Write Before Your Eyes by Lisa Williams Kline

Gracie is the quiet child. Only twelve-years old, Gracie keeps a low profile, always a blip on the radar screen. But when Gracie buys an old journal at a yard sale, things start to get wierd. Gracie soon realizes that whatever she writes in the journal comes true, in one way or another. Gracie is awed with her new power and begins to use the journal to attain the life she always wanted. After losing the journal, Gracie and her best friend Dylan are so caught up in chasing it down, Gracie barely has time to fix the damage she's done. Along the way, Gracie learns just how powerful words can be...
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REVIEW:

An intriguing read despite its designation for a younger audience. Kline delivers a powerful message of what change simple writing can cause without disconnecting the plausability from her twelve-year old protagonist. A pleasure to read. And it even features a special guest appearance from an Alice In Wonderland favorite.... 8/10

The Rule of Won by Stefan Petrucha

Caleb Dunne, slacker extraordinaire, coasts through life doing the minimal effort. His overachieving girlfriend, Vicky, has different ideas about Caleb's future though. She convinces Caleb to join a club based on the controversial book The Rule of Won. Caleb goes along with it, thinking the whole thing is just a big joke. As the club gains popularity, however, things start to get out of hand. Caleb realizes that the only thing worse than doing something about the new cult is not doing anything at all. But he soon realizes, stopping The Rule and it's followers won't be as easy as it sounds....

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REVIEW: A definite gem. Petrucha sheds light on the dangers of group thinking and how sometimes our inner desires can be taken a little too far, all with a twist of some delightfully dark humor. Excellent plot and characters. A marvelous read, definitely recommended. 9/10

More thoughts on The Book Thief

I stated before that this was and is one of the best fiction books I'd read in a while, and I stand by that. There were several things that struck me about this book; I want to talk about them a little bit here.

First, Death as narrator. An interesting idea, and one that I thought Zusak pulled off well. Death was quite a sympathetic character; one who didn't necessarily love his job, but didn't loathe it, either. I thought it interesting that when it came to adults, he would just as easily sling the soul over his shoulder to carry them, but children he always carried lovingly in his arms. It's not often to find an author that can portray Death as an interesting character; only two others spring to mind, actually. Piers Anthony did it well (and interestingly) in On A Pale Horse, and Neil Gaiman's portrayal of Death as a perky (yet at times insightful and downright snarky) goth chick in his Sandman stories/mythos certainly is one not to be missed.

The theme of the power of words really hit home with me, though perhaps I'm a little biased, being an English teacher and all. I found it interesting that Liesel's first act of thievery occurs when she is illiterate and dreams of meeting Hitler, yet as the book progresses and she becomes increasinly literate and intellectually driven, her understanding of Hitler's words grows and she begins to loathe him and the effects his words have on her immediate world and the world at large, reflective of Hitler's difficulties with (and loathing of) intellectuals of his time.

Anyone else? I've got more, but let's hear you first!