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Review: Shattered (Langan) & Read-a-Thon (original post 10/24/09)

I planned on waking up at 5:00am to start reading right away, but didn't actually wake up until 5:15am. I reached for my book and got going. Smart me...I chose a REALLY quick read so I'd feel like I'd accomplished something early on! I've checked out a couple blogs of people doing the read-a-thon and I liked the format they used that showed statistics as they go along, so I'll do a version of that to keep things going.

I've read, eaten my breakfast (wheat toast and orange juice) and I am still in my jammies.

Title of the book I just finished:
 Shattered by Paul Langan (part of the  Bluford Series, reading level 6-8 grade)
Genre: General fiction/high school life
Pages: 123
Summary of the book: Darcy Willis is desperate. A painful secret is ruining her closest friendships at Bluford High School. And an even deeper lie is tearing her family apart. Unwilling to lose the people she loves, Darcy must confront her past--and the truth. What she discovers will change her world forever.
My thoughts on the book: 4 out of 5. This was, obviosly, an easy read for me. We have students at our high school who have a low reading level and I've been trying to find some books for them that aren't kiddy books. In the Bluford series I think I've found just that. The books are all centered on high school students and they deal with issues that our students have in their lives (friendship, dating, family issues, trust, honesty, etc). Half way through I was getting frustrated that so many issues were popping up for the main character, but they do come together and she is honest and strong in the end without the author being preachy. While the end is positive, it doesn't pretend that life is easy and I like that. The books in this series all center on African-American teenagers who are only about 2% of our school's population. I wish there was a series like this with Latino characters since I think our students would be even more likely to check the books out if they felt the characters were "more like them".
Titles of the all books I've read so far:
Shattered by Paul Langan
Total number of pages I've read so far: 123
Mini-challenges I've completed: 0 (I need to figure out how I find out about them)
Other participants I've visited:
 Striped Armchair 
 Bloody Bad 

Now, before I crack open book 2, I'll check out the Read-a-thon site to see about mini-challenges...

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