By: Aliana Romo

‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ was written in 2020 by Suzanne Collins and is a prequel to the Hunger Games series. This book revolved around 18-year-old Coriolanus Snow, who was the president of Panem in the original books. It shows the backstory of his character and what the early days of the Hunger Games were like. During this book he gets offered to mentor the kids in the Hunger Games, which has never happened before. He mentors a woman named Lucy Gray Baird who has currently been selected to participate in the Hunger Games.

While reading this book I really enjoyed how it goes deep into the backstory of Coriolanus Snow. It showed a different side to him and how his character got twisted, which was not shown in the original books. His character had a lot more backstory and it showed everything he went through, and how he got the way he was.

In addition to this, I really enjoyed reading this book because of all the details it included about the Hunger Games. Originally there hadn’t been that much information about what the games were like in the beginning, so being able to read about it in such detail was very important. It showed what life was like before the war and what it was like soon after the war, which had not been portrayed before. The book overall included many details about things that were shown in the original books, which helped me understand things more clearly.

Another thing that I found interesting about this book was Suzanne Collins writing; it helped put the book in a new perspective. It had the perspective of Coriolanus who grew up in the capitol, not in the districts. It showed how he didn’t think much of the Hunger Games, and then ended up liking them more, after realizing how twisted they really were. Suzanne Collins did a great job of giving such vivid details of the capitol and the districts. She also wrote on many serious topics such as power, mortality, relationships and the lengths that people go to, to survive.

Overall, I found ‘The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes’ to be an amazing book, it was very captivating and continued the Hunger Games series very well. It was well written and showed new in depth details about the story in general.

By: Jafar Abdi

‘The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime’ is a murder-mystery novel that takes place in Swindon, England in 1988. Following the detective adventures of a young boy named Christopher Boone, we get to see everything he thinks, with the narration being in 1st person.

Christopher leads a normal life; he lives in Swindon with his father. Christopher’s father told him that his mother passed away in the hospital due to a heart attack. That being said, Christopher rejects certain things. He doesn’t like the colors yellow and brown, and he won’t eat anything that has touched another item on the same plate. He also bases his mood on the number of red and yellow cars he sees when driving to school in the morning.

Christopher had a rather happy and contented life overall until he notices Wellington, the dog of Mrs. Shears, in her front yard with his chest impaled with a garden fork. After being detained for striking a police officer, Christopher makes the decision to look into the mystery for the murder. In the process of solving the puzzle, Christopher also starts to fill in some other gaps in his own life. Where is Mr. Shears these days? Why is his father not encouraging him to look into Wellington’s passing? Christopher learns that his life isn’t what he thought it was when he finds a box on top of his father’s closet.

Overall, this book has its ups and downs. The overall mystery element was very nice and the suspense of his mother and the dog were very entertaining, but I don’t really feel like the actual story was fleshed out; it felt very rushed with an anti-climactic ending. It has a pretty generic plot but the real life examples really help it. This is a murder mystery novel worth reading though, in my opinion. 7.5/10

By: Cleo Newton          

*Warning: This review contains spoilers*

‘Front Desk’ by Kelly Yang is a book about a girl named Mia. She and her parents are immigrants from China. Her parents immigrated to America in hopes that they will be able to get a good job that pays a lot of money and have a nice house for their family.

At first, Mia’s parents struggle to find a job but soon find someone who seems really kind and generous, offering them the job to clean motel rooms and check customers in. The family is really happy because they think that they are going to get paid $150 a day after adding up all the rooms, and that they’ll be able to swim in the pool in the yard. They even get to live at the motel. Later, they find out that their boss, Mr. Yao,  isn’t a good person, and that they won’t actually make $150 a day but much less.

Mia is a 10-year-old girl, even though she and her family works at a motel, she still has to go to school. At school she has to face issues like racism and discrimination. The girls at her school make fun of how she looks, make assumptions about her race, and hold her to stereotypical Asian standards. She also has to be in the same class as her parent’s boss’s son, Jason. Even though this is the case, she still manages to make one friend at school, Lupe.

Everyday when Mia gets home from school, she has to help her parents clean the motel rooms and deal with rude customers. Her parents even have to clean the customer’s clothes. As well as dealing with customer’s, her parents are hiding other immigrants in the motel until they can leave. Lupe’s dad is a cable repairman; he helps out Mia’s family when one of the customer’s TV breaks.

Mia really likes to write. She learns about an essay writing contest; the one who wins will get a motel. Mia wants to enter this contest so that she and her family won’t have to work for the terrible boss they do now. But in order to enter, she has to pay money. She decided to save money for the contest by putting out a tip jar.

One day, Mia comes home to find her mother injured. She was attacked by  two people who were robbing the motel. They find out that one of their close friends, Hank, got arrested. While her mom was getting attacked, he threw a rock at the robbers but  when the police arrived he was the only one there. Even though he was helping protect Mia’s mom, he was the one that got arrested. Thankfully, he only stayed in jail for one night before being let out. Mia and her dad drove her mom to the hospital, and because the hospital bill was so high, Mia had to use the money she got from the tip jar to pay for the bill.

She now had to find a new way to enter the essay writing contest, Mia sells her dad’s lucky pennies. These pennies are special because they are worth a lot; she makes $300 dollars selling them. She writes and submits her essay, it talks about what she would do if she owned a motel. The day after writing the essay, she submits it. A few weeks later, she receives a letter from the Vermont Motel Giveaway. Hank reads the letter to Mia and she unfortunately doesn’t win.

As things are already difficult, they find out that Mr. Yao is going to sell the motel for $300,000. This means that the next person who buys the motel could fire them and they could lose their job. After thinking about this for a while, they decide that they are going to try to buy the motel. Hank, being the great friend he is, immediately handed over the little money he had, which was less than one hundred dollars. Mia wrote letters about talking about who she is and giving reasons why she thinks that they should help her buy the motel. She goes around handing them around hoping that this message will convince people to donate some money.

As people donate money to the family, they finally make the amount of money needed to buy the motel. Unfortunately, Mr. Yao tells them that there is another buyer who’s willing to pay $50,000 more than the original price. Mia and her family feel crushed knowing that they won’t be able to buy the motel. As a last resort, they turn to loan sharks to get the money they need. 

At school, Jason tells her that Mr. Yao is lying and that there is no other buyer. When school ends, Mia rushes home just in time to tell her parents what Jason told her. After sending off the loan sharks, they buy the motel from Mr. Yao.

The book ends with Mia, her parents, and her friends celebrating by jumping into the pool.

Overall, I think this was a very good book, I like how the author showed the development of Mia and the way she used her writing skills to help herself and other people. There are 4 other books that come after ‘Front Desk’, ‘Three Keys’, ‘Room to Dream’, ‘Key Player’, and ‘Top Story’. I hope you consider reading this book after reading this article!

By: Samson Beilhu

The author of this book, Andrew Giver, is mostly known as a YouTuber that goes by “Sigils”. His channel can be found at: Sigils-http://www.youtube.com/@sigils

This story introduces us to the word “soul fraud”, meaning, in another word, a soul thief. It also introduces us to our protagonist/main character, Matt, and our main antagonist named, Dan. Dan is a demon, a demon that breaks the rules.

I looked into this book and what it had to offer, and as far as I could understand, it’s about the main character Matt, who’s in love with a girl, but the girl is already in love with a friend close to Matt, and he’s a good friend. He says, “He would never want to see Connor and Violet break up, or worse,” but Dan/demon wasn’t going to take a no for an answer.

So, Dan decides to forge Matt’s signature, which is considered committing “soul fraud”, and leaves the main character/protagonist with a mess. In the middle of it, Matt is teleported to a supernatural world; a world he never knew existed.

Despite all the confusion, he was determined to get his soul back
from this strange world, which he was dragged to. He starts to look around when he sees monsters, monsters that are only found in folk tales. And for some reason, all the monsters are hanging out at a restaurant. And not just that, there are more demons that look like the one that stole his soul there, even worse looking ones: much worse.

For me, the details to this story at first are revealed slowly, but afterwards the story plot picks up fast. There are mysterious characters that display immense power.

Will Matt ever find his soul or will his soul be lost?

 Soul Fraud is a story about a man that got his soul taken without his consent, and now is trying to get it back. To do that, he has to face magical beings and secret forces.

If you’re interested, or intrigued, about if Matt ever finds his soul, or whether his soul will be lost forever, which personally I am, you can find the book on Amazon (at the moment, it’s not in the school library).

If you wanna learn more about it, please visit:

• https://bookreviewdirectory.com/2022/09/28/soul-fraud-editorial-review/

By: Abisola Dosunmu

This book is a murder mystery from the viewpoint of a girl who believes her cousin died not from an overdose, but that someone murdered her.  Hannah is left stunned and reeling when Sophie, her best friend and cousin, dies of an opioid overdose. This book is narrated by Hannah, during the time when it moves the timeline from her junior to senior year. She resolves to find out who sold Sophie the drugs, and the result is a haunting storyline that delves into the complexities of substance abuse.

My personal review of this book without revealing too much was that the main character is a force of nature. She has the drive and the character to try and solve a mystery that everyone says isn’t there, while grieving her best friend. She and all the other side characters developed well over the course of the story. It’s a very realistic story that tells hard truths about substance abuse.

The subject matter, without revealing too much about the book, deals with topics of addiction and grief. A message that emerges throughout the book is how a person can be multi-faceted and more complex than you think. What I loved about the book was the realness of it. The characters had personalities and emotions and were funny and sad and it was all very poignant throughout the book. 

What I disliked about the book were that the timelines weren’t linear, that it was too confusing to sort through, and it distracted from the book. There was a lot of adult content like violence and drug abuse, so it’s not something I’d recommend little kids reading.

But altogether, the book was a fantastic read, and really showed how sometimes you have to step back and realize you’ve done everything you could. I’d give it a four out of five.

For more information, please visit: 

• https://thestorysanctuary.com/review-all-thats-left-to-say-by-emery-lord/

By: Chloe Rocha

This book is about five students who enter detention one day, but only four manage to survive the ordeal.

‘One of Us Is Lying’ tells the captivating tale of Bronwyn, Addy, Nate, and Cooper, who all become prime suspects in the murder of Simon Kelleher. Each of these high school students have their own secrets that they don’t want revealed. They are desperate to protect themselves and their secrets. Knowing that, you can’t help but wonder how far each of them are willing to go to ensure their secrets remain hidden from the public eye and ruin their reputation.

I enjoyed this book because it delves deep into the personalities and thoughts of each suspect. The whole story isn’t told from just one point of view, but four. By doing this it keeps the reader guessing what really happened until the very end.

‘One of Us Is Lying’ takes on dark themes, such as murder and depression, catering to a teenage audience. Unlike other authors who struggle to develop complex plots for younger readers, Karen M. McManus writes with an enjoyable voice that effectively establishes her story, targeting young adults perfectly.

Overall, This book is a surprising and engaging read that is difficult to put down. I particularly appreciated the in-depth exploration of each character’s perspective, ensuring that the audience remains fully engaged in the story-telling. If you’re looking for a compelling and grounded mystery to unravel. I highly recommend checking out ‘One of Us Is Lying’.

If you read this book and you enjoy it, there is a series by Karen M. McManus. The next books follow a lot of the same characters, but they follow different stories. The books in order go: ‘One of Us Is Lying’, ‘One of Us Is Next’, and finally ‘One of Us is Back’. I personally have yet to read the rest of the books, however i did start ‘One of Us Is Next’ but never finished it.

By: Chloe Rocha

This article is a book review on the book ‘if he had been with me’ By Laura Nowlin. This book is a New York Times bestseller. This story is about autumn and it’s told from her perspective. You get to know everything about her life. Most of the story focuses on her time in high school and how she is dealing with the different things happening in her life, and how she’s managing her future goals with her boyfriend Jamie, their groups of friends, and trying to handle her complicated relationship with her former best friend and neighbor, Finny.

This book is full of ups and downs and it made me feel very different emotions. There were times in this book where I didn’t understand why we were told so much about the characters’ past and other details that didn’t seem important at the time. But after you complete the book and take some time to reflect on your emotions, you realize that all of that “unnecessary“information actually made the story much more tragic. You really understood Autumn as a very complex and well-rounded character because you got to witness and experience all that she went through. From the times when she was feeling the most happy to the times when she was feeling the most sad. You felt the same emotions she did because you were very attached to her at the time.

Autumn was my most liked character. It’s impossible not to love her after all the experiences we had together. Personally, I didn’t particularly like Jamie. He was very manipulative and controlling and someone who I wouldn’t want to have in my personal life.

At the beginning of the book something is revealed to you that in the moment has you wondering why the author decided to tell you about it. But at the end, it becomes clear on why the author did what she did. They told the story to make you assume something based on the information you had at the time, but by the end of the book the plot twist explains it all and leaves you with a sense of sadness. This sadness comes from the fact that you knew what was going to happen at the end of the book but you didn’t know the people that were all involved in the event.

I just discovered that another book is coming out in October. It will be told from Kenny’s perspective. I am very excited to have that book and I just hope it’s as good as everyone is saying it is. I didn’t read many good books this year, but this book is definitely one of the better ones. I definitely think everyone should read this book if they want a very emotional story. This book is not for the likes of everybody but a select few enjoy it based on their interests.

I would give it a 3.5/5 (it is a bit slow in the beginning).