Teen Inc. by Stefan Petrucha

I (Lydia) actually read this book a while ago, and it was ok, so I'm going to review it. Also, Amy has a lot of books to review (end quote), so if there are two posts today, so be it. That's just how awesome we are.

Teen, Inc. by Stefan Petrucha (inside flap of the book)

Jaiden Beale has it all: a killer plasma TV, top-of-the-line computer, a ton of video games and his own bathroom. He has it all, that is, except a family. Instead he has NECorp.
When Jaiden's parent's were killed by faulty equipment manufactured by NECorp, the company decided to adopt baby Jaiden as its own. Now, fourteen years later, a team of executives decides what school he goes to, who is friends are, and even who he is allowed to date. Jaiden just wante to live a "normal" life, but nobody gets to choose his parents....right?
When he uncovers some damaging fnformation about the company, Jaiden's loyalty to NECorp is tested. Can he betray the only family he's ever known in order to do what he feels is right?

When I started out reading this book, it was blah. Then as I got more and more into it, I could not read large chunks of it at one time. Overall, when I was reading it, it wasn't my favorite. But when I was done, and thinkng about what had happened...my view on the book changed a little. The charachters were created well in their scenes, but when Jaiden is on his study date withe the girl (abby? I don't remember...), they didn't seem to mix well...But most ofeverything else worked. I liked how the team Jaiden had all these meetings, and everything.....so funny!

Well, that's all for now! I'm going to go find a cookie!
toodles!
~lydia~

LYDIA IS BACK!!!

Hey y'all!! It's Lydia, and I just got back from camp today, so I am makng sure that I post. I have not posted in over a month, and it makes me VERY sad! I'm really sorry that I haven't been able to post. While I was at camp, I started the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, and have been LOVING IT. I am currently on the third one, Specials. IT IS SO FREAKING AMAZING!!!! I would recomend it to any teenager!!! I will post a full review later, when I have time. Right now, I have to go eat my taco.....yum!
toodles!
~lydia~

HAPPY BELATED BOOK LAUNCH!!!

Hey! It's Amy, and the title of this post goes to the AMAZING Pat Benatar!! Her memoir Between a Heart and a Rock Place came out on Tuesday. She is my favorite singer and my role model. I was so excited (as you can imagine) when I heard she wrote a book! Congrats, Pat! And I can't wait to see you in concert soon!!!!!!!!

New Layout!!

Ok, so it seems like everyone in the YA blogging world is changing their layout. Since, we are new here, we thought we should go with the flow. Like (just to give examples) our buddy, Khy (The Frenetic Reader), and Kristi (The Story Siren) have both changed their layouts for the better. We are so fancy now! Anyway, we are currently hanging out for a few days, so decided to do another Buddy Blog! :D

We really don't have anything to talk about, but when we got back from dinner, we went up to use my (Lydia) aunt's computer. We are trying to take a good profile picture, and also watching book reviews on YouTube. So, we are now going to show you are many attempts. When you look at our profile picture, you will see which one was the best.

Amy: I think my hair looks bad
Lydia: I like it!! Mine's in a ponytail, like it always is...besides this is our first attempt, it's allowed to suck!
A: So you admit my hair looks bad!
L: No! It looks fine! Oh, and for the people who haven't figured it out yet, I'm the one on the left, holdng Twenty Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler, and Amy is on the right.

L: I love this shirt! This is me showing the people of the world my amazing shirt! Amy says that it describes me....probably because I like to write!
A:This is how we usually look.....
L: with you looking at me like "how the hell did this girl escape from her mental hospital??"
A: EXACTLY!!
L: maybe that says more about you than me...
A: Hey! I didn't escape from the loony bin!
L: i was NEVER in the...you know what....lets just go on to the next picture!

A: Need I say more??
L: yes.
A: There's so many ways I could put this....
L: does it involve me in a straight jacket?
A: Yeah....you "standing in a room made up of only big white walls..."-Fences, Paramore
L: oh, by the way people who read our blog...we also LOVE the band, paramore!! Shout out to Hayley and her awesome hair!! we're listening to their music now!
A: I look like the boring one!
L: well.....
A: ...

L: you're a good pillow, except for your bony shoulder!!
A: Well, don't put your head on it! This shows Lydia, a little more calmed down.
L: i'm going to go get a brownie!!
A:I want one!!!
(both exit)
(both return)
L: you realize that this is not safe, right?
A: Well, soon I'll be just as hyped up as you!
L: is that even possible??
A: With a brownie, anything is possible!
L: WITH POPSICLE, IT'S POSSIBLE!
A:Lydia...just...bit...off...some...of...my...brownie.....I'M GONNA KILL HER
(maims Lydia)
L: OW!!
A: You can have the rest! Ya butthead
L: do you want to keep doing this instead of uploading more pictures? we have all week to upload pictures!!
A: I don't think the eight people who read this, would want to hear us babble about nothing when they came for book reviews....
L: who cares? its our blog, this is fun, and i'll post a review tomorrow if you want!
A: Well, fine! We drew on our Converse today....
L: mine failed
A: I like yours!
L: i like the green and purple stripes on yours!!!! so amazing!
A: Not really. I wanna go swimming
L: it's almost 11 at night and both my mom and grandmother are asleep. We can't swim after 10 alone. I sorry.
A:Shoot fire crud dog gone it....Indiana Jones????
L: um....do u need a hug?
A: From Indiana Jones, hell yes!!!
(Lydia hugs Amy)
L: are you satisfied now? plus when we get up early in the morning, if i am injured in any way by you, or anything attached to you (clothes...ect) you will pay, sunscreen queen!
A: 1. Am I satisfied?? Are you Harrison Ford??? 2. I can't promise anything (I'm not a morning person) 3. I have pale skin and my mom always annoys me about stupid sunscreen.....
L: 1. no, but I do have spidey senses!! 2. you better not injure me, especially if i will be standing on a freakin ladder! 3. im not even going to comment on that...
A: you don't have any spider powers or any senses that don't include the normal five!!
L: um, i think i do.....
A: Oh really?? Let's see you shoot a web from your hand and swing on buildings like freakin King Kong!!
L: i never said i had spiderMAN senses! i just said spidey senses!!
A: Same thing!
L: um no it's not....lets just drop the subject and talk about books!
A: ok....I'm reading too many and haven't finished one in a while!
L: i'm trying to finish Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen, and I really want to finish it at the beach tomorrow!
A: I want to finish Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, but I have a book to read for school!
L: we'll read pleasure at the beach, and school stuff at the house! i'm getting tired...
A: Me too....GOODNIGHT BLOG-READIN PEOPLE!
L: GOODNIGHT BLOG READERS!!!
toodles
~amy and lydia~

Busy, Busy, Busy!!

I've been really busy lately, like I just got back from an amazing retreat with my church, and I'm going to the beach with my brother and dad this week, and with Amy next week!! Then, I'm helping out at my church's VBS, then camp!!!! So, as you van see I'm really busy, and will not have that much time to post soon. So here is a review for now!

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass (description from inside flap of book)
On their first birhtday, they learned to walk. On their fifth, they planted seeds in handmade pots. On their tenth, they learned there are some words you can never take back.
Amanda's eleventh birthday should have been a happy occasion. Instead she's dressed in an itchy cosutme he mother picked out for her Hollywood-themed party (Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, even though the flying monkey always creeped her out). Meanwhile. across town, her ex-best friend, Loe is celebratingtheir joint brithday with a huge bash including a hypnotist, a football star, a giant iguana and a rock band. SO not fair!
Amanda can't wait for the day AFTER her birthday so she can stop thinking about the fight that led her and Leo to have seperate parties for the first time in their lives. There's just one problem. The next day is her birthday all over again.

I LOVE this book! I've talked about it before, but never revied it. I love Wendy Mass, and love the charachters. They work well toghether and the writing is amazing. Wow, this review sucks. I'm sorry. I'm so tired. I have to go.
toodles
~lydia~

Another Review...

It's Lydia, and I have another review. As I said in my last post, I know that reviews are boring somethies, so I'm looking for ideas of things to post about OTHER than reviews! Thanks!

The Good Girl by Kerry Cohen Hoffmann (summary from inside flap of the book)
Ever since her brother Mark's accidental death, fifteen-year-old Lindsey has been the good girl--good daughterm good friend, good student. She puts everyone's needs before her own. Secretly though, she's frustrated by her family's silence about Mark; she wishes she had the never to tell off on of her so-called best friends, a queen bee who wants the new boy at school all to herself; and she longs to ditch obligations that prevent her from starring in the school musical. But instead of speaking her mind, Lindsey does somethine else. She starts to steal-and immediately wonders how good she really is.
The pressure to be what others expect fuels Lindsey's impulse to take things. Each time the risk becomes greater, and each time she thinks she'll be caught. Wants to be caught. And then, finally she is...

I've never read a book about a theif before, so I though t it would be a cool change of pace. And it was. At the beginning of the book, When Lindsay first steals, and he sister gets blamed for it, I thought that was going to contune for the whole book, and I'm glad that it didn't. If it did, I probably wouldn't have finished it. I also liked when she asked her principal about switching lockers, and what her excuse was. Then the chain of events that lead to the ultimate downfall at the end of the book.
The charachters didn't seem to mesh well with each other, some relationships to believable or unbelieveable to be real. And the cover didn't make much sense in relationship to the book. Overall, it was good, with a good plot, but some of the senerios didn't seem to make much sense..

toodles
~lydia~

HEYYYYYYY

   Hello everyone! It's Amy, and I don't really  have a review....I just felt like posting and I wanted to apologize for being gone. I also wanted to say two things (and I'm very very very very late at saying them!!): happy book launch day to Liz Kessler and a happy blogaversary (I know I spelled that wrong)  to Khy. Sorry for being so late one those!! And thank you to all of our followers!!! We have 8 now!!! I know that's nothing compared to other blogs, but we are excited.                                                                                                                         
   I'm reading about seven books at the moment, so that's why I haven't posted. I did read a comic book. It's called Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods, but it's the fourth in a series, and I didn't read the first three. So, I can't really tell you what's going on. Great art though! Um...This post is really awful. Oh! I deleted the picture of me lying on the books in our Buddie Post, because it looked quite bad. Lydia, don't be mad I bet all of our followers will stop reading after this. Bye!

Lush by Natasha Friend

It's Lydia, and I have another review (yay!) although reviews are helpful, I think they are getting kind of boring, so PLEASE give me some tips about things to post about OTHER than reviews. Thanks!

Lush by Natasha Friend (summery from inside of the front flap)
Samantha has a secret....It's hard to be a thirteen-year-old girl. But it's even harder when your father's a drunk. It adds an extra layer to everything-your family's reactions to things, the friends you're willing to bring home, the way you see yourself and the world. For Samantha, it's something that's been going on for so long that she's almost used to it. Only, you never get used to it. Especially when it starts to get worse.
Sam knows things have to stop. But she doesn't know how to make them stop. So she picks a random girl in the library and starts sending her notes, asking for advice. And she keeps an extra-close eye on her little brother, trying to protect him from getting hurt. Sam doesn't want her family to fall apart. But that might be what has to happen for things to be okay again.

This book was compleatly amazing. I love Natasha Friend. She's a great author, and I've read Bounce, Perfect and now Lush and they were pretty freakin amazing. The book starts great with Sam sending the note in the library, and ends amazingly, with...well I'm not going to spoil it. But when Sam goes to the party...that part was so freaking awesome, and shows Sam excatly what alchol will do to people. I would recomend this book to anyone. It seems like a girl book, but I think guys would love it too. Lush is written well, and powerful and kind of moving, while also being compleatly AWESOME!

toodles,
~lydia~

My First Middle-Grade Review!

Ok, it's Lydia again, and Amy has not posted in a while becasue she is (once again) book-hopping, and just got two new ones that she has been DYING for! I'm personally dying for Thirteen Plus One by Lauren Myracle, but that's just me... ok, on to the review!!

It's Raining Cupcakes by Lisa Schroeder (summary from inside flap of the book)
Tweleve-year-old Isabel is dying to get out of Oregon. She spends her free time in the library, reading and dreaming about faraway places. When her mom decides to open a cupcake shop in their little town of Willow, Isabel feels just like buttercream frosting to a cupcake--stuck.
It seems as if it will be another disappointing summer, until Isabel learns of a baking contest. If she can come up with a winning recipe, she might have a chance of competing in the bake-off in New York City!
But Isabel's best friend, Sophie, is also entering the contest, and things always seem to go Sophie's way. To make matters worse, Isabel and her mom don't excatly see eye-to-eye on the type of recipe Isabel should enter.

I thought that this was a cute read. It's exam time, and it kind of relieved the stress of exams for a few minutes a day. I liked it a lot, but there were some parts of it that didn't seem very real to me, like when Isbels's hair gets messed up, that just didn't seem very much like that something that would happen. And the relationship between Sophie and Isabel was kind of shaky throughout the book.
Other than a few small flaws, It's Raining Cupcakes was was a fun, cute and sticky sweet book, just like cupcakes!

toodles!
~lydia~

Reading Slump?

ok, so, as you can tell from the title, I'm in a reading slump. And if you haven't guessed yet, it's Lydia. well, it's not really a slupm, but I'm reading a series that I started a while ago, and am finishing. I didn't want to post a review for a book that would spoil the rest of the seires. Plus I'm rereading two of my favorite books. 11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass and 20 Boy Summer by Sarah Ockler. I might post a review on 11 Birthdays, but I'm not sure yet, because tomorrow my family is having a garage sale, and I don't know how much reading time I'll have.

So yeah....is there anything you'd like me to post about to keep me from going so long between posts?? Please comment. thanks!!
toodles?!
~lydia~