Banned Books Week: Review- Go Ask Alice

Alice Could be anyone
Alice Could be someone you know
Alice Uses drugs
Alice Could be YOU!!!

With over a million copies in print, Go Ask Alice has become a classic of our time. This powerful real-life diary of a teenager's struggle with the seductive — often fatal — world of drugs and addiction tells the truth about drugs in strong and authentic voice. Tough and uncompromising, honest and disturbing — and even more poignant today — Go Ask Alice is page-turning and provocative reading.  Summary courtesy of Barnes and Noble; Image Good Reads

I enjoyed this book and it was a quick easy read. This is the type of YA subject matter I like; kids on drugs, kids gone bad, kids taking the wrong path and whether or not they find their way back or end up six-feet under. This book is on the challenged/banned books list because it's 'real' and it deals with a subject matter that kids in this day and age are exposed to and participate in on an everyday basis. If I was a teenager growing up in the 21st century and I read this stuff I would stay as far away from drugs as possible and avoid getting pregnant. That would probably make me unpopular but being on the outs maybe a good thing.

Format: Paperback , 224pp
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Young Adult

★★★★	Really liked it

Review: Fallout

Hunter, Autumn, and Summer—three of Kristina Snow’s five children—live in different homes, with different guardians and different last names. They share only a predisposition for addiction and a host of troubled feelings toward the mother who barely knows them, a mother who has been riding with the monster, crank, for twenty years.

Hunter is nineteen, angry, getting by in college with a job at a radio station, a girlfriend he loves in the only way he knows how, and the occasional party. He's struggling to understand why his mother left him, when he unexpectedly meets his rapist father, and things get even more complicated. Autumn lives with her single aunt and alcoholic grandfather. When her aunt gets married, and the only family she’s ever known crumbles, Autumn’s compulsive habits lead her to drink. And the consequences of her decisions suggest that there’s more of Kristina in her than she’d like to believe. Summer doesn’t know about Hunter, Autumn, or their two youngest brothers, Donald and David. To her, family is only abuse at the hands of her father’s girlfriends and a slew of foster parents. Doubt and loneliness overwhelm her, and she, too, teeters on the edge of her mother’s notorious legacy. As each searches for real love and true family, they find themselves pulled toward the one person who links them together—Kristina, Bree, mother, addict. But it is in each other, and in themselves, that they find the trust, the courage, the hope to break the cycle. Told in three voices and punctuated by news articles chronicling the family’s story, FALLOUT is the stunning conclusion to the trilogy begun by CRANK and GLASS, and a testament to the harsh reality that addiction is never just one person’s problem. Image and Summary courtesy of GoodReads

My take: I found Fallout the third and final installment int he Crank series the most difficult to read. Reason being it no longer dealt with Kristina but that of her children and their lives and issues. I honestly wasn't interested in it and found myself bored page after page. Also I found the three stories difficult to follow as the only way one could tell they were reading about a different character was by the text font.

★	Didn't like it

Review: Microterrors

 

Microterrors by Charles 'Tony' Hart, MBBS, BSc, PhD, FRCPCH, FRCPath is one of the world's leading experts on medical microbiology.

The hidden dangers surrounding us.Despite the confident strides of modern science, the threat of deadly unseen organisms such as viruses, bacteria and fungi still grip the imagination with their ferocious intensity. For instance, resistant strains of bacteria can now survive the strongest antibiotics and deadly new biological weapons are being cooked up in laboratories worldwide.

Microterrors explores these threats as well as humanity's greatest living rivals that have been on the planet far longer than we have. The introduction covers terms, definitions and a brief natural history, including the role of viruses in human evolution, as well as bioengineering and biological weapons. Microterrors then presents the truly terrifying rogues' gallery of invisible killers. Image and summary courtesy of B&N.com

This is a well compiled visual catalog of viruses and bacteria that pose a threat to us in our daily lives. Microterrors are everywhere, in the air, water, soil, the things we eat, touch. EVERYWHERE!!!!! Whether you are a science buff or not you'll appreciate this book. It's a great coffee table piece.

Microterrors is divided into two sections: Viruses and Bacteria. Included in the introduction is an how to guide to aide in understaning the layout and icons accompanying each microorganism. For each there is a quick reference guide states origin, first identified, transmission, portals of entry and incubation period. Also included is a brief description, clinical feature, treatment and prevention. 
The pseudo-colored images are well done and beautiful. Microterrors are indeed beautiful and terrifying at the same time.

Rating: ★★★★★Awesome!!!!!
Publisher: Firefly Books
Pages: 192
Pub. Date: 2004

Review: Princess in the Spotlight

Being a teenage girl with divorced parents is hard enough without discovering you're the heir apparent to a small European country, that you must have a bodyguard tailing you at all times, and that your paternal grandmother is determined to turn you into a proper princess. Mia Thermopolis faces all that and more during her year as a high school freshman, and she shares the trials and tribulations of her hilarious life inThe Princess Diaries. B&N review.

This was a very cute book. It was an easy read and at times I found myself actually wanting to know what will happen next. Mia is an awkward freshman, trying to stay sane and navigate her high school and by the way she's a princess too. I can't remember if I ever watched the 'Princess Diaries' and am not sure if there are anymore movies based on this series.

Great to read if you're looking for something light and fun.

Summer Book Haul

Spider Bones $5.99 @ Target. I'm a huge fan of Kathy and Bones which aires on FOX. The Alienist $0.99 @ the Salvation Army, ket words serial killer, turn of the century and profiling ( pre criminal minds). Need I say more, will be a good read.

 Both $1 each @ Ollies Bargain Outlet.

Traitor $0.25 @ Ollies and Light Before Day $1.12 @ Barnes and Noble.

 All $1 each except Gob's Grief $0.25 @ Ollies

 $0.25 @ Ollies