booknerderika's reviews
669 reviews

More like 4.5 stars for me.

This book was so much more than I expected. I love how it touched on the topic of gentrification in Brooklyn and racial prejudice. Definitely brought some new aspects to the classic story of Pride and Prejudice. I wasn't a fan of the ending, I felt like it was building up to a happier ending and then the incident happened that shifted the focus from the relationship growing between certain characters to the reality of the world around them. I felt like the changes took away from the romance and the ending felt a little like a forced scene to try and bring the story back to the MC and her love interest.

It was still a good book overall though.

So many emotions from this story. I almost cried at the end. I'm glad a certain character changed his views and started to educate himself, it really helped that he was able to be redeemed and I had a lot more respect for him. This is definitely not a book to read of you struggle to handle the emotions that come from racial injustice. I had to mentally prepare myself for this one, but I'm so glad I did. Definitely a favorite book of mine now.

I finally understand why this book is so popular, especially among entrepreneurs. I liked the lessons it taught about following your dreams (Personal Legend) and how God guides you.

This novel-in-verse follows the story of Josh Bell, a 12-year-old basketball player, who is learning how to navigate through the changes that come with growing up. He and his twin brother, Jordan, begin to learn that life won't always be about basketball.

I love poetry novels so of course, I enjoyed this book. The world-building was great and really helped to slowly immerse the reader into Josh's life. Some parts felt a little rushed and then other parts felt like they dragged on, but I still think this is a great read for middle schoolers.

This book is a collection of creepy short stories. It follows middle school-aged children through all sorts of weird and unexplainable events. Some are bizarre and others are downright spooky. I feel like I would have enjoyed this so much in middle school and I hope more children find this book.

I rarely read short story collections but I liked this one. Some of the stories were a little weirder than others for me, but I never felt like I could stop reading. Something about the unknown and what would happen next kept me wanting to read more. My favorite story was "The Voice" because it just seemed like the right thing to happen to someone who was so cruel. The other stories that had cruel things happen to innocent kids were my least favorite. That may just be the protective mother in me, but I preferred when the kids weren't getting hurt.

In a world where no one can die, how can overpopulation be prevented? That is where the job of the scythes come in. They are a group trained and set apart to "glean" people, removing them from existence. Citra and Rowan are two teenagers who get pulled into the world of scythes and must compete for their chance at survival.

I gave this 4 stars but it was really more like 3.5 for me. I realize that this is the first in a series so it is necessary for Shusterman to build the world he created, but it felt really detail heavy and took a lot of time to get to the action. I didn't dislike the book, but I also was not completely in love with it either.

Four strangers from four different backgrounds brought together in this sad tale of the Whilhelm Gustloff. This book follows the journey of the many people who tried to escape the invasion of the Russians in East Prussia during WWII.

This was such a sad book. I knew what was going to happen but it still didn't make the scenes any less sad. I liked the realism in this book and the writing was beautiful. I would recommend listening to the audiobook to help keep the different characters' stories separate since each character's part is read by a different person.