Virtuosity By Jessica Martinez

I had mixed feelings about this book, but if there was one thing about it i loved it was the characters. Although the plot was alright, it was not intriguing enough to make me want to read on. What made it difficult to put down the book was the characters and their relationships. Carmen Bianchi, the main character of the book, is one of the worlds best violinists. She is constantly struggling, however, to break free of the "leash" her mother Diana puts on her. Carmen takes anti-anxiety pills to help her performance, so in addition to trying to break free of her mothers tight and controlling grip on her she must also try and break an addiction to her anti-anxiety drugs. Her over-bearing, music obsessed mother is not okay with her weaning off the pills, and this causes high tension between her and Carmen. Another character I was fascinated by was her violin teacher, Yuri. Although he is not a main character, he was still one of the characters I liked them most. Yuri is a very prestigious and kind of crazy retired violinist. Throughout the book, he is like a strict but loving father to Carmen. He has a very short temper, and a thick accent. He seemed very cliche to me, but for some reason I just thought he was really interesting. Carmen's relationship with Yuri has a lot of tension, just like Carmen's relationship with her mother Diana. Diana and Yuri are only two of the many characters that Carmen interacts with in the novel, but they are two of the most interesting. My all time favorite character and relationship in the book is Jeremy King and his relationship with Carmen. Jeremy is basically the British, male version of Carmen. The reason I like him and his relationship with Carmen so much is that not only is he is also her number one competitor in the race to become the best violinist in the world, but he also turns out to be the boy she falls head over heels in love with. He is her enemy, but he is also her true love, so there no matter how they feel about each other there is always going to be that underlying hate and competition. No, the plot in this book was not fantastic, but the characters defiantly were.

Letters to a Young Gymanst by Nadia Comaneci

Letters to a Young Gymnast is the story of gymnastics legend Nadia Comaneci's life. When I first started reading the book, I had no idea the what kind of detail it would go into. I figured that the autobiography would mostly be about her gymnastics career, but I was way off. Not only were there personal stories about her career and her training with Bela and Marta Karolyi, but there were in-depth stories about how life was for an elite athlete living in communist Romania under the rule of Ceausescu, as well as her defection from Romania. I found these stories about her life in Romania to be particularly interesting, because it's just so different from what I'm used to. The story about her escape from Romania was very interesting, as well as very dramatic. I had no idea what life was like, and it was interesting to read about it from a first hand account rather than from a textbook. Nadia wrote the stories in a narrative voice that made it seem as if she was telling the stories to a very close friend, and I was really drawn in by everything she wrote about. I found a lot of things in the book easy to relate to, being a gymnast myself. I have always found Nadia to be an incredible athlete, but after reading about her tough life in communist Romania and the circumstances she lived under, her victories seemed even more impressive. I found the book extremely interesting, and it really contradicts the pretenses people often have about such talented and well-known athletes. Nadia Comaneci's autobiography was really worth reading, and even though it was so short it gave so much detail and interesting information about her life, covering topics from her career, to her education, her life in Romania, and even her wedding to American gymnast Bart Conner. Even though I am generally not a fan of biographies, I enjoyed this book a lot.

"How It Ends" by Laura Wiess

How It Ends is a heartbreaking story about a teenage girl named Hanna and her elderly neighbors Helen and Lon Schoenmaker. The Schoenmakers have treated Hanna as a granddaughter, and Hanna has relied on them for advice and comfort since she was a little girl. Now, Helen has developed Parkinson's Disease and has become completely handicapped--she cannot eat, use the bathroom, talk, write, walk, or do anything on her own. As Helen realizes that the end is near, she decides it is time to tell Hanna the truth about how her and Lon met. To do this, she has Lon record an audio book about her life, called How It Ends. Rather than using the names Helen and Lon, he records it using their middle names, Louise and Peter. Hanna listens to the audiobook with Helen, not realizing who or what it is about until it is over. One thing I loved about this book was the way it was a story within a story--it was like reading two books at once, and the way the audiobook How It Ends is so compelling and it just draws you in and then breaks your heart, as you realize the tragic story about Helen and Lon. The book, in my opinion, reminded me of a  Nicolas Sparks novel because of the emotion behind it and the idea of young but tragic love. Helen had a hard life as a child, and fell head over heals in love, only to end up dying from Parkinson's while Lon suffered from heart problems. I really loved this book and it really was a good read, i would defiantly recommend it.

"I Am The Messenger" by Markus Zusak

"I Am The Messenger" is about a teenage taxi driver named Ed, who has a few friends, a not-so-great family, and a small apartment where him and his dog live. One day, Ed stops a bank robbery and becomes a local hero. That's when the cards start arriving. Anonymous playing cards are sent to him in the mail, each with either addresses or names of people he needs to help. He becomes "the messenger," hence the title of the book. Ed delivers each "message," no matter how strenuous or odd it might be. Towards the end of the book, the messages get ore personal until the final message--himself. What i liked about this book was that I had never read anything like it. At some parts it was kind of repetitive and boring, but for the most part i found it really interesting. I also like that there was a message in the book for the reader at the end, which is that if a low-life like Ed can help so many people, "maybe everyone can live a life beyond what they're capable of" (357). The book obviously left me thinking about this quote. It's not as if I'm going to go out and help everybody no matter what it takes like Ed did, but I am more aware now that not everything is as perfect as it seems. Overall, I loved this book, because for the most part I loved the plot, and I especially liked how it was written. I really felt like Ed was telling me a story while we were sitting in his living room with his dog on  the floor next to us. He had a really interesting and amusing narrative voice, which really was the icing on the cake for this book. 

"Spoiled" by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan

One of the most memorable moments in the book "Spoiled" by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan takes place in the very beginning of the book. Molly Dix had just moved out to L.A. to join her father and half-sister/oscar winning, world-famous actor and his spoiled daughter Brick and Brook Berlin who Molly just discovered she was related to. Brooke, despising the fact that she had to share her fathers attention and money, begins to plan. She decided to welcome Molly with open arms and treat her like any sisters should ideally treat each other. One night there is a party, and of course the press is there, so to sabotage Molly's chance of staying in L.A. Brooke tricker her into getting drunk and making a fool out of herself in front of the press. The reason this was so memorable is because it begins the official rivalry between Brooke and Molly. Also, it is the first major event in the book and it shows how hard it can be to trust people. Though this exact situation is not likely, dilemma's like this are relatively common so it is sort-of relatable, like a lot of other instances in this book. Overall, the book was a slightly funny story about to teenagers competing for attention in the middle of L.A. and i am defiantly glad i read it.

"Before I Fall" by Lauren Oliver

The book "Before I Fall" by Lauren Oliver is the kind of book where you never know what's coming next. It's not suspenseful in any way, but it is surprising. The plot is basically the most popular girl in the school dies in a drunk driving accident, and ends up getting seven more chances to relive her last day right. Throughout the course of the book, the main character, Samantha, learns the value in the small things and begins to appreciate certain people more she had in the past. The ending of this book was pretty good, and the book defiantly has some little life lessons in it-the book has much more emotion than it seems. The ending was also interesting because the narrator was talking about appreciating life and what its like to live your last day, and last line was, "the rest you have to find out for yourself." In my opinion, this made me think about what happened in the book a little more carefully and it made the book seem more interesting to me. It was like a prompt to try and get the reader to appreciate life more and notice the small things. This book kind of forced me, in a way, to think about that. Overall, this book was interesting, and you can never tell what's going to happen next.