SHOCKTOBER Truth or Dare by Jacqueline Green YP FIC GREEN

Truth or Dare?  It's just a stupid game, right?  Not for Tenley, Caitlin, or Sydney it isn't.  Sure it started as a game, but when they start receiving messages that if they want their most painful  'truths' hidden they'll have to complete more and more dangerous dares, they realize it's deadly serious.

This is a very twisty and exciting thriller from a debut author.  The novel starts off fairly quickly with the basic set up, but takes its time revealing the dark secrets of our three protagonists. Splitting between their viewpoints is a good way to keep the reader more in the loop than the heroines and build tension.  Green really populates her novel with plenty of characters that are more than just set dressing.  It makes the book more than just a Pretty Little Liars knock off, and something special of its own.  It has a great 'just one more chapter' quality that kept me flying through its close to 400 pages! I think there are enough reversals and false clues to keep most readers guessing, but even if you DO figure out the culprit...YOU DON'T!  The book ends with a twist cliffhanger that means you'll have to wait for a sequel to unlock more secrets...if you dare!  

You can find Truth or Dare in our catalog here.

Every You, Every Me by David Leviathan YP FIC LEVIATHAN

“A picture is worth a thousand lies.”

Evan has a secret.  He loved Ariel even though she was with Jack.  Now Ariel is gone and all Jack and Evan have is each other and their memories.  But someone else has a secret.  Pictures start coming to Evan, pictures no one should have been able to take.  Pictures that unearth memories Evan wants to stay buried.  Reality, memory, lies, and truth are all part of the same picture.

This books is unabashedly Emo truly original.  We get to see all the photos Evan is sent and that adds a lot of impact to this book.  The photographs were sent to the author and he wrote his chapters as they came in, so Evan’s confusion and slow realization feels real. The narrator’s use of strikethrough to illustrate his fractured occasionally whiny thoughts really works to get you inside his head and see how his world is slowly unraveling.  This is a very quick read with diary style entries that are brief and many pages that have a single photo or just a few lines of text.  This makes this an easy nook to fly through to solve the mystery.  The books strange design and narration style are its greatest strength and weakness.  This really feels like a love it or hate it title, which I always love.  It’s quirky, original, and a great look at a single point of view.  It really tackles some big ideas about how we are all stuck inside our own versions of how we see reality and how that can affect us.  I recommend it to anyone that wants something that will challenge them and make them think.

This Girl is Different by J J Johnson YP FIC JOHNSON

Evensong Sparkling Morningdew did not have the average upbringing as her name so cleary attests.  However, home schooled Evie has decided to join the crows and go to a REAL school for her senior year, but high school can be a minefield, a battlefield, or all sorts of other bad fields.  Not only are the rigid structure and the seemingly arbitrary rules maddening, but when she speaks out she ignites a giant controversy.  When she decides to make big changes in the system she starts unlocking secrets and truths she isn’t ready to face.  Revolution is harder than it looks!

This book shines because Evie is believably intelligent and mixes her expansive knowledge about academic pursuits with a total naiveté about how the world works. Her narration is always interesting and funny and pushes the story forward at a brisk pace. There are a few sort of cliché characters, but some characters really work.  I really respected that Johnson has the adults in the books be a mixture of good and bad in a believable way.  After all, usually even pretty lame schools have some good and bad in the staff.  It made the story better and richer than had Evie been up against all villains with the adults. I thought the ending verged towards an almost Hollywood happy ending, which is surprising because the book is mainly realistic throughout.  However, it wasn’t so unbelievable that I threw my book down in disgust, vowing never to read it again.  In fact, some people will probably like it a lot.  Besides, the rest of the book is so good I doubt most people will care at all.  Looking for something ‘different’ *?  This is your book!

*Sorry, I am biologically unable to resist terrible puns.