The Secret Year by Jennifer R. Hubbard

"Okay." She watched me walk around the river. "I don’t' know what you want," she said. "Sometimes you act like you love me, and sometimes you act like you couldn't care less."

I turned my back on her. I wasn’t in the mood to give her anything right then, to joke with her, to play our usual game. "Then I guess you'll always have to wonder," I said over my shoulder.

I read this book years ago, 2010 to be exact and when it was turned in the other day I picked it up gave it a quick read again and I remembered how much I really liked this book.

Colt and Julia were with each other for over a year, but nobody knew about it. Julia lived on Black Mountain Road, complete with mansions, country clubs and a picture perfect boyfriend. Colt lived at the bottom, a place they called the flats. They attended high school together but were far from being friends. The met up on accident one night at the river and a forbidden romance begins to take shape. With their secret building and weighing heavily on both their lives, Julia is in a car accident and dies and suddenly the secret begins to eat away at Colt. How do you get over someone who was never yours to begin with?

Not exactly Romeo and Juliet, Julia and Colt could have been together if they really wanted to, sure their parents and friends would have been upset at first but it was something that would have passed. So the question remains why? Why did they choose to keep their relationship this way? If Julia would have broken up with her boyfriend would she have been with Colt? And would Colt have even wanted to be with her?

 If they would have been together publicly, Julia would have never been at that party the night she was killed. And this is the guilt that has consumed Colt in the aftermath.

An Abundance of Katherines by John Green

 

"I figured something out. The future is unpredictable" (Epilogue, p. 213).

 

When Colin Singleton was a little boy, he was a child prodigy.  He read books about Aracamedies at the age of 4, he is a math whiz and loves to anagram.  Colin has another quirk, he has only ever dated girls named Katherine.  He has dated and been dumped by 19 Kahterines.  So in the wake of the K-19 Debacle, Colin's best friend Hassan convinces him to go on a road trip this last summer before college to take his mind off the break up.  With 10,000 dollars in his pocket and a goal to accomplish his "Euerka" moment, Colin and Hussan set out on an adventure of their lives.

 

John Green is the voice of a generation.  He writes witty, smart books for Young Adults and is an amazing writer and role model for our young men.

 

An Abundance of Katherines was a 2007 Michael L. Printz Honor book and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was also named one of the books of the year by Booklist, Horn Book, and Kirkus.

Under the Mesquite by: Guadalupe Garcia McCall

When Papi gives us the news
at the breakfast table,
Analiza and Victoria
stare at him wide-eyed.
Its been a year and a half
since Mami had her last
chemotherapy treatment,
and although most of Papi's
money has been spent
on the hope of saving her life,
the cancer has returned.

What can I say about this novel that has not already been said, other than I LOVED IT!
A novel told in verse is a powerful piece of literature.  It is a piece of literature that can reach all readers.  Mix that with a strong and hopeful message and you have yourself a notable book, a book that won five awards in its short release.

In Under the Mesquite, we meet Lupita, a teenage, Mexican girl who lives in Texas.  Life is good for Lupita until tragedy strikes her family in the form of cancer.  Lupita has a big family and with seven siblings, being the oldest means she had to grow up quick.  With her mother now sick, she needs to step up as caretaker of her kin and help her father raise her brothers and her sisters. All this while going to school and dealing with life as a young girl in high school.

Overcoming her obstacles, Lupita survives what life has thrown at her and helps her family get through their heartache and hardships while instilling hope in them all. Winner of the Pura Belpre, a prestigious award given to a Latino writer  whose work best portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in an outstanding work of literature for children and youth, McCall's contribution to Latino Literature is remarkable, and Under the Mesquite is an unforgettable story that will resonate with all readers and cultures alike.  It is about a human experience and one we can all relate to.