Rachel Baack
Lorrie Moore’s collection of short stories is a series of tales that explore the messiness of relationships and melancholy of adult life. My favorite stories in this collection are “Wings” and “Thank You for Having Me.”
Summary: This graphic novel follows a young Chinese-American boy named Jin Wang who struggles with fitting in and with his cultural identity. It also includes two other creative sub-plots with related themes.
Summary: A governess begins caring for two children at a house in the country. At first, she is charmed by the children, but she soon notices that somethings is not quite right about them, and she realizes that something supernatural and frightening is happening at the house.
Summary: Laurie starts getting reports from her friends and family that they have seen her in places that she wasn’t. She eventually figures out the supernatural secret that explains these occurrences, but that secret might just be darker than it first seems.
Summary: Nore’s father has recently married, about a year after her mother’s death. When she meets her new step-mother, step-brother, and step-sister, she notices that something is a little off about them. As she tries to figure out what’s up with her new family, she begins to uncover a strange and dangerous secret.
Summary: In this reimagining of Jane Austen’s classic Pride and Prejudice, seventeen-year-old Elizabeth Bennet dreams of one day becoming a barrister. The only problem is that women, while not being explicitly prohibited from arguing in court (within the world of the book), are generally seen as unfit for the job. In pursuit of her seemingly impossible dream, Lizzie sets out to solve a case and prove to her father, who has his own law firm, that she has what it takes to work for him. The case she takes on, however, proves to be more challenging and complicated than she might have hoped: Charles Bingley, owner of Netherfield Shipping Co., has been accused of a murder that has no other suspects, and he has hired as his solicitor Mr. Darcy, who is not exactly keen on having Lizzie consult on the case.
Summary: In this exciting series, Aiden and Meg Falconer escape from a juvenile detention center, where they have been held because the government has nowhere else to place them after their parents’ imprisonment. The two kids dodge the authorities and others who want to harm them while attempting to clear their parents’ names.
Summary: When a man is murdered in his own home, a retired private detective, accompanied by his new sidekick and the book’s narrator, Dr. Sheppard, untangles a web of clues to discover who among the man’s associates is responsible.
Summary: After suffering rape and becoming pregnant at the hands of her father, Grace Mae ends up in a horrifying 1800s insane asylum. Soon, however, she is recognized for her intelligence and powers of observation, and a visiting doctor takes moves her to a more ethical asylum in Ohio, where she must feign muteness in order to become the doctor’s assistant and help him solve a series of murders.
Summary: Four teenagers receive a threatening note that reads, “I know what you did last summer.” These teens have a dark secret that they thought only they knew, but now, they realize that they have been found out. They don’t know who the note-writer is or what he or she is planning to do with the information. All they can do is wait and prepare for the worst.
Summary: April, a star tennis player at her high school, has her world turned upside down when her family has to go into the Witness Protection Program. April responds with annoyance, but she may be in more danger than she realizes.
Summary: Ten strangers are invited to an island under various assumptions as to the purpose of their visit. They soon find out that they were all mistaken and that they are in grave danger.
Summary: In this prequel to The Hunger Games series, readers gain insight into the youth and mind of Coriolanus Snow, who would later become the tyrannical president of Panem. At seventeen, Coriolanus has lost both of his parents and most of his family's wealth, and he is fighting to maintain an air of respectability in an attempt to gain power and influence in his society. When he becomes one of the first group of mentors in the Capitol's Hunger Games, he sees his opportunity to prove himself. He is disappointed at first to be assigned to mentor the girl from District 12, Lucy Gray Baird, but he soon realizes that he may just be able to leverage her charisma to help her win the games and, in turn, win himself fame and glory.
Summary: After the most recent Hunger Games, which involved a plot much bigger than Katniss could have imagined, the rebels of Panem have entered a war with the Capitol, and Katniss must determine what her role in the battle will be and who she can trust to have alongside her.
Summary: Katniss finds herself once again in the arena, this time because she is an enemy of the Capitol. As she tries to survive and fight against the ruling powers, she forms some unlikely alliances and learns that not everyone is exactly what they seem.
Summary: Katniss is living in a dystopian society which forces children from each of its twelve districts to fight to the death in an obstacle-ridden arena once a year. When she finds herself in the midst of this death match, she is forced to decide whether she will protect only herself or whether she will stand up against the system that put her there.
Summary: This novel spans the same timeframe as all of the other books in the series combined, and even extends beyond it. The story centers on Claire, the birthmother in Jonas’s city who gave birth to Gabe. Against the rules of her society, Claire figures out who her son is and realizes that she loves him. When Gabe is taken from the city, Claire leaves too, and, after a shipwreck, a new life in a more welcoming village, and a slow recovery of the loss of her memory, Claire dedicates her life to finding her son once again.
Summary: Matty has become the messenger for his village. Although the village was once known for selflessness and welcoming all who needed help, something sinister has been going on and changing the atmosphere. As this sinister energy is growing, Matty is discovering a unique and unexplainable gift that he has.
Summary: Kira is a girl with a twisted leg and an extraordinary gift for weaving who lives in a cruel, callous town and who discovers that the town is hiding a darkness even greater than what can be seen on the surface.
Summary: In Jonas’s community, everything is decided for the people, from what they wear, to who they will marry, to what jobs they will have. There is one job, however, that stands out from the rest. The Giver holds secrets that no one else in the community knows and memories that they can never experience. When Jonas is selected for this job, he begins to question everything that he believed about his community and the broader world.
Summary: In this work of science fiction, Maskull, the main character, travels to the planet Tormance. When he gets there, he meets a being named Joiwind who tells him about Surtur, who, according to Joiwind, created all things. Maskull goes in search of Surtur, and, as he does, he passes through lands that contain different creatures who have varying moral codes. This book explored different philosophical systems of belief and being.
Summary: In the last novel of the Unwind series, Risa, Connor, Lev, Hayden, and Cam all fight to bring about the end of their society as they know it. Each character approaches the evils of society from a different angle but with a common purpose: to put an end to unwinding and Proactive Citizenry.
Summary: After the hideout for runaway Unwinds is destroyed, Lev and Connor go on a mission to learn the secrets surrounding the history of Proactive Citizenry from the one woman who might be able to give them answers—answers that have the potential to bring down the organization and stop unwinding. Meanwhile, Cam plots to bring down Proactive Citizenry, Risa tries to survive on her own, and Starkey gains power among the storks as he continues escalating his violent harvest camp liberations.
Summary: After escaping the harvest camp, the unlikely heroes of Unwind continue, in their own ways, to fight to make sure that other unwinds never have to face the horrors of unwinding. Things won’t be easy, though, because, as it turns out, the Anti-Divisional Resistance, the group working to keep unwinds safe, is not nearly as effective as Connor, the new leader of the country’s biggest unwind hideout, would like it to be. Not only that, but there are forces—both from outside the hideout and within its gates—actively plotting against Connor and the hideout’s established order, and the Proactive Citizenry group has created an entirely new person—Cam—out of the parts of Unwinds as part of a campaign to make sure everyone stays on board with the practice of unwinding.
Summary: In the world of Shusterman’s Unwind, America is a few decades removed from a civil war that was fought over the issue of abortion. The war ended with the passing of the Bill of Life, which stated that, until a child reached the age of 13, his or her life was sacred and could not be harmed. Once a child turned 13, however, he or she could be “unwound,” meaning that all of his or her body parts would be harvested and used in transplants for other people, meaning that the unwound child technically never died. Shusterman’s story follows Connor, Risa, and Lev, 3 kids all marked for unwinding, on a journey that is both compelling and unbelievable.