The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

This is not a 'happy ending' book, but I couldn't put it down. I don't usually read books that are 'too real' and 'negative'. I read for enjoyment, this book is not enjoyable. So again, be warned, this is a gritty, overall sad story.  At first I appreciated the language, told in first-person slang by a ghettofabulous hood rat. Sister Soulja is good at describing the present-focused, get-mine mentality that many people from low socioeconomic status possess. Winter, the protagonist, is the daughter of a big-time Brooklyn drug dealer, so although she is from the 'hood, she is accustomed to show-casing wealth. Her dad is arrested and she loses everything, she has no problem using and conning anyone into helping her acquire cash so that she can keep up her image. She has no real respect for anyone, no moral guidelines, and ultimately no self-respect. I kept waiting for her to learn some sort of life lesson or develop some sort of connection with another person, but as the book dragged on she remained a conviving, selfish, money-hungry, bitch. She meets some good, genuine people who try to help her throughout the book and with each one she burns another bridge by lying and stealing. Sister Soulja enters the book as a character who wants to empower women and unify African Americans so that they can rise above their situations and incite change within their communities. I kept thinking she would reach Winter, but interestingly enough Winter is immune to her teachings. This book utilizes profane, sensitive themes including drug addiction, promiscuity, prostitution, abortions, guns, gang violence, and homophobia to teach the reader that you cant depend on money. 

The Coldest Winter Ever by Sister Souljah

                  This book is about Winter Santiaga, a spoiled, materialistic, troubled teenager. Throughout the novel, she is constantly trying to "stay on top". She grows up in the ghetto with a father who is a drug king. Her father spoils her rotten and her mother feeds into this. They finally move out of the ghetto and into a rich, suburban area. Winter feels isolated and needs to go back to the ghetto and brag to her friends and complete strangers.
                 Winter is accustomed to spending a few hundred dollars on an outfit and other luxuries. This mentality brings her to the destructive point in her life. She uses her good looks and her game to manipulate everyone (including her immediate family) into getting what she wants. The book mainly discusses her problems with spending money on ridiculous items and how she never realizes the problem with it. Winter never sees her downfall until the very end. And in the end it also shows how history repeats itself or how life is a cycle when Winter's sister has fallen into the same trap." A girl, who is accustomed to the "best", has to figure out how to live a life without it, as though she never had any more than anyone else. So far, I love the book. Everything that is said and done and happens to Winter is shockingly real and vivid. 

Perks Of Being A Wallflower

This book tells about every teenagers life. For sure a lot of people could relate in this novel especially when they remembered the first time they entered Highschool. You meet new people with different personalities. Everything in High school is part of growing up and we learn to make our own choices in the future. A story that involves family, love , and friendship.

Charlie is a wallflower.Freshman student. He's sensitive, emotional and weird. His Aunt's death had affected him, and he is struggling to get along with others. He's pretending to be someone he's not. He enjoyed being with his new found friends Sam and Patrick, siblings (step siblings) and Senior students. With curiousity and peer pressure, Charlie did a lot of things like smoking, drinking etc.. He tries to cope up with others so he could get along with them and trying to please them as possible.

It's kind of annoying when he cries a lot. I mean, there's no reason to cry for ( Oh well, he's just emotional and weird) and Craig cheating Sam, I just want to punch him. Another weird thing when he let Patrick kiss him. Just yikes.
I like Charlie in a way he learned lessons in life and tries to "participate" in other things.This book was simply amazing. The way Charlie tells his story through letters makes it all so real, and I got completely caught up in his stories about not wanting to begin high school, about making his first friends, and everything else that goes through his mind. I cried so many times, and after I had finished the last page I really just wanted to hug the book and never let it go. One of the most beautiful stories I've ever read, and one I'll be recommending to everyone I know!

Story of A Girl by Sara Zarr

I liked Story of a Girl because it's very honest and realistic. The narrator, Deanna, is a 16-year-old girl who's still recovering from an awkward and embarrassing sexual experience she had three years ago. When she was in eighth grade, her dad busted her and her 17-year-old pseudo-boyfriend having sex and since then she's been the talk of the town. Everyone thinks she's a slut and this reputation -- part real, part self-perception -- is something she can't seem to escape. She has a dysfunctional home life as well and on top of that, she's crushing on her best friend's boyfriend.

This book has great voice because the writing really does get across Deanna's thoughts quite well and it's easy for the reader to understand her. I think I would have personally liked for the book to be a bit longer and hopefully deeper -- I think there were some events that were glossed over and could have been developed a bit better. Overall, I think it's a book that teen girls will love because it deals with so many classic issues -- boys, sex, relationships, parents, drugs, etc. 

All the Broken Pieces by Ann. e burg

All the Broken Pieces by Ann E. Burg is the story told in first-person free verse by Matt Pin, a boy born to a Vietnamese women and an American soldier in Vietnam during the Vietnam War. Adopted by a very loving American family, it is 1977, two years after he was airlifted out of war-torn Vietnam and he is still having terrible memories of war, the American solider father that left him, his mother giving him up and watching his little brother becoming severally injured by a bomb right before his eyes. Trying out for the baseball team shows some of the prejudice his faces, “Hey, Frog Face, where’d you learn to play baseball in a rice paddy? Matt-the-rat, if you make the team, I’ll quit. My brother died because of you.” Through the efforts of two Vietnam Vets and his loving adoptive family he slowly comes to terms with his past and shows that “patience and unconditional love is the strongest healing force.”

Overall this book was amazing! I really liked how the author explained things in a way that really made you think. First of all the character in this were amazing and completely life like. I like how all of the characters had their own problems, weaknesses, and strengths. However the character that I think changed the most was Matt. He went from being completely disgusted with himself to being able to look himself in the mirror. He really progressed as a person because he was at first very nervous about talking about the war. Whereas in the end he can openly discuss the war and he is no longer afraid of his life and mistakes. I think that the theme was that you should always forgive yourself no matter what you do. Because in the end what is done has been done and there is no changing it. I overall thought this book was absolutely amazing. A great read and definitely going to be something I would recommend.

Child Soldiers In War

There are tens of thousands of underage soldiers across the globe participating in combats who were either coerced into battle by being brainwashed and drugged, kidnapped by armed groups and forced into frontline battle, or felt hopeless  and turned to an army base for protection they never received.  The articles "Children at War" by P.W Singer, "Armed & Underage" by Jeffrey Gettleman and a video about the civil war in Sierra Leone all tell about the experiences of child soldiers; the harsh conditions and the physical and emotion abuse that they endure. In actuality, child soldiers are war victims, even if they do commit abhorrent crimes that would otherwise be shocking.
It is not necessarily the child's own fault when they end up in the army. When Ismael Beah, a former child soldier was only 13, he turned to an army base after his entire family was killed. He stated, "I thought i would be protected in the military base but that wasn't the case." Beah probably felt as if his case was hopeless and turned to an army base for help that was never delivered. Many children that go through hard times end up turning to an army. In Armed & Underage, it mentions that, "According to the United Nations, children are most likely to become soldiers when they are impoverished or separated from their families. In some countries, poverty and hunger drive parents to sell their children to the service."   Also, in the article Children at War, a young boy told a story where he was only in primary school and rebels attacked, killing his mother and father in front of his eyes and taking him with them at the young age of 10 years old. It was never this child's choice to fight, but being so young, he was almost helpless to the situation and was forced into frontline combat regardless of his age.
Children suffer both physical and emotional corruption as combatants. While in combat, many drugs and narcotics are used to manipulate children into believing that killing is okay. Ishmael Beah was "armed with an AK-47, drugged, and taught to kill." Beah became addicted to the drugs and the powerful feeling the intoxication granted him. Drugs such as amphetamines, cocaine and marijuana were given to the soldiers by commanders and the soldiers often used to the drugs to escape from the pain of killing. In the article Armed & Underage, Beah recalls that "Killing became as easy as drinking water."  Because of drugs and manipulation, the children lost themselves in the war. Beah states himself that "The only way a child can function in this particular world is if he loses himself completely and facilities are not in play. If you are fully functioning you are able to show emotion and cannot live in that world." The drugs caused the children to 'lose function', so it was as if they were corrupted and brainwashed into a mindset that made them able to kill. Many girls are also sexually abused, even by their own commanders which causes them to lose trust in adults. Because of the trauma and manipulation, children have a hard time blending back into society when combat is over. They were so Being dumped into a war creates mental and traumatic problems long after the fighting has ended. Ishmael Beah describes such horrendous images, such as him seeing blood in running water and having dreams of war. He said, "I had to withdraw from the drugs and face the memories." In the article Children at War, it says that "Many suffer long term trauma that can disrupt their development."
The use of children in war has become so widespread. United Nations predicts that it could continue for year and children will have to continue to suffer abuse and corruption. The question for the future is; how will society put and end to this?

"Matched" by Allie Condi

Matched by Allie Condie is a basic storyline being of a society where officials decide every aspect of a person's life from the big stuff as in who they'll marry (or be 'matched' with) and when they'll die to the little stuff like what they eat, how they dress and their daily routines. The story tells how Cassia is matched to a boy but falls for another and suddenly begins to question the rules of the society, heading as she does so straight into a world of secrets and danger. Great sounding plot, am I right? Too bad it turned out to be rather mediocre in practice.

Well, for me this book managed to redeem itself right near the very end and escape being the "it's ok" marker. One of the biggest problems was the hype about this book, I've been waiting to get my hands on this for ages, just dying to sink my teeth into it - after all, dystopian fiction is my one true literary love. So, because of this, the disappointment fell even heavier. I love the idea but there were just so many things about the story that made me feel it never really took off and reached it's full potential. To make my point, I'm going to review the novel as two parts: first as a dystopian novel, and then as a love story.

As I already mentioned, I love dystopian societies and I have done ever since I read Nineteen Eighty-Four when I was twelve. However, my love for dystopia is concentrated on the high action and/or shocking tragedy that define the genre. In my opinion, it's hard to feel a great sense of dystopia in Matched. Nothing majorly tragic or gripping happens until the last few chapters and by then you've lost touch with the story and the characters. It's slow-moving and, though I never thought I'd use this phrase in a review, it 'lacks drama'. If you compare it to 'The Handmaid's Tale' or 'Declaration' for example, there's none of that built up tension throughout. I read these books on the edge of my seat feeling every emotion with the protagonists and even beginning to panic at the peaks of the two novels. Matched just never got my blood pressure up, there was no sense of urgency or despair. For a long time the society didn't really seem that bad at all. Where's the dystopia? The action? The despair? Maybe I'm just a twisted individual but the society wasn't 'bad' enough for me.

And the love story. Because that's the other thing this novel is about. Well, the only time I felt any real connection or chemistry between Cassia and Ky was in the last few chapters, I could sense that the author was attempting to build it up slowly but I never latched on to it. In fact, for a good while all I did was feel sorry for poor Xander and wish she'd just except a life with him and let Ky get on with being mysterious and weird. But, it did pull back and the novel ended with me wanting Cassia to go find him. There may be hope for this love story yet.

The ending was the most commendable part of the novel. I'd started to think that there would be no point in me buying the second book in the series as the first one had done nothing for me. And then the ending left me interested, engrossed and eager to find out more. It opened up a wider mystery that would have been so much better if the author had built it up by slowly alluding to it throughout the novel, then I wouldn't have been so shocked to find that the book wasn't so terrible overall. I will say, though, I loved her Grandad from Cassia's first conversation with him, I found him cute and lovable - far more intriguing than any other character.