Book Review: Slipping by Cathleen Davitt Bell (RocTBF2016)

Check off another Mission: Rochester Teen Book Festival Challenge read! Whoot!

Click here to learn about my mission.

Click here for the Rochester TBF web page.

Here’s what Goodreads had to say:

Michael Kimmel is an average eighth grader who's too short to be good at basketball and too unmotivated to care about school. When the grandfather he barely knows suddenly dies, Michael can't understand why his dad seems so detached. But when the ghost of his grandfather contacts Michael and begins to show him scenes from the past, Michael suspects it's up to him to right the wrongs between his father and grandfather – before he himself becomes trapped in the river of the dead.

Here’s my two cents:

Book Review: The Serpent King by Jeff Zentner (#RocTBF2016)

Alrighty! Speeding at a slow crawl through the author list of the Rochester Teen Book Festival. If you don't know about  my challenge to myself (to have read at least one book by each author who attends by at that date), links are below.

Click here to learn about my mission.

Click here for the Rochester TBF web page.

Here's the Goodreads Summary:

"Dill has had to wrestle with vipers his whole life—at home, as the only son of a Pentecostal minister who urges him to handle poisonous rattlesnakes, and at school, where he faces down bullies who target him for his father’s extreme faith and very public fall from grace.

The only antidote to all this venom is his friendship with fellow outcasts Travis and Lydia. But as they are starting their senior year, Dill feels the coils of his future tightening around him. The end of high school will lead to new beginnings for Lydia, whose edgy fashion blog is her ticket out of their rural Tennessee town. And Travis is happy wherever he is thanks to his obsession with the epic book series Bloodfall and the fangirl who may be turning his harsh reality into real-life fantasy. Dill’s only escapes are his music and his secret feelings for Lydia—neither of which he is brave enough to share. Graduation feels more like an ending to Dill than a beginning. But even before then, he must cope with another ending—one that will rock his life to the core."

Here's what I have to say about it:

Book Review: Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt (#RocTBF2016)

I read Orbiting Jupiter because the author in attending/ presenting at the Rochester Teen Book Festival next month and I am on a mission to have read at least one book by each author who attends by at that date.

Click here to learn about my mission.

Click here for the Rochester TBF web page.

This was my first Gary Schmidt novel and I had no idea what to expect. It was written for those in the 6th grade and older. 

Here's the Goodreads summary:

"Jack, 12, tells the gripping story of Joseph, 14, who joins his family as a foster child. Damaged in prison, Joseph wants nothing more than to find his baby daughter, Jupiter, whom he has never seen. When Joseph has begun to believe he’ll have a future, he is confronted by demons from his past that force a tragic sacrifice."

Now, for context: