One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

I have been excitedly anticipating One Plus One by Jojo Moyes for months. Moyes has become one of my favorite authors, since reading Me Before You. (Which if you have not yet read, you simply MUST!)

One Plus One follows the story of Jess, Nicky, Tanzie and Ed on a road trip to a math Olympiad. Jess is a single mom, determined to stay positive for the sake of her children. Nicky feels like an outcast and is bullied by the neighborhood kids. Tanzie is a math genius, which makes her feel a bit odd. Then the family meets Ed, who's dealing with a crisis of his own. They make an unlikely crew but together they embark on a life changing journey. The characters and the struggles are quite relatable. Moyes has a talent for writing stories about ordinary people dealing with life. It's a touching story and a very satisfying read.

Available at the Berryville Public Library. (Including a copy signed by the author!) The Berryville Public Library also has Me Before You and the Girl You Left Behind by Jojo Moyes.

Somebody Up There Hates You by Hollis Seamon

SUTHY (Somebody Up There Hates You) is what 17 year old Richard Casey suffers from.  He is in the hospice ward of a New York hospital, waiting to die.  He has cancer, really, but refers to it as SUTHY syndrome.  He's had chemo, radiation and many surgeries but he is still a teenager and tries to make the most of life on the hospice ward.  The quirky characters like Sylvie, the harp lady, Uncle Phil, Edward, and Sylvie's fire-breathing father, make this story enjoyable given the macabre circumstances.  As expected with SUTHY, the language is surly and profane at times.

Available on Audio CD at the Berryville Public Library.

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry

The Girl Who Was Supposed to Die by April Henry is an exciting roller coaster ride from start to finish.  Sixteen year old Cady wakes up in a cabin not knowing her name or where she is.  She hears a man say "Take her out back and finish her off."  As she is being dragged off into the woods, Cady unleashes power she didn't know she had and knocks the man unconscious, finds the keys to his car and drives away.  As she's driving, she takes inventory:  she is sore, swollen, has a loose tooth and two of her fingernails have been pulled out. 


Who are the men chasing her?  Why are they framing her for a man's murder?  Where is her family?  Who is she???  With the help of a 17 year old McDonald's employee, Cady learns who she is, bit by bit until it all comes crashing down on her in an exciting ending!

Available on Audio CD at the Berryville Public Library.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Cath and Wren are twin sisters heading off to college and for the first time in life beginning separate adventures.  In high school the sisters had done everything together, shared a room, shared clothes and they wrote fan fiction* together. But Wren decides she’s ready for a change and tells her sister she doesn't want to share a dorm room and is ready to develop an identity as an individual.

Upon arriving at college Cath’s social circle begins to expand. Reagan, her roommate, who would have preferred a private room. Reagan’s friend, Levi, who keeps popping up everywhere! And then there’s Nick, from her Fiction-Writing class, who she meets for late night writing sessions in the library. Meanwhile Cath continues to dedicate the majority of her free time to writing fan fiction without the help of her sister. On top of that, Cath’s faced with a host of family issues.

Cath’s freshman year challenges her to reevaluate her priorities and embrace a reality where she can’t control the ending.

Rowell’s writing is delightful. I loved this book. One look at the cover and I had already decided this has to be the cutest book ever. I was not disappointed. After finishing Fangirl, I was excited to read Rowell’s other books: Eleanor & Park and Attachments (which is available at Berryville Public Library).  Both are great books, which I also recommend. Rowell’s characters are endearing and real. I look forward to reading all her future works.

*Fan fiction, or fanfiction (often abbreviated as fan fic, fanfic, or simply fic), is a broadly defined fan labor term for stories about characters or settings written by fans of the original work, rather than by the original creator. From Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fan_fiction). 

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan

Counting by 7s will make you feel good. It is a heartwarming story of triumph over tragedy.

Willow Chance, is twelve years old and lives with her adoptive parents. She has difficulty making friends and navigating social situations. Willow’s parents are tragically killed in an accident and her world is turned upside down.

An unexpected group of people, including a taxi driver, a Vietnamese family and a counselor, come together to care for Willow. The characters’ lives are transformed throughout their journey to save Willow.

I could not put it down. I read it in a few hours; it is so well written and I had to know how the story would end!

"God is Dead" by Ron Currie Jr.

God comes to Earth in the fragile form of an emaciated Dinka woman wandering the wasted African wilderness hoping to help out at a Sudanese refugee camp.  After the American diplomats put in the necessary photo-ops and take off in a blur of helicopter rotors, the Sudanese government moves in and massacres every living thing in the camp, God included.

Ron Currie Jr.'s provocative novel God is Dead makes quick work of establishing the title incident, and spends the rest of its brief length detailing what happens in the world after the word of God's death becomes widely known.

Told in a series of vignettes, the novel takes the form of short stories that share a common theme.  The effect is a series of vividly rendered strokes from Currie's authorial paintbrush that render a picture of haunting beauty.

Things begin gently enough, with characters musing how much the world after God's death resembles the world before.  As the novel progresses, though, things begin slowly to unravel.  By the final chapters, although Currie never loses sight of the moments of human tenderness, things have pitched themselves over into the realm of horror.  The horror of a gentle apocalypse that slides in slowly like a knife between the ribs of mankind.

Currie's voice is well-defined in this, his first novel.  At turns sad, funny, and scary, God is Dead is vibrantly, sparingly written.  A bold, brief book that isn't afraid to ask questions and posit nightmare scenarios, Currie's novel shines a light in brief flashes onto the darkest sides of human nature while managing to strike a series of universal chords.