The Running Dream, by Wendelin Van Draanan (2011)

 

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My rating:  8 out of 10 stars

 

To check this read out at NOLS, click HERE!

Trouble, by Gary D. Schmidt (2008)

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My rating:  10 out of 10 stars!!!

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Fire, by Kristin Cashore (2009)

Larch often thought that if it had not been for his newborn son, he never would have survived his wife Mikra's death.

Seventeen-year old Fire is the last human-shaped monster in the Dells.  Her beauty stuns those who see her, and most people either want to marry her or kill her.  She can also control the minds of anyone near her.

The kingdom is in danger; war is on the way.  Fire is called to the capital city to help the king.  
She learns about the various spies for the king's enemies, but one is the most mysterious.

...Fire sat alone, puzzling over the boy.  His right eye was gray and his left eye was red, which was strange enough itself.  His hair was blond like wheat, his skin light, and he had the appearance of being ten or eleven...He was sitting facing her, a rodent monster in his lap, a mouse with glimmering gold fur.  He was tying a string around its neck.  fire knew somehow that the creature was not his pet.

He pulled the string, too tight.  The mouse's legs began to jerk.  Stop it, Fire thought furiously, aiming her message at the strange presence that was his mind. 

He loosened the string immediately.  The mouse lay in his lap, heaving with tiny breaths.   The boy smiled at Fire, and stood up, and came to stand before her.  "It doesn't hurt him," he said.  "It's only a choking game, for fun."

She stared at him coolly, so he could not see her bewilderment.  "A choking game?  All the fun of it is on your side, and it's a sick kind of fun."

He smiled again.  His lopsided, red-eyed smile was somehow distressing.  "Is it sick?  To want to be in control?"

"Of a helpless, frightened creature?  Let it go."

"The others believed me when I said it didn't hurt him," he said, "but you know not to.  Plus, you're awfully pretty.  So I'll give you what you want."

Rating:  2 out of 10 stars

* mild language, sexual inference

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The Fault in our Stars, by John Green (2012)

Late in the winter of my seventeenth year, my mother decided I was depressed, presumably because I rarely left the house, spent quite a lot of time in bed, read the same book over and over, ate infrequently, and devoted quite a bit of my abundant free time to thinking about death.

Hazel Grace Lancaster has terminal thyroid cancer.  She knows it's not *if* she dies, it's when.  The cancer has metastasized in her lungs.  She's lived with this disease since she was 13, fighting for each breath.  All of her treatment has been to extend her life, not cure her cancer. 

Luckily Hazel got into an experimental trial.  The drug didn't work in about 70% of people, but it worked in Hazel.  The tumors shrank.  

In the past eighteen months, my mets have hardly grown, leaving me with lungs that suck at being lungs but could, conceivably, struggle along indefinitely with the assistance of drizzled oxygen and daily Phalanxifor.

Hazel hasn't been to a regular school in three years.  Her parents and author Peter Van Houten are her three best friends.

I'd learned this from my aforementioned third best friend, Peter Van Houten, the reclusive author of An Imperial Affliction, the book that was a close a thing as I had to a Bible.  Peter Van Houten was the only person I'd ever come across who seemed to (a) understand what it's like to be dying, and (b) not have died.

To deal with her depression, Hazel is sent to a support group with teens who have cancer.  They meet in the basement of a church.  She meets 17-year old Isaac who has to have his one good eye removed and will be blind in a couple of weeks.  She also meets 17-year old Augustus Waters who has osteosarcoma; one of his legs had to be amputated.  He's been NEC (No Evidence of Cancer) for 14 months.

After the meeting Augustus invites Hazel to come to his house to watch a movie.  As she waits for her mom to pick her up, Hazel notices Augustus putting a cigarette between his lips.  Hazel is disgusted.  

"They don't kill you unless you light them," he said as Mom arrived at the curb.  "And I've never lit one.  It's a metaphor, see.  You put the killing thing right between your teeth, but you don't give it the power to do its killing."

Hazel and Augustus begin spending time together.

Hazel has written letters to author Peter Van Houton for years, always to be unanswered.  Augustus   finds a way to contact the reclusive author and receives a reply.  He learns that Van Houton will answer Hazel's questions if she comes to Amsterdam to meet with him.  Hazel already spent her Wish the Genies gave her.  Augustus knows what he wants to do.

"Ah," he said.  And then, after what felt like a practiced pause, he added, "But I saved mine."

Hazel is so sick a trip to Amsterdam may be out of the question.  And she begins to worry about what will happen to Augustus when she dies.  She begins to pull away from Augustus.

"I'm like.  Like.  I'm like a grenade, Mom and at some point I'm going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?"

"I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there's nothing I can do about hurting you; you're too invested, so just please let me do that, okay?  I'm not depressed.  I don't need to get out more.  And I can't be a regular teenager, because I'm a grenade."

The Fault in our Stars is an amazing read.  Even though Hazel and Augustus don't have a lot of time together, their relationship is incredible.  Funny, sad, smart, I loved this read.  As Augustus himself said, 

"It is a good life, Hazel Grace."

Rating:  10 out of 10 stars
*language, drugs, sexual inference, issues of death

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