Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

I read this novel for Battle of the Books, but I also wanted to read it. I keep trying Sepetys novels, thinking I'm really going to like them, and then finding myself disappointed. This novel was an exception. This is probably the best Sepetys novel I've read so far. I Must Betray You is the story of Romania behind the Iron Curtain. Christian Florescu is seventeen. His grandfather, an intellectual, questions the current regime, and Christian finds himself agreeing. Romanians are struggling; waiting in long lines hoping for food, spies everywhere, never knowing who's an informer and who isn't. Amidst these tensions, Christian is confronted by an agent of the secret police and blackmailed into informing on Dan Van Dorn, the son of the American Ambassador. Stuck between his beliefs and his fear, Christian does as he's told, hoping that he can dupe the agent. I loved this book, more than any other Sepetys novel I've read. While Sepetys excels at many things in her w...

 I think this is the book that I was the most excited to read. I got it for Christmas, but I had to reread the first two in the series. It took far longer than I wanted because, as I said in my last post, I took a slight break to read The Hawthorne Legacy  in the middle. Cytonic  picks up right at the end of Starsight , and overlaps a little to refresh the cliffhanger that Starsight  ends on. Spensa jumps through the portal into the nowhere, but instead of going home, she makes a decision that plants her in the Belt, the very edge of the Nowhere that borders the Somewhere. She is told that she must find the Path of Elders and learn about the Cytonics and the Delvers. Upon arrival, she is immediately attacked by pirates who occupy this portion of the Belt, ever looking to increase their numbers. Unable to escape, she's captured, but before they can take her prisoner, a man rides through the jungle on a dinosaur-like creature to save Spensa. He introduces himself as Ch...

 I read this for a co-worker who chooses his own book list for Battle of the Books and uses it in his classroom each year. I'd already read and loved the first one, and he brought this to me one morning (ironically while I was desperately trying to finish Skyward  again so I could read Cytonic ) and asked me to read it and write questions for the book. I finished it in one day, and that should also tell you a lot about how I felt about this book. The Hawthorne Legacy  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes picks up with Avery Grambs' story almost immediately after the conclusion of The Inheritance Games . Avery is trying to find Toby Hawthorne, the son of the billionaire that left her his entire fortune. Along with the help of the Hawthorne grandsons, she must unravel the mystery of who she really is, how she's related to this family, and where Toby might have gone. I loved this book. Just like The Inheritance Games , there is a twist around every corner. Barnes is a master of giving yo...

 I read this one for Battle of the Books for one of my coworkers. When looking at the summary, this book jumped out to me. The premise sounded very interesting and exciting, and I was not disappointed. This is probably the best book I read last year. I LOVED it. The Inheritance Games  by Jennifer Lynn Barnes describes the story of Avery Grambs, a poor high schooler just trying to make ends meet. Avery's mom died years before the story begins, and since then, she's been living with her half sister, Libby. While she loves Libby and living with her isn't bad, it is when Libby's dating Drake, so Avery moves out. At school, Avery is pulled out of class and goes to the office to be confronted by the Hawthorne grandson, Grayson. Grayson informs Avery that she has been named in his grandfather's will, the will that outlines his multi-billion dollar empire. She travels to Texas for the reading of the will to find out that the old man disinherited his entire family and left h...