Extraordinary

I loved Impossible by Nancy Werlin.  Extraordinary has many of the same qualities but wasn't quite as good overall.  Extraordinary is about a girl named Phoebe Rothschild who comes from a pretty well-to-do family.  In seventh grade, Phoebe, who is already a part of a powerful group of friends, sees a new girl, Mallory Tolliver.  Mallory is dressed strangely and doesn't seem to understand how to act in school, and Phoebe is drawn to her.  Phoebe decides then and there to ditch her pretty much mean friends to become friends with Mallory.  Phoebe wants to help Mallory.  That decision leads to a life long friendship between the two girls which takes them all the way through high school.

What Phoebe doesn't know about Mallory, though, is that Mallory is not of this world.  Breaking in between the regular chapters are conversations with the Faerie Queen.  Mallory is from this realm and has a task to complete in the human world.  She struggles between completing her task (which involves her best friend, Phoebe) and living a life full of love and friendship outside of the Faerie world.  Complicating this, Mallory's "brother," Ryland arrives to help speed the task up.

Phoebe gets caught in the normal life complications that all teenagers do:  parents, friends, love....But her situation is different because Mallory and Ryland need something great from Phoebe and she has no idea what it is.  Is she strong enough to do what they need her to do?  Can she overcome the great power that a magical being like Ryland holds over her?  Follow this story to see how these relationships develop in the human world and the consequences they have for the magical beings as well.

As I said, I liked this book ok.  It didn't have me as riveted as Impossible.  I felt like Impossible kept me wanting to turn pages until the very end, but in this book, I felt like the beginning dragged on a bit.  I was more interested toward the end of the book when the two worlds really came together.  The books has a great message about friendship and the power of good friends.  I definitely will recommend this book to students, but was a little disappointed it wasn't as good as Impossible.

Goddess Boot Camp

Beach Read #3 -  I loved Oh. My. Gods. so much when I read it recently, so I was pumped to see that the sequel had come out in paper back.  It was great.  Both of these books are quick, fast, and enjoyable reads.  I raced through them and had so much fun.

Phoebe just found out in the last book that she is a descendant of Nike and has actual powers.  The problem - she can't control them.  Most kids at her special school for descendants of the gods learn about their powers and how to control them at a very young age...and Phoebe is way behind.  She's making it snow inside her house, calling up massive amounts of pastries when she's hungry and causing problems for everyone because she can't get her powers under control.

The answer to this problem is Goddess Boot Camp which Phoebe's stepfather signs her up for.  While she's got other stuff on her mind (like spending time with boyfriend Griffin Blake and training with him for the marathon in the Pythian games) she knows she's got to get help or else.  Unfortunately...she knows she won't enjoy this camp so much when she shows up and sees that she's with all ten year olds. To make matters worse, the camp is run by her stepsister, Stella, and her boyfriends ex - Adara.  Great!  Phoebe trains, hangs out with friends, deals with love and issues from her past, solves a little mystery and tries to get ready for the test that the gods have set for her.

I loved the first book in this series, and the second one was just as good.  The characters were developed even more.  It's just such a fun concept...a fun super hero tale from a different point of view.  I hope that we get to see more adventures of Phoebe and her crew.  I definitely plan to check out Childs' new series about a mermaid girl princess called Forgive My Fins.  So fun...a lighter, girlier Percy Jackson. 

The Magicians by Lev Grossman

I can't believe it's been a month since I posted last!!  I'm quite disappointed in myself.  I'll pick back up soon, though.  But in my defense, I've been really tired and busy lately.  School's starting to wind down soon, so I'll get to my reading.  This summer, though, I have a lot of reading to do to get ready to teach AP literature.  So you'll hear about some classics as well as all the YA I'm reading.

So, it took me a month to finish The Magicians.  Honestly, I didn't like it much at all.  There were some good parts,  but in the end, I didn't really like any of the characters (except the one who dies...) and I just didn't buy the story.

I'd picked this up because I heard "Harry Potter for grownups" and because it was on the Alex list of adult books good for teens.  This book certainly isn't Harry Potter.  While there is a magical school and spells and classes and games, what really held me back was the main character, Quentin.  I didn't like him at all.  He was cool when he decided to attend Brakebills but really he sucked after he got there and kept on being a very whiny guy throughout the entire book.

I don't really have much else to say about this book.  If you like weird characters and don't feel like you have to be pulling for a character to like a book, then try it...but honestly - I'm glad it's over and sad it took up a month of my reading life.