Dee's Dee-va Dish

This week Dee would like to recommend:
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah/Click here to request.
Killing Floor by Lee Child/Click here to request




Watch Dee-va Dish below to hear her review:

Excellent Teen Reads

Rot & Ruin by Jonathan Maberry

“Benny Imura couldn’t hold a job, so he took to killing.” So begins what on the surface is yet another post-apocalyptic zombie book, but in reality is much more. Kids today only remember life after First Night, when the dead rose from their graves and the world became overrun with zombies. In the fortified town of Mountainside, California, Benny has just turned fifteen, the age where you either get a job or your rations are cut in half. He agrees to apprentice with Tom, his bounty hunter brother, and reluctantly follows him into the rot and ruin of the world outside of the fences. Maberry takes classic elements of the horror genre and bends them into a coming of age story about truth, honor, love, and the ethics of zombie hunting. The emotional revelations and Benny’s introspective examination of what truly makes a monster are balanced by heart pounding action sequences throughout the novel. The zombie trading card illustrations found on the endpapers will be a special treat for teens. Highly recommended for fans of Rick Yancey’s Monstromologist series and Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth. This book will transform how readers feel about the walking dead.

Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi

On the American Gulf Coast in a future that probably isn’t too far from now, the space between the haves and the have-nots has never been wider. The only way to bridge that gap and escape a life of backbreaking labor is a lucky strike, a stroke of extreme good luck. Nailer is a ship breaker, scavenging copper and other metals from the skeletons of former oil tankers washed up on shore. When a hurricane beaches a luxury yacht filled with valuables, Nailer knows this is his once in a lifetime opportunity to make a better life for himself. However, fate has other plans for Nailer and he is forced to choose between stripping the boat and saving its lone survivor. Bacigalupi vividly draws a world where the polar ice caps have melted and the seas have risen, where your crew is your family and the line between right and the power of might is razor thin. This will be a great addition to any young adult or science fiction collection. Recommended for readers who enjoyed Suzanne Collins’ Hunger Games trilogy and James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. 

The Recruit by Robert Muchamore

James Choke and James Bond share a first name and a profession, but that is where all similarity ends. There are no unbelievable high tech gadgets or daring down to the last second bomb defusions to be found in this first installment of the Cherub series. James is a troubled kid set on a course that will probably end with him serving jail time. Cherub, a fictional division of the British government that trains kids to be spies, plucks James from social services and offers him the opportunity to change his destiny. Readers follow James through basic training (envision Navy Seal training for twelve-year-olds), and through the completion of his first mission. The villains are not criminal masterminds with plots to take over the world but eco-terrorists wanting to stop the destruction of oil corporations and James discovers that good people get hurt in the name of justice. While James is a deeply flawed protagonist and his character development is superficial, boys will connect with his desire to be tough and save face in front of peers. Those who enjoy Anthony Horowitz’s teen spy Alex Rider will find James to be his gritty and more abrasive cousin. 

Stop by the teen department to pick up any of these page turning reads!

Dee-va Dish

Dee-va Dish

Dee recommends Hot Flash Holidays by Nancy Thayer.

Request a copy now.

Adult Paranormal Book Reviews

Playing with Fire: Tales of an Extraordinary Girl, Bk 1 Twice as Hot: Tales of an Extraordinary Girl, Bk 2

I recently had a lot of time on my hands to catch up on recreational reading. Unfortunately, not a whole lot caught my attention. One book that caught my eye had been lying on my bookshelf forever, just waiting for me to be in the right mood to truly enjoy the world that the author created. I picked it up and was hooked from the first page. Playing with Fire has an incredible heroine that is just an average girl, who is scrabbling like crazy to keep any job she can to pay for her father's retirement home and heart medicine. Unfortunately, she doesn't have a great track record with actually keeping the jobs, but things were rolling along great until a scientist dumped a formula into her grand mocha latte that just happened to change everything! She wakes up with the power to control the four elements (not very well, but that's another story) and a super hot government agent that is there to "neutralize" her. Oh, and there are the bad guys that want to make her do their evil bidding or experiment on her until they can create another just like her. To say the least, she is not happy!!!

This book was great!!! There are tons of scenes that made me laugh out loud, but I kept a genuine concern about Belle, the heroine, and the uncertainty of the relationship that was developing with Rome, the super hot government agent. As soon as I finished this book, I devoured the sequel, Twice as Hot, which was equally entertaining. I would recommend this series for anyone that enjoys the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris and the Jane Jamison series by Molly Harper. These books are a bit sexier than those, but fans will love the action and characters.

Playing with Fire: Tales of an Extraordinary Girl, Bk 1
Product Description:
Twenty-four-year-old barista Belle Jamison dreams of a better job and a decent love life. Until a crazy scientist spikes her mocha latte! Suddenly Belle can wield the four elements—earth, wind, fire and water—with only a thought. Coffee too hot? No problem. Hair in need of a blow-dry? Done.

Gorgeous government agent Rome Masters has been sent to neutralize Belle. But he's not the only one after her. Together they must outrun the rogue agents on their trail and find a way to control her powers. There's just one problem: the sparks Belle and Rome generate are even hotter than the ones flying from her eyes—and with her future on the line, now is the worst possible time to fall in love….

Twice as Hot: Tales of an Extraordinary Girl, Bk 2
Product Description:
Belle Jamison is finally starting to feel like a normal girl again. Her job as a paranormal investigator is going well, she's learned to control her supernatural abilities (mostly) and she's just gotten engaged to Rome Masters, the ultra-sexy operative who once tried to neutralize her!

But planning a wedding is never easy, especially when the bride keeps accidentally torching her dress, the groom returns from a dangerous mission with selective memory loss and the man responsible now wants Belle for himself. With Rome's ex determined to win him back and a new band of supervillains on the horizon, it will take all Belle's powers—plus a little help from her trusty empath sidekick—to save the day, salvage the wedding and prove that true love really does conquer all.

White Cat by Holly Black

Holly Black has crafted an intricate and terrifying world that I wouldn't want to live in but I sure love reading about. The character of Cassel is clever, and self-deprecating; you can't help but root for him (even when you think he is a killer). The plot was truly suspenseful and surprising. I was on the edge of my seat as Cassel discovers the truth about his life and the people around him.
Incredibly well written! 
This book is a perfect example of why I need to wait until a series is finished before reading. I so desperately want the next book in the series but will have to wait until Red Glove is published in April 2011. I listened to this book on audio and loved the reader. Jesse Eisenberg did a great job.

You can find North Shelby's copy of White Cat in the Young Adult Department on the 2nd Floor.

From the product description:

"Cassel comes from a family of curse workers -- people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail -- he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen. 

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love -- or death -- and your dreams might be more real than your memories."

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Freedom to Read!

From the Banned Books Week website:

"Banned Books Week is the only national celebration of the freedom to read. It was launched in 1982 in response to a sudden surge in the number of challenges to books in schools, bookstores and libraries. More than a thousand books have been challenged since 1982. The challenges have occurred in every state and in hundreds of communities. Click here to see a map of book bans and challenges in the US from 2007 to 2009.

 People challenge books that they say are too sexual or too violent. They object to profanity and slang, and they protest against offensive portrayals of racial or religious groups--or positive portrayals of homosexuals. Their targets range from books that explore contemporary issues and controversies to classic and beloved works of American literature."

During the last week of September every year, hundreds of libraries and bookstores around the country draw attention to the problem of censorship by mounting displays of challenged books and hosting a variety of events.
Stop by the Young Adult Department to see our display for Banned Books Week!

The 2010 celebration of Banned Books Week will be held from September 25 through October 2.

New Books in the Teen Dept.

Stop by and check out these new titles in the Teen Department:

Radiance by Alyson Noel
The Candidates by Inara Scott
Unraveled by Gena Showalter
The Sorcerer of Sainte Felice by Ann Finnin
The Eternal Ones by Kristen Miller
Thicker Than Water by Carla Jablonski
This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas
Leaving Paradise by Simone Elkeles
Finding My Place by Traci L. Jones
One Night That Changes Everything by Lauren Barnholdt
The Poison Apples by Lily Archer
Watch Me by Lauren Barnholdt
Lost For Words by Alice Kuipers
The Fallen Vol. 1 by Thomas E. Sneigoski
The Fallen Vol. 2 by Thomas E. Sniegoski
Taken By Storm by Angela Morrison
By The Time You Read This, I'll Be Dead by Julie Anne Peters
Betrayal by Gillian Shields
Look For Me By Moonlight by Mary Downing Hahn
Between Mom and Jo by Julie Anne Peters
The Rise of Renegade X by Chelsea M. Campbell
Diamonds of the Shadow by Caroline B. Cooney