Wonder by R.J. Palacio

After hearing many friends rave about Wonder, I finally picked it up when my book club read it last fall. It started out pretty rough for me. It's the fictional story of a young boy with a severe facial deformity. The story begins as he prepares to enter school for the first time, in 5th grade. And here we reach my first hang-up with the story. Why in the world would parents who have kept their child out of school his entire life choose to have him start in middle school??? I was a normal kid and felt like I got eaten alive in middle school. This poor kid has a facial deformity that makes him look like a monster, and his parents decide to throw him in the lions' den of middle school.

After about 100 pages of reading about this poor boy get picked on and stared at, I looked at how much of the book was left and set it down. A few days later, I realized I really needed to finish it before book club, so I picked it back up. Shortly after my re-entry in the story, a new narrator picked up. Hallelujah! I didn't realize (until this point) the story is actually told from many perspectives: first, August himself, then his family members and friends. Once the narrators started shifting, I actually enjoyed the story. Instead of just seeing one, very painful point of view, I started to see the whole picture.

This book is all about character development. August himself grows by leaps and bounds. But the real story of change is in the people around him as they learn to live alongside this little "Wonder". I still think this is a very strange topic for an author to pick for a fictional story, but Palacio does a great job of revealing the good, the bad and the ugly of human character from a child's perspective.

Overall Rating: 3 stars

Content Warnings: Many people in the book, both kids and adults, say rude, hurtful and downright nasty things to August. It wouldn't be appropriate for very young children, but I think there are things in the story that are great conversation starters for older elementary kids. I know some 5th grade teachers use this as a read-aloud, which I think is a great starting age for this one.

Target Audience: upper-elementary to middle school kids and their parents

The Selection Series by Kiera Cass

**I'm going to treat this series as one book for two reasons. 1) I read all 3 books in about 48 hours, so it felt like one continuous book to me. 2) I liked all 3 books equally and didn't feel like any of them stood out of the crowd enough to warrant its own post.

The Selection series:
The Selection
The Elite
The One

Looking for a lighter read, I found this gem in the YA section and devoured it. It's like a mash-up of The Hunger Games and The Bachelor, all set in a fairy tale kingdom. 16-year-old America Singer reluctantly signs up to be on a reality show set up to find a match for the newly eligible prince of the kingdom, Maxon. Unlike the rest of the beauty queen wannabes and Maxon superfans, America is there to help her family, who is unfairly placed near the bottom of the kingdom's broken caste system. She develops a funny friendship with the prince along the way and finds herself enjoying the whole ordeal more than she expected.

Although the series starts out feeling like it might just be fluff, Cass does an excellent job of intertwining the dating escapades with more serious undertones of unrest in the kingdom. And what would a YA dystopian novel be without a love triangle? Although many of the elements in the book are similar to previous YA dystopian trilogies, The Selection provides a refreshing take on the genre. Usually by the 3rd book in these series, I feel like the author has given up and created a terrible ending. The Selection is the first trilogy of its kind that had me interested and satisfied to the end.

One warning: When I started The Selection, I thought the whole "Selection" process would be done in the first book. When I finished #1, I had to rush to the library to grab the next two books so I could find out what happened. My suggestion: grab all three at the same time. You'll be done with all three in a couple days anyway.

Once you've finished the series, you can join me in anxiously awaiting The Heir, coming in May 2015. It serves as a sort of epilogue to the series, giving you a view of what comes after happily ever after.

Overall Rating: 4 stars

Content Warning: There are a few slightly steamy make-out scenes and a few suggestive comments referencing what will come post-wedding, but nothing graphic or alarming. There are also a few mild swear words. Overall, it's very tame. I would let my 13 year old read this.

Target Audience: teenage girls or any female with a bit of a romantic streak

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

I'm usually not much a non-fiction reader, so to say this is one of the best books I've ever read is really saying something. Louie Zamperini's story could be told by pretty much anyone and would garner a lot of attention and awe. However, Laura Hillenbrand artfully chronicles Louie's life, from boyhood to old age, while inserting background information that helps you truly appreciate how incredible his life was. The book reads with the ease of fiction while telling what might be one of the most heroic, death-defying stories ever to be told.

If you've seen the movie and think you know the story, stop right there and go grab this book. The movie skims over his boyhood and trip to the Olympics, tells about a third of what happens to him while at war, then doesn't cover his later years at all. As I watched the movie in the theater, I kept whispering extra details to my husband. I just couldn't help it!

Hillenbrand provides just the right amount of detail to help you understand how miraculous Louie's story is without boring you. In order to grasp just how dangerous his last rescue mission was that ended him up at sea for 47 days, you have to understand the historical and technical background of the plane he was flying. Seeing footage of POWs being treated horribly is bad, but when you know all the illnesses they had on top of that and how sickly and starved they really were, you'll struggle to understand how any person could treat another human being that way. Hillenbrand weaves this details into the story perfectly.

The crowning moment of Louie's story, and the inspiration behind the title, comes from his life post-war, as he struggles with PTSD and finds God. By the end, this book paints a beautiful picture of the power of forgiveness and the resilience of the human spirit. Don't put this on your "want to read" list. Drop whatever you're reading a go grab it now. It's a must read.

Overall Rating: 5 stars (can I give it 10?)

Content Warning: Louie experienced some horrible things as a POW. Some of the content it quite violent. There's also a bit of strong language throughout the book, but not an overwhelming amount. There is a YA version that is tamed down and has more photographs. I haven't read that one, so I don't know the exact content, just that it's supposed to be a little less intense.

Target Audience: history buffs or anyone who loves a good human story (not for the faint of heart or young ones)