SSOJ Blogs

Beautiful Liars by Isabel Ashdown is a thrilling story that contains many twists and secrets. Beautiful Liars takes place many years after a girl named Juliet goes missing in London. The main characters are Juliet’s two friends, Martha and Liv. When Juliet first went missing, the two girls kept Juliet’s secrets, that could have possibly been connected to where Juliet was. Martha and Liv soon went their separate ways and Juliet’s case was soon given up on. Many years later, when Martha is a TV celebrity, she decides to create a detective show involving real cases. The first case she decides to attempt to crack was Juliet’s. Martha wants to get in contact with Liv by sending her a letter, however Liv no longer lives in that residence. The second perspective we read from is Casey’s. Readers don’t quite know who Casey is at first or why she is so interested in Juliet’s case. Readers do find out within the first chapters that Casey lives in Liv’s old residence and receives Martha’s letter....

       Five Feet Apart is a realistic fiction romantic novel. Much of the plot is based on a disease that the main characters have. It is called Cystic Fibrosis, or CF. It affects the lungs and digestive system. The main aspect of CF is the large excess amount of mucus the body creates. You must stay six feet apart from any other individual with CF. This is because if a patient were to catch a cough or spread germs to another CFer, they would get very sick and possibly die.          The main character of this novel is named Stella. She has Cystic Fibrosis and has thought of Saint Grace Hospital as a second home since she was six. She regularly comes in for even the slightest cold as a precaution for her health. She is very strict about her regimen (which is like a schedule/ to do list of medications and treatments) and staying alive, for the sake of her parents. Her older sister who she was super close with died recently at a young age in ...

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon follows a 17-year-old girl named Maddy who has severe combined immunodeficiency. She lives with her mother in a place that is constantly sanitized. The only other interactions she has with Carla, her nurse. After noticing a new boy named Oliver who moves next door, Maddy finds herself yearning for a new friend. Oliver (who goes by Olly) makes several attempts to meet Maddy, without knowing of her illness. Maddy finds a way for them to communicate using email and finds herself slowly wanting to have a face-to-face conversation with him. Carla notices her connection with Olly after Maddy spends more hours on her electronic devices. Wanting a more in-person relationship with Olly, Maddy begs Carla to let them meet in person. Reluctantly, Carla makes sure that Olly is sanitized and lets him into the house. She forbids any sort of contact between them, fearful that Maddy might become very sick. After Maddy talks to Olly face-to-face, she finds herself...

The manga series Death Note written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata attempts to answer the question: “What is justice?”. It features Light Yagami, a studious high school senior that stumbles upon the Death Note; a notebook that allows its user to kill anyone, provided they know their target’s name and face. The notebook comes from the supernatural Shinigami realm, which is where death gods, or Shinigami, reside. Each Shinigami has a copy of the Death Note, and the notebook that was dropped into the human realm belongs to the Shinigami named Ryuk. Ryuk is only visible to the wielder of the Death Note, which in this case is Light. The series starts with Ryuk bored of his dull life in the Shinigami realm where all everyone does all day is gamble. The same can be said about Light, who is depicted bored, staring out of his window at school, and thinking about how the world is a rotten mess. This scene is the first indication of Light’s sense of justice that he displays th...

 Review by: Jenna Purnell (Warning: this is a kind of complex plot in some ways, so I have to jump around a lot)             So B It is a book about a little girl named Heidi. Heidi is a sweet, curious, and smart 12 year old girl who lives in a small apartment in Nevada. All Heidi has in life is Mama, Bernadette, and amazing luck. Mama has a “bum brain”, she can’t care for Heidi and doesn’t know how to do much unless she’s been extensively taught over and over. Bernadette, her neighbor who basically raised her, has Agoraphobia or AP, which means she is too afraid to ever leave her house. As for her luck…When Heidi was very young, Bernadette realized that Heidi had the ability to do silly things like matching games and predicting which side a coin will land on with perfect accuracy. This is of use to them when they run low on money and Bernadette has to send Heidi down to the laundromat to play the slots for money for fo...

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is pretty much what it sounds like, the author, Mark Twain, tells a story about a young boy who leaves home to adventure. The story starts when Huckleberry Finn is 13 years old and is living with a kind, religious widow because his father is a drunk and unfit to raise a child. When Huck obtains a significant amount of money, his father suddenly appears and demands the money. Although his father does not have much luck obtaining the money, he kidnaps Huck and brings him to a cabin near a river. Huck is trapped in the cabin and unable to leave, so he finds a way through a loose log in the cabin wall and sneaks out while his father is out drunk. Huck fakes his own death by leading a trail of animal blood to the river and finds a canoe to travel along the river.  The widow and other people Huckleberry Finn knew drove a ferryboat through the river looking for his body. Huck finds an island to hide on and builds a campfire. After a few days, Hu...

Before I begin, I wanted to point out that this review will have some spoilers from the first book in the series. If you haven’t read the first book yet, I’d recommend you check out my other review on Flame in the Mist first. Smoke in the Sun by Renée Ahdieh focuses on Mariko’s journey as she finds her place as the wife of the emperor’s brother, Prince Raiden, and an ally to the Black Clan. Mariko knows that gaining Prince Raiden’s trust is of utmost importance while in the castle.  To complicate matters even more, Ōkami, her love interest, has been taken as a prisoner in the heavily guarded castle. Mariko struggles to find ways to ensure his safety while trying to act as detached and indifferent about him in front of everyone else. She knows that the emperor will kill him as mercilessly and ostentatiously as possible when given a chance and won’t hesitate to kill her if she shows any signs of being close with Ōkami. Mariko has to find a way to save Ōkami, gain the trust of he...

The final major work of Ernest Hemingway, The Old Man and the Sea, published in 1952 is set in a fishing village in Cuba. It features an old fisherman named Santiago and a young boy named Manolin that admires him. After 84 days without catching a fish, Santiago is deemed “the worst form of unlucky”, and Manolin’s father does not let Manolin fish with Santiago anymore, and he instead must go fish in a lucky boat. However, he still cares for the old man and visits his shack at night. The next day, Santiago heads out to the sea in his skiff, and is intent on ending his unlucky streak. The story continues with Santiago’s adventure at sea where he finally hooks a fish after 85 days, and ultimately is a test of his grit as a fisherman.  Throughout reading the book, I admired Santiago’s persistence. He refused to succumb to any mental or physical challenge brought upon him. From surviving off of dolphin meat to spending hours and hours alone at sea in his skiff, Santiago persisted. His...

Written by Lois Lowry, Son is the fourth book and conclusion to The Giver series. At the beginning of the book, Son takes place in the community, which is the same setting as The Giver . The book begins by introducing Claire, a young girl assigned the role of birthmother. Women assigned the job birthmother are prepared to have three products (babies). When the babies get old enough, they are assigned parents who raise them until they get old enough for a job assignment. When Claire is 12, she begins preparing for labor and at 15 years old she produces her first product. However, there is an issue during her labor and she is no longer qualified to have any more children. Because of this problem, Claire is tasked with a new job working in the fish hatchery. Even though Claire is reassigned to a new role and everything seems quite normal, Claire feels different than before she had a child. She feels an urge to find her son. Claire goes to the nursery to reconnect with  her child a...

                                                                                               By: Jenna Purnell Quentin Jacobson is a senior in Orlando Florida. He thinks he has the most amazing neighbor, Margo Roth Spiegelman. They were friends and played together when they were younger, but as they grew older, they grew apart. Now, they go to the same high school, but Margo is the most popular girl in the  school. Although, that does not stop Quentin from being very much in love with her. He watches and admires her from afar and is pretty much obsessed.  Everything changes when in the middle of the night, Quentin wakes up to Margo knocking on his window. She invites him on an obscure adventure with her. They stay up all night, gett...

Renegades by Marissa Meyer is a thrilling book following Nova, a super-villain set on taking down the Renegades. The Renegades are a group of prodigies who use their superpowers to try and handle all evil in the city. Nova began disliking the Renegades at an early age after her whole family was killed by a group of evil prodigies while she hid inside a closet, waiting for the Renegades to come to rescue them. When the Renegades didn’t come, she realized that they will always let people down because they can’t take care of everyone. Her uncle, Ace Anarchy, founder of the Anarchists, a group of villain prodigies, took her in and gave her the name of Nightmare due to her power to put others to sleep by touching them and the ability to never need sleep. Now, as a 16-year-old, Nova plans to take down the Renegades by joining them and taking them down from the inside.  This book perspective switches between a boy named Adrian who is already a part of the Renegades and Nova. But, I d...

One of the first novels written by Ernest Hemingway, The Torrents of Spring, originally published in 1926 begins with a man named Scripps O’Neill, who returns to his home and finds that his wife and daughter have left him. In a state of frustration, O’Neill leaves his home for the town Petoskey, where he seeks a new partner. Upon entering a beanery in Petoskey, he encounters Diana, a British waitress, who he marries immediately. Diana is worried that O’Neill will leave her, so she tries to impress him by reading the literature that he likes. However, O’Neill leaves her regardless for another waitress named Mandy, who entices him with multiple anecdotes, although they may not be true. The focus then primarily shifted to Yogi Johnson, who is a World War I veteran who works at a pump factory. Johnson is worried that he is not in love as spring is approaching. After wandering around with some American Indian veterans, they all eventually enter the same beanery as O’Neill. Suddenly, an Am...

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green is focused on a boy named Colin. Colin was a child prodigy, and now as he grows older he feels a sense of worthlessness and despair at the prospect of becoming insignificant. He cannot come to grips with the fact that he is becoming normal. There’s something else that is peculiar about Colin, he has dated 19 girls, every single one of them named Katherine. Not Catherine, not Kate, exclusively Katherines. After being dumped by his most recent girlfriend, Katherine the 19th, he feels especially hopeless. Colin has an extreme want and need for an epiphany, something that would make him unique and make him matter. So his best friend Hassan takes him on a road trip for the summer with no destination, to get his mind off of everything. They have adventures and meet new friends.  Although I am only about half way through this book, I have enjoyed every page and I c annot wait to see what happens next. The plot is unique if anything. T...

Flame in the Mist written by Renée Ahdieh and published in 2017 is an exciting book following the life of Mariko after her convoy taking her to her betrothed, Prince Raiden, is attacked by the feared Black Clan. After Mariko barely escapes death, she is forced to pick herself back up and survive. She daringly cuts her hair and poses as a man in order to find out who in the Black Clan wishes her dead. She picks up the name Sanada Takeo and has an unexpected meeting with the Black Clan and their leader, Ranmaru. His men take her to the Black Clan where she believes she is a prisoner, only to find that Ranmaru wants her as a recruit. She meets a man named Ōkami who she at first finds lazy but realizes that he is very skilled.  Ōkami finds Mariko confusing due to the fact that she is so educated yet lacks so many survival skills. They both banter in a way that friendly and challenging throughout the book, especially after Ranmaru decides to have Ōkami train her. As Mariko gets to kno...

In 2002 Nancy Farmer wrote the book “The House of the Scorpion,” which takes place over fourteen years, the sequel takes place over only one year, and this short timeline compared to the first book could be the reason the sequel, “The Lord of Opium,” is a bit of a disappointment. In “The House of the Scorpion” the main character, Matt is created as a clone of a drug lord El Patron who is over 140 years old. Matt is created for the sole purpose of having his organs harvested for when El Patron needs new organs. For the first six years of his life, Matt is raised by El Patron’s cook Celia. The book begins the very moment Matt is created in a science lab, the book ends when Matt is fourteen. Because the book takes place over such a lengthy period, it is no surprise there are many obstacles Matt has to overcome. From the moment Matt realizes there is a small world outside of the house he lived in for the first six years of his life, to being trapped in a jail cell, possibly having his orga...

You may have been wondering how good is the book To Have and Have Not. To Have and Have Not, originally published in 1936 and written by Ernest Hemingway started off very well. It presents itself as a three part story primarily featuring Harry Morgan. Harry was an honest businessman. He chartered boats for a living and never accepted any bribes, until one day one of his customers robbed him of $880. In a state of panic, Harry began to take on immoral jobs such as human trafficking and other forms of smuggling by boat. During one of these jobs Harry is shot, and is forced to amputate one of his arms. His boat is also impounded by a government official. Harry begins a final attempt to make some money, with a new partner Albert, by stealing his impounded boat back, and harboring Cuban Revolutionists on it at sea after they rob a bank. Meanwhile, the main character shifts to Richard Gordon, whose wife cheated on him. He also cheated on his wife, and their marriage ends. Richard Gordon the...