What I read instead of Twilight!

Back in July we had a Twilight party.  I made up trivia questions, the teens played a Twilight board game and we had various other activities.  I made a promise to my teens that I am ashamed to say I didn’t keep.

Several years ago a new book came into the library with a pretty black cover with an apple on it.  It was Twilight. I was intrigued and I began reading it.  I stopped after a couple hundred pages.  I thought it was boring.

Imagine my surprise when it became the bestseller and successful movie franchise it is today.

So in July, after the teens had such a good time at our Twilight party, they requested we have a party for New Moon. 

I promised them that I would try to read Twilight again and New Moon.  Maybe there was something I was missing?

There wasn’t.  I was still bored and didn’t get beyond the first couple hundred pages. 

So I put it done and picked up some really good books instead.

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In my opinion, nothing much happens in Twilight,  atleast in the first 250 pages that I read.  The Hunger Games is action packed.  It takes place in Panem in what used to be the North America.  It is now divided into 12 districts around The Capital.  The Capital, as punishment  for the district’s rebellion, draws the names of one boy and one girl from each district to participate in the Hunger Games.  The Hunger Games is a televised event that only one person can win and survive.  It is a fight to the death.  Katniss Everdeen lives in District 12 and her younger sister’s name is drawn at the “reaping”.  Katniss volunteers to take her place in the Games.  She must now kill or be killed as she fights in the Hunger Games. 

Raven Summer by David Almond

Liam and his friend hear the call of a raven.  The raven is leading them to something.  Liam and Max follow the bird through town to a field where they find a baby laying on pile of rocks.  There is a note pinned to it and a jar of money.  Liam takes the baby home and a series of events transpires that leads Liam to make friends with Oliver and Crystal, two teens in foster care.  Not exactly action-packed, Raven Summer, it does beg for your attention from the first page to the last. 

The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Want to read about star-crossed lovers? Kyra and Joshua must sneak around to be together in the  isolated polygamous community they have grown up in.  Kyra’s father has three wives and she has 20 brothers and sisters. She has always respected her father and her community until the Prophet decides she will marry her 60-year-old uncle who already has six wives.  She begins to question the Prophet and the life she has grown up with.  Especially, since her visits to the bookmobile once a week and her secret meetings with Joshua, a boy she is in love with but cannot have.  How’s that for star-crossed? I could not put this book down.  Kyra’s story is breathtakingly haunting.

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

Miranda is a sixth grader in 1979.  She is helping her mother prepare to be a contestant on $20,000 pyramid while trying to navigate the social paradigms of middle school.  As she is trying to cope with losing her best friend, Sal, who has decided he no longer wants to be her friend, she finds four letters that change her life.  Who are the letters for and how does the writer know so much? Another book I couldn’t put down, it is remarkably written.  Beautifully crafted and mysterious.