Twelve by: Lauren Myracle

Twelve is the sequel to Eleven by Lauren Myracle.  I think that this series keeps getting better and better.  In Eleven, Winnie, the main character,  turns eleven and lots of things start to change.  Her friends start liking makeup, clothes, and boys.  Winnie feels really out of place because she is not ready to grow up yet.  She still wants to run around and play make believe, but no one else will.  Then a new girl comes and steals Winnie's best friend away.  In Twelve Winnie starts seventh grade.  She has a new best friend named Dinah.  Winnie is very nervous for seventh grade because she has to leave elementary school and go to a different place filled with total strangers.  The first couple of days are not good for Winnie, she just minds her own business and stays all alone most of the day.  Then Winnie meets a girl in gym class named Cinnamon.  Winnie, Dinah, and Cinnamon are all best friends.  But of course there is some drama.  Winnie has a crush on an eighth grader named Lars.  The girls think that Lars likes Winnie back.  Cinnamon always tries to get Winnie to flirt with Lars, and Winnie doesn't mind it.  One day Winnie is talking to lars and Dinah interrupts because of something with her cat.  Winnie gets mad and talks about it on the phone with Cinnamon.  Winnie said some mean stuff about Dinah, and it turns out that Dinah was on the other line.  Winnie tried to apologize but Dinah was really mad.  I won't tell you the rest so I don't give anything away, but it gets really dramatic.  Throughout the book Winnie has lots of adventures, but the main point is that Winnie is finally growing up.  She has to act more mature and not be childish around her friends.  by the end of the book Winnie does not feel so lost with all of her friends.  She starts getting into the things they are into.  Winnie feels like she is growing up within her family too.  She starts to hang out with her older sister Sandra a lot.  Winnie likes being able to act like a teenager with her sister.  Throughout Twelve all of Winnie's views on things have changed, and she is ready to grow up.  Thirteen still feels like a long way away though.  I really liked this book because I feel like I can relate to it because  I am in seventh grade too.  I cannot wait to read the rest of this series.  The books are light reads but still very fun to read.  I hope everyone gets a chance to read them soon.

Eleven by: Lauren Myracle

I have heard so many great things about this series from my friends that I had to read it.  It is an easy read for me, but still very good.  The main character is a girl named Winnie.  The book is written from her point of view.  The book is set up so that every month is a different chapter.  In each month there are new and exciting twists and turns.  In the first chapter it is Winnie's eleventh birthday.  The day is going perfect for her, until her party starts.  She and her best friend, Amanda, made a entire schedule of how the birthday party is going to go, but none of the other girls want to follow it.  Winnie wanted to act out a play, but everyone else thought that it would be boring.  Then someone found the old electric chair that went up and down the stairs.  It was meant for old people who couldn't walk up the stairs, but Winnie's friends thought it would be fun to play with.  The girls were complaining about the pizza, the gifts, and everything that Winnie and Amanda had planned.  Winnie was getting really sad, but then her bff Amanda showed her birthday gift to her.  It was a kitten! Winnie named her cutie-pie.  That was the exciting moment in chapter 1.  The next chapters get more and more exciting as the year goes by.  Winnie struggles to fit in with her friends as they start to like boys and makeup.  The new girl, Gail, is also trying to steal Amanda away from Winnie.  Winnie and Gail have a lot of funny arguments over clothes and hair and some silly little things.  I haven't finished the book yet and I really want to find out who Amanda wants to be best friends with.  I think that she will go back to Winnie because they were best friends for life.  You never know though because so much can happen in a year! This book is really good and I recommend reading it.  I cannot wait until I get to the rest of the series.

The Fashion Disaster that Changed my Life by: Lauren Myracle

I am reading a book called the Fashion Disaster that Changed my Life. It is about a girl named Alli who is in seventh grade. The book is like a journal, so it shows all of Alli's opinions about things. Like how her best friend Kathy always makes fun of her. Also, there is a new girl in school, named Megan, who is fearless to stand up to people, but has a bad family problem (I won't give it away). Kathy, Megan and Alli are bff's. When Alli starts hanging out with the popular girls, the bffs are mad, but Alli thinks they are just jealous. A lot of these times when they are fighting, things are really tense, but they always get really funny right after. One funny moment is the morning before Alli's first day of school. Alli is late to school, so she grabs a pair of pants from the dryer and runs out the door. When she gets to school everyone is laughing at her because she had a pair of her mom's underwear stuck to her pants! She is mortified and everyone is laughing at her. She thinks she will never recover, even though the embarrassment finally dies down. This was a really important experience for her because she has to learn to stand up for herself, so people won't make fun of her. This book is amazing, and it really relates to seventh-grade life, so I hope you all read it!

Uncommon Criminals by: Ally Carter

     Uncommon Criminals is the sequel to Heist Society.  I wrote about Heist Society in a blog post a while ago.  To review, Kat (the main character) is a sixteen year old girl in a family of thieves.  She decided to leave the family and go to boarding school like a normal person, but three months in she had to leave to steal back paintings from a mysterious thief, that her dad was framed for stealing.  She succeeded, and decided to be a "thief"that stole back items that were stolen years ago, and give them back to their rightful owners.  In Uncommon Criminals, Kat bumps into many problems.  First, she starts off stealing easy things by herself.  She enjoys this, but realizes that people are getting  the wrong impression of her doing this.  All of her family members think that it is dangerous for her to be stealing all by herself, and her cousin, Gabrielle, and her cute friend, Hale, are angry with her for doing this.  Gabrielle believes that Kat is "heist drunk".  She explains this as being obsessed with stealing, and does not want anyone there in the way of her own fun.  Kat gets defensive at first, but when she thinks about it, Gabrielle seems right.  Is Kat obsessed with stealing even if it is for a good cause?
     Another problem that comes up in this book, is that Kat is asked to steal Cleopatra's Emerald.  She agrees to it, but the problem is that the gem is cursed.  It is said that whoever has it will die or something really bad will happen in their life.  All of Kat's family disagrees again.  This time Kat is even unsure herself.  She feels it will be dangerous, and she definitely cannot do it alone.  She asks her friends to help her even though it could be fatal, surprisingly they agree.  She and her crew (from Heist Society) start trying to steal the Emerald.  They are pressed for time though, because the train with the gem on it will be coming in a week, and once it is in the safe, there is no getting it out.
     I have not come to the climax in this book yet, but I am really excited for it.  I think there will be a lot of twists and turns.  This book is similar to Heist Society in many ways including writing style.  It is written by Ally Carter, who also writes the I'd tell you i love but then I'd have to kill you series.  So if you like those you will like these.  I recommend reading any/all of these books if you can!  They are really good reads!

Divergent by: Veronica Roth

I just finished reading this book.  I really liked it because it had one of those fascinating plots.  Whenever I picked up this book I could never put it down!  There was always a surprise in every chapter.  In the book, the people of Chicago are split up into five fractions.  Each fraction is based on a certain characteristic that they think is most important.  The fractions are Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent).  The morals of each fraction are supposed to be the opposite of what they think would cause war (which is feared by all of the people), but the morals have changed so that they are extreme for each fraction and all of the other beliefs in other fractions are ignored and considered bad.  The book is set in Chicago, but it is in the future so Chicago looks is very different from now.  This is another reason why I loved this book, because it is set in where I live now, so I can relate to the places that Beatrice goes.  In the time of the book Chicago is not as much of a city as it is now.  The lake is a giant swap, and the river is just thick mud.  Most of the buildings are not in use because the five fractions like to stay to themselves in their headquarters.  The Sears Tower is called the Hub.  The Hub is where all of the kids go to school, and one of the only places where the fractions meet.  Divergent is about a sixteen year old girl named Beatrice Prior.  She lives in Abnegation with her selfless family.  She has trouble being selfless all of the time though.  Sometimes she gets frustrated that her mom, dad, and twin brother, Caleb, can be selfless so easily, but she cannot.  She wonders that she might not be in selfless enough to be part of that fraction.  Then the time for the choosing ceremony comes.  This is when all of the sixteen year olds take a mental test to find out what fraction they fit in, and then choose which one they want.  The kids are not allowed to have any preparation for the test, so Beatrice does not know what to expect.  When she finally takes the test she is very scared because she has to make some very important decisions.  I want to tell you what decisions she makes but that would be spoiling the story.  When she is finally done, the lady doing the test tells Beatrice that her test results were inconclusive, so multiple fractions fit her.  This means that she is divergent.  The lady tells her that being divergent is very dangerous, so she cannot tell anyone.  Beatrice starts to get really scared.  She already has to chose between the fractions, and she is something that is dangerous for her.  All day she tries to decided wether she should chose Dauntless (the brave), which would mean leaving her family, or Abnegation (the selfless), which would mean staying with her family but struggling to be selfless all of the time. when the choosing ceremony comes, everyone is watching Beatrice, and she is scrambling through her head which fraction she wants to be in.  she finally surprised everyone by picking Dauntless.  That was only two chapters of the book.  The rest of the book is about the journeys Beatrice makes in her new fraction.  She changes her name to Tris, and does many daring deeds that even she is surprised she was capable of doing.  She also has to make it through a series of training and tests to make sure that she fits in her fraction, before officially becoming a member. Within this book there are many twists of turns, which makes reading this book so fun.  Also there is a little romance which makes it even more exciting.  I think that it is similar, but better than the Hunger Games.  I really suggest you read this book even if you do not typically read these types of books.  I know because my friend recommended this book and I was hesitant to read it but ended up loving it. 

Heist Society by: Ally Carter Ending

In my last post, I told you about the setup of the book Heist Society.  Kat is a girl who comes from a family of great thieves.  She would often help her dad steal valuable pieces of artwork when she was younger.  When she was older though, she decided that she did not want to be a thief anymore, and went to a boarding school to try to be a normal person.  However, her friend Hale got her out of boarding school because Kat's dad was in trouble.  A bad man named Arturo Taccone thought that Kat's dad had stolen his paintings.  Kat decided to help her dad though because she knew that he would not steal those paintings.  I think that this setup is very good for a mystery book because it has so many different possible outcomes.  Many times throughout the book I tried to guess what was going to happen and who the real thief is.  I never was right though, because there are so many twists and turns.  Books like this are impossible to put down because you always want to figure out what the next surprise will be.  Some of my favorite parts in this book are when you first meet a new character.  One character that I thought was very exciting was Gabrielle.  Gabrielle is Kat's very girly cousin.  When I first met Gabrielle in the book, I thought that there was not a lot to her personality.  She just seemed like a really girly girl.  When Kat first sees her after a long time of not seeing each other, she feels the same way.  Later in the book though, Gabrielle shows that she has a dark side to her.  She has had a tough childhood because her mom remarries very often, and Gabrielle feels like she does not have a real father.  That is why she really wants to help Kat's dad, because he is like a father to her, not because of blood, but because she can trust him.  When Gabrielle and Kat get in one of their many arguments, Gabrielle tells Kat that Kat is not the only one who loves her dad.  Later Kat really starts to think about that, and the truth sinks in that more people care about her father as much, or maybe even more, than she does.  Kat decides to trust Gabrielle and makes her part of the crew that is going to help Kat's dad.  I think that this encounter with Gabrielle opened Kat's mind to the realization that she needed help and could not save her dad by herself.  This shows a lot of growth in Kat's character.  In this book, I feel like the growth in these characters has to do with overcoming moral challenges that occur in real life and not just in the fictional story.  This was one of the many times throughout the book where I could connect to the real world through the story.  I really loved that about this book.  Overall, Heist Society was so amazing that I decided to start reading the sequel, Uncommon Criminals.  I have just started reading this book, so I cannot tell you much yet, but I will next time.

Heist Society by: Ally Carter

Heist Society is a book about a girl named Kat who comes from a family of thieves.  This family steals very valuable paintings, and either resells them or keeps them in their homes secretively.  Ever since Kat could remember, she helped her dad with "jobs" to steal artwork.  She remembers when she was just five, she would help by screaming until policemen would leave their posts to come see what the problem was.  When she was older though, she decided that she did not want to be a thief anymore, and went to boarding school.  Only three months into school she was framed for putting the headmasters car on the fountain.  She realized that it was her friend, Hale, (who helped her family) trying to get her out of boarding school so she could help the family with something.  At first Kat was angry because she wanted to stay in boarding school and try to learn what it was like to be a normal person.  Then Hale told her that her dad was in trouble because he got caught for stealing someone's paintings.  Kat was surprised that her dad would have gotten caught because he was such a good thief, but she thought that her dad would be in no danger because he was good at hiding.  Then Hale told Kat that the man who wanted his paintings back was Arturo Taccone, and Arturo Taccone was a very, very bad guy who would do anything to get his paintings back.  Kat wondered why, but Hale just said that he was a terrible and mean man.  Kat realizes that Arturo Taccone was not messing around and would never believe that her dad was innocent.  She and Hale come up with a plan to steal the paintings back from whoever might have them.  None of the adults in the family agree with her plan and tell her not to meddle, but Kat is determined to get Arturo Taccone's paintings back and save her dad.  If I were Kat I would also be very worried about my dad and try to save him no madder what anyone said.  I would also be upset at Arturo Taccone for not being reasonable.  A little part of me would also be wishing that I did not have to deal with this, and that I could go back to boarding school and be a normal person for a while.  Heist Society is one of those books that you just cannot put down.  It has a very interesting plot and new things always pop up so you are never bored.  The only thing that I do not like about this book is that the characters are talking about things that make no sense to you because the author has not explained them yet.  Then it is hard to figure out what is happening.  I still really like this book though and I think that you all should read it.