Blood Curdling Love

Twilight

Twilight was written by Stephanie Meyer and was published on October 5^th 2005.  Twilight tells a dramatic love story between two teenagers.  The catch is one is human and the other is vampire. Edward (vampire) and Bella (human) fall in love and face a love that is even more complicated than normal high school relationships.   

From the start there was an undeniable chemistry between the odd high school couple.   Edward, the lead vampire in the novel, struggles with his love for Bella and his thirst for her blood.  Bella, the lead female, sees no wrong in her love with a vampire.  As they struggle through their love they discover many things about each other that will mold their relationship. 

Twilight is a new guilty pleasure that female teenagers around the world will not be able to get enough of.  This book creates an escape to hectic high school life.  Edward and Bella share a whirl wind romance that is sure to get hearts pounding.  It is extremely easy to fall in love with this new couple!

By:Whitney Bowers

Sports Beyond Race

Glory Road: My story of the 1966 NCAA Basketball Championship and how one team triumphed against the odds and changed America forever

By Don Haskins with Dan Wetzel

           

            In the novel Glory Road, Don Haskins tells the story of how he coached the 1966, first all black men's basketball team to win the NCAA Championship. With the help of Dan Wetzel, Don Haskins expresses his own opinions and struggles about the road to changing American sports as we know it.             

Don Haskins coached at Texas Western University, now known as the University of Texas at El Paso. Coach Haskins and his team of all African American starters face many of college basketball's power house teams, including the University of Kentucky and Duke University. The small team from Texas stunned the nation in beating such teams. How did they accomplish this? Coach Haskins was not afraid to recruit these African American players during that dark period in American history. The book also describes the grueling hours of practice the team suffered late into the night.                                                     

 Don Haskins’ witty remarks and brutal honesty make this book well worth reading. His opinion of the players and interviews with the players themselves also make the book a great read. If you like sports, a great story line, and reading about events that forever changed American sports, then this book is for you.

By: Alex Biggerstaff

Batman's First Steps

Batman: Year One is a graphic novel written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli that was published in 1987.  The story is told through the narrative thoughts of Lieutenant Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne. Like the title suggests, this is the first year that Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City after studying martial arts abroad to avenge the death of his parents by fighting crime as the Batman.  This is also the first year that Jim Gordon joins the Gotham City Police Department as he has been transferred from the police department in Chicago.  Bruce’s first attempts to fight crime in the bat suit are a little messy and he is immediately put down as a criminal, attacking criminals physically, and corrupt elected officials mentally by leaving them disturbing messages and at one point crashing a party at the mayor’s house.  As the story progresses you find out that Lieutenant Gordon will have his work cut out for him as he seems to be the only cop on the force that is not corrupt.  Gordon has several run-ins with a Detective Flass, and other members of the force that do not like Gordon’s method of doing things that will potentially make them look bad.  On top of the cops having it in for him, he also has to deal with a new kind of potential threat, the Batman.

I’m not a big fan of graphic novels, but I love Batman and would recommend this book to anyone who likes suspense, and of course, Batman.  In addition to the suspense, I found myself laughing more that a few times at some of the things the characters said and did.  

Mat Sigmon

My review on the book Motor City Muscle by Mike Mueller

The title of the book is Motor City Muscle. The author is Mike Mueller. The date the book was published was in 1997. In this book it talks about muscle cars and how they got the name muscle cars. It starts out talking about the very first muscle car and it keeps going up by year and ends at all the new cars and how they have changed over the years. I liked how the book told about all the generations of muscle cars, how it started and how they keep improving them for today. I think this is a great book but I think they could have told more about the cars and the differences they had. I would recommend this book to anyone that likes muscle cars or wants to find out more about the muscle car’s history.

 by Zach Fox

A Rememberance of True Love

The book A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks was published in 1999. This book is narrated by Landon Carter, 57 year old man of Beaufort, North Carolina. It is set in a period of his life that he learned about himself and the people he is around the most. He tells about his participation in the school play with a religious girl, Jamie, that Landon was known for making fun of and teasing. But as they practice for the Christmas play and run lines with each other, he slowly begins to realize that all of these years he had been wrong about her.

        This book is a wonderful book; it is a love story that is also a life lesson for each reader. It teaches you to look at the person in side and not to judge people on how they look or what they do. It follows the old saying, “Never Judge a person till you have walked a mile in their shoes.” The characters are very realistic and the book is well written. I would recommend this book to both teenagers and adults. It is an eye opening, tear-jerking situation between love and death. Once you have read this book you will never forget it.  It is an amazing book that I think everybody should read at least once in their life.

By: Olivia Barnett

Forbidden Love

The Covent by Beverly Lewis that was published in 2002 is a wonderful book. It tells about how a girl and her three sisters live in an Amish community in Lancaster County Pennsylvania. There are secrets in the family that have been hidden for 16 long years.  Leah and Sadie Ebersol are two of the sisters that are main character.  Sadie keeps sneaking out at night and Leah doesn’t find that strange because Amish courting is done at night and in secret.  But is Sadie sneaking out to see a young Amish boy or are her and her best friend, Naomi sneaking out to see English boys? When Sadie finds herself in a very bad situation will her dear sister Leah and their Aunt Lizzie help her, or will they let her fend for herself? Is her sin bad enough to be shunned for or will the church forgive her? Or does she even want to be forgiven? Read the book and find out for yourself.

            I like everything about this book. It had great characters and a great plot.  There is a little suspense in some parts of the book and other parts make you cry. There is also romance in the air all through the book. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes romance and forbidden love.

By: Julie Burleson

A True Hero's Tale

“That mighty protector of men meant to hold the monster till its life leaped out, knowing the fiend was no use to any one…”

Beowulf is a hero from Geatland who travels to Herot to help rid King Hrothgar of a terrible monster.  Just as he thinks it is all over and he has won another challenge arises, this one much harder than the fist.  Beowulf faces many challenges and battles and performs heroic deeds through out this tale.  I enjoyed the story and overall theme of heroism that is evident this book.  I also enjoyed the historical elements that a strewn throughout the story.  I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a good story about a true hero and his heroic deeds in service to others.  Translated by Burton Raffel and published in 1963, Beowulf is and epic poem and a piece of classical literature that has survived more than twelve centuries and will continue to thrive with its powerful theme and message. 

By: Tori Mast

Another Zombie Story?

            Carrie Ryan’s novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth, released in 2009, is about a girl named Mary who lives in a post-apocalyptic world. Her brother is a Guardian and spends his days making sure the wall protecting their town is not broken into by the Unconsecrated, her father is an Unconsecrated, and her mother is in desolation and despair. And in the mix of all this, she shuffles a love triangle; the one she loves and the one who loves her. Mary is a deep character who thinks deeply, and her thoughts are easy to relate to. “I realize that sometimes death comes before you expect it. That while we are rarely prepared for our friends, family and loved ones to die, we are never prepared for our own deaths. Never prepared to reconcile our own regrets.” My favorite character is Mary, because she is so easy to understand and how she takes things, strong and willed. Carrie Ryan brings words to life in this novel; it is hard to stop reading once started. If you are one who likes a good romance, some science fiction, action, and suspense, this is definitely a good book.

           

 

Jonnah Smith