Dirty Little Angles-Chris Tusa

Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa This was a book about a dysfunctional family from New Orleans, based on the point of view from Hailey, the fifteen year-old daughter. I have to admit, I had higher expectations for this book. I was expecting something something more gritty, violent, raw...Maybe because I have worked with so many kids who are considered “high-risk,” as Hailey would definitely be considered in that category, nothing in the book seemed at all shocking. That is the way of life for many kids like “Hailey.” Don't get me wrong, I liked the story and thought it was interesting, but it was like reading a case file or meeting with a client. Everyone has their story.

Children in the BORING

Children in the Morning-Anne Emery

Well, I had some difficulty reading this book for a couple of different reasons. First, it did not convert well over to my e-reader and I had to read it in very small print and it was very straining on my eyes or on my lap-top, which also gave me similar issues. It also took me some timeto get used to the writing style. It was written in narritive form from the perspective of a father and his nine year old daughter. Once, I was able to adjust to reading small font and the “back and forth” between father and daughter, I was able to focus on the actual story itself. Unfortunatly it took about five or six chapters for this to happen. Basically this book is a legal drama, where one high profile defense attorney (Monty) is defending another high profile defense attorney (Beau) for the murder of his wife. Monty's daughter Normie befirends two of Beau's ten children and begins to have nightmares that Monty feels may be relevant to his client's case. Nothing in this story was overly surprising, lets just leave it at that. It is probably a lot easier to read in print, but that would not change the need to acclimate to the writing style, which would have been cool and could have worked if the story had not been so predictable, and if Monty and Normie had been a more exciting characters.

20th Century Dud

20^th Century Ghost-Joe Hill

I'm not quite sure what to say here. Well,I take that back, there is a lot I want to say about this book. First of all, Joe Hill, what happened? I expected a book full of “ghost” stories, or at least “scary” stories, but what I ended up reading was a few good scary stories, and a bunch of stuff to fill pages in a book. I tried to give you some credit, being a Boston author, and throwing in some Boston humor, but even that couldn't componsate for the majority of the stories that, I'm not quite sure,had anything to do with a ghost story.

I will give credit to the truly scary “ghost” stories as being really good. Unfortunatly, they were outnumbered by stories that could have been written by fifth graders given a creative writing assignment. A couple of stories could have been written by college freshman who have not learned that it is quality that makes a story, not quanitiy of pages. I was bored out of my mind at stories that wouldn't end, and left scratching my head, wondering why some of the stories were even in the book. Overall, it was pretty dissapointing, because there was some good stuff in it...buried.