Nicole Maggi

Winter Falls tells a story of girl who agrees to become part of a war between two clans, transforming into a falcon to battle other spirit creatures.

The story holds a lot of promise, but there isn't enough about the Benandante (sp) to hold my interest for long, mostly its a story about a girl who ditches her mates to spend time with a guy who is so obviously her enemy its not even a surprise.

I found Alissa pretty annoying, she agreed to the call and complained about it interferring with her life the rest of the book.

I did enjoy some parts but for the majority it was just like reading a boring highschool day and moaning lots of moaning about anything she is faced with.

I probably wont buy the second.… (mehr)

What They Don't Know by Nicole Maggi is one of the most difficult books I have ever read. Don't get me wrong. The language used is easy to understand - in fact a little too easy. It is written from the perspectives of two sixteen year old girls, however, so I did not expect extensive vocabularies. What made this book so difficult to read was the subject matter.

This book tells the story of a young girl who is raped and subsequently becomes pregnant. She then struggles with the ultimate pro-life/pro-choice decision. A decision that a sixteen year old girl should never have to make, especially if she didn't make the choice to have sex in the first place, but Mellie is raised by a very traditional Christian family that believes abortion is the ultimate sin. Luckily, Ms. Maggi does not go into much detail about the incident itself but focuses more on Mellie's inner turmoil.

I enjoyed this book for the most part, however, I felt it was a bit drawn out at times and at other times redundant. Mellie seemed to go in circles with her decisions for awhile which was incredibly frustrating. I felt there were a few chapters that were irrelevant and should have been left out completely. This book is meant for a younger audience than myself, so I tried not to judge the writing style so much and simply focused on the story itself.

Overall I would say this book is worth reading. Even though it was frustrating to see Mellie run in circles and meet with several obstacles, the ending is beyond satisfying and definitely worth sitting through all of the rest.

Mellie's story is heartbreaking and there are times where I was moved to tears. I believe hers is a story that deserves to be told.… (mehr)

The author did an excellent job researching women/girls who had abortions before writing this. I was convinced while reading the book that she had first hand experience of being a pregnant teen with a tough choice to make. The 2 main characters in this book are both writing in journals to their English teacher. The action and plot are tense and engrossing. I like the way the author tells the story except that the journal entries act like the teacher is reading the journals regularly but no good teacher would read these and not get involved. I truly struggled wondering what Mellie would do. It was not obvious from the beginning.… (mehr)