Hate List by Jennifer Brown

I had the honor of seeing Jennifer Brown speak at the MLA Spring Institute last year and I instantly fell in love with her. She was funny. She was down to earth. She was a great speaker. I couldn't wait to read her book.

This was a wonderful book. It was one of those perfect teen books. It dealt with serious subject matter in an honest way but was also full of hope. I wanted to read it constantly and actually got really frustrated at myself for being so tired all week and passing out every chance I got to read.

Val's boyfriend, Nick, shot up the school. That's pretty bad. His final shot was to his own head, killing him. That's horrible. What could make it worse? Nick targeted people who were on a list him and Val had created together and she's survived. The Hate List was meant to be a way to vent. Val started it one day when she was having a particularly rough time. Just writing down all of the people and things and ideas that she hated made her feel better. She never meant for anything like this to happen.

Now, two months later, she's going back to school to finish her senior year. She took a bullet to the thigh and she's been in the psych ward and she's in counseling. She's scared but just wants to get it over and fly under the radar. The only problem is that flying under the radar is now impossible. Some people thing she's to blame for the shooting. Other people think she's a hero. Val, however, has no idea who she is anymore.

Watching Val struggle to put her life back together was really satisfying. I couldn't help but cheer for her the whole way!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling

After the release of the final movie in July, I decided to re-read all of the Harry Potter books, just like I'm sure everyone else did. I wanted to read them close together which was something that I hadn't done yet. I also hadn't gotten a chance to re-read The Deathly Hallows. These are books, after all, that you seem to take more from the second time around. However, the final volume got pushed to the wayside for a while. It was just too large for me to read it last year. If I had, I wouldn't have made the 100 book goal.

I'm glad that I finally got around to it.

I liked it a lot better this time around. When I first read DH, I felt like the first half of the book was pretty aimless. It dragged on and on and on. It consisted mostly of the boring daily "apparate somewhere random and camp" routine. This time through it didn't feel like it was dragging so much. I started to think about Harry gathering his own trinkets close to him and I was interested in the Dumbledore store too. There may not have been a lot of action but there was a lot to think about. Anyway, the last part more than makes up for it.

It's funny, really. I can tell you exactly what parts brought me to tears the first time I read it and this time it was completely different. Have I changed or do I just have a different outlook now that I know how it ends?

All in all, I would say that I am happy with Rowling's conclusion. I even got a little teary eyed in the last little epilogue chapter. There was a way that things HAD to happen and I think that Rowling managed to dance around that pretty well. I'm glad I made the time to go back to this book.

Drizzle by Kathleen Van Cleve

This was a WONDERFUL book. I can't stress that enough. It was fun and exciting and magical and just plain wonderful. Not bad for a book I picked out purely because the cover had pretty colors.

Polly lives on her family's rhubarb farm. Only, their farm is not like others. It's magical. They grow regular rhubarb and giant rhubarb and chocolate rhubarb. The children live in a castle. Polly's best friend is a plant. Also, it rains every Monday afternoon at 1.

Until it doesn't rain. That's when things get scary.

Suddenly, Polly sees her world falling apart. The plants are dying, her brother is sick, and her aunt wants to sell the farm. Polly believes in magic and she is sure that the world will be right again but how? Slowly, she uncovers clue after clue to her family's secrets. Then all she has to do is figure out how to make it rain.

This was the kind of book that you want to read and read and read again. I loved every minute of it.