 

Your Top Reading Choices Going Into November


A Quiet Place

Reviewed by India Rodriguez

Mysterious blind monster-like creatures have invaded earth.They attack any living creature they can hear. Over time, people begin disappearing. The movie “A Quiet place” tells the story of one of the families left, the Abbotts. What are you doing right now? Close your eyes, do you hear that? Likely there is some sound, people talking, the dishwasher running, you tapping your foot. In this movie the Abbott family can not make a sound. If they do…

Although not a silent film, the movie is incredibly quiet. It shows how much life changes when you must be quiet. Simple daily tasks, going to the store, laundry, and washing your face take an enormous amount of care to be quiet.

The film’s main characters are all incredible actors. It is as if they grab you and pull you into their world. They do such an amazing job conveying intense emotions to the audience, making you feel them as well.

It is definitely a suspenseful movie that has many parts where you are sitting at the edge of your seat clenching the armrests. More than anything in this movie you can see a family theme. The story really goes to show how much any parent in this case a father would go to protect his family.

Paper Towns by John Green

Reviewed by Hannah Gotzman

When Margo Roth Spiegelman disappears, her family and high school go into a frenzy but nobody is as worried about her as Quentin Jacobson is, the boy she spent her last night with before vanishing. After years of the two teenagers not speaking to each other she crawls through his window late at night with black face paint all over her neck, hands, and face. She bluntly tells him that she needs his car and a getaway driver and that was the beginning of an unforgettable night.

This book was awarded the Edgar Award for Best Young Adult, and it’s not hard to see why. A novel like this could have only been created by an author who knows how to touch a reader's emotions. While this book has been presumed to be in the romance genre, it has fallen into mystery young-adult. I personally liked this book because the boy finally doesn’t get the girl, it’s something different and doesn't follow the cliche romance plots you will find in most trending books; and John Green didn’t only accomplish this, but he wrote it like no author has written it before. This is a must-read for anybody who loves exceptional books. Recommended for ages 15 and up.

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Reviewed by Sophia Hoffman

Do you like science, fiction, or even science fiction? Do you like puzzles and mysteries? Great! Then you’ll love the book Ready Player One. When I first had to read this it was for a school project, and I was groaning in boredom. I thought it would be one of those boring, dull science fiction books that we were forced to read every month. I put it in my locker and stared at it in dismay every time I peered in. A week before the project was due, I sighed and took the book out. I just barely forced myself to read a few pages, hardly skimming them. When I read a bit more, something interesting in the book caught my eye. I had no idea what it meant, so I went back to the beginning to really read it thoroughly. I didn’t put it down after that for a whole week! Everything I did, chores, eating, homework, all with this book in my hand.

Ready Player One is based on a dystopian society in the future, in which the world has gone downhill. The main character, Wade Watts, lives in a trailer park in which the population is so overrun, they had to stack the trailers on top of each other. To avoid having to live in the outside world, a character named James Halliday made an escape called the Oasis, a virtual reality in which everyone could look anyway they wanted, and it evolved into everyone living there. When James Halliday died in 2039, he didn’t have any heirs to inherit his money or control the Oasis. He hid a golden egg somewhere in the Oasis, three keys, and three gates were also hidden as hints that would guide you to the egg. On a video before he died, he left the information for the egg hunt, and a first clue to start them off. Wade, his friends and foes are in a race to find the egg, which had been…Well, I’ll let you find out.

So, if you like non-stop action and heart racing anxiety, then this is the perfect book for you. Ernest Cline takes you on the adventure of a lifetime as you travel in time to the dystopia that used to be a utopia. You watch the characters progress and gain skill throughout the chapters. Now, before I give anything else away, go read the book!

Kindred by Octavia Butler

Reviewed by Shoshana Groom

Sorrowful, gripping, riling, and violent, Kindred, written by Octavia Butler, is a beautiful story for all old enough to handle it’s realistic portrayals of slavery, racism, and sexual violence.

The idea is simple but chilling. Dana, a young Black woman in the 70s, is taken back in time--against her will--to a southern slave plantation in the late 18th century. While she is eventually pulled back from this nightmare, little time passes before she is sent back again and again, years passing in this ancient time during what feels like mere minutes or hours to her while in the 70s. Learning that the white plantation owners are her distant ancestors, Dana must work not only to save the lives of these people she hates so much and those in their power, but also come to grips with the rape that conceived her grandmother.

Octavia Butler wove together a masterpiece of emotion when she wrote Kindred. The cast of characters is beautiful, from level-headed, moralistic Dana to violent, bullying Margaret and back to sweet, loving Carrie. The plot is fast-paced, the events heartbreakingly realistic. The read is relatively short, as once you hit about 2/3rds of the way through there’s no turning back. I hope that everyone able to stomach violence reads this gem of a book.

Citation:

  • Butler, O. E. (2003). Kindred. Boston: Beacon Press.


 
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