lauren morrill | Literacy Love

It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is hosted by Sheila at Book Journeys and invites bloggers to recap what they’ve read this week while planning ahead on what to read next! Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee at Unleashing Readers added their own twist by focusing on kidlit, from picture books up to YA.

Winter break is officially over, and while I didn’t get to every single book on my list, I got pretty darn close. Last week was another great reading week, and I can’t wait to go back to school and share these titles with my students.

Here’s what I read:

(Click on the book covers to add these titles to your Goodreads TBR piles)

The Eye of Minds by James Dashner
2013
YA Science Fiction / Fantasy
My Goodreads Rating: 3/5 Stars
I am a big James Dashner fan and credit his Maze Runner series for helping me branch out to genres other than realistic fiction. This book, which is the first in the Morality Doctrine series, just didn’t really wow me. It took about 30 pages or so to really understand what was going on – gamers get involved in a cyber terrorist attack and are forced to go deep inside a game to save humanity – and I really thought the whole book was about 100 pages too long. Teens that are really into gaming and coding will like this one, even if it didn’t really work for me.

Where the Stars Still Shine by Trish Doller
2013
YA Contemporary Realistic Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 5/5
I really enjoyed this book and its main character Callie. Callie was kidnapped by her mother ten years ago and has lived in horrible conditions ever since. When her mother is arrested after a traffic stop, Callie goes to live with her dad and his family in a small, greek influenced touristy town in Florida. I couldn’t put this one down.

Being Sloane Jacobs by Lauren Morrill
2014
YA Contemporary Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Stars
Really fun book that I reviewed last week. You can check out my review here.

Front and Center (Dairy Queen Series #3) by Catherine Gilbert Murdock
2009
YA Contemporary Realistic Fiction
My Goodreads Rating: 4/5 Stars
I love the Dairy Queen series so much and this book was a great ending to an excellent series!

Here’s what I plan to read next: (Click on the cover for more info from Goodreads)

I am 75% finished with City of Bones and really enjoying it. I won’t have nearly as much reading time now that school has started again, but I am hoping I can get both Siege and Storm and Perfect Scoundrels read during independent reading time this week.

Happy Reading!

From Goodreads:

Meet Sloane Emily Jacobs: a seriously stressed-out figure-skater from Washington, D.C., who choked during junior nationals and isn’t sure she’s ready for a comeback. What she does know is that she’d give anything to escape the mass of misery that is her life.

Now meet Sloane Devon Jacobs, a spunky ice hockey player from Philly who’s been suspended from her team for too many aggressive hip checks. Her punishment? Hockey camp, now, when she’s playing the worst she’s ever played. If she messes up? Her life will be over.

When the two Sloanes meet by chance in Montreal and decide to trade places for the summer, each girl thinks she’s the lucky one: no strangers to judge or laugh at Sloane Emily, no scouts expecting Sloane Devon to be a hero. But it didn’t occur to Sloane E. that while avoiding sequins and axels she might meet a hockey hottie—and Sloane D. never expected to run into a familiar (and very good-looking) face from home. It’s not long before the Sloanes discover that convincing people you’re someone else might be more difficult than being yourself.

My thoughts…

Being Sloane Jacobs is a really cute contemporary YA fiction book! The whole “parent trap” switcharoo works and isn’t cheesy at all. While definitely geared towards fans of Elizabeth Eulberg, Jennifer E. Smith, and Sarah Dessen, it works because the main characters are well written and the two contrasting camp worlds – hockey and figure skating – are interesting and not glossed over. The two uber mean girls, Ivy and Melody, who are out to get their new arch enemies, make for some pretty interesting (and mostly hilarious) situations for Sloane Emily and Sloane Devon to deal with and the two hot hockey players they get involved with are more than just reader eye candy.

While running away from their family drama and own insecurities, both girls learn a lot about themselves, which is my favorite part of the book and I think middle and high school readers will really like this one.

Bottom Line…

Being Sloane Jacobs would be a great addition to a classroom library. It’s funny, endearing and has a great message for girls to find their passion and not being afraid to own it.