J.C. Buchanan

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Title: The Dirt Diary (The Dirt Diary, #1) 

Author: Anna Staniszewski

Published By: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (2014)

Synopsis:

WANTED: Maid for the most popular kids in 8th grade.
Cleaning up after the in-crowd gets Rachel all the best dirt.
Rachel can’t believe she has to give up her Saturdays to scrubbing other people’s toilets. So. Gross. But she kinda, sorta stole $287.22 from her college fund that she’s got to pay back ASAP or her mom will ground her for life. Which is even worse than working for her mother’s new cleaning business. Maybe. After all, becoming a maid is definitely not going to help her already loserish reputation.
But Rachel picks up more than smelly socks on the job. As maid to some of the most popular kids in school, Rachel suddenly has all the dirt on the 8th grade in-crowd. Her formerly boring diary is now filled with juicy secrets. And when her crush offers to pay her to spy on his girlfriend, Rachel has to decide if she’s willing to get her hands dirty… (Take from Goodreads)

Review:

This was an incredible disappointment.

Rachel Lee is an 8th grader. 

Okay, then why does she still act and speak like a third-grader? I mean, for goodness’ sakes, Holy avacado dip? Not that I’m in favor of characters actually swearing—because I’m not—but when an 8th grader says things like “Holy mango sorbet,” you get the feeling she’s more than a bit juvenile for her age. All of the characters in this book are this way, actually. They interact no differently than fourth or third graders.

The plot of this book was five hundred percent predictable, super repetitive, and rather annoying. Oh no! She’s cleaning Briana Riley’s house, her absolute nemesis. Guess what the next scene is?—Cleaning the house of another enemy. No variation at all. It got kind of tedious at times, and here’s why I say that. Either her life is moving along so fast that she speeds through five weeks in less than a page and I can’t keep track of anything, or she’s spending six pages describing how anxious she is when she’s looking at her crush. Her life went back and forth between rreeeeeaaalllllyyyyyyyyyyy slllloooooowwwwwww motttiiioooonnnn and sofastyoucanbarelykeepup.

It seemed that everything lined up just right, every time, to either make Rachel’s life perfectly miserable—or perfect. I’ve never read anything so unrealistic; there was no middle ground. Everything’s either perfectly horrible or perfectly wonderful.

As for the actual plot, the Dirt Diary element was actually uninteresting. The whole element of her parents’ divorce, and her trying to bring them back together, was much more compelling. Ironically, the book would have undoubtedly been much better without the whole Dirt Diary aspect. About the Dirt Diary: it annoyed me. This is one of those books that you know the author came up with the title before writing the book. Why else would Rachel call the diary “her Dirt Diary” and capitalize the letters like so? The point of the Dirt Diary bothered me as well, especially when Rachel never even seems to acknowledge the wrongness of her actions.

Rachel as a character was incredibly unlikable. You can’t figure out if she’s kind or unkind, good or mean. One minute she says she doesn’t hang out with a certain girl because she’s known for gossip, and the next minute she’s collecting all this exact gossip in her book for a payment. She’s selfish, and doesn’t really care for anyone other than herself. She doesn’t stop, ever, to ask herself about others’ feelings. It just doesn’t matter to her. Rachel’s entire world revolves around being “cool” and not being a “loser”. While this is a valid theme in YA, it shouldn’t be promoted from the perspective that it’s GOOD to be popular, and I feel that’s exactly what this book was saying.

Let’s talk about the ending, too, an ending in which everything happens perfectly to Rachel’s advantage and even though she technically “repents” and decides never to do anything like spying again, she never apologizes, forgives, or is forgiven. Everything just ties up neatly in a nice little bow and even though Rachel never confessed or apologized about her Dirt Diary, she still gets a happy little ending. What makes matters even worse is that she DOESN’T stick to her pledge to never spy again—from what I’ve read, she returns to her Dirt Diary in Book #2.

Then the writing.

Not only was this incredibly juvenile writing, but I got the feeling that the author had no idea what she was doing. This is what I mean by that: Almost every time I saw a word unknown to the general audience, it was used in the wrong context. Here’s two examples to prove my point:

Page 53: “ ‘Um. Er,’ I articulately reply.”

When you say “Um” and “Er” that’s generally implying you’re mumbling or nervous.

“Articulately” means the complete opposite: having or showing the ability to speak fluently and coherently. If you’re articulate, it means you are pronouncing Each Word Very Carefully.

“Um” and “Er” and not generally words you directly pronounciate. Plus, the context of this line is Rachel talking to her crush, so she’s going to be nervously mumbling. NOT articulate.

(Some people have said this was meant to be sarcastic. Ummm…what? You don’t use sarcasm in this kind of context. It makes you sound like you don’t know what you’re doing. So either way, whether or not this was meant to be sarcastic, it demonstrates a weak, even lazy, writing ability.)

Page 107 — “ ‘My mom found it during her latest cleaning tirade.’ ”

Okay then. What she’s trying to say is about the last time her mom went crazy cleaning, or some kind of big cleaning day, and during that major cleaning-out she found the photo albums. Wonderful, except for the fact “tirade” matches none of those descriptions. A tirade is a long, angry speech of criticism or accusation. So what she’s saying is: during my mom’s last angry speech, she found a photo album. Not while she was cleaning. While she was yelling.

Again, it really didn’t make any sense whatsoever. I couldn’t ever figure out Rachel’s true opinions for the life of me—she switches so much. I couldn’t grasp the point behind the Dirt Diary, I didn’t understand why her major crush was such an important part of the story when he really didn’t contribute at all, and I didn’t like the way Rachel was so clueless and juvenile about her parents’ divorce. Really, it honestly sometimes felt like the author was just putting in all these pointless subplots and elements just to make her book seem “cooler”.

Overall/Notes:

My opinion to sum it up? The story is strange and focuses on negative elements of lying, deceit, drama, and gossip. It was horribly written, easy enough that an eight-year-old could read it and understand it just fine.  Though at first glance this looks interesting enough, it was not worth the time I spent reading it. Sure, it’s fun, so to speak, but it doesn’t go any deeper than that, and when it comes down to it, reading a fun book isn’t worth it when I could be reading an excellent one.

Negative Content:

Lots of lying and gossiping.

Rating: 1.0

Recommended to: Nobody.

 

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Title: Spark (Swipe, #4)

Author: Evan Angler

Published By: Thomas Nelson (2013)

Synopsis: Spark introduces nine-year-old Ali, a beggar living in the Dark Lands city of al-Balat. Ali meets a stranger who gives her his tablet, a portal to a tech world that Ali never knew existed. But one day, the tablet begins to communicate back to her—and takes her on a journey that will cross her path with exiled Logan Langly, Chancellor Cylis, and the fierce battle for power that spans reality and the virtual world. (Taken from Goodreads)

 

 

Review:

This was a phenomenal fourth addition to the amazing Swipe series and it definitely did not disappoint. The twists and turns I never saw coming and were done with the utmost care and great talent.  Ali was such a fascinating character to read about, full of spunk and yet with still the sense of little girl innocence.

I loved this book so much. I especially liked the Lemony-Snicket style of writing, as in the author writing as if he is apart of the story and actually there. I love the way that Logan and company call the author their “biographer” and find their own books in libraries! I really, really hope for more books to come in this series, and because of the fact this book ends right in the middle, just like all the others. No loose ends tied up, nothing answered, just another part of the story told. I heard it is to be a 6-book series (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and so I eagerly await the next two books! I also heard rumors that the author has been “caught” by DOME and that is why no more books are coming out, a concept which I love—again, Lemony-Snicket style—but all I really have to say is, Escape, Evan Angler, and finish your series!

The only aspect I was disappointed in was the fact that this story focused around Ali and we barely see Logan or Erin. But oh well, I’m sure they’ll return in book 5 and Ali is a very important character!

Negative Content:

None.

Rating: 5.0

Recommended to: Everyone and anyone!

 

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Title: Whisper if You Have To

Author: Staci Stallings

Published By: Spirit Light Publishing (2014)

Synopsis: Secrets. Alison Prescott has collected a boatload of them in her short lifetime. Moving to a new school in a new town was supposed to fix everything; however, when she meets a new set of friends, keeping those secrets might just ruin everything.

Chad Dourozette has the world by the tail as his crazy T-shirts proclaim every day, but Chad has deeply held secrets of his own. When Chad meets Alison whose life looks absolutely perfect from the outside, will he have the courage to try to win her heart, or will the secrets they both carry keep them apart forever? (Taken from Goodreads)

Review:

One word to describe this book: Wow!

I loved this book so much, and I normally don’t like romances—if that doesn’t tell you something about the book, I don’t know what will. It was such a sweet story and I couldn’t put it down once I picked it up. The characters are done so well that you can’t help but cheer for them as they navigate through life. From the first sentence, you know you’re going to love these characters, and you do.

There were very few characters and lots of time to get to know them and their distinct personalities. As for the main characters in the story, you get a glimspe of their life beforehand, and then watch as they slowly fall for one another. It was so sweet, and everything stayed clean, wholesome, and appropriate.

I loved the Christian themes and how the characters are such strong Christians. Besides the romance plot, I really liked the addition of the concept that both main characters have their own secrets they’re hiding and how they must learn that they don’t have to keep them cooped up inside of themselves. I liked the way the author wrote this book, changing perspectives while staying in 3rd person. That is a tricky thing to do, but I’d safely say the author did a great job.

Overall:

It was a fun, sweet, and awesome read. However, some of the themes were definitely for an older audience so I’d have to recommend this for ages 13+.

Negative Content/Notes:

None.

Rating: 5.0

Recommended to: Ages 13+.