THE SIGHT by Jude Watson

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THE SIGHT
Author: Jude Watson
Source: Library
  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
  • Publisher: Scholastic Inc. (March 1, 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0545206472
  • ISBN-13: 978-0545206471
SYNOPSIS:
Gracie has premonitions. They’ve haunted her since before her mother’s death, and she can’t get rid of them. She doesn’t know how to deal with them and she doesn’t want to–they’ve never led to anything good. She never knows whether she’s seeing the past, the present, or the future–it just comes to her. But Gracie is forced to try to use her premonitions. Her best friend, Emily, disappears, and the premonitions lead to the only clues to where she might be–and how she might be saved. Gracie’s long-absent father reappears, and his history appears to be mysteriously linked to the disappearance of a student many years ago–and the recent appearance of a body. Only Gracie’s premonitions lead to answers to some dark family secrets. In these two novels, Judy Blundell (writing as Jude Watson) takes readers on a suspenseful journey where premonitions become a matter of life and death.
MY THOUGHTS:
First of all, this is two books in one.  The first book is Premonitions and the second is Disappearance.  While I liked the idea of the book, the story was not that great.  Gracie has premonitions that she hates.  She just wants to be normal.  Along with this gift, she can also see the past and can feel what other people are feeling.  While most people would consider this a gift, Gracie thinks it is curse. 
What I didn’t like about the book is at first, the girl that goes missing, Emily, is not what you would consider Gracie’s best friend.  Emily just latched on to Gracie, and Gracie can’t stand her.  So when Emily goes missing, her about face of being so concerned for Emily is far fetched.  Gracie wanted her to go away and now she is playing private eye to find her.  For the suspense, it had a bunch of it.  The only thing is that you know who did it almost without even thinking about it. 
The only saving grace of this book were the side characters.  I felt more of a connection with them than I did with Gracie. The cover was great for the paranormal feel of the book.  The black and white with colored eyes has a little mystery to it.  Overall a book that I wouldn’t waste my money on buying.  If it is something you still want to read, I recommend checking it out from the library first before spending your money on it.
MY RATING:


 
  If the library doesn’t have it, don’t worry about reading it!

SPACEHEADZ Book 1: by Jon Scieszka

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Book One
Author: Jon Scieszka
Source: ARC from Publisher
*I received this book free of charge in exchange for an honest review*
  • Product Details
  • Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, June 2010
  • Hardcover, 176 pages
  • ISBN-10: 1416979514
  • ISBN-13: 9781416979517
  • Ages: 7 – 10
  • Grades: 2 – 5

SYNOPSIS:

The perfect combination of the age old experience of holding and pouring over a physical book with newest media technology that kids love!

Michael K. just started fifth grade at a new school. As if that wasn’t hard enough, the kids he seems to have made friends with apparently aren’t kids at all. They are aliens. Real aliens who have invaded our planet in the form of school children and a hamster. They have a mission to complete: to convince 3,400,001 kids to BE SPHDZ. But with a hamster as their leader, “kids” who talk like walking advertisements, and Michael K as their first convert, will the SPHDZ be able to keep their cover and pull off their assignment?

 
MY THOUGHTS:
First of all, this a book I think that a boy would be more interested in than a girl. Also, it is geared for the younger teen crowd ages 7-10.  With that in mind, I tried to read it from that perspective. 
First the bad of the book.  It is very confusing to try and figure it out when trying to figure out where the plot is wanting to go.  It didn’t flow like it should, and at many times I was left scratching my head.  It has a lot of references to different internet sites throughout the story and I am guessing the author wanted to have the book correspond with these sites.  Personally, I think getting a child to read a book is more important than having a child read a little, check a website, and then read the book more.  To me it wasn’t what reading is all about.
The good points of the book are the illustrations.  I thought they were cute and funny.  They fit the feel of the book perfectly.  The cover is nice and bright and probably would be appealing to the younger readers.  Since the book is basically about space aliens, I do think it is great to have a book for the boys who read.  You just don’t see a lot of books geared for boys anymore. 
In my overall opinion, the book was just okay.  It might be a little confusing for the age group it is targeting, and might even be more confusing if the child doesn’t have access to the internet.  

MY RATING:

 
  If the library doesn’t have it, don’t worry about reading it!

MY TIME AS CAZ HAZARD by Tanya Lloyd Kyi

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MY TIME AS CAZ HAZARD
Author: Tanya Lloyd Kyi
Source: Library
  • Reading level: Young Adult
  • Paperback: 103 pages
  • Publisher: Orca Book Publishers (September 30, 2004)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1551433192
  • ISBN-13: 978-1551433196
SYNOPSIS:

When Caz and Amanda’s behavior seems to contribute to a classmate’s suicide, Caz must take a long hard look at her life.
MY THOUGHTS:
When I went looking at the library for a book focused more on emotional reading than paranormal reading, I came across this book in the young adult section.  Granted, it is a very short book with larger typed font, but the cover was intriguing to me and the blurb on the back seemed to be what I was looking for.
We meet Caz, who goes to a regular school and has just gotten in trouble for punching her cheating boyfriend at school.  She gets 2 sweeks suspension and gossips with her friend Mel over the phone.  Fast forward through the summer and we see her parents talking with the principle of the school and they are going over some of her test scores.  They think Caz needs to be placed in a different school because the believe she has dyslexia.  She fights her parents about this decision and finally has to give in to it.  She leaves behind her friends from school and starts at Dogwood Senior Secondary.  On the first day she is called names like Sped.  When she enters her new class she meets Amanda who has problems of her own.  Amanda becomes a bad influence on her and she falls into the traps of stealing, bullying and lieing.  It catches up to her, when another disabled student commits suicide after the bullying she receives from Amanda and Caz. 
This story was very quick. I read it in 30 minutes tops.  It felt like a book geared more for the younger teens than the older teens, maybe ages 9-12.  It gave a great lesson in accepting certain flaws you may have, but also teaching you about treating others with respect as well.  I think the author could have focused more on the suicide  and bullying instead of the mischief Amanda creates.  Everything happened  very quickly with no substance to it.  Not bad if you are looking for quick read to fill in some time with, but not one I would reread again.
MY RATING:


 
  If the library doesn’t have it, don’t worry about reading it!

CAN’T STAND THE HEAT by Louisa Edwards

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CAN’T STAND THE HEAT
Author: Louisa Edwards
Source: Library
  • Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: St. Martin’s Paperbacks; 1 edition (September 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0312356498
  • ISBN-13: 978-0312356491
SYNOPSIS:

For sharp-tongued food critic Miranda Wake, the chance to spend a month in Adam Temple’s kitchen to write an exposé is a journalistic dream come true. Surely Miranda can find a way to cut the hotshot chef down to size once she learns what really goes on at his trendy Manhattan restaurant. But she never expected Adam to find out her most embarrassing secret: she has no idea how to cook.

Adam’s not about to have his reputation burned by a critic who doesn’t even know the difference between poaching and paring.  He’ll just have to give the tempting redhead a few private lessons of his own—teaching her what it means to cook with passion…and doing more with his hands than simply preparing sumptuous food.

MY THOUGHTS:

The cover caught my eye when reading about this book on another blog.  I was excited to find another romance that features cooking as well.  So I sat down to read this book  by Louisa Edwards, waiting for my mouth to water at all the romance and antics in a kitchen.  Well, I am still waiting.

The book started out great.  We have Miranda, who is an independent woman who speaks her mind, and we have Adam, a strong yet cocky mouthed cook.  I thought their was going to be a spicy romance brewing in the pages.  For some reason though, I just couldn’t bring myself to care about the characters.  To me, they just didn’t seem to click.  For the first half of the book there was barely any dialogue between the two.  When they did talk, it was boring.  I did like Jess and Frankie though.  Frankie was hilarious and Jess was a great secondary character for the book.  The book was slow moving and just couldn’t quite take off for me.

Overall, a book I would recommend checking out from the library instead of spending your money on first.  If you end up liking it, buy it afterwards.  I would still give this author another chance and read the second book in the series though, just so I can see if the writing and story can become better.

MY RATING:

 
  A Decent Read.
Has Some Drawbacks Though.


COLLISION COURSE by K.A. Mitchell

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COLLISION COURSE
Author: K.A. Mitchell
Source: Purchased at store
  • Paperback: 264 pages
  • Publisher: Samhain Publishing (November 1, 2009)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1605044148
  • ISBN-13: 978-1605044149
  • GENRE: M/M Erotic Romance
SYNOPSIS:
Paramedic Aaron Chase doesn’t have anything against love, but he knows it means a lot of responsibility, like when he had to step in to raise his siblings. With the last one off to college, Aaron’s anticipating enjoying life on his own terms. He certainly isn’t expecting Joey Miller to accidentally drop into his life. Sexy, funny and annoyingly optimistic, Joey’s tendency to get into trouble keeps sending him Aaron’s way; Joey knows all about love. He’s fallen in it ten times. All that experience has to count for something, right? With Aaron it’s different. Joey’s fallen for good.
MY THOUGHTS:
This was my first book in this genre. I am trying to read 5 M/M books to complete the challenge.
After all the talk I have heard about this genre, I was excited to be able to find a book at the book store for this challenge.  I thought the cover was great and the blurb didn’t sound too bad.  I had mixed reactions to this book though.
First the good.  The character of Joey was very likable for me.  He seemed care free and fun. I am still laughing at the remark of his cotton candy hair.  The sex in the book was different, hot and didn’t make me feel funny reading about it.  It was written well.
The bad part of the book, in my opinion was Aaron Chase.  I just couldn’t bring myself to like him.  He was arrogant and seemed like such an ass.  The writing did go all over the place at times as well.  In one sentence we are reading about so and so in one place, and in the next we are with someone else in a different scene.  The flow just didn’t feel right.
Not a bad book, but not a great book either.  I had high hopes for this genre. I will continue on my quest though to find the attraction in this type of book.
MY RATING:

 
  A Decent Read.
Has Some Drawbacks Though.