Library Ninja: Teen Reviews

The Future of Us is set in 1996. This was the age where everyone went around with a Walkman. At that point in history the Internet was fairly new and came on discs*. Josh Templeton, one of the main characters, brings an America Online CD-Rom over to his former best friend Emma Nelson's house at his mother's request. When Emma puts the disc in her computer a window pops up. In that window is Facebook. Both Josh and Emma are thrust into a world of knowing what their future will hold for them in 15 years. They can see their Facebook profiles, though Facebook hasn't been invented yet.

The book is for more mature teenagers, but if you can get past the medium cuss words then this book will be awesome. The book shows the butterfly effect, the theory that every action changes what will happen in the future. Josh has relationship problems with his future wife, and Emma does everything she can to prevent marriages with the men she believes are going to make her life miserable. The book spans over less than a week, and the first person point of view switches between Josh and Emma. The characters can be very emotional and frustrating, but overall I give it a 4 out of 5 star review.

* As someone who was a teenager in the 90's, I know firsthand that what was on discs was not the internet itself, but an internet browser such as the popular (at the time) American Online. Wal-Mart and other stores sold the AOL start-up discs at the cash register with the candy and magazines. Read this article to learn more about what the internet was like in 1996. And please stop making me feel old!

- Amy S.

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Jackson Meyer can travel through time. The nineteen-year-old college student isn't sure how, but he and his friend Adam are trying to find out. While working at a summer day camp, they perform experiments and determine several things:

Though Jackson and Adam don't tell anyone (even Jackson's girlfriend Holly) about Jackson's special talents, someone seems to know. Early one morning, Jackson and Holly are in Holly's dorm room when several armed men masquerading as government agents break in and open fire. They kill Holly and, in a moment of panic, Jackson jumps two full years into the past.

Once he realizes that he really is in 2007, guilt strikes Jackson and he tries to get back to 2009. Unfortunately, it seems like his "present" time has been changed, so he can't go forward. While adapting to a world where his IDs and credit cards are invalid and he's assumed to be a high school senior, Jackson learns more about where his talent came from and who he really is.

I like Tempest because it is a new take on time travel. A whole new story is created rather than an old tale recycled. The characters are believable, the setting firm, and the plot unpredictable. I look forward to reading the next two books in the trilogy.

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David Rain never thought that moving into a house with a woman named Liz and her daughter named Lucy would turn his life into an adventure. The first thing he notices is that Liz treats the clay dragons that she makes as if they are real and her daughter does, too. Lucy loves animals and begs David to write a story about squirrels, but when Liz gives him a dragon named Gadzooks his fictional story turns to fact. All he has to do is close his eyes and Gadzooks writes a word on his note pad that helps David, but when he stops helping after David is mean to him David asks Liz whats wrong. She tells him that Gadzooks is losing his fire tear which is his life source and when it is gone Gadzooks is gone. Will David save Gadzooks and is his story heading for disaster? Well, you're going to have to read the book.

I thought this book was amazing because it has dragons (which I think are awesome) and is full of adventure. Chris D'Lacey did an amazing job of making you keep want to turn the page. When you read this book it is like you are David himself. Now it's time for me to read the rest of the series.

Read all of The Last Dragon Chronicles

THIS IS YOUR NEW HOME. FORGET YOUR PAST. ALL THAT REMAINS IS TO LEARN HOW TO FIGHT AND SURVIVE.

Rome 61 B.C.

Marcus's beloved centurion father lies murdered, and his mother has been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Freshly torn from his idyllic childhood, Marcus is brought to train as a gladiator and faces years of brutal practice before he can be deemed an elite warrior, destined to fight or die in the arena. Though he is threatened by a vicious enemy and ordered to forget his past, Marcus dreams of freedom and is determined to find his father's old commander to seek justice for his family and rescue his mother. Yet, Marcus carries a secret that might hold the key to freeing himself and all of the Empire's slaves and if the Romans discover it, there will be no escape.

When I see that a book is published by Disney Hyperion, my expectations soar - even more because The Way of the Warrior (one of my all-time favorites) was published by them. Luckily for me, GLADIATOR Fight for Freedom was just as good as I expected - even better, actually.

It contained so much action, gore, and adventure that you would've been crazy not to have liked it. I'm not a really a big fan of historical fiction but sometimes I'll find one that I'll really enjoy and this book was definitely one of those. I'm not to sure if I would classify this book under my favorites just yet, but maybe later on once I read the next book, because this book has a lot of potential. I would've appreciated it if the book had gone a bit longer but it was just about as good as you can get. The other thing about it was that is unique, I get so tired about reading the same plot over and over again with the only difference being the characters names. Like those dystopians or those time travel stories one of them I can handle but 50 of the same books? But like I said Fight for Freedom was unique and I've never read any book about a gladiator or about ancient Rome, and it was really interesting to read about both of those. Considering how it finished I can't wait for the second book to come and as soon it does i'll be one of the first to read it. I rate the book a full 5 stars cause it was just fantastic all around. The best part being that I enjoyed every page. There aren't a lot of books I can say that about but I know I can say that about this one. I also think that Simon Scarrow did a wonderful job not only for thinking of something so original but also for writing such a magnificent story.

Usually in my third paragraph I'll write the things that I didn't like about the book. And this paragraph is usually very small as is the case today. The one and only thing that I didn't like was the cover, it looked like a 6 year old dressed up in some cheap plastic gladiator costume, not at all like the boy it describes in the book. So that was pretty much the only thing that I didn't like about The Fight for Freedom everything was really good and I think everyone should at least give it a try.

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