Five Spring Break Reads

Spring Break is the perfect time to catch up on the books collecting  dust on your nightstand. Here are five great reads to check out on your break!

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Pi Patel, son of a zookeeper, weaves an intricate story of his adventurous childhood. His greatest adventure happens aboard a lifeboat after his ship sinks. Trapped with a 450-pound Bengal tiger, a wounded zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan, Pi fights to survive while telling one of the greatest survival tales in recent years.

Legend by Marie Lu

June, groomed by the government to be their prodigy, hunts for the reclusive rebel Day. When she goes undercover to find out more about Day, she discovers more about herself. Day, an outlaw with a mysterious past, runs from his past as well as the government. What he doesn’t count on is falling for June while trying to manipulate her for his own agenda.

The Lonely Hearts Club by Elizabeth Eulberg

Penny Lane Bloom, daughter of Beatles fanatics, has been burned by boys too many times. With a little help from her friends (yes, I know that’s cheesy), Penny swears off boys. While the change started out as her personal choice, it quickly spreads around the school. The club continues to grow, and the guys are getting mad. Penny couldn’t be prouder, but she begins to question her ban when she mets a guy who might be the one for her.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Lena lives in a world where love is a disease. She anticipates the day she will be Cured, matched with her perfect boy, and live a mundane, loveless life—until she meets Alex, a boy who turns her world upside-down through his charming personality and knowledge of a world outside of her cage. As Lena and Alex grow closer, Lena’s world becomes more transparent. But as her Cure date comes up, Lena fights to keep love in her life.

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Jane still desperately clings to her childhood fantasy of hooking up with Mr. Darcy. By spending a trip at Regency-era resort in England, drinking tea and playing croquet with handsome gentleman in tails, Jane hopes to flush Mr. Darcy out of her system. But with the gardener offering her something real, and a brooding gentleman she can’t get out of her head, Jane searches for her fantasy in the twenty-first century. Shannon Hale’s vulnerable and hilarious voice makes this story an intriguing and memorable read. Plus, this gorgeous cover hooked me right away!

Falling Kingdoms

Back of the Book: In a land where magic has been forgotten but peace has reigned for centuries, a deadly unrest is simmering. Three kingdoms grapple for power—brutally transforming their subjects' lives in the process. Amidst betrayals, bargains, and battles, four young people find their fates forever intertwined:
Cleo: A princess raised in luxury must embark on a rough and treacherous journey into enemy territory in search of a magic long thought extinct.
Jonas: Enraged at injustice, a rebel lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people's revolution centuries in the making.
Lucia: A girl adopted at birth into a royal family discovers the truth about her past—and the supernatural legacy she is destined to wield.
Magnus: Bred for aggression and trained to conquer, a firstborn son begins to realize that the heart can be more lethal than the sword. . . .

The only outcome that's certain is that kingdoms will fall. Who will emerge triumphant when all they know has collapsed?

Falling Kingdoms is a truly one-of-a-kind book, from the plot, to the action, to the characters. Morgan Rhodes chose to use the perspectives of multiple characters, which usually leaves the reader confused about what happened last for each character. However, in Falling Kingdoms, each character displays such a unique personality and storyline that it is easy to distinguish one from the other.

Cleo is the passionate, headstrong princess of Auranos. When her sister falls ill to a mysterious illness, she sets off to find a rare magic that might heal her. However, what she didn’t count on are the rebel tracking her every move and an unspoken attraction to her bodyguard.

After tragedy strikes his family, Jonas longs for vengeance against the one who caused it all: Princess Cleo and her betrothed, Lord Aron. His hatred threatens to destroy him as he sacrifices everything for revenge.

Magnus, son and heir of the infamous King of Blood, must remain cold and indifferent to mask his vulnerability—love. Magnus hopes to ensure his rightful place on the throne by hardening his heart. However, will the unmasking of his weakness be his undoing?

Lucia, Magnus’s sister and princess of Limeros, begins to uncover truths about herself as a previously unknown power rises within her. But how can she control her power when she does not know what it is?

Falling Kingdoms combines the elements of a fantasy and an action novel to create a unique, unforgettable story. Manipulative royals vying for control of Mytica, hooking battle scenes, and blossoming romance all take center stage in this book. With the alternating perspectives, readers are never left bored. Each of the characters were fleshed out perfectly, and they all were believable and interesting. Magnus’s perspective was my favorite to read. His calculated, logical plotting in despite of his oppressive father made me turn the pages faster to get back to his perspective. Falling Kingdoms, with its action, adventure, and suspense, left me longing for the next book.

Lily of the Nile

Back of the Book:

With her parents dead, the daughter of Cleopatra and Mark Antony is left at the mercy of her Roman captors. Heir to one empire and prisoner of another, Princess Selene must save her brothers and reclaim what is rightfully hers...

In the aftermath of Alexandria's tragic fall, Princess Selene is taken from Egypt, the only home she's ever known. Along with her two surviving brothers, she's put on display as a war trophy in Rome. Selene's captors mock her royalty and drag her through the streets in chains, but on the brink of death, the children are spared as a favor to the emperor's sister, who takes them to live as hostages in the so-called lamentable embassy of royal orphans...

Trapped in a Roman court of intrigue that reviles her heritage and suspects her faith, Selene can't hide the hieroglyphics that carve themselves into her flesh. Nor can she stop the emperor from using her for his own political ends. Faced with a new and ruthless Caesar who is obsessed with having a Cleopatra of his very own, Selene is determined to honor her mother's lost legacy. The magic of Egypt and Isis remain within her. Can she succeed where her mother failed? And what will it cost her in a political game where the only rule is win or die?

Selene is the new Queen of Egypt while living as a prisoner in Rome. After her parents died, the Romans invaded Egypt and captured Selene, her twin Helios, and their younger brother Philadelphus are taken to Rome. Dragged through the streets in chains, Roman emperor Octavian shows them off as spoils of his latest war. Selene desperately wants to go home, but she’ll have to polish her manipulation skills to work her way back to Egypt. Unfortunately, the strange hieroglyphics appearing on her arms aren’t helping.

With the help of her brothers, Selene struggles to figure out the magic at work. But growing up in a Roman house isn’t helping. The more Selene tries to bury Egypt and her mother, the more her true self shines through. Selene has magic. And she knows it. But will she embrace it, so far away from home and surrounded by Romans who believe she should change?

Stephanie Dray paints Selene beautifully. Egypt and Rome spring off the pages and come to life. Dray has obviously researched this novel down to the last article of clothing, and that is apparent through Lily of the Nile. But unlike some historical fiction, this book isn’t weighed down by details. Instead it springs into action, enticing the reader from the beginning. Selene is a smart, headstrong character. But she is human in so many ways. She fears and worries and frets along with the rest of us. She pours over her future and struggles with whether to embrace it.

Lily of the Nile is a fantastic book, one of my favorites. It is astonishing that this is Dray’s first novel. I expect great things from this author! I am already anticipating Lily of the Nile’s sequel, Song of the Nile.

The Bad Beginning

            You will notice that this book is not entitled The Littlest Elf.

            There is a very good reason for that. First of all, nothing in this book even closely resembles an elf, or anything elf-like. Secondly, The Littlest Elf is a happy story filled with singing and dancing helpers of Santa who happen to be vertically-challenged, while The Bad Beginning is a terrible novel filled with terrible people who do terrible things to three smart and resourceful children.

            You will also notice that this book begins with a warning, which you’d better heed if you value anything in this life we are given. This book should not be called The Bad Beginning. The words “the” “bad” and “beginning” placed in that order infer that there is only a bad beginning. But no. There is a bad beginning, a bad middle, and a bad end.

It all began on a bad morning on Briny Beach, where three children receive word that their parents had died in a terrible fire, and their mansion melted into a pile of rubble. Newly orphaned Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire are shipped off to their relative at the request of their deceased parents, only to find a series of unfortunate events waiting to attack the orphans. Their sly and sneaky guardian, Count Olaf, plots to get his grubby, dirt-under-the-nails hands on the famous Baudelaire fortune Violet is to inherit when she is of age. The children are forced to perform ridiculous chores for their guardian and his terrifying theater troop, receive abuse at the hands of the villainous count, and try to remain optimistic while their life slowly dwindles down the drain.           

 But when things can’t get possibly any worse, they do. The children know Count Olaf is plotting something, but they can’t find out what it is. They must rely on their inventing, reading, and biting skills to uncover their vile guardian’s plot to seize their stack of cash in the bank. But heed my warning: the dreadful, addicting lives of the Baudelaire orphans will compel you to read for days without stop until you have completed every miserable volume.

(Readers looking for happy books...don't look here.)

The Two Princesses of Bamarre

Two princesses, polar opposites, remain trapped inside their palace by an overprotective father. Shy and reserved Princess Addie hides from the dragons and monsters plaguing the countryside while bold and daring Princess Meryl dreams of dramatic adventures saving her beloved kingdom. Fearful Addie never imagined that Meryl’s greatest adventure would be fighting the violent illness that claimed their mother.

            Now Addie must find her courage on a valiant journey to cure her sister. The dragons, spectators, and gryphons, once safely locked inside her storybooks, come to live in the most vivid way imaginable. Gail Carson Levine painted a beautiful world where fear and courage are tested by one remarkable heroine.

            Gail Carson Levine has done it again. She never fails to astonish me. A few friends recommended this book to me, and I devoured it, scanning each page as quickly as possible. Addie amazed me, as did her journey for a beloved sister. The action, adventure, and romance Levine always delivers come to live as one fearful girl embarks on a quest against the greatest monster we are all acquainted with—fear.

Secrets of My Hollywood Life

            The glitz and glamor of Hollywood and descriptive writing by Jen Calonita will yank you out of reality and draw you into the life of Kaitlin Burke, average American teenager.

            Well, sort of.

            If by “average” you mean the hottest seventeen year old actress in Hollywood.

            But the real Kaitlin Burke—Star Wars lover and Sidekick Bedazzler—is masked behind the image created by her manager/Mom and publicist, Laney. Even though Kaitlin loves her job, the false tabloid stories surrounding her and a catty costar out for blood ignite a daring idea: escaping the pressures of Hollywood by creating an alter ego and attending the local high school her best friend Liz is enrolled at. Kaitlin’s acting skills come in handy convincing her Hollywood-consumed family that living a double life will be the perfect break for her.

            But when Kaitlin’s glamor is stripped away and her personal assistant can’t help her with French homework, how will she survive the school and keep her secret hidden from snobby cheerleaders, her new friends, and the cute Chad Michael Murray look-a-like who talked to her after class?

            Jen Calonita has taken an average, tattered plot of a star trying to live a normal life and transformed it into a dramatic story of a normal teen facing lies, jealous cheerleaders, and the highs and lows of Hollywood.

            This book had me (and will intrigue you too) at its first Hollywood Secret…