Book Beat Reviews

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

I am Thijs. I enjoy reading (maybe a little too much) and being outdoors. I have a younger brother and my favorite dessert is root beer floats.

The Boys in the Boat is a classic about young men and their struggles, but how they overcome. Set mostly in Washington State, this book follows the University of Washington Crew team of 1937. The main character in the story is Joe. Joe had a hard life growing up. His mother died when he was young and he had a stepmother that never cared for him. His father struggled to find work and enough money to support the family. His father left when Joe was 15 to take care of himself. This was during the Great Depression when many people were struggling to support their families, keep their homes, and have enough food to eat.

Joe was an incredibly smart young man who found many ways to support himself. He eventually made it to the University of Washington and earned a spot on the Freshman Rowing Crew Team.  The story follows the Freshman Crew Team with their struggles to stay in college and have a seat on the competitive University of Washington Crew Team.

One of the reasons I connected so well with this book was that it is a true story.  The men in the book have incredible grit and never seemed to give up.  This would be a great book to read on a road trip as well. The book will allow you around 14 hours and 24 minutes to pass the time. I hope you go and check this book out at The Community Library, and have a great time reading!                                                                                                                                           

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook, and CD here.

Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing by Jacob Goldstein

I am Thijs. I enjoy reading (maybe a little too much) and being outdoors. I have a younger brother and my favorite dessert is root beer floats.

Money, a seemingly simple concept that I have always taken for granted. But what really is it and how have we all agreed that it has value? This book explores the early origins of money through more complicated concepts like FIAT, Commercial paper, Bitcoin and many other forms of money that has always confused me. This book will help you understand better how our economy works, banks were originated, the first stocks ever made, and other financial concepts. I believe that every reader could learn at least a thing or two about money from this book.

One of the craziest things that I learned was that on June 5, 1933 the U.S. left the gold standard. The gold standard is when money is backed by gold so if you wanted to, you could trade in your money in for gold. This could cause a lot of problems because if people wanted their gold all at the same time there wouldn’t be enough gold to be distributed. This happened in 1929 and helped trigger the Great Depression. As a result of leaving the Gold Standard in 1933, today money is backed by nothing. This means that money is only worth something because we think it is. That means if we all stop believing it is worth something it will not be worth anything.

The book “Money A Real Story About a Made-Up Thing” goes into the depth of all this. It would be a great book for people from the age 18 and up who want to learn about this complicated thing that our whole life revolves around. It is what we give up our time for to earn and then spend for necessities, and what we value. I bet this book will teach you a lot. I recommended it to my dad, and he loved it. So have fun reading this wonderful book Money: The True Story of a Made-Up Thing.

Find it in print here.

Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

Hi, my name is Duncan. I love to Nordic and alpine ski in the winter and like to bike, hike, and camp in the summer.

I loved Pet because it is a story that I would not usually read. This book was written by Akwaeke Emezi in 2019 and is a fantasy. The main character’s names are Pet, Redemption, and Jam. Pet is a mysterious creature that came from a painting to help them save Redemption’s little brother. Redemption is one of Jam’s friends who doesn’t know that his brother is in severe danger until it is almost too late. And Jam is the girl who summoned Pet.

Another reason I would recommend this book is that it is definitely not real but has a touch of real life added to it. Something interesting about this book is that they are trying to save Redemption’s brother. Jam and Redemption are trying to save Redemption’s brother and they are working with a creature from another planet named Pet. One thing that is quite remarkable about Pet is that Pet can only be seen by people who have met him. Also, Pet can choose who meets him because he can choose if he wants someone to see him or not. One thing about Pet that I did not like was it was quite hard to follow.

This book was set in Lucille. In Lucille, all the children were told that all the monsters were gone and that everyone was safe but that was not true. If this book was set on the earth then it would be set in the present time. An award that Pet won was New York Times best book of the year

Find it in print here.

Lost in the Pacific, 1942 by Tod Olson

My name is Judah. My favorite sports are Alpine skiing, Nordic skiing, soccer and baseball.

Lost in the Pacific is a true story written by Tod Olson. The story takes place during World War II near Canton Island in the Pacific Ocean. The main characters are Whittaker, Bill, Rickenbacker, Kaczmarczyk and John. It begins with them taking off from Pearl Harbor and heading to Canton Island airstrip where they were to be deployed to bomb the Japanese. They were scheduled to arrive on Canton Island at 9:30 Am, but when 9:30 Am rolled around there was no sight of the island. Without fuel or contact they were doomed to go down in the Pacific Ocean with no one knowing where they were in the biggest ocean on earth. They were dropping altitude fast and then crash landed in the ocean. With only two small rafts and four people it was a tight squeeze. Surviving more than two weeks with hardly any fresh water to drink and almost no food to eat demonstrated that the crew had what it took to make surviving the impossible possible.

This book shows the crews teamwork, effort, endurance, craftiness, and most of all their survival skills. They were able to craft a spear a fishing pole and even catch a bird! I liked this book because there is lots of action and most of all, that it is a true story.

Find it in print here.

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Hi, I am Sarah. I am fourteen years old and an avid reader; it is one of my favorite things to do. Inspired by authors’ creations of magnificent places and surprising havens built by simple letters, I aspire to be an author and, meanwhile, nurture the love to write.

Legendary actress Evelyn Hugo is famous for many things: her movie stardom, her sensual, natural beauty, and most notably, her seven husbands. From Don to Rex to Harry, her reasons for marriage and divorce are widely speculated but never confirmed, as seems to be the actress’s MO: enough to tempt, never enough to satisfy.

The actress, now in her 70s, has finally decided to share an interview, and with a specific person in particular: Vivant Magazine’s Monique Grant. Humbled, and suspicious of the summons, Monique arrives expecting the Evelyn Hugo that the public knows, and instead, gets much more. Evelyn doesn’t want just an interview, she wants Monique to write her biography.

Monique starts with the question everyone wants to know: which of your husbands was the love of your life? And when Evelyn answers that none of them were, it’s only the beginning.

Taylor Jenkins Reid has written a fearless and original story chronicling the life of this world-renowned actress and her controversial life. Evelyn Hugo is not a good person, nor is she a bad one. Her incentives are fabulously flawed, she hurts and has hurt others, but consistently, she has always been motivated by love. In Monique’s words, “everyone’s love life is original and interesting and nuanced and defies any easy definition,” and ultimately The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is just that—a triumphant celebration of love in all its forms.

Find it in print, ebook, eaudiobook and CD here.

Waste of Space by Stuart Gibbs

I am Thijs. I enjoy reading (maybe a little too much) and being outdoors. I have a younger brother and my favorite dessert is root beer floats.

Waste of Space is by far my favorite of the moon base alpha stories by Stuart Gibbs. It is a page turner from beginning to end. I first want to comment on the author. Stuart Gibbs is one of the most gifted writers there has ever been. I know that is a really big opinion. But for me at least it’s true.  He has done a fantastic job with every book of his I’ve read. You can check out this wonderful book Waste of Space. Before you get this great book, you must read Space Case and Spaced Out. Space Case is the first book in the series, and Spaced Out is the second. I bet you can guess that it makes “Waste of Space” the third. Funny thing that I just noticed is that all three of the titles have space in them.

This book is about the main character, Dash, and his next adventure on the moon (the most boring place on earth). Oh, I forgot they weren’t on earth (make that the most boring place in the galaxy). This book takes place over just two days. It starts at two a.m. on Dash’s Birthday. His dad is taking him outside on the moon’s surface which is strictly against the rules. Dash is super excited because he has only gone out on the moon’s surface four times and two of those times he had gone out without permission. He and his dad have only been playing catch for fifteen minutes when they hear Nina’s voice over the radio. Nina tells them to come inside but Dash’s dad says that they will only be out for a little longer. Then is a scream and Nina tells them that they really do have to come in immediately.

To know what happens next check it out at The Community Library.

Find it in print here.