Charity's Reading Log

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold - This book is Alice Sebold's debut novel, a remarkable story about love and family and letting go. Susie Salmon is 14 when she is raped and murdered by a neighbor, a serial killer of women who moves from town to town after each of his crimes. Susie's death sends her family into total chaos as they each try to deal with the tragedy in their own way. Susie narrates the story from a never-before-seen verison of heaven, watching her friends, family, and the murderer move on with their lives, while trying to subtlely break through and communicate the identity of the killer to members of her family. Alice Sebold does a wonderful job relating the interactions of a family and a community, and I was rather surprised at the strength of her writing in a story about such loss. I highly recommend this book to both my students and friends alike. Also, students who really connect with this story also seem to love Lucky which is the real-life account of the abuse Sebold suffered as a child.

Twilightby Stephanie Meyer - Although I tried to avoid reading this book as long as I could, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I really enjoyed it in the end. I haven't been able to keep it on the shelves this year, so I decided I needed to find out just what made this book so popular with my students. Did I ever!

In Twilight readers discover a pair of lovers who are just as star-crossed as Romeo and Juliet. On Bella's first day at a new school in Forks, Oregon, Bella falls head over heals in love with beautiful Edward Cullen. But, Edward seems to detest Bella from the start. However, Bella comes to realize that Edward has a secret and that instead of hate, he is madly in love with her as well. When Edward saves Bella from being run-over by an out-of-control van, she realizes that there is more to the story than Edward wants to tell. With a little help from an old friend, Bella start to suspect that Edward's secret is much larger than she ever thought. Eventually she presses Edward and he admits her worst fears...Edward and his entire family are vampires. To Edward's surprise, Bella does not run away, and instead embraces his terrible secret as her own. As the book unfolds we see the intensity of true love complicated by the fact that at any moment Edward could turn on Bella. Every moment they are together is an exercise of resistance for Edward, and in the end he must not only protect her from himself, but from another vampire who feels the same.