Imagine The Breakfast Club being interrupted by a zombie apocalypse and you’ll have a pretty good idea what it’s like to read Courtney Summers’ This is Not a Test. I love Courtney Summers’ writing. It is no secret that she manages to make me cry like a baby with every book she writes. Summers is [...]

Tags: child abuse, death, family problems, high schools, romance, secrets, suicide, zombies
Filed under: Book Review

Let’s all just sing together for a minute and get it out of the way, ok? Whew. Now that we’ve gotten that out of our systems, we can talk about Brian James’ Life is But a Dream. Sabrina is checked into the Wellness Center for schizophrenia. Her parents and doctors are concerned about her erratic [...]

Tags: mental illness, romance
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Jo Foster (aka Zo Jo) is following in her father’s footsteps, but unlike the many teens pressured to become doctors or lawyers or accountants, Jo is a teen paparazzo. Jo ultimately wants to become a photographer, but she hopes to make enough money working as a paparazzo to pay for photography school and then leave [...]

Tags: career planning, fame, fathers and daughters, photography, therapy
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It is Kelsey’s freshman year and she is ready to start over and stand out. Her goals for the year include: Not being embarrassed by her parents, who are positively annoying and frequently frustrated by her “Typical Adolescent Behavior” Finally going out with Mr. Hottie McHoterson, Jordan Rothman, who she has been crushing on forever [...]

Tags: friendship, high schools, identity, sports, theater
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Jesse Andrews may have written a book about a girl dying of cancer, but he is no Lurlene McDaniel. Me & Earl & The Dying Girl is not jam packed with sappy moments and words of wisdom from a girl intelligent beyond her years. It is, however, full of so much sarcastic, self-deprecating, and crass [...]

Tags: cancer, death, filmmaking, humor, illness, male friendship, self-perception
Filed under: Book Review