Book Review - The Voting Booth

📖Recommend for Grades 8 and up📖

The Voting Booth

by Brandy Colbert

Having always been driven to change the world, Marva Sheridan is thrilled to vote in her first election. Duke Crenshaw knows that voting is essential, but he just wants to get it over with in order to get ready for his band’s gig that night. When Duke discovers he actually isn’t registered to vote as he thought, and Marva overhears, she makes it her mission to get his vote counted. After all, she didn’t spend months getting people registered only to watch somebody get turned away. The two now find themselves on a road-block-filled adventure for Duke to exercise his right to vote. And while they may start off as strangers, they also may have found something more.

Readers may not be old enough to vote themselves, but they can still enjoy and benefit from this story. While Duke’s being not registered was an accident, their journey to get his vote includes experiencing and hearing about types of voter suppression that do exist in our country. There is also talk about while it is important to vote and how it is especially important for Black people like Marva and Duke too. This book also demonstrates how those who can’t yet vote can maybe help others who can. While this is also a love story that takes place in less than 24 hours, don’t let that stop you.

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Book Review - Lovely War

📖Recommend for Grades 9 and up📖

Lovely War

by Julie Berry

It’s 1942, and a stylish couple makes their way into a hotel room where the Greek God Hephaestus finds them. It turns out; the couple are Greek Gods as well, Aphrodite and Ares, to be exact. Hephaestus is not happy to see his wife with another man, but Aphrodite spends the night telling a story about how love and war go together. The story is of four mortals, two couples, during World War I and how each one meets and falls and in love. More importantly, how the war and the gods played a role in their story.

An enjoyable historical fiction a story within a story. Readers may or may not understand what is going on with the gods and their time, but the story they tell is lovely. Berry has crafted an intriguing story about four people during the First World War and how it affects them individually and as a whole. 

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Book Review - Five Feet Apart

📖Recommend for Grades 8 and up📖

Five Feet Apart

by Rachael Lippincott
with Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis

            Stella and Will have two things in common, they are both current patients at Saint Grace’s Hospital, and the reason for them being there is their Cystic Fibrosis. In and out of the hospital for ten years, Stella is as in control as she can be of her out of control lungs. With his eighteenth birthday right around the corner, Will is looking forward to his mother no longer being in control of his medical needs. When the pair meet during their current hospital stay, they find the other altering their course even though they can’t be closer than six feet.

            I know what you’re thinking. Why is the book called Five Feet Apart when they have to be six feet apart? I had the same thought and the book answers that question. This story will give you all the feels and be hard to put down. Stella and Will are two characters whose story is thought-provoking and not to be missed.

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Book Review - A Very Large Expanse of Sea

📖Recommend for Grades 9 and up📖

A Very Large Expanse of Sea

by Tahereh Mafi

            It’s a year after the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11, 2001, and life isn’t easy for high school sophomore and Muslim-American teen Shirin who has been even more jaded and cynical since the attacks. People are cruel to her when they see her wearing her hijab, and see no issue taking their anger out on her. When she is paired with Ocean James as a lab partner, he seems to take an interest in getting to know her and Shirin finds herself questioning taking down the walls she has built around her.

            This book is an honest voice about life after 9/11, written by a Muslim-American author. Shirin can come across as rude and annoying but it makes sense based on the way most people treat her. This is truly a wonderful read and should not be missed.

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