Book Beat Reviews

Jinxed by Amy McCulloch

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

Jinxed is a science fiction novel that follows Lacey Chu as she tries to make her dream of getting into a top-notch school a reality. The story takes place in Moncha Town in a world where everyone has robotic animals which are called Bakus. There are many levels of Bakus that you can own. Lacey’s dream is to get into the Profectus School. She works extremely hard so that she will be accepted. There is just one problem: Lacey needs a level three Baku but only had enough money to buy a level one. This means that if she isn’t able to get a level three or higher she won’t get to go to her dream school.

One day, when her best friend’s Baku is thrown into a ravine, Lacey finds a mysterious cat Baku that was in pieces. She decides to bring it home and fix it up. This Baku turns out to be a high enough level that Lacey gets to follow her dream of going to Profectus School. Soon, Lacey figures out that her Baku, whose name is Jinx, is not a normal Baku. He doesn’t listen to her commands and ends up getting her in a ton of trouble. Through the story, Lacey makes friends and begins to feel at home until something crazy happens. Her Baku makes the decision to do something that throws Lacey’s life upside down.

Overall, I would say that this was a decent book that I would recommend to anyone who enjoys science fiction books about technology and friends. The only thing that I didn’t enjoy about this book was that often it got a bit boring, and I felt like it was dragging on details for no reason. All in all, I would say that I enjoyed this story.

Find it in print and ebook here.

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

Hi, my name is Haden, and I enjoy swimming, skiing, and hanging out with friends. I enjoy reading especially if you can make money with the books you read

The Hiding Place is a book about faith, forgiveness, and finding God in the hardest circumstances. This book is the story of Corrie Ten Boom’s amazing childhood up until the end of the war. Corrie began her life in 1892, to a well-known family in Holland. Her family was not wealthy, however they always helped others in need, sometimes at the expense of her own family. Beginning in her early years, her family’s constant faith in God encouraged her to rely on Him for everything she needed. Her sister, Betsie, particularly helped her to see God working in every situation.

After the Nazis invaded Europe, the Ten Boom family decided to join the resistance and used their large house as a base for Jews, members of the resistance, and anyone else who needed help. There was also a secret room built to hide the Jews created by the resistance. However, the Gestapo was tipped off and practically the whole Ten Boom family was taken into prison. The Jews in hiding at the house, however, were miraculously saved. Through hardship and troubles in prison, Corrie finds out what it means to be thankful in every circumstance.

After the war, Corrie was able to help those hurting and started multiple camps for those who had been hurt by the war. Although it is easy just to see hate in this book, Corrie forces us to witness the good that people can become because of a God greater than our shortcomings.

Find it in ebook, and eaudiobook here.

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.