Mara Dyer is back in an intense sequel that picks right up where The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer left off.  

Mara would love to have a life without supernatural powers, though.  She would love to be normal, to not be haunted by nightmares and vision.  To be with her boyfriend Noah without worrying that she might kill him.  To not be the deadly creature she now knows herself to be.  To not have everyone, including her own family, believe her to be crazy.

Mara’s erratic behavior only succeeds in getting her sent to a special facility for mentally disturbed teenagers, and she finds that she is in way over her head and can’t get anybody to believe that she is perfectly sane.

When a frightening and unwelcome figure from her past resurfaces, Mara will have to unravel the secrets of her past—of her very identity—to be able to survive what’s to come.

The Evolution of Mara Dyer lives up to the power of the first installment and then some.  Mature readers won’t be able to wait until the last volume in the trilogy comes out.

{Full review originally posted at A Book and a Hug}

Mara Dyer might be crazy.  What else could explain how she ended up in the hospital with no memory of the horrific accident that claimed the lives of her three friends?  Or the bizarrely realistic hallucinations and dreams that she has been suffering from ever since?

To get away from the scene of her trauma, Mara and her family relocate to Florida to start over and rebuild their lives.  Life at her new school is okay to begin with, especially since Mara is able to make some friends and capture the attentions of drool-worthy crush Noah, but she soon learns that you can’t always leave your past behind.

This becomes especially apparent when the nightmares begin, followed closely by a series of frightening events involving dead bodies and break-ins and a very unwelcome visitor from her past.  Mara unravels—she has no idea what to believe any more.  Worst of all: she is beginning to remember what really happened to her the night of the accident.

What happened to Mara Dyer?  And how can she come to terms with it once she finds out the terrible secrets that her mind has locked away?

Michelle Hodkin’s debut novel is completely gripping and will leave mature readers staying up late into the night to finish it.  The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer is a book that will grab you by the throat and refuse to let go.  Fans of paranormal romance, suspense, and psychological dramas will be thrilled.

 Highly recommended.

{Full review originally posted on A Book and a Hug}

Alice McKinley is on the verge of starting 5th grade, and things are totally up in the air.

This is supposed to be the year that she and her friends rule the school…but one of her friends suddenly moved away without saying a word.  On top of that, Alice’s father is dating again, everybody’s talking about the birds and the bees, and an unexpected loss shakes the McKinley family to the core.  Oh yeah, and the whole family is going to be MOVING at the end of the year!

Basically, Alice has a whole lot weighing down her little shoulders, and she handles all of her many trials and tribulations with her characteristic humor and charm.  Maybe this will be the year Alice McKinley finally gets her act together….or then again, maybe not.  Either way, following her adventures will be a lot of fun for older readers.  Lovingly Alice is the perfect segue to the rest of the series, which continues with The Agony of Alice. Ages 10-13.

208 pages.  Recommended.

This review was originally posted at A Book and a Hug.

Alice McKinley is back in action and ready to begin fourth grade in the second installment of the series. Unfortunately for her, it seems like fourth grade might be even tougher for her than third—she just can’t seem to stop making blunders!

Every other day it seems like Alice is knee-deep in humiliation—getting buried in a collapsed snow cave, believing her big brother Lester’s ridiculous lies, having to sing in front of the whole class even though she can’t carry a tune, and reenacting romantic scenes from the Tarzan movies with her weirdo neighbor Donald.

After an embarrassing mistake that involves her whole family, the girl Lester has a crush on, and her Secret Six club, Alice wonders if she’ll recover from humiliation, particularly since she has to figure all of this growing-up stuff without the help of a mother.

As always, Alice is a highly relatable heroine that middle and older readers will admire and empathize with. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor is the queen of writing realistic fiction that’s also a great deal of fun to read!

(Full review originally posted on A Book and a Hug.)

The lovably awkward heroine of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s popular Alice series is back in a sweet prequel that casts her as a hapless third grader about to start school in a brand new state. Following the death of her mother, Alice McKinley finds herself moving across the country to Maryland with her music store manager father and her teenage brother Lester.

If only starting over was easy for Alice, who gets off to a rough start. It seems like everybody at school already has a best friend (or two, in some cases!) and poor Alice is just stuck hanging out with the weird boy who lives next door. Even worse: she seems to have made quite a few enemies on her quest to find friendship—an older crossing guard and a pack of attached-at-the-hip girls known as the Terrible Triplets have it in for her, and she even gets herself landed in the principal’s office for telling a big fib to her classmates.

Without a mother to help guide her, how can Alice ever expect to navigate her way through this new school? The answer, of course, is with pluck and determination that middle and older readers will relate to and cheer for.

Read the full review on A Book and a Hug!

For most kids, going to go on a road trip to adopt a puppy would be a lot of fun. Most kids aren’t Ben, who is none too pleased to be stuck on the open road with a father who has a knack for getting into trouble. Between his parents’ rocky relationship, his father’s harebrained new house-flipping business, and a broken-down truck, Ben doesn’t have a very good feeling about the way his summer is going to go.

Things get even weirder as the road trip begins, though, and that makes life a while lot more interesting. After ditching the truck for a schoolbus and picking up a strange assortment of characters along the way, Ben just might start to have some fun and even start to develop a newfound understanding of the man he calls Dad. Road Trip, narrated alternately by Ben and his dog Atticus, is a snappy story full of misfits, misadventures, and fun, Good choice for reluctant readers. 136 pages.

Read the full review on A Book and a Hug!

Hudson Avery used to be an all-star figure skater destined for greatness. Now, after throwing a competition after the discovery that her father was cheating on her mom, she has forged a new identity as Watonka’s very own teen Cupcake Queen. Spending her days and nights baking delicious confections at her mom’s diner, Hurley’s, Hud is content to lay low and leave her past and potential behind.

Her tune changes when an invitation to skate for a huge scholarship arrives in the mail and an opportunity to train on a real rink comes from the school hockey team. Between juggling diner shifts, school, cupcake baking, teaching moves to the hunky hockey boys, and sort-of-kind-of dating two of them, Hudson barely manages to find time to work out a new ice routine, let alone keep it a secret from her mother.

Inevitably, something has to give. But what will it be? Will Hudson remain the loyal Cupcake Queen? Or will she pursue grander dreams by skating? Which boy will she choose? Can she date and still maintain her friendship with fellow Hurley waitress girl Dani? Will she ever get the heck out of Watonka? Does she, in fact, even really want to? Mature readers will relish finding the answers in this sweet and complicated tale of dreams, independence, and cupcakes. Sarah Ockler writes a very realistic host of characters and plenty of tasty twists and turns throughout Bittersweet. 400 pages.

Read the full review on A Book and a Hug!

Poor Barnaby Brocket. A floating boy scarcely fits into a family that prides itself upon complete and utter normalcy. The Brocket parents try for years to correct their youngest son’s disregard for the laws of gravity, but keeping him earthbound with a weighted backpack and sending him to a school for troubled youngsters simply doesn’t straighten the child out. When his floating abilities get him local attention, they decide that something must be done. Something terrible, in fact.

Much to Barnaby’s surprise, his own mother cuts him loose from his weighted pack and sends him free-floating off into the world without so much as a second glance. The delightfully silly story follows the buoyant 8-year-old on an exciting journey around the world (and beyond) as he quests to return to his native Australia. Along the way, he meets a fabulous host of characters and learns to love himself for his differences.

The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket will especially tickle readers who are fans of Roald Dahl, and they just might learn a lesson about tolerance while they’re at it.

Read the full review on A Book and a Hug!

Abby, a young equestrian living in California in the 1960s, is thrilled that she has been invited to participate in a famous riding clinic. Naturally, she wants to show off her beautiful new horse, True Blue, sure that his performance will impress the temperamental instructor.

Things don’t go quite as Abby plans, however, when Blue turns out to be performing under par. Her riding abilities shaken, Abby gets a second chance when she is asked to ride rival/friend Sophia’s expensive mount Pie in the Sky instead.

Between riding Pie, trying to figure out what’s wrong with Blue, and starting high school, Abby suddenly has a whole lot of her plate. Will she leave Blue’s training behind to accept a lucrative offer to take over as Pie’s rider? Is it possible to become friends with your competition? Above all, can Abby figure out how to stay true to herself and her horse?

Pie in the Sky, by Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley, is a realistic read about the special bond between a girl and her horse that older readers will likely enjoy.

Read the full review at A Book and a Hug!