SCPL Teens discussion

Tell us about what you are reading right now. Write a 200-300 word ORIGINAL review of a book you have ready recently.

If you are a teen volunteer at the East Branch (Oviedo) library, let your volunteer supervisor know and we will add 5 volunteer hours to your sign in sheet.

In Nicola Yoon's novel "Everything Everything," she teleports readers to Madeline Whittier's bubble-world. At a young age, Maddy was diagnosed with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disease ("SCID"), also known as “bubble baby disease,” which essentially meant that she could never leave her home. After the loss of her father and brother, Madeline's mother took multiple precautions in ensuring that her daughter does not come into contact with outside triggers, claiming it could kill yet another family member. However, Maddy cannot accept a life of being cared for by her nurse, Carla, and continuing to never leave her home. Thus, when new neighbors move in, she naturally becomes curious and even more so when they show up at her doorstep, one named Oliver in particular. A relationship between her and Oliver (referred to as Ollie) soon blossoms as they explore the hardships of hiding their relationship from Madeline's mother and nurse. Oliver, she understands, has a dysfunctional household and he too cannot stay there. Together, they travel to Hawaii in the same manner as her parents once did--even if it was only temporary. She consequently suffers from health issues, which were luckily resolved, and learns of something her mother neglected to mention about SCID. Feeling betrayed and distraught, Maddy cannot stand the sight of her own mother and flees. This time, Ms. Whittier is the one being treated as Madeline finds her own solace in Ollie.

If I were to rate this book, it would be 5/5 stars. Throughout the entire story, I was captivated in understanding Maddy's condition and any encounter with a trigger left me in a state of suspense! Not to mention, getting to explore the world through the eyes of someone who had never even seen an ocean was incredibly refreshing!

Everything, Everything

The Things They Carried By Tim O’Brien was an amazing book, and I would rate it 4.5/5 stars. The war stories told in the book were incredibly emotional, and it was one book that I could spend hours at a time reading. The story is about the lives of soldiers in the Vietnam war, and their lives after the war. The book got me really invested in the lives of the characters. O’Brien created a cast of characters that, even though the characters and stories are not true, that really come alive in the book. One chapter that was really strong was The Man I Killed, it was hard to see why people took the lives of others. It was interesting to see the different people in the story adapt to their lives after the war. I didn’t know that war took such a toll on their health and mental state, to such a point that they couldn’t even return to their original life. I thoroughly enjoyed the book, and I thought that it portrayed war in a realistic and not glorified way. O’Brien shows the truth of war, and gives insight on the subject of true stories, and the book brought up points that I hadn’t thought of before. The book got me to think more critically about the nature of a story and made me see the realities of war.