Book Beat Reviews

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

Hi I’m Reese and I like playing softball and volleyball, skiing, and hanging out with family and friends. My favorite genre of book is mystery and some subtle horror

To All of the Boys I’ve Loved Before is an amazing book showcasing all aspects of romance, comedy, and some parts showing bravery and confidence. The main character, Laura Jean, is Jenny Hann’s character and is how readers see through the eyes of a high school girl in a crisis.

After her mom dies, Laura Jean only looks up to her older sister Margot. She does everything and she keeps her life together and cooks and drives the family wherever they need to go. When Margot goes off to her dream school in Switzerland, everything starts to go south in Laura Jean’s life. She feels helpless without Margot and that feeling doesn’t get any better when all of her love letters to all of her crushes, get sent out to the people she wrote them about. She never planned on sending them, but these were to end the crush that she had on that person. Laura Jean gets into a fake relationship with a boy named Peter who received a letter. She is trying to make her real true love Josh, who is Margot’s former boyfriend, think that her and Peter are dating so that he won’t ask about the letter that he received. As time goes on, we learn that Laura Jean and Peter actually start to like each other, but that all goes south when they go on a school trip. They admit their feelings to each other, but it complicates things and their fake relationship along with their sort of real one, are gone. Even after everything is final and the whole school knows that they’re done, Laura Jean finds her writing another letter to Peter. Not a letter saying goodbye like her other ones, but a letter that is saying hello and telling Peter how she really truly feels.

In the story, you get to experience what home life and school life are like for Laura Jean and see through her eyes in a way that makes this a very enjoyable book to read.

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook here.

One of Us is Next by Holly Jackson

Hi I’m Reese and I like playing softball and volleyball, skiing, and hanging out with family and friends. My favorite genre of book is mystery and some subtle horror

One of Us is Next is the sequel to one of my favorite books One of Us Lying. This book is exhilarating and exciting and makes you want to keep reading. My favorite quality of the book is how entertaining it is.

This book is about when a new game is created at Bayview High School, truth or dare, but has fatal consequences. If you pick truth or don’t respond, then your biggest secret gets released to the whole school. If you pick dare, then you get a challenge. Phoebe Lawton is the first to get picked. She ignores it and her secret gets out about sleeping with her older sister’s boyfriend. That’s when people know this game is serious. Knox Myers, and Maeve Rojas are next. The three of them select truth. Brandon, Phoebe’s boyfriend, chooses dare and dies in an accident at a construction site. The game has gone too far.

I would give this book 4.5 stars out of 5 overall. If I were the author, I would make it less excessive so it didn’t scare people who read. I definitely liked the book, that was just one critique I had. I would recommend this book to people in 7th grade or higher who like murder mysteries.

Find it in print and eaudiobook here.

Tales of Tin Can by Michael Keith Olson

Hi my name is Parker and I’m a 7th grader and love reading non-fiction historical books. I also enjoy playing soccer and hanging out with friends.

Tales of a Tin Can is about the sailors aboard the destroyer USS Dale during World War II. It is written by Michael Keith Olson and portrays the day-to-day life of the crew of a small destroyer during the war. The name “tin can” is a term used by sailors for destroyers, as their armor was so thin, some joked it was made out of cans. The USS Dale would serve from December 7, 1941, until the signing of the peace treaty in Tokyo Bay in 1945. The book switches between the perspectives of the crewmembers and it is very cool to see into the day of a sailor.

The USS Dale was a Farragut class destroyer built before the war and was top of the line at the beginning of the war but was out of date by the end of the conflict and was moved to convoy escort. The ship fought from the Aleutian Islands in Alaska to the treacherous waters off Guadalcanal, and fought kamikaze raids around Okinawa and eventually, Tokyo.

The book is written in a first-person account and shows the individual thoughts, feelings, and fears of the sailors who fought. In all I would highly recommend this book for its historical accuracy and how cool it was to see the troubles and the fun times of being a sailor. It was a great read and got me staying up every night to read it.

Find it through Interlibrary loan here.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer by Janet and Geoff Berge

My name is Judah. I like to play soccer, alpine ski and x- country ski. Some of my favorite books are the Golden Goblet and A Night Divided .

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is an historically accurate book written by Janet and Geoff Benge. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born to a German family on February 4^th, 1906. Dietrich grew up with many siblings, being one of eight to grow up in the Bonhoeffer house. At age twenty-one Dietrich Bonhoeffer went to the University of Humboldt Berlin. Although having a theology degree, Bonhoeffer was used by the Lord to teach and help pastors to stay strong in times of trouble under Hitler. Dietrich would also go on and work with many others in a secret attempt to kill Hitler and end his evil dictatorship. Although they came up with several assassination attempts, none of them proved to be successful.

Sadly, Deitrich and some others were found out and were taken to prison where they would stay for over two years before being put to death less than a week before Germany surrendered to the Allies. In his time in prison, he wrote many prayers and a theological interpretation of Genesis 1-3. Through this book, there are many close encounters, escaping the Gestapo and showing how much Dietrich Bonhoeffer was able accomplished under heavy pressure.

Find it through eAudiobook here.

Five Survive by Holly Jackson

My name is Bria, I am a ski racer, swimmer, and dancer. I love reading in my free time.

I think that Five Survive by Holly Jackson is the best mystery book I have ever read. I think I read it in just a couple of days, I couldn’t put the book down. This book easily made it into my top three books.

This book is about a group of friends Red Kenny, Maddy Lavoy, Oliver Lavoy, Reyna Flores-Serrano, Arthur Moore, and Simon Jinsun Yoo. They are planning on going from Philadelphia Pennsylvania to Gulf Shores Alabama over their Spring break. They are taking a 31-foot RV. They had been driving for about eight and a half hours and were driving through a small town called Morven Townships North Carolina when their directions started to cut out. They start to guess how to get to their campsite, and end up at a graveyard when one of their tires pop. They all get outside and fix it and then it happens again, but this time it is all four tires and they can’t fix them they are trapped. Then Red finds a bullet hole in the back of the RV. There is a shooter outside and they are trapped in an RV with nothing to fight back with and no service to call anyone for help.

This book takes you on a journey, that shows fear, loyalty, lies, and everything in between. This book has so many plot twists, and I would certainly recommend this book to everyone who likes murder mysteries because this is one of the best.

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook here.

The Giver by Lois Lowry

My name is Bria, I am a ski racer, swimmer, and dancer. I love reading in my free time.

I found the book The Giver to be an interesting and engaging dystopian novel. Not only is it captivating, but it also has a film adaptation. I enjoyed this book because it explores themes of adventure, hope, joy, love, power, and more.

The story is set in a future community where people do not experience color and emotions are suppressed. Life seems idyllic, as everyone is the same, eliminating inequality, conflict, and injustice. Each year at the Ceremony of Twelve, children receive assigned jobs based on their birth year and start training. Jonas, the main character, anxiously waits for his name to be called to receive his assignment. However, he is different; he is chosen for the honored position of Receiver of Memory. In this role, he will receive memories of the past from an elderly man known as the Giver. The community consults him when facing problems to avoid repeating mistakes.

As Jonas becomes the Receiver of Memory, he realizes how much the community has kept from its people—experiences like love, snow, dancing, and Christmas. This realization leads him to plan an escape from the community. Throughout the book, readers feel as if they are part of Jonas’s journey, accompanying him as he navigates struggles and seeks a different life. Overall, I appreciated this book for many reasons.

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook here.