Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird

Year: 1960

Number of Pages: 296

Reading Level: 8th grade

Review:
     I don't think I could ever read this book too many times. I've spent countless hours reading it, pulling it apart, analyzing it, and it still brings me to tears and lifts my spirits. In fact, in collecting books for this blog, I realized that I own three copies of it.
     To Kill a Mockingbird is infused with such beautiful prose and imagery that I'm taken on an adventure every time I open its pages. I learn something new about each character every time I read it, and the lessons that serve as the themes are remarkable. One remarkable thing about this book is how actively it avoids being preachy or self-righteous, it carries its moral compass proudly but subtly, much like lead character Atticus Finch. I consider this to be a must-read for anyone.

Questionable Themes:
Objectionable Language (racial slurs)

Books Like To Kill a Mockingbird:
The Crucible by Arthur Miller
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Summary:
     The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy Southern town and the crisis of conscience that rocked it. Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior -- to innocence and experience, kindness and cruelty, love and hatred, humor and pathos. Now with over 18 million copies in print and translated into forty languages, this regional story by a young Alabama woman claims universal appeal. Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story. Today, it is regarded as a masterpiece of American literature.

Lois Lowry

The Giver

Year: 1993

Number of Pages: 240

Reading Level: 6th grade

Review:
     The Giver was the first piece of dystopian literature I ever read, and I've been hooked ever since. The people in this novel live in a world in which pain is seen as the ultimate evil. In order to eliminate pain and suffering, individuality and desire must be sacrificed. The protagonist in the story discovers that, without pain and suffering, there can be no true joy and happiness. My favorite parts in this book were moments in which The Giver transferred memories to Jonas. Imagining the sensation of receiving these memories and thoughts really draws in the reader to the mystery of the story. I've read this novel several times, and I've noticed new details each time!

Questionable Themes:
None

Books Like The Giver:
The Midwife's Apprentice by Karen Cushman
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
Matched by Allie Condie
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Summary:
     Jonas's world is perfect. Everything is under control. There is no war or fear or pain. There are no choices. Every person is assigned a role in the Community. When Jonas turns twelver, he is singled out to receive special training from The Giver. The Giver alone holds the memories of the true pain and pleasure of life. Now, it is time for Jonas to receive the truth. There is no turning back.

Sarah Dessen

The Truth About Forever

Year: 2004

Number of Pages: 374

Reading Level: 7th grade

Review:
     Let's start by laying it all out there: this is my favorite book, and Sarah Dessen is my favorite author. I have read The Truth About Forever approximately a dozen times, and I'm not sick of it yet. Sarah Dessen creates some of my favorite characters of all time. Every time she releases a new book, I jump for joy and buy it right away, trying to stop myself from devouring it all in one day because once I'm finished, I know I have a long time to wait before another one will be published. I will likely eventually include all of her books on here, but for now I'll just focus on my favorite.
     I love the themes presented in this book. Most prominently: you don't have to be perfect. No one expects you to be perfect, and it's not all it's cracked up to be. Watching Macy's wall of perfection crumble as she opens up to her new friends and to her family is so heartwarming, and reminds me to try to be as open and honest with those I love as possible. The characters in The Truth About Forever are incredibly believable, and by the end of the book, I feel as if I know them. Character development is one of the biggest things I look for when I pick up a book, which is why Sarah Dessen sits right at the top of my list!


Questionable Themes:
None

Books Like The Truth About Forever:
Wild Roses by Deb Caletti
Icing on the Lake by Catherine Clark
Two-Way Street by Lauren Barnholdt
Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver
24 Girls in 7 Days by Alex Bradley

Summary:
     A long dull summer stretches ahead of Macy while her boyfriend Jason is away at Brain Camp. Days will be spent at a boring job in the library, evenings will be filled with vocabulary drills for the SATs, and spare time will be passed with her mother, the two of them sharing a silent grief at the loss of her father.
     But sometimes unexpected things can happen -- things like the catering job at Wish, with its fun-loving, chaotic crew. Or her sister's project of renovating the neglected beach house, awakening long-buried memories. Things like meeting Wes, a boy with a past, a taste for Truth-telling, and an amazing artistic talent, the kind of boy who could turn any girl's world upside down. As Macy ventures out of her shell, she begins to wonder if it really is better to be safe than sorry.

Anonymous Teen Diary (with Dr. Beatrice Sparks)

*Anonymous Teen Diaries edited by Dr. Beatrice Sparks*

Review:
     I will throw a warning out there right away, these books are rough. Taken from the pages of teen diaries, they tell the tales of young people who have been wrapped in turmoil. I cried at least once when reading each of these novels, but I can't say that I'm sorry I read any of them. They are haunting true tales that will stick with you long after reading them.
     These novels show the snowball effect that can happen all too frequently in teen's lives, starting with a seemingly innocent drink, kiss, etc. They depict how quickly things can spiral out of control, and can serve as a warning for teenagers and a reminder for some that they aren't alone.

Questionable Themes:
Drugs, Sex, Drinking, Cult and Witchcraft

Books Like the Anonymous Teen Diaries:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
Crank by Ellen Hopkins
Snitch by Allison van Diepen
Cut by Patricia McCormick
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

Go Ask Alice
Year: 1971

Number of Pages: 214

Reading Level: 6th grade

Summary:
"After you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs..."
     The harrowing true story of a teenager's descent into the seductive world of drugs. A diary so honest you may think you know Alice -- or someone like her. Read her diary. Enter her world. You'll never be able to forget Alice.    

It Happened to Nancy
Year: 1994

Number of Pages: 259

Reading Level: 6th grade

Summary:
     Nancy was an innocent fourteen-year-old when she fell in love for the very first time. Collin was a dream come true -- a handsome college student, and he made her trust him completely. Then he date-raped her and left her -- infected with the HIV virus.
     This is Nancy's own story, taken from the pages of her diary. It reveals her deepest feelings -- from the wonderful romantic fantasies of first love to the nightmare of facing the cruel reality of AIDS. With her body ravaged by the deadly virus, her youthful dreams destroyed, and death very near, Nancy made the decision to make her most private thoughts and experiences public in the hope of saving others from the same tragic fate.

Jay's Journal
Year: 1978

Number of Pages: 192

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     Jay was a nice, bright high school kid who cared about good grades, good friends, good times -- and as few hassles with his parents as possible. He thought someday he might be a doctor, a lawyer, maybe a writer. He thought he could handle anything. But he was wrong.
     When school days began to twist into a haze of drugs and drinking...when his girlfriend's addiction led him to steal pills from his father's pharmacy...when a charismatic friend lured him into a nightmare world of the occult, Jay couldn't handle it. Helplessly fascinated, he plunged into a world of Ouija boards and witchcraft, animal sacrifice and Satanism...into a black abyss from which there seemed no escape.

Treacherous Love
Year: 2000

Number of Pages: 176

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     Fourteen-year-old Jennie's life is turning upside-down. Her father has walked out, and her anguished mother seeks solace in pills. Her best friend practically abandons her to be with a boyfriend. Suddenly, Jennie's real best friend is her diary, until she meets Mr. Johnstone -- JJ -- the substitute math teacher. Soon their friendship moves far beyond the classroom, and Jennie's diary becomes a record of her loneliness, insecurity, and confusion about her feelings for JJ. Will it also offer her a way to escape from his treacherous love?

Annie's Baby
Year: 1998

Number of Pages: 256

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     When Annie discovers she's pregnant by her boyfriend, she's devastated. She has never felt so alone. With no one she can talk to, she pours her heart out to her diary, confiding her feelings of panic, self-doubt, and the desperate hope that someday she can turn her life around. She decides she wants to keep her baby and dreams of loving and caring for this little person. But after the baby is born, it's in her diary that she faces the agonizing question: Can she really raise this child on her own?

Short Stories

Lamb to the Slaughter by Roald Dahl
Year: 1953

Hook:
     Mary Maloney, a pregnant young woman, waits for her husband Patrick to return home from his job as a detective for the local police. When he returns, Mary notices that he is strangely aloof and assumes that he has had trouble at work. After blatantly ignoring her, Patrick finally confesses his intent to leave her...

Review:
     This is an intriguingly dark tale, unexpected from the man who wrote such silly stories as The Twits, Matilda, The BFG, etc. Dahl includes his trademark wit, adding a contrast to the dark nature of the story. With tension, surprising contrasts, and twists at every turn, there is enough intrigue packed into this short story to leave the reader begging for more!

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Year: 1948

Hook:
    The villagers of a small town gather together in the square on June 27, a beautiful day, for the town lottery. In other towns, the lottery takes longer, but there are only 300 people in this village, so the lottery takes only two hours. Village children, who have just finished school for the summer, run around collecting stones. They put the stones in their pockets and make a pile in the square. Men gather next, followed by the women. Parents call their children over, and families stand together...

Review:
     This is one of my favorite short stories. The story blew my mind, and still haunts me to this day. While the reader is aware from the very beginning that there is something slightly unsettling about the town's lottery, the answer isn't revealed until the very end. I found it to be the kind of ending for which the author left hints all along the way, and yet the result still feels like a smack in the face. For this reason, it's a story I love going back to and re-reading to pick up on the evidence I hadn't noticed on a previous read.

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
Year: 1973

Hook:
     Omelas is a utopian city of happiness and delight, who's inhabitants are intelligent and cultured. Everything about Omelas is pleasing, except for the city's one atrocity, which all citizens should be told about upon coming of age...

Review: 
     Ever since I read this a few years ago, I've recommended it to nearly everyone in my life. It's a beautiful story with a dark undertone that poses a moral dilemma, one that does not seem to have a solid answer and is left rolling through your head after reading it. While this kind of doubt and questioning can make some people deeply uncomfortable, I think it's a very eye-opening element to add into the world of literature. A haunting, goosebump-inducing tale that will leave you wondering, "Would I be one walk away from Omelas?"

Scott Westerfeld

*The Uglies Series by Scott Westerfeld*

Review:
     While this is a typical YA Dystopian novel series that doesn't necessarily have the most original storyline, Westerfeld writes beautifully and I had a hard time putting these books down. The characters are well-developed and believable, and it wasn't just full of fluff. These books are packed with symbolism, metaphors, and deep-running themes. The author delivers a powerful message in a way that's accessible and enjoyable for readers. Probing questions about perception and our future, Westerfeld leads us on an exciting journey with Tally and Aya that is simultaneously funny and frightening, haunting and beautiful.

Questionable Themes:
Violence

Books Like the Uglies Series:

The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

The Host by Stephanie Meyer

Divergent Series by Veronica Roth

Uglies
Year: 2005

Number of Pages: 432

Reading Level: 5th-6th grade

Summary:
     Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning Pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent Ugly into a stunningly attractive Pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.
     But Tally's friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the Pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn Pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Pretties
Year: 2005

Number of Pages: 370

Reading Level: 5th-6th grade

Summary:
     Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted.
     But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with Pretty life, and the fun stops cold.
     Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life -- because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive.


Specials
Year: 2006

Number of Pages: 372

Reading Level: 5th-6th grade

Summary:

"Special Circumstances":
     The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious Ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor -- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. Ordinary Pretties might live their whole lives without meeting a Special. But Tally's never been ordinary.
     And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the Uglies down and the Pretties stupid. The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tally can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more.
     Still, it's easy to tune that out -- until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programmed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.

Extras
Year: 2007

Number of Pages: 417

Reading Level: 4th-5th grade

Summary:
     It's a few years after rebel Tally Youngblood took down the Uglies/Pretties/Specials regime. Without those strict roles and rules, the world is in a complete cultural renaissance. "Tech-heads" flaunt their latest gadgets, "kickers" spread gossip and trends, and "surge monkeys" are hooked on extreme plastic surgery. And it's all monitored on a bazillion different cameras. The world is like a gigantic game of American Idol. Whoever is getting the most buzz gets the most votes. Popularity rules.
     As if being fifteen doesn't suck enough, Aya Fuse's rank of 451,369 is so low, she's a total nobody. An extra. Her only chance to escape extra-land is to find a big story to kick -- something wild and unexpected.
     Then Aya meets a clique of girls who pull crazy tricks, yet are deeply secretive of it. But the Sly Girls are hiding something bigger -- an explosive discovery that may change the face of the brave new world forever. If Aya kicks this story, she'll be propelled into the world of fame, celebrity...and extreme danger. A world she's not prepared for.

Suzanne Collins

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins

Review:
     While it was a little difficult to get past the whole "kids killing each other" thing, these books SUCKED ME IN. I was a little late on the draw in reading this series, but once I started, I devoured it. I ended up being extremely glad that I started in while on a road trip with my family, because I had countless hours of sitting in a car to devote to reading these books.
     I will admit that I had a hard time with some of the names (the baker's son is named Peeta? Like "pita," GET IT? *groan*), and there were some aspects of the book that were a bit cliche, but Suzanne Collins has created a world that is equal parts fantastical and believable, and I can't deny that I was consistently itching to find out what would happen next. I found myself genuinely caring about each character in the book, even the smaller side characters, like Katniss' prep team, and the ones who irritated me (talkin' to you, Gale).
     Another pull for this series is the ever-so-popular love triangle. If you're the kind of person who enjoys some good love-triangle tension, this may be a good series for you!

Questionable Themes:
Violence

Books Like The Hunger Games Series:The Giver by Lois Lowry
The Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld
The Maze Runner by James Dashner
Legend by Marie Lu
Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan


The Hunger Games
Year: 2008

Number of Pages: 384

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister, regards it as a death sentence when she is forced to represent her district in the Games. But Katniss has been close to death and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Catching Fire
Year: 2009

Number of Pages: 391

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     Against all odds, Katniss has won the Hunger Games. She and fellow District 12 tribute Peeta Mellark are miraculously still alive. Katniss should be relieved, happy even. After all, she has returned to her family and her longtime friend, Gale. Yet nothing is the way Katniss wishes it to be. Gale holds her at an icy distance. Peeta has turned his back on her completely. And there are whispers of a rebellion against the Capitol -- a rebellion that Katniss and Peeta may have helped create.
     Much to her shock, Katniss has fueled an unrest she's afraid she cannot stop. And what scares her even more is that she's not entirely convinced she should try. As time draws near for Katniss and Peeta to visit the districts on the Capitol's cruel Victory Tour, the stakes are higher than ever. If they can't prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that they are lost in their love for each other, the consequences will be horrifying.

Mockingjay
Year: 2010

Number of Pages: 400

Reading Level: 7th grade

Summary:
     Katniss Everdeen, girl on fire, has survived, even though her home has been destroyed. Gale has escaped. Katniss' family is safe. Peeta has been captured by the Capitol. District 13 really does exist. There are rebels. There are new leaders. A revolution is unfolding.
     It is by design that Katniss was rescued from the arena in the cruel and haunting Quarter Quell, and it is by design that she has long been part of the revolution without knowing it. District 13 has come out of hte shadows and is plotting to overthrow the Capitol. Everyone, it seems, has had a hand in the carefully laid plans -- except Katniss.
     The success of the rebellion hinges on Katniss' willingness to be a pawn, to accept responsibility for countless lives, and to change the course of the future of Panem. To do this, she must put aside her feelings of anger and distrust. She must become the rebels' Mockingjay -- no matter what the personal cost.

Welcome!

Welcome to Mrs. Spear's Bookshelf! I am an absolute bookworm, and Young Adult Literature is one of my favorite genres. I have been reading YA Literature for most of my life, and I've created a little corner of the web to share my thoughts about some of the prominent novels I've come across.