Lauren Barnholdt

This short chapter book is just the right size for 2nd grade and up. The words are large print and the illustrations are great! Haily Twitch is the younger sister of Kaitlyn and she is constantly up to something. In this book Haily is going on a camping trip with her parents, her friend, and her sister and sister's friend, Maya. Hailey thinks Maya is a bossy big kid. To add to this mix of mischief is Hailey's little magical fairy Maybelle who is trying to learn to control her magic. This is a recipe for disaster - and that is just what fills these pages. Both of my elementary children enjoyed the book. The story was easy and enjoyable to read. The only thing that I disliked about this book were the use of some slang words and the use of the Lord's name in vain. I marked these out in the book as they did not add to the story (and marking them out did not distract from the story). Other than this the book is great. It is perfectly suited for early elementary age students who are beginning to read chapter books.

Thank you Sourceboks for this review copy.… (mehr)

Two-way Street is the story of a road trip to Boston University, one that Courtney and her ex-boyfriend planned before their major break-up, before Jordan let her down for a girl he met on the Internet ( on MySpace). However, now that everything had already been planned, her ex didn’t feel the need to cancel the trip to her great annoyance, what she doesn’t know is that he has got a secret or two and it has all to do with his “cyber girlfriend”. And what I didn’t know was that I would hate the book this much.

Goodreads is too kind with the ratings, because “I didn’t like it”, I HATED it!

Nearly half-way through it and I couldn’t just stand it! The writing is awful, I’m sure that there isn’t a person in this world who could talk this way, so confusing, frustrating and incoherent, with stupid statements all over the page that don’t make any sense, jumping from one thought to the other, it feels as you are in a really messed up teen’s head, or two as the story alternates between the POV of the two protagonists, one on the day of their trip and the other 125 days before it, the night that they met.

I kept reading hoping that the story will get better, but the problem is not the story itself, it’s the writing. I’ve never been so disappointed by a book such as this one, the premise looked so good when I first read the blurb, but I didn’t expect Courtney to be so stupid and didn’t expect Jordan to be such an ass ( even for a teenager full of hormones). I couldn’t get past page 34 it was too hard for my brain to continue.
… (mehr)