with, and the adventures that they had together. The strange thing about the stories though, was all the humanlike monsters that were involved, oh, and the fact that all of the kids had supernatural abilities. Obviously, Jacob stopped believing the stories, and soon enough, the  16 year old’s grandfather died of an animal attack. Shortly after his grandfather’s death, Jacob starts to see some of the monsters from the stories and realised  that the stories are true. Even worse, the monsters  are planning something terrible. In order to carry out his grandpa’s last wishes,which include finding the orphanage, and hopefully stop these monsters from haunting his nightmares,  Jacob needs to go to the orphanage and seek the help of the kids. This task would be easy, if the orphanage had not been abandoned since 1940, and everybody living in it was pronounced dead long ago.

The real- life photographs in the book add a realistic feel to a very unrealistic topic, and they help the reader feel more involved with the characters and the story. I thought that they were a nice touch, and were one of the reasons that I could barely put the book down! Although at times i found it a little slow-paced, the twist near the end is worth it!

~Lyndsey

The Morganville Vampires: Glass Houses and The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine

The Morganville Vampires: Glass Houses and The Dead Girls' Dance by Rachel Caine

In a small town in Texas named Morganville lies a huge secret!

There is a new girl in Texas Prairie University this year, Claire Danvers, a 16 year old girl from out of town. Claire is an early admissions student to the university, who gets on the wrong side of all the wrong people. This is extremely dangerous for her because the mean girls, who are mad at her, have the clear protection of the worst vampires in town (meaning that if anyone tries to hurt them, the vampire will not hesitate to kill whoever did it). These girls will not leave Claire, or “the baby” as she is known to them, alone without their revenge, and they are NOT afraid to kill people to get that revenge! To escape the dorm, where she is living in constant fear of their next move, Claire decides to live off campus without any permission, in a house full of strangers, who later become her best friends (Shane Collins, Eve Rosser, and the owner of the house, Michael Glass). In this house, Claire may just uncover some secrets that were covered for good reasons.

In the second book in the volume: the Dead Girls Dance, Claire's boyfriend's life is put on the line by his father. A vampire turns up dead in a town that is ruled by vampires, and everybody blames him (Shane), and his father. Claire will do anything to save him, even if it means surrendering her own life, freedom, or quite possibly- her blood.


~Lyndsey

Review: Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer

Vladimir Tod: Eighth Grade Bites by Heather Brewer

Vladimir Tod was a perfectly normal student, if you take away the fact of him being an eighth grade vampire! He wasn’t popular at all, but his best friend was. With the added bonus of having a crush on the most popular girl in school, and a couple of bullies harassing him, this alone would add up to a very busy eighth grade year! But that would be too easy, and nothing’s that easy for Vlad. So instead of having a fun, relaxing eighth grade year, seeing the teachers that he has know for a few years and having to say goodbye to them, his regular teacher is declared missing and a substitute named Mr.Otis Otis takes over. 

Vlad feels that there is something unusual about Mr. Otis, especially when he starts to ask Vlad weird questions and gives him assignments that could reveal who Vlad really is to the entire class (such as: hand out the garlic to the rest of the class or, write a journal entry from the point of view of a vampire). 

With crushing on Meredith, controlling his bloodlust, keeping his secret a secret, getting the weird substitute off his trail, and doing everything with only the help of the 2 people who know his secret (his best friend and his aunt Nelly), Vladimir has his work cut out for him this year. The only question that remains is... has Vlad bitten off more than he can chew?

~Lyndsey

Review: Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel

Infinite Days by Rebecca Maizel

Lenah Beaudonte (vampire princess)was as evil as one could get...that is until one decision turns her life around for good! Lenah is starting to get bored of killing people for fun and wants to get rid of the bloodlust so her soul mate (Rhode) and her decide that they will perform a sacrifice ritual that is highly deadly and requires lenah to be buried in a grave for about a century. After a highly effective ritual and two days of rest, Lenah is soon a perfectly normal 16 year old girl....who wears a necklace with the remains of Rhode around her neck. In the next few days Lenah gets ready for her new life by making friends (and a special friend) with some people that are supposed to be in her class at Wickham, learning the ways that the people speak, learning how people expect to be spoken to, and getting accustomed to the campus of Wickham school- where she will be attending classes....and prom. With the challenge of hiding from the rest of her coven who will be looking for her starting in October, and the added challenges of learning how to drive, work a computer, stereo, and t.v. this year will definitely be one to remember.

                This book is perfect for all vampire lovers. With the perfect combination of sacrifice and romance it leaves readers thirsting for more!

~ Lyndsey

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Please welcome our newest reviewer, Lyndsey! Lyndsey brings us our first review of the year for Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor. 

Can mortal enemies fall in love- during a war?

Daughter of Smoke and Bone is about a girl named Karou raised by “monsters” called chimaera. Chimaera are the opposite of the angels, the other inhabitants of this world. Chimaera are usually a mixture of two or more creatures-such as a gazelle/bat/human. Karou was raised from an infant in the “lair” or house of one of the most powerful chimaera in the worlds- Brimstone (the tooth collecter). For years Karou had lived with him in the house (which is halfway between the chimaera world and our world) and she lived a normal life. Well there was one thing that wasn’t normal in her life- the teeth. Whenever Brimstone needed teeth delivered he sent her to get them for him- not exactly the most normal odd-job! These errands were pretty hard to hide because she was an art student in Prague and more often than not they were in places like France, San Francisco, and sometimes Canada! So one day she was in the Jemaa el-Fna (a marketplace in Morocco) and she spotted an angel and well it was love at first fight.

Meanwhile, all  around the world, black hand prints were appearing burned on doors-and only the doors that are used as portals to transport teeth to Brimstone. This may have been allarming to Karou and Brimstone especially  when all of the doors mysteriously burst into flame and Karou is left to fend for herself Karou feels even more frightened and feels the need to find her family. In order to find them and make sure that Brimstone and the few chimaera that she knows (or knew) are safe-she needs to find out who she is, and why she was brought up in the care of Brimstone and not human parents. Karou can’t do all of this alone though, and may need to seek help from the chimaera’s enemy- Akiva- the angel that she saw in the Jemaa el-Fna.

This book is a great read if you love supernatural romances  that are impossible to put down most of the time! I know that I couldn’t put it down at all!

~Lyndsey