Shooter by Caroline Pignat

Caroline Pignat is one of Darcy's favourite authors (she actually got to attend a writing workshop with Caroline earlier this year) who is actually based in Ottawa and is a high school teacher here. She writes books aimed at teens and teens love them. This one was released while I was doing my placement in a high school library and it was in high demand. Darcy read it then, but later bought the book at a meet and greet with the author at a local Chapters store. She's been on my case to read it ever since so I took the opportunity during my summer vacation to give it a read.

Anyone in my age group knows and loves the movie The Breakfast Club. We loved watching those five students trapped together in Saturday detention, starting the day as strangers and ending the day as friends. The situations they faced forced them to see beyond high school labels to the real people inside.

Shooter operates in much the same way. 5 students are trapped in the boys' bathroom during a school lockdown. Each student speaks in their own unique voice (poetry, prose, text messages, writing journals) and they combine to tell the story of what happens that day in their school. There's Alice, a lonely writer who is a caregiver to her older brother, Noah, who has autism. Hogan is a former football player who is always in trouble after the death of his older brother. Isabelle is the student council president and always feels pressured to present a perfect image to the other students and her parents. The final student is Xander, a social misfit who sees the world better through the lens of his camera and needs to do "social autopsies" on conversations after they happen so he can understand what transpired.

At the beginning they assume the lockdown is a drill, or simply related to a series of pranks that have been happening at the school in recent weeks. Things change when Isabelle receives a text from her friend locked down in the office that this isn't a drill or a prank, there is a shooter in the school.

These five students need to understand each other (and more about themselves) in order to get through. Maybe there is more to perfect Isabelle than she lets on. Hogan's painful past has damaged him in ways he can't get past. Alice feels a huge responsibility for Noah and may have to put her own dreams aside to help care for him. Xander is trying to fit in in a world he doesn't understand and the one friend he thought he had leads him on a dangerous path. These students look to each other and into themselves to learn how to work together to survive.

I loved reading this book and I highly recommend it for anyone, but especially any teens you may have in your life. My library doesn't currently own a copy of this book, but I'll be getting one during this school year. Please look into Caroline's work and support this fantastic local author! Here is a link to a review I did of Egghead a few years ago.

The Paris Architect by Charles Belfoure

This is me getting the jump on my fall book club meeting by reading the book during the summer! I'm a book club superstar! I also happen to be temporarily unemployed...

I hadn't heard anything about this book when it was selected for our club and I don't remember when I bought it. It has been on my shelf for a few months and I finally picked it up last week.

This is the story of Lucien Bouchard who, as you can probably guess from the title, is an architect based in Paris. The year is 1942, so Paris is under German occupation during WWII. The occupation is definitely hindering Lucien's ambitions of becoming a famous architect. There is little to no work to be found. Lucien is approached by a very wealthy man with a challenging proposition. Can Lucien create a space where Jewish people can safely hide during Gestapo raids? It has be better than a false wall in the back of the closet. If he is successful he will be given commissions to design factories for the Germans which means he'll finally be able to prove to the world that is a talented architect.

Lucien is a selfish man. He has never done anything just out of kindness. Hiding Jewish people is a death sentence for anyone involved and their family. He doesn't love his wife, but he still doesn't want to put her life at risk by getting involved. Yet the money provided by these jobs will allow him to once again enjoy some of life's luxuries that he had been missing since the occupation began. So he takes the job, but only for the money. He wants no part of helping these people, but it's the only way to advance his career during war time.

As you can imagine this creates a series of problems for Lucien and his life takes turns he was not expecting. It's a wonderful story with fantastic characters. It's an interesting look at why we do the things we do and how taking a risk can lead to something amazing. I just read that the film rights have already been purchased and I think it will make a beautiful movie.

I don't remember which of my book club members chose this book, but whoever she is, I'm glad she did! I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one and highly recommend it. And to any book club members reading this, my copy is available to borrow before the September meeting, first come, first served!

Sense and Sensibilty Manga Edition by Jane Austen and Stacy King

It's no secret that I've not always been a big fan of adaptations/sequels of my favourite books. I hate when the stories and characters are changed from their original forms.

However, I am becoming a big fan of classic stories being told in a new way. Graphic novels are a great way to introduce new readers to these amazing stories. Wesley has recently read graphic novel versions of Frankenstein and Dracula and loved them. Amelia has a graphic novel of Anne of Green Gables and then on a recent trip to the library I stumbled across this version of Sense and Sensibility. Darcy read it first and fell in love with it. After I told her about all the Harry Potter actors who were in the movie she needed to see that right away. We absolutely loved watching that together.

I have now read the book myself and only have great things to say about it. The adaptation is very true to the original story, using the original text in most cases. The art is beautiful and adds a wonderful dimension to the story.

In true manga form this book reads from right to left so that took a bit of getting used to, but I was fine after a page or two. They also include a manga reading lesson at the beginning of the book to help old timers like me.

If you are looking for a new twist on an old favourite, give it a try. We are now waiting in line for Pride and Prejudice in manga form. I hope I love it just as much as I loved this one.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas

This book has been on a lot of lists for YA reads over the past year. I added it to my school library and recently brought it home to read it.

This is the story of Starr, a 16-year old girl living in a predominantly black area of an unnamed US city. In her neighbourhood of Garden Heights gangs are everywhere, drugs are easily available and she watched one of her two best friends get killed in a drive-by shooting when they were ten years old. When she is 16, she leaves a party (because shooting has broken out) with her other best friend, Khalil.

Starr felt out of place at the party because she doesn't go to school in Garden Heights. Her parents send her to a private school in the city to give her and her brothers a shot at a better education. She feels she has to be one Starr in Garden Heights and a completely different Starr at school. At school she can't be too "black", or invite friends back to her home in the "ghetto".

On the way home from the party with Khalil, they are stopped by the police because Khalil has a taillight missing. As Khalil reaches into the car to see if Starr is OK, the officer begins shooting and Khalil is shot three times and he dies there, with Starr again watching one of her bests friends dying.

This is a powerful look at race relations in a country where things seem to be getting worse, not better. Although not based on an actual case, we've all followed similar stories in the news. I felt the book to be very well-written and I read it very quickly.

I can't imagine living in many of the situations faced in the book, they are things I've never had to face as a white, Canadian woman. It's definitely eye-opening and shocking. I recommend it.

The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware

I picked this one up at a used bookstore last summer and it has been on my shelf ever since. I've seen it around and know it has been a popular book, but thrillers aren't really my thing even though they're a huge trend in books right now. However, summer vacation has begun and so has my summer reading. I thought this would be a fun place to start.

I was right. It's far from being the most exciting book I've ever read but it was a good, suspenseful read. I was intrigued enough to want to keep reading and even stayed up late a couple of nights to keep reading. That's not a luxury I allow myself during the school year!

This is the story of Laura (Lo) Blacklock, a travel journalist who is just about to embark on a luxury cruise ship with only 10 cabins. She is trying to advance in her career and this could be the opportunity she has been looking for to help her make her mark. However, just days before her departure, her home is broken into leaving Lo feeling nervous and afraid. She has always had panic attacks which she was managing with medication but now they are resurfacing. She can't sleep and is constantly afraid. She hopes the trip will allow her some time to relax and get her fears under control.

The first night on board she meets the small group of people she's travelling with, including her ex-boyfriend. There are other journalists, a few investors and a very helpful staff all travelling together. After a lovely dinner and a few too many drinks, Lo returns to her room to finally try to get some sleep. She is awakened by a scream and a splash and she's convinced she's just heard a body be thrown overboard from the cabin next door. There had been a woman in there earlier (Lo had borrowed some mascara from her) but that woman hadn't appeared at dinner. When Lo calls the ship's security to come investigate they don't seem to believe her and tell her that no one was registered to stay in that cabin and he shows her that the cabin is uninhabited. Everyone else on board is accounted for, and no one believes that she saw a woman in that cabin earlier. So what did Lo hear, who went overboard, and where did that woman go? Who was she?

One of my problems with thrillers is that they take too long to end. Even after you have figured out the mystery there are still a bunch of scary situations thrown in just to keep you on the edge of your seat a big longer. I really hate that. She could have cut about 20 pages out of the end of the book and still had a great story.

Again, it wasn't the greatest mystery I've ever read but it was fun and it was a page turner. If you are looking for a book to take on vacation, this would be a great one.

A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler

I seem to have fallen behind in my blogging. The end of the school year was so busy, followed by a fun first week of summer vacation. I seem to have some time to myself today, so let's see how we do.

A Spool of Blue Thread was our book club selection for June. I wasn't quite finished in time for the meeting but finished a day or two later.

This is the story of Red and Abby Whitshank and their family, both the generation before them and then their own children and grandchildren. Red and Abby live in Baltimore in a house that had previously been built and loved by Red's father. The house is the centre of their universe and as much a member of the family as any of their children.

Red and Abby's son Denny has always demanded a lot of their attention and energy, leaving the other children struggling for their parents attention. Denny has never seemed like part of the family, despite his mother's constant attention, or maybe because of that. The others make their way through life, dependably reliable, but always hoping for a bit more attention from their parents, especially their mom.

I found this to be a beautifully written book, but there just isn't a lot of action. The story is full of interesting characters but leaves you with a very unsatisfying ending. We get to read the back story of how Red and Abby met and fell in love, and even how Red's parents met and began their relationship. There's a lot of background given, but not a lot of resolution. You finish the book with nearly as many questions as you have at the beginning.

If you like to finish a book with all your i's dotted and your t's crossed then this isn't the book for you. But if you enjoy a slow moving story with fun and interesting characters then you would probably enjoy this one. Our group was a bit mixed with it, a few didn't finish it and no one raved about it. It's not a page-turner but it is a well-written book.

The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen by Syrie James

It is a truth universally acknowledged that I am a big fan of Jane Austen. I've read all of her books, some of them several times. I've also read a lot of other peoples' takes on her work, especially "sequels" to Pride and Prejudice. Without fail, they annoyed me. Whenever an author takes on Jane's familiar characters I feel like that author doesn't understand them as well as I do. I had promised myself that I wouldn't read anything else adding to work. Then this book was chosen as our book club selection for May so I found myself reluctantly entering someone else's views on Jane Austen again.

This book pretends to be Jane's actual memoirs. The premise is that these journals were found in a house that once belonged to her brother. You read the book as if you were reading Jane's own diary. As you read, if you are familiar with her works you will recognize many of the characters and scenes as being from Jane's books, as if she had modelled the scenes after people she had met.

As far as someone else putting their own spin on Jane Austen, this is the best one I've read. That's not to say I liked it, but it was better than most of the others. It just didn't feel original to me, because I had already read most of these scenes before in Jane Austen's own books. It was funny to see how the author wove the different characters and scenes into her story, but it all just felt so familiar as I was reading.

On it's own it was a fun story with a nice romance thrown in. However you also might not enjoy it much if you don't know Jane Austen's works and don't understand the characters and scenes Syrie James is referencing. It was a pretty quick read and I didn't hate it, but I feel like Jane Austen's work can stand on its own and doesn't need anyone else's interpretation.