Book Beat Reviews

Good Girl, Bad Blood by Holly Jackson

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

Good Girl, Bad Blood is the sequel to one of my favorite books, A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder. I personally like this book more than the first one. There are a couple reasons why. I liked how it showed a bigger world than just Fairview. It shows different cities and people’s past. I liked how it showed a bigger variety of emotions than the first book. This book is so good, exciting, thrilling, angering, sad, heartfelt and so much more. It doesn’t keep you bored for one minute. I love how it is a true crime fiction but not too scary. If I were rating it, I would give it 5 out of 5.

This book is about Pip solving another case, but this time it is about one of her closest friends’ older brother Jamie Reynolds. After she started a true crime podcast with Ravi Singhs it has gone viral. Millions of people listen to her solve crime and think that this case is a set up and she is doing this for the money. Will Pip find him on time? Many secrets are revealed, some that change lives. People’s true identities are shown. In the end she follows the clues and is surprised by the one who is behind it all.

Find it in print, ebook, and eaudiobook here.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Hi! My name is Madeline, I am twelfth-grader living in the Wood River Valley. I enjoy playing the violin, reading, and writing.

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, is a classic tale of revenge that enthralls readers to this day.

Edmond Dantes has it all: a girl he loves, intelligence, and a bright future as the captain of a ship. Though well-liked by most, not all are happy for his good fortune. There are even some who would benefit from his demise, including a man who is in love with Edmond’s fiancée, and another who envies his bright career. The two devise a scheme to strip Edmond of his future. On his wedding day, the plan is enacted. What should have been the happiest day of his life is turned into a nightmare when he is falsely accused and thrown into the dreaded prison, Chateau d’If, with no hope of freedom. As he languishes in his cell, Edmond pines for the life which was so cruelly taken from him, and vows to take revenge upon his unknown enemies, if only he can escape.

Though the Count of Monte Cristo was written in the 1800s, it reads like a modern novel in many respects. It has a fast-paced plot and three-dimensional characters. I was almost never bored during the book’s 3,000-plus page duration. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to begin reading the classics, but is daunted by their older style, and to anyone who wants to go on an adventure full of mystery, intrigue, and suspense.

Find it in print, ebook, and DVD here.

The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day

Hi my name is Kire. I love to read, play volleyball and play my viola

The Mona Lisa Vanishes is a nonfiction book about how the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre.
The book starts with a guard from the Louvre rushing into the director’s office announcing that the Mona Lisa has vanished from where it should be. This is obviously a shock to everyone in the book and suddenly there is chaos. People are looking everywhere for the Mona Lisa. The book then leaves you wondering what has happened to the Mona Lisa for many chapters because the book goes back in time to explain Leonardo Da Vinci’s life in detail. The book talks about everything from what he did as a kid to all the odd questions he wrote down in his journal. This is the section of the book where I learned all sorts of things about him that I probably wouldn’t ever have known about if I didn’t read this book.

After many chapters learning about Leonardo Da Vinci’s life, the book continues on in detail about the heist of stealing the Mona Lisa. It goes into detail about the detectives and their strategies on how to crack the case of how the Mona Lisa Vanished. At the very end of the book, you finally get to find out how the Mona Lisa was stolen and who was the thief that was able to steal the painting from right under the Louvre’s staff’s noses. The book also goes into detail about the reason the Mona Lisa even became famous, which I found to be quite interesting.

I read this book for the Idaho Battle of the Books (IBOB) and honestly, I didn’t really enjoy it. I think this was probably because I am not a nonfiction reader and often find nonfiction to be boring. Even though I didn’t enjoy reading this book, I think people who are into nonfiction books or people who want to learn about the Mona Lisa, would really enjoy reading this book.

Find it in print here.

The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh

Hi my name is Kire. I am in 6th grade and I love to read. Other than reading I like to do gymnastics and play viola.

The Lost Year is a historical fiction novel that I would describe as a page-turning story about family and survival. The book is about a 13-year-old boy who lives during the Covid 19 pandemic with his great-great grandmother.

When Matthew’s Nintendo gets taken away from him, he is forced to look through old boxes that belong to Matthew’s great-great grandmother. In these old boxes he finds all sorts of things like an old photo that makes Matthew want to learn about his great-great grandmother’s past. Through photos, journals, other things, and his great-great grandmother explaining everything, Matthew slowly learns about his great-great grandmother’s crazy past. He learns that she used to live in Kyiv, Russia during the Holodomor which was a famine from 1932 to 1933 and that she had two other cousins. He also learns his great-great grandmother’s secret that she had kept to herself since 1933. I won’t reveal the secret in this review but just know that it was a crazy twist in the story that I couldn’t ever have imagined. The book is written from three perspectives: Matthew’s, Mila’s, and Helen’s. Mila and Helen are the two cousins related to Matthew’s great-great grandmother. This three-perspective writing actually added a lot that made the book more interesting to read.

I had to read this book for the Idaho Battle of the Books (IBOB) and when I first picked it up, I didn’t think that I would like it at all. However, because the book has so many twists and turns that I would never have expected, I ended up really enjoying it. I would even go as far as to say that this has been the best historical fiction book that I have ever read. Overall, I would recommend this to anyone who wants an interesting story that has some historical flavor embedded in it.

Find it in print here.

A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

Hi, my name is Judah and I am I 14 year old boy who likes to play soccer, ski and play tennis.

The Tale of Two Cities is a historical fiction book written by Charels Dickens. This book is written to show to contrast between the French and the English during the time of the French Revolution.

The main characters of this book are Charles Darnay, an aristocrat that traveled from France to England. Dr. Manette, an old man who makes shoes, Madame Defarge, a brutal leader of the peasants during the French Revolution, and Sydney Carton, a lawyer.

The book begins when Darnay is falsely accused of treason and is about to be sentenced to death when a man shows up with an almost an exact similarity in looks with Darnay. While this is happening in London, Madame Defarge is knitting a registry of who she intends to kill during the French Revolution. She is a character who never says much but is always plotting and scheming, waiting for the right opportunity to strike out upon the aristocrats.

This book is full of excitement and is a page turner for those who read. I recommend this book for middle school through high school for readers who are interested in the French Revolution.

Find it in print here.

Carry on Mr. Bowdich by Jean Lee Latham

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.

Carry on Mr. Bowdich is a book written by Jean Lee Latham about a true character in history, Nathaniel Bowdich.

Born in Salem Massachusetts in 1773, Nathan was different from all the other kids. He was brilliant. Although being able to do complex mathematics in his head with ease, he was often made fun of for his short height and scrawny build. At a young age he dreamed of going to Harvard, the best school in the country, but his family was poor. Instead, he got shipped off to be an intern at a ship chandlery called Ropes and Hodges for nine years. By the end of his time there, he would be 21 years old.

Though reluctant, Nathan accepted and started to work the store by day, and study everything he could learn about astronomy and Latin at night. He learned many complex nautical techniques such as taking a lunar (telling where you are on the sea) by looking at the stars. He was so brilliant that he made up new, easier ways to navigate without having to perfectly align with the stars.

In the end, his contributions to astronomy and making the seas safer to travel will always be remembered. For a school book I would recommend this one because it is very interesting and I enjoyed it.

Find it through Interlibrary loan here.