The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club. Her father's " bunny rabbit. " A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school. Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston. Frankie Landau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take " no" for an answer. Especially when " no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them. Not when she knows Matthew's lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done. Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind. This is the story of how she got that way.

My Thoughts:  What a strong female character!  Frankie doesn't take "no" for an answer and is a master at making her plans come to fruition.  This is a humorous book where Frankie is the puppet master at pulling memorable school pranks.  Surely her antics are worthy of being added to the Disreputable History of the Basset Hounds.  A thoroughly enjoyable book; I just wish there were more pranks for her mastermind!



A Kiss In Time

Talia fell under a spell. . . .
Jack broke the curse.
I was told to beware the accursed spindle, but it was so enchanting, so hypnotic. . . .
I was looking for a little adventure the day I ditched my tour group. But finding a comatose town, with a hot-looking chick asleep in it, was so not what I had in mind.
I awakened in the same place but in another time—to a stranger's soft kiss.
I couldn't help kissing her. Sometimes you just have to kiss someone. I didn't know this would happen.
Now I am in dire trouble because my father, the king, says I have brought ruin upon our country. I have no choice but to run away with this commoner!
Now I'm stuck with a bratty princess and a trunk full of her jewels. . . . The good news: My parents will freak!
Think you have dating issues? Try locking lips with a snoozing stunner who turns out to be 316 years old. Can a kiss transcend all—even time?


My Thoughts: Alex Flinn has a knack for writing YA modern versions of fairy tales. The story is told from both Talia's to Jack's point of view. The modern-day twist will have fans of happily ever after asking for more. Beastly, her retelling of Beauty and the Beast, will be released as a movie in Spring of 2011. Could Kiss in Time be far behind?

Dark Life by Kat Falls

Set in an apocalyptic future where rising oceans have swallowed up entire regions and people live packed like sardines on the dry land left, DARK LIFE is the harrowing tale of underwater pioneers who have carved out a life for themselves in the harsh deep-sea environment, farming the seafloor in exchange for the land deed. The story follows Ty, who has lived his whole life on his family's homestead and has dreams of claiming his own stake when he turns eighteen. But when outlaws' attacks on government supply ships and settlements... ... threaten to destroy the underwater territory, Ty finds himself in a fight to stop the outlaws and save the only home he has ever known. Joined by a girl from the Topside who has come subsea to look for her prospector brother, Ty ventures into the frontier's rough underworld and begins to discover some dark secrets to Dark Life. As Ty gets closer to the truth, he discovers that the outlaws may not be the bloodthirsty criminals the government has portrayed them as. And that the government abandoning the territory might be the best thing for everyone, especially for someone like Ty, someone with a Dark Gift.

My Thoughts:  I liked this book but thought it was strange.  It was hard to get my head around underwater living, mixed in with outlaws.  It felt like I was reading the old west undrwater.  If you like The Hunger Games, or other dytopian fiction books, you will like Dark Life.

I, Q: The White House

I, Q
by Roland Smith

Q and Angela are back.  In Book One: Independence Hall we meet Q and his stepsister, Angela.  We meet their rocker parents, Blaze and Roger; we meet Angela's mother, a former Secret Service agent; and we meet the main players of the Mossad team who are following them.  In Book Two: The White House, readers are taken on another thrilling caper.  But it's going to be even more difficult for Q and Angela to sort out the "good guys" from the "bad guys" when the new playing field is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

My Thoughts:  Once again, Roland Smith has written a book full of twists and turns that will keep you on the edge of your seat.   I really enjoyed the first book, Independence Hall.  While the sequel is good, I was hoping for more of a cat and mouse chase.  Like the television show 24, the story takes place during one day.  The ending leaves many questions unanswered.  I'm sure another sequel is on its way! 

Heist Society


by Ally Carter


When Katarina Bishop was three, her parents took her on a trip to the Louvre...to case it. For her seventh birthday, Katarina and her Uncle Eddie traveled to Austria...to steal the crown jewels. When Kat turned fifteen, she planned a con of her own--scamming her way into the best boarding school in the country, determined to leave the family business behind. Unfortunately, leaving "the life" for a normal life proves harder than she'd expected. Soon, Kat's friend and former co-conspirator, Hale, appears out of nowhere to bring her back into the world she tried so hard to escape. But he has good reason: a powerful mobster has been robbed of his priceless art collection and wants to retrieve it. Only a master thief could have pulled this job, and Kat's father isn't just on the suspect list, he is the list. Caught between Interpol and a far more deadly enemy, Kat's dad needs her help. For Kat there is only one solution: track down the paintings and steal them back. So what if it's a spectacularly impossible job? She's got two weeks, a teenage crew, and hopefully just enough talent to pull off the biggest heist in history-or at least her family's (very crooked) history.



My Thoughts: This is one of my absolute favorite books! Heist Society blends spies, travel, a millionaire, romance, and an art heist to make this a fun read. Ally Carter is currently working on book two; I can't wait. Warner Brothers has also optioned the book for a movie. You can get all the details at their website.

Graceling

By Kristin Cashore

Gracelings are people born with an extreme talent, known as a Grace. Rare enough to be unusual, they are feared for their difference and often exploited for their skill. They can be picked out by the fact that they have two different colored eyes.Katsa, the protagonist, has been able to kill people with her bare hands since she was eight and is famous within the seven kingdoms for the violent acts she carries out on behalf of her uncle, King Randa. Of late she has struggled to reconcile her conscience with these acts but rather than challenge her uncle's authority over her, she has sought to employ less debilitating attack strategies and build up a clandestine organization that promotes justice over cruelty and abuses of power. During the course of a secret mission, she meets Po, another Graced fighter and the first person to come close to matching her skill. A bond forms between the two that causes each to discover startling truths about oneself, the other and the kingdoms.

My Thoughts: Graceling is book one in the Seven Kingdoms Series. This book has adventure, mystery, and action throughout. Readers will love Katsa as a strong heroine and Po as a supportive hero. Fantasy and romance readers will eagerly await the next book.

The Red Blazer Girls: The Ring of Rocamadour

by Michael Beil

It all began with The Scream. And ended with . . . well, if we told you that, it wouldn’t be a mystery! But in between The Scream and The Very Surprising Ending, three friends find themselves on a scavenger hunt set up for a girl they never met, in search of a legendary ring reputed to grant wishes. Are these sleuths in school uniforms modern-day equivalents of Nancy, Harriet, or Scooby? Not really, they’re just three nice girls who decide to help out a weird lady, and end up hiding under tables, tackling word puzzles and geometry equations, and searching rather moldy storage rooms for “the stuff that dreams are made of” (that’s from an old detective movie). Oh, and there’s A Boy, who complicates things. As boys often do. Intrigued? The Red Blazer Girls offers a fun, twisty adventure for those who love mystery, math (c’mon, admit it!), and a modest measure of mayhem. Michael Beil, a New York City high school English teacher, makes his literary debut with this fun and brainy mystery.

My Thoughts: If you like puzzles, games, and scavenger hunts, you will like this series. Do you like math too? Then you might love this book. The Ring of Rocamadour is filled with puzzles from the first page to the last (literally)! Look for the second book in the series, The Vanishing Violin, in the library.

Killer Pizza

by Greg Taylor

Pizza you’ll die for! Toby McGill dreams of becoming a world-famous chef, but up until now, his only experience has been watching the Food Network. When Toby lands a summer job at Killer Pizza, where pies like The Monstrosity and The Frankensausage are on the menu, things seem perfect. His coworkers, Annabel and Strobe, are cool, and Toby loves being part of a team. But none of them are prepared for what’s really going on at Killer Pizza: It’s a front for a monster-hunting organization! Learning to cook pizzas is one thing, but killing hideously terrifying monsters? That’s a whole other story. Still, if Toby quits Killer Pizza, will monsters take over his town?

My thoughts: Guys and gals are both going to like this book. Greg Taylor, the author, has the perfecr mix of mystery, monsters, and suspense to keep the reader hooked until the end.

The Red Pyramid

by Rick Riordan

Since their mother’s death, Carter and Sadie have become near strangers. While Sadie has lived with her grandparents in London, her brother has traveled the world with their father, the brilliant Egyptologist, Dr. Julius Kane. One night, Dr. Kane brings the siblings together for a "research experiment" at the British Museum, where he hopes to set things right for his family. Instead, he unleashes the Egyptian god Set, who banishes him to oblivion and forces the children to flee for their lives. Soon, Sadie and Carter discover that the gods of Egypt are waking, and the worst of them -- Set -- has his sights on the Kanes. To stop him, the siblings embark on a dangerous journey across the globe -- a quest that brings them ever closer to the truth about their family, and their links to a secret order that has existed since the time of the pharaohs.

My Thoughts: I loved this book. I liked it better than the Percy Jackson series. Just like the Olympians series, you find out that mythology and symbols, this time Egyptian, are all around us. Sadie and Carter, the main characters, are easy to relate to. Although the book has a great ending, there are many questions left unanswered. I guess we will have to wait for book two (or three) to see how the mysteries are solved.

When You Reach Me
by Rebecca Stead


As her mother prepares to be a contestant on the 1980s television game show, "The $20,000 Pyramid," a twelve-year-old New York City girl tries to make sense of a series of mysterious notes received from an anonymous source that seems to defy the laws of time and space.



My Thoughts: I loved this book! When I started reading the first few chapters, I wasn't sure what was going on. Keep reading and give this book a chance, it has a great ending. After I finished it, I wanted to go back and reread it to find all of the clues. This book is on the current Lone Star list, check it out!