The day I met Suzie – Chris Higgins

16166098“My boyfriend could get into trouble if he gets caught. He could go to jail.” I moan softly. “So could I.”
“Anything you tell me is completely confidential.” I sigh deeply. What have I got to lose? “I wouldn’t know where to begin.”
“At the beginning?” she says. “In your own words.”
So that’s what I do. I start at the beginning like she says.
The day I met Suzie.

***
Indigo (Indie) calls the Samaritans. She is frightened and desperate with no one to turn to. Over one long night Indie tells her story to the person behind the phone.

The story begins with the first day of Indie’s second year at Hair and Beauty College. This is also where she meets Suzie for the first time and helps her out. This meeting is an important event because it is here that Suzie captures Indie’s attention.

Indie can’t stop thinking about Suzie. Suzie with her bad posture and shabby look looks so lost and miserable, like a sad little puppy. She becomes curious and wants to know more about her story. Indie feels sorry for her and wants to help her. Therefore, as a favor she gives her a makeover. Here she starts copying Indie’s look with not just the same haircut but also with the same makeup, clothes – everything.

While Suzie gets more and more involved in Indie’s life, more and more things go wrong for Indie. Her boyfriend Rick starts to mess up making bad choices and get in to problems with the police. At this point Suzie lives in Indie’s house and they have become good friends and Indie begins to rely more and more on Suzie. While, Indie’s life start to collapse, Suzie’s life starts to improve with a place to stay, a new job, and new friends (Indie’s friends).

When Indie contacts the Samaritans that night, she is not the same girl as you get to know early in the story. The bubbly, outgoing and well-behaved girl is gone. But once she starts to share her story with the Samaritans things starts to change. The Samaritans open Indies eyes and now she starts to see things more clearly.

I really enjoyed this book. I didn’t have any expectations on this book and was surprised how good the story is.  It’s pretty obvious from the start that Suzie has done something to cause big trouble for Indie when she gradually steals her life. An important part of the excitement is that we get a glimpse of this from the start and then struggles to put the pieces together.

I love Indie’s character. She is adorable and I think many people can relate to her. This book shows the back side of being too trusting and kind-hearted and how some people can make use of these characteristics to their advantage. I also think that the relationship between Indie and Rick is entertaining but also very realistic for a teenage couple.

Overall, I would really recommend this to anyone looking for an exciting book to read. I give this book 4/5 possible.

Lina Hedberg, Ek13

Eragon – Christopher Paolini

One stone, one boy and the world in his hands, so many things can change over a night. The poor farm boy finds a blue stone when he is out hunting, the stone turns out to be a dragon egg so just over a night his life changes drastically. Soon he is thrown in to a life of adventures and power struggle.

Eragon is the first book in a series of 4 different books, so the story doesn’t really end before that last one. The plot in this is about Eragon who is a poor boy who live in village called Carvahall and he finds a dragon egg. When his uncle is killed, he and a man named Brom need to flee. When that happens the book really takes off and he needs to get to the resistance movement called Warden who is fighting the evil king who rules the world named Algaesia. Eragon has to make a lot of hard decisions when they try to make it to Warden and at the same time Eragon needs to be trained in both magic and fighting skills.

The story is a science fiction and you get to meet a lot of different characters and that’s one of the reasons I like it and the creativity from the author who was only fifteen when he wrote Eragon. I liked the book because of the story and I can’t wait to pick up the next one but I think you need to be in to science fiction and it’s really made for early teenagers. At last I give this book 2,5 out of 5 apples because it’s not the best book and it´s written for a bit younger people I think but it is not bad at all, so that’s why it gets two and half apples.

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William Heikki EK13

A Walk to Remember – Nicholas Sparks

There was a time when the world was sweeter…when the women in Beaufort, North a walk to remmebrCarolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats…Every April, when the wind blows from the sea, Landon Carter remembers his last year at Beaufort High. It was 1958 and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had never once been in love. Certainly the last person in town he thought he’d never fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town’s Baptist minister. A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from the other teens. She took care of her father and all people who needed her help.

No boy had ever asked her out. Landon would never have dreamed of it. Then suddenly Landon asked Jamie to be his partner for the homecoming dance and Landon Carter’s life would never be the same after that. Jamie made him to a better person and they fall in love. But suddenly she told Landon a huge secret, she had cancer. London’s heart got broken and Jamie died some weeks after.

Their story is unforgettable and as you wipe your tears away, you come to an unbelievable end — the sort of story that only Nicholas Sparks can tell. A walk to remember is one of the best books I have read. I have watched the movie as well and the movie and the book are both very good so I can recommend to read and watch a walk to remember to everyone.

I give the book 5/5 stars

By Jessica Bäckman EK13

 

 

The Last Song

“Truth only means something when it´s hard to admit” – Nicholas Sparks

17-year old Veronica´s (also called Ronnie) world was turned upside down when her parents divorced. She now lives with her mother and brother, but one summer her mother decides that Ronnie and her brother is going to spend their summer with their dad. She doesn´t have a good relation with her father and that’s one reason why she´s being forced to go to his beach house in North Carolina. Before she gets to North Carolina she expects that this is going to be the worst summer ever, until she meets Will. Will is the last person she thought she would be attracted to but she is wrong. In the end of the book something really terrible happens, that is going to change everything. The whole book is about different kinds of relations, to her father, brother, friends and Will.

I have read a book named “The Last Song”. When I got the chance to read a book in English, I immediately chose “The Last Song”. At first I had really high expectations on the book. I think many people have seen the film, but not read the book. You who haven´t read the book should do it because the book is at least as good. I love this book because the story is so good. The book is pretty easy to read. The text I quite big and the language is not hard to understand. If you are a girl in the age 13-20 and love books about teenage love I think this is the perfect book for you.

I think Nicolas Sparks is an amazing author. He has written several other books and I love them as much as I love this.

I give the book 5 of 5 stars

Elin Jonsson

Pretty Little Liars

bildEveryone has something to hide and secrets to keep. Spencer, Aria, Emily and Hanna are willing to do anything to avoid revealing their secrets.

Spencer covets her sister´s boyfriend, Aria´s fantasizing about her English teacher, Emily´s crushing on the new girl at school and Hanna uses some ugly tricks to stay beautiful. But they have all kept an even bigger secret since their friend Alison vanished, and one day they begin receiving various messages from someone using the alias “-A” who threatens to expose their secrets and get revenge.

“How do I know? Because I know everything about the bad girls they were, the naughty girls they are and all the dirty secrets they´ve kept. And guess what. I´m telling” -A

This book is the first in the series and these are created by the TV-show “Pretty Little Liars”. I read this book mainly because I wanted to see how similar the books are in comparison with the TV-show.  Although the principle was the same, it was still very much that was different. I think the book is good because it´s exciting, but it also deals with some serious issues such as bullying, murder, drug addiction, underage drinking, eating disorder, homosexuality, infidelity and mental illness. These books are directed at young people and I think it´s great that these problems are mentioned because they are particularly common among adolescents.

The book is easy to read and the language is also understandable with not too difficult words which make the book even better. If you have watched Pretty Little Liars on TV, the book could possibly be a bit annoying because there are so many things that are not similar to the TV-show, and I think that is the only disadvantage. But maybe it becomes an advantage if you read the book first, and then watch the TV-show.

I give the book 4/5 stars!

Amanda Renberg

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That Summer – Sarah Dessen

that summer“Who am I? Who do I want to be?” Haven is a girl who is still searching for herself and don’t really know who she is or even who she wants to be. Her life is changing and it all is happening over ONE special summer.

In Sarah Dessen´s book That Summer we meet Haven. A girl who thinks she is way too tall and therefore very uncomfortable with herself. But Sumner, Haven’s sister’s ex-boyfriend is reminding her how beautiful she is in her tallness. This summer Sumner comes back, after a hard breakup with Haven’s sister, Ashley. Faith keeps bringing Sumner and Haven to each other and Haven is not sad about that. He is reminding her of the best summer in her life. The summer when her parents still were married and everything was perfect. Now her father is re-marrying a weather-pet named Lorna. Haven has no bigger problem with her dad’s new woman, except that she took her father from her mother.
Haven is working in the Lakeview Mall in a shoe-shop. There she is spending her summer earning money, while being pushed by her boss to sell those annoying socks that no one really wants to buy. Her sister is marrying the love of her life and the planning of this huge event is leaving Haven on the sideway. Nothing special really happens to her but she can feel how she’s changing into a new person and maybe also growing a couple of inches taller.

But is everyone who she thinks they are in the very end? Has Haven forgotten who really are important to her, and who really matters?

“Read her once, and fall in love!” they said. Honestly I don’t know what those people are talking about. I did not fall in love. This was the first time I read a book written by Sarah Dessen and I was not very impressed I must say. When I was going to look for a book, I found this and read the cover of it and thought that this is a typical me-book. I almost feel tricked. My problem with this book is that I never stopped waiting for something drastic to happen. I turned every page thinking: “maybe now”, but nothing ever really happened. But besides that it was a good typical teenage-book so if you are into this kind of books, just as I am, read it!

I give this book 2 of 5 possible Marabou-chocolate bars!

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Emma Nilsson EK13

Stad av skuggor av Cassandra Clare

stad av skuggorStad av skuggor (originaltitel City of Bones)
Författare Cassandra Clare © 2007 översatt till svenska 2013

City of Bones är den första boken i serien The Mortal instruments. Den innehåller 527 sidors perfekt lovläsning om man tycker om fantasygenren.

Clary Frays värld ändras dramatiskt helt plötsligt en sommar. Hennes ögon öppnas och hon kastas in i värld hon bara trodde tillhörde sagorna. ”Allt som händer i sagorna är sant.” sägs det på flera ställen i boken.

Förutom de magiska inslagen är det spänning, kärlek och mord som nystar handlingen framåt. Flygande motorcyklar som havererar om man slår vigvatten i bränsletankarna är ett av de lite roliga nybildningarna man t ex kan hitta i boken.

Boken är filmatiserad och släpptes 2013.

Låna den, läs den!

Magda G

Lilla Eyvind Johnson-priset

Kom ihåg att lämna in ditt bidrag till novelltävlingen, Lilla Eyvind Johnson-priset! Lämna det senast 7 april till skolbiblioteket.
Prissumman är hela 5 000 kr för bästa bidrag. Juryn består av personal på skolan.
Mer information lämnas av Carina Strömberg, lärare i svenska på samhällsprogrammet.

Mannen utan ansikte av Masha Gessen

putin”När demokratins institutioner väl hade avvecklats var det omöjligt – det var helt enkelt för sent – att organisera sig för att försvara dem.”

Vladimir Putin kom till makten som premiärminister och sedan som president i Ryssland 1999 och blev sedan omvald 2012, men vem var mannen som det Ryska folket valde till president? Det visar sig i Masha Gessens mycket aktuella bok, att inte ens de som hjälpte fram Putin visste vem han var – förrän det var för sent. Putin agerade snabbt när han kom till makten och hade snart förstatligat medierna och placerat män han kunde lita på från KGB på alla viktiga poster. Han drog sig inte ens för att bomba sina egna för att rättfärdiga kriget mot Tjetjenien och för att utmanövrera sina rivaler. Eller, genom mord, helt enkelt avlägsna dem – ett känt fall är förgiftningen av Litvinenko – han avrättades långsamt med ett radioaktivit (polonium) ämne som de via mat eller dryck fick i honom.
När han under mycket vaga former slog till mot Oligarkerna (de mycket rika affärsmän som efter Sovjetunionens fall skott sig på resterna) med Chodorkovskij i spetsen, hurrade västvärlden – utan att ana att det var just Oligarkerna, genom sin kapitalism, som såg vad som hände de fattiga i Ryssland och med det utvecklade ett socialt ansvar som kom att leda fram till att de med egna medel försökte lösa situationen för de fattiga arbetarna. Innan vi i väst förstod vad som var på gång hade Putin avlägsnat ekonomiskt mäktiga rivaler och själv tillskansat sig deras rikedomar (ja, enligt Gessens källor är Putin god för ca fyrtio miljarder dollar!). Mannen utan ansikte är en mycket skrämmande bok, desto mer efter det som hänt och händer på Krim. Som Stig Fredriksson säger i bokens förord
”… efter läsningen kan i varje fall ingen längre säga ”vi visste inget”. 

Ha en, om inte trevlig, så informativ, läsning!
Carin Blom

ReadUF – bladhållare

Eleverna Anna Wikström och Anna Wallbrandt i TE11 har skapat en bladhållare i sitt UF-företag, ReadUF. Denna manick placerar man så att den håller upp sidorna när man läser. Perfekt när du läser framförallt en pocketbok! Den kan även användas som ett bokmärke. Anna (!) berättade att självaste prins Daniel förärats en bladhållare! Framöver kommer den att kunna köpas på bokhandeln i Boden.