YET TO BE MAJORLY DISAPPOINTED

Echo North
by Joanna Ruth Meyer
Page Street Publishing Co. | January 15, 2019

      Echo Alkaev's safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: If she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes. 
      In his enchanted house beneath a mountain, each room must be sewn together to keep the home from unraveling, and something new and dark and strange lies behind every door. When centuries-old secrets unfold, Echo discovers a magical library full of books-turned-mirrors, and a young man named Hal who is trapped inside of them. As the year ticks by, the rooms begin to disappear, and Echo must solve the mystery of the wolf's enchantment before her time is up, otherwise Echo, the wolf, and Hal will be lost forever.  

LIFE UPDATES

Hello, ma dudes. After all those reviews, I needed to write and upload a discussion post. In a couple of days, I will be graduating! I've been ambivalent toward my school during the four years I was there, but now I'm dreading leaving and going to college. Speaking of college, I got into a Chinese program, and I have to complete 10 lessons before the summer courses... yeah, that's right, summer school-plus, it's not accredited. Chinese is hard: a lot of words to remember, my handwriting is terrible, the characters are difficult to write, etc. I've been taking notes and making Quizlet flashcards to help me remember words.

TORTURE DOWN TEEN ROMANCE LANE III

The Pledge

by Kimberly Derting

Margaret K. McElderry | November 15, 2011

     In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed.
     Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

TORTURE DOWN TEEN ROMANCE LANE II

Whenever I reread novels like these, I set out to hate them; I'm a more mature reader, I have grown out of this genre, I have read more poignant novels, I have to hate them to prove that I've matured. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this novel, it felt nostalgic! A year ago, I swore off JLA books after reading The Struggle because I hated where it was going, and that I "had" to read another book: I quit cold turkey. After being JLA sober for a year, I went back to my dealer-the bookshelf-and I am allured again.