Kayla's Book Nook

Genre: Realistic Fiction Publication Date: 2013 Synopsis: The Circle  follows the life of Mae Holland and her life after she joins the biggest internet company in the country, The Circle. The Circle has a sprawling campus filled with business offices, eating areas, recreation areas, relaxation areas, party venues, and even dorms for people to use. The Circle's big draw and success is making a person's online presence all in one place. Now people have one username, one account for all services, and everything is tied to that one account. It has brought order and ease to using the internet. Mae soon becomes entrenched in her work and in the various activities provided and encouraged by the company. The company values social media posts as much as a person's actual work performance. This leaves less and less time for the outside real world in Mae's life. The Circle begins to branch out and push through boundaries that make the reader question the morality of the com...

Genre: Fiction/Fantasy Publication Dates: 2015, 2016, 2017 Author: Victoria Aveyard Synopsis: In this novel, the world is divided into two types of people. People with red blood and people with silver blood. The Silvers have supernatural powers that come from their silver blood. Silvers can be super strong, bend and reflect light, manipulate fire, control people's minds, have super speed, etc. Red blooded people are completely normal, and are the working class citizens. Blood creates a divide based on jobs, money, status, knowledge, and power. The main character is Mare Barrow, a 17 year old girl from a very poor red family. She finds herself working in the palace for the King and Queen silvers. During a surprising event, Mare discovers that although she is a red she has the power to manipulate lightning and electricity. This is supposed to be impossible, so the King decides to hide this power, and claim that she is a long lost princess and betroths her to his se...

Genre: Mystery/Suspense Publication Date: 2016 Synoposis: Zoe is a young girl that is striving for perfection. She is a prodigy musician that strives for excellence. She and her mother, Maria, have spent the last three years striving to be the perfect mother and daughter and creating the perfect life. They have also spent this time hiding a terrible tragedy that left Zoe damaged, Maria without a husband, and a blemish on their otherwise perfect lives. This novel explores what happens when Zoe's past comes back to haunt her future. Then, tragedy strikes again, and Zoe and her family must uncover the truth about a death and move on from these dark events. Review: This book was a very interesting and quick read that contained a lot of suspense and mystery due to the different perspectives. The characters are a little hard to dig into, due to Zoe being pretty boring while trying to be perfect and mundane for so long. One of the more interesting characters is killed off in the be...

Genre: Mystery/Suspense Publication Date: 2015 Synopsis: One day a mother, Rachel Jenner, and her son, Ben are walking in the park. Rachel lets her son walk ahead to the swings on the path, and when she gets to the path her son is gone. Rachel spends the book obsessing over her missing son, trying to piece together enough clues with the police to find him. Review: This book has a lot of good suspense and mystery elements throughout it. It's a very realistic case of a missing boy. Rachel is a believable and well written character that depicts the average mother. She of course blames herself for letting Ben run ahead, and spends half of the book blaming herself, and the other half of the book trying to find anything to help the police find her son. The other main character is the police officer assigned to the case. He takes this case very personally as well, and tries to work to find Ben. I thought this was a good book. It was difficult to read at times due to my personal co...

Recently, I broke my own rule. I had decided that while I was coaching, that I wouldn't read any books. I usually get a little obsessed with reading, and therefore tend to jerk my responsibilities. But, I was bored over the weekend, and so I read a book. I decided to read Milkweed  by Jerry Spinelli. This book is told from the point of view of an uneducated orphan, who is alone and living on the streets during the Holocaust in Warsaw, Poland. This boy, who is later named Misha, is alone in a world that at first seems easy for him. He is small, and fast, and so he steals food from those who are slower than him. Then he meets another boy, and that boy tries to teach him about the world, but Misha is not socialized and he loses a lot of what the other boy tries to teach him. Their world of easy eating, stealing, and getting by is quickly pulled out from underneath him. Soon soldiers come and change the way that life is being lead in Warsaw. Food is scarce, a curfew is employed, a...

When my husband and I were planning our wedding, we had a hard time figuring out where to go on our honeymooon. As recent college graduates with little money, we were on a budget and yet we wanted to do something new, different, fun, exciting, and adventurous. This led me to find our destination, Maine. It offered an adventure pack, which allowed us to go on an animal sightseeing tour and kayaking. We had never been to Maine, and since we had been vacationing at the beach in Delaware for about eight years now, we decided to do something daring and different. The Monday after we were married, we packed up the car, and drove the 10 hours to Moosehead Lake in Maine. It was a long and tiring trip, but we made it in one piece. We settled in to our hotel, and went to look around the town. We found that this town was very unlike the tourist towns down at the beach. Moosehead Lake is all local, there are no restaurant chains, no hotel chains, and no store chains. It was amazing to be st...

Now that I finally have my dream job, I have little time to do much else. I am even finding it hard to find time to read outside of the reading I am assigning in class. It hurts to say that, but I now have summers off, so I'll be able to read then as well. Although, I'll never stop buying books, even though I'll probably never find the time to read them all until I am retired! Finally, to get to my point, the annual book sale in Binghamton, NY is here! I'll be adding the days and times here for any readers that would like to or can go to the sale. Stock up on books at the Penguin Group (USA) Warehouse Book Sale! NEW YORK STATE LOCATION This highly anticipated sale will be held on the following days: Saturday, November 12  —  1-8PM Monday, November 14  —  5-8PM Tuesday, November 15  —  5-8PM Wednesday, November 16  —  5-8PM Thursday, November 17  —  5-8PM Friday, November 18  —  5-8PM Saturday, N...