Across the Library

Title:  Mary's Monster: Love, Madness, and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein Author:  Lita Judge My Rating: 4 Stars This beautiful biography of Mary Shelley is told in first person verse.  The illustrations are haunting, but lovely.  The story of her life is sad, yet told so well.  Mary Godwin was sent away from her family when she was 14, returned when she was 16, only to fall in love with a married man.  Her family shamed her, so she ran away with him, and was soon pregnant with his child.  I won't tell you the rest, because the book tells it so much better.  The back of the book has further notes on her life, as well as a summary of what happened to each of the people mentioned in the book.  It also has a bibliography.

Title: Losing Brave Authors: Bailee Madison (Actress) & Stefne Miller My Rating:  3 stars Payton was there a year ago, when her twin, Dylan, was taken, or possibly killed, but she can't remember what happened. She believes Dylan may still be alive, and now more girls, who look somewhat like her, have also gone missing. Payton is determined to find out what happened to all of them. In the beginning, Payton is pretty unlikeable, but she undergoes some decent character growth that makes her easier to stomach. However, the writing style was hard for me to stomach, especially the first 40 pages or so, but I kept going because I was interested in seeing where the story went. I wasn't exactly surprised by the story, but it did get better.  I think Madison has decent ideas, but if she truly wants to be an author, she needs more practice.

Title: Weave a Circle Round Author: Kari Maaren My Rating: 2.5 Stars I'll be honest -- I struggled to get through this book, and I think I'm going to struggle with this review. Without giving away the secrets of the plot, I'll just say that Freddy, her little sister Mel, and her step-brother Roland find themselves with strange new neighbors, Josiah and Cuerva Lachance, who have a strange house as well.  There's a strange sequence of time travel plopped into the middle that is far too abrupted.  I think iti's supposed to seem that way, but in my opinion, it is not well done, and makes the story too confusing. There were interesting bits.  I liked some of the rpg elements that were included.  I liked that there was a deaf character and sign language.  I was intrigued by Josiah, and a little bit of the secretiveness of the characters, but it just didn't play out in a satisfying way. I thought the descriptions of the three characters, Josiah, Cuerva La...

Title: The Outcasts of Time Author: Ian Mortimer This was a decent book, but not really for me. Two brothers just infected with the plague in 1348 get the chance to live out their last six days each 99 years further into the future, all while seeking redemption. They do explore a little, and learn a bit about each new era they are in, but I wanted more out of that aspect of the book.  I know they only had a day in each time period, so there wasn't much time to learn about each, but I still wanted more. That was a personal preference though, and I should have read the summary closer.  It was an interesting book though.