A Model for a Better Future -- Kim Alexis and James Denney

Before achieving international fame as the world's most photographed supermodel, Kim Alexis was a small-town girl with small-town aspirations. Her Cinderella-like discovery by a New York talent scout whisked her into the glittering but high-pressure world of professional modeling at age eighteen. In this deeply personal and powerful book, famed supermodel, actress, athlete, spokesperson, wife, and mother Kim Alexis tells how she escaped the snares and temptations that destroyed many of her peers. With frankness and conviction, warmth and humor, she brings you in close for a one-on-one conversation on how to build a stable home, how to be an effective parent, and how to combat the moral pollution that threatens families, communities, and the nation.

If your looking for beauty tips this is not the book for you. Kim tells her life story of how she survived being a model, celebrity, wife and mother in this crazy world. This book carries Christian themes since religion is her major lifeline, faith is what keeps her strong. This book is very inspirational. I found myself making carrot juice because we need hardcore enzymes to get us through the day. She tells us of how she raises her kids in a healthy lifestyle and I was surprised that all her kids drink nothing but water and freshly squeezed juice.

This book has and will always have an effect on me. I like her values. I like her view on the world. She's the one who inspired me to get off my lazy butt and compete in a marathon. I have learned that it's not easy in the celebrity world. People are constantly judging you and you have to please everybody to stay in it. Kim tells us that when she first agreed to the modeling contract they told her she needed to lose 15 pounds when she was already eating healthy and swimming 5 hours a day. They didn't understand that she's just big boned but that little comment had an everlasting effect on her. Throughout the years, she tried starving herself, eating nothing but fruit, ect. She never did lose those 15 pounds.

This book is for an older audience, for someone who needs inspiration. You'll read her secrets and her downfalls. I give this book 2 thumbs up :D

~KT

North of Beautiful -- Justina Chen Headley

She's tall, blond, and has an enviable body. But with one turn of her cheek, all people notice is her unmistakably "flawed" face. Terra secretly plans to leave her small, stifling town in the Northwest and escape to an East Coast college, but gets pushed off course by her controlling father. When an unexpected collision puts Terra directly in Jacob's path, the handsome buy quirky goth boy immediately changes her assumptions about herself and her life, and she is forced in yet another direction. With her carefully laid plans disrupted, will Terra be able to find her true path?

Characters:

• Terra Rose Cooper: Third child of Lois and Grant. Main character that has port-wine stain on her face.
• • Grant Cooper: Terra's father. Emotionally abusive.
  • Lois Cooper: Terra's overweight, insecure mother.
  • Claudius Cooper: Terra's older brother. Second child of Lois and Grant.
  • Mercatur Cooper: Terra's oldest brother. First child of Lois And Grant.
  • Susannah: Terra's aunt, who died in Mexico.
  • Erik: Terra's boyfriend.
  • Karin Mannion: Terra's best friend.
  • Jacob Fremont: Chinese adopted son of Norah, who commonly dresses in "Goth" attire and has a repaired cleft lip.
  • Norah Fremont: Jacob's adoptive mother.
•  

Summary:
On the outside, Terra Cooper is a perfect girl with a perfect boyfriend and a perfect life. But, Terra has a secret. (Wait for it...) Her life is not perfect. She has an emotionally abusive father who has broken the spirit of her family. Her mother, Lois, seeks comfort in food. Terra's two older brothers have grown up and left home and now have lives on different parts of the world--far, far away from their father. This inadvertently places them far away from Terra and Lois. Terra is also extremely insecure about a port wine stain that she has on her face. Terra is a senior and wants to go to an East Coast school, while her father is pushing her to go to a Wast Coast school. Throughout this novel Terra must try to become her own person and let go of her insecurities while helping a new found friend, Jacob, and learn what she truly is to become in life by taking a trip to China with her mother, Jacob and Jacob's mother Nora.

My Review:
I absolutely love this book! It's one of my favorites, and I feel that everyone should have a copy of North of Beautiful on their shelf somewhere. Although it is a little slow in some parts, North of Beautiful always kept me wanting to know more. I have read this book many, many times and with each read I learn more about myself including some things that have been forgotten. This book has also taught me many things about maps, history and geocaching. I really like Headly's writing style and I feel that it compliments this book extremely well. I know that some people have put this book down because they feel that it is boring. Please, please, don't put this book down. It gets better. The family dynamics in North of Beautiful are something to really look at, because we can all relate to someone telling us that we can't do something, be something, achieve something etc. If you haven't read this book yet, I urge you to pick it up. It's one that will stay in your memory for a long time.

Read on!
--Leah

Diary of a Wimpy Kid -- Jeff Kinney

This is Katelyn's review of Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney. This is our first video so please, bare with us. We're still trying to get rid of the little kinks. :)

The Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a humorous book about a kid named Greg starting his first year of middle school. Greg has only one goal this year and it is to be popular. He becomes so obsessed with being popular that changes his attitude, his wardrobe, and his choice of friends. We all know, either from experience, watching, or reading that there is a curse that comes with the ambition to be popular. Throughout this novel Greg faces challenges such as losing his best friend, getting beat up by a girl, possibly going to military school and becoming victim of the cheese touch.

I, for one, enjoyed this book. It was comical and it kept my attention throughout the two hours in which I was devoted to it. Greg's thought on life may be stressing to him, but read his thoughts, I can't stop laughing. Kinney's illustrations kept my eyes on the page as he described Greg's thoughts through pictures instead of words.

This book has affected me in so many ways. Firstly, I will never look at cheese the same way again. Secondly, I will never look at ANYBODY'S secret freckle. Thirdly, diaries are called journals. And Fourthly, yourpa dadpa smellspa likepa a womenpa!

This book is intended for a younger audience, due to it's easy to read, short paragraphs to the comic strips. However, older audiences, such as myself, will also get a kick out of it and will sure enough fall in love with Greg's thoughts.

In conclusion, The Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney is a humorous book about a kid named Greg striving for popularity in middle school and writes all his thoughts in a journal. The book is intended for a younger audience due to it's comic strips and easy to read paragraphs. And it was attention grabbing and funny.

~KT

The Surgeon -- Tess Gerritsen

I found this book accidentally while searching for the season two premiere of Rizzoli and Isles. Some of you may not know what that is, so I'll inform you. Rizzoli and Isles is a TV show based on the Rizzoli and Isles series written by Tess Gerritsen. The books include;

1. The Surgeon
2. The Apprentice
3. The Sinner
4. Body Double
5. Vanish 
6. The Mephisto Club
7. The Keepsake
8. Ice Cold 
9. The Silent Girl.

After completely freaking out over the books I had finally found what I was looking for, and am happy to inform you that Rizzoli and Isles resumes on TNT on July 11th, 2011.

[Image Sorce]

He slips into homes at night and walks silently into bedrooms where women lie sleeping, about to awaken to a living nightmare. The precision of his methods suggest that he is a deranged man of medicine, prompting the Boston newspapers to dub him "The Surgeon." Led by detectives Thomas Moore and Jane Rizzoli, the cops must consult the victim of a nearly identical crime: Two years ago, Dr. Catherine Cordell fought back and killed an attacker before he could complete his assault. Now this new killer is re-creating, with chilling accuracy, the details of Cordell's ordeal. With every new murder he seems to be taunting her, cutting even closer from her hospital to her home. And neither Moore nor Rizzoli can protect Cordell from a ruthless hunter who somehow understands--and savors-- the sectet fears of every woman he kills.

 First, let me say that this is not one of the books that I would usually read. I usually read YA fiction and things of that nature. The Surgeon was a happy accident and I am delighted that I've found something that peaks my interest outside of my "comfort zone".

As you can probably tell from the excerpt above, this book is would be categorized as mystery/crime/horror-ish. Basically what happens is this woman--Catherine Cordell--is brutally attacked by a man named Andrew Capra and ends up killing him. After the attack Catherine moves to Boston and starts a new life as a surgeon. Things are going well, until women start getting attacked again in the exact same way that Andrew Capra would attack his victims. Detective Jane Rizzoli, the only woman in the homicide unit at Boston Police Department, attempts to prove herself as a capable Detective by attempting to track down this new killer, nicknamed "The Surgeon" for the precise way that he attacks women. (I'm not sure if I want to go into detail as to how he attacks women because it's kind of graphic and this is a book geared more towards adults, so you're just going to have to read the book and find out.) Throughout this book you will find betrayal, lies, scandal, and some life-altering information on some primal human urges which lead to new discoveries and views on the human race. This is a definite must read for those interested in crime and criminal behavior.

Read on!
--Leah

To Be Read (1):

1. The Surgeon -- Tess Gerritsen
2. Pretty Little Liars: Flawless -- Sara Shepard
3. True Love: [Bind up] Don't Die, My Love. I'll Be Seeing You. A Rose for Melinda -- Lurlene McDaniel
4. Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief -- Rick Riordan
5. Daughters of the Moon Volume 2: [Bind up] The Secret Scroll. The Sacrifice. The Lost One -- Lynne Ewing
6. Beautiful Creatures -- Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
7. The Streets Ran Red -- Morgan Lawrence
8. Strange Angels -- Lili St. Crow

Most of these books are YA, however some are not. The Surgeon (1) is adult mystery/crime and I'm not quite sure what The Streets Ran Red (7) is about--I really couldn't understand what Morgan Lawrence was trying to tell me in Borders--but I do know that it is based on true events that pertain to Morgan Lawrence's time as a EMT-er (Emergency Medical Transport) aka ambulance driver.

I am going to try to update this blog after every book, but I'm not sure when I'll get around to it so there might be one to three entries a day. Bare with me, I'm new at this. :) If you have any comments/questions/suggestions please comment below. :)

Read on!
--Leah

Glimpse -- Carol Lynch Williams

Just a year apart, the chapman girls
were as close as
sisters could be,
Hope could always
count on Lizzie, and Lizzie could always count on Hope--
always. But even sisters have secrets.
Big Secrets. And if Lizzie has her
way, she'll take the
biggest secret of all
to her grave.With Lizzie in
lockdown, can Hope
discover the truth and save her sister
Or is it already too late?

I've finished reading Glimpse by Carol Lynch Williams a while ago and I've just gotten around to writing a review. This review is going to be vague, because it's been so long since I've actually read the book. Glimpse is written in verse, and kind of bares resemblance to Ellen Hopkins' writing style and content.  (http://www.ellenhopkins.com) I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I think that it is a must  read for anyone who loves reading drama, suprise and struggle.

From the beginning this enthralling piece of writing grabs you close and won’t let you go. The story of these two sisters is heart wrenching and magical. Williams does a wonderful job of describing the unbreakable bond that sisters share, even when apart and facing struggles and devastating secrets. She writes with a passion that will leave this book in your mind for a long time.

Through out this novel, I wanted to do many things; scream, cry, and hit Hope and Lizzie’s mother on multiple occasions. If you love books with secrets and a little mystery Glimpse is the one for you.

To learn more about Carol Lynch Williams please visit:  http://www.carollynchwilliams.com/

Read on!
--Leah