If I Stay by Gayle Forman

If I Stay

By Gayle Forman

7:09 a.m.

“I wake up this morning to a thin blanket of white covering our front lawn.  It isn’t even an inch, but in Oregon a slight dusting brings everything to a standstill as the one snowplow in the county gets busy clearing roads.”  

Everyone seems happy that the schools are closed.  Even Mia’s mother decides to call in to work and spend the day with her family.  They decide they will all take a drive to visit some family and friends.

Everyone in the car seems to be enjoying themselves.  Suddenly the unthinkable happens.  Mia knows they have had a wreck.  She thinks she must not be hurt since she feels fine.  She can even hear the car radio still playing Beethoven.  When she climbs up the embankment she figures out quickly how wrong she is. 

The story skips back and forth in time.  Mia watches as her body is rushed to the hospital.  She see’s family and friends rush to be with her at the hospital.  Although she can hear and see everything that is going on she cannot communicate with anyone.  As doctors fight to save her life she will have to make the hard decision  to stay or to go.

Yes I kept the tissues handy while reading this.  Be warned the details of the car wreck are very detailed.  Although the story was sad it did give this reader pause to remember what was most important in life.  Very well written.

Rating 4/5

ISBN#978-1-101-04634-0

The Immortal Rules

The Immortal Rules
by Julie Kagawa

Three young people stand on the gallows, condemned to die.  Their crimes include robbery, trespassing and resisting arrest.  They were called unregistered because they had decided against giving their blood to vampires in exchange for meal tickets.  They were forced to steal to survive.
Allison barely glanced over her shoulder when she hear the trapdoors release.  Their mistake was getting caught.  You have to do what you need to do survive but you leave yourself and out and don't get caught.  Allison lives in a gutted out old school with 3 other young unregistereds. Lucas, Stick and Rat were far from perfect but they were the only family she had.
Allison and her family are out scavenging for food one day when they run into trouble and are caught out after dark.  They soon have a run in with the "rabids". Her friends are killed and she has been bitten.  As she lays on the sidewalk dying suddenly out of nowhere a vampire shows up and offers her 2 choices.
"I can end the pain," "I can offer you release from the mortal coil, and I promise that you will not spend eternity as one of them."
"Or?" I whispered.  He sighed.
"Or...I can make you one of us.  I can drain you to the point of death and give you my blood, so that when you die you will rise again... as an immortal..A vampire."

She chooses to live.
She gives up her former life and becomes a vampire.  Kannin teaches her how to live her new life as a vampire.  She asks him what will happen if she refuses to drink blood?  He tells her she will go mad and become like the rabids.  Eventually she will have to strike off on her own and leave the walls of the city.
Not long after striking off on her own she comes across a group of humans headed for a so called city of Eden.  Thinking of them mainly as food she soon becomes their protector.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book.  It's different from a lot of the vampire books out that have vampires as just being misunderstood.  I look forward to reading the next book in the series called "The Eternity Cure".
Rating 4/5
ISBN# 978-0373-21051-0

Switched by Amanda Hocking

Book 1 of The Trylle Series

"A few things made that day stand out more than any other: it was my sixth birthday, and my mother was wielding a knife. Not a tiny steak knife, but some kind of massive butcher knife glinting in the light like a bad horror movie.  She definitely wanted to kill me."
Wendy never understood why her mother wanted to kill her or why she hated her so much.  She accused Wendy of not being the child she gave birth to.  Her brother Matt told her not to worry about it.  "Their Mother was just crazy" he said.  Matt told her that she could never hurt her again since she was locked away.
Wendy was never able to shake the feeling that she was different somehow and just didn't belong. Was she ready though for the shocking truth of who she really was?  A creepy but good looking guy from school named Finn claims to know who she really is.  He says he has come to bring her home.  Now Wendy must choose to either stay with her brother or go with Finn to an unknown world.
I really enjoyed this book.  Look forward to reading more of this series.
Rating 3.5/5
ISBN#  9781250046765

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Book 1 of the Mortal Instruments Series

While at a club with her friends, Clary Fray witnesses what she thinks is a murder. Clary follows 3 teenagers chasing another teenager into a room.  There she sees the three kill the other teenager.  The three explain to Clary it's kinda hard to have a murder without a body.  The dead teenager disappears.  When her friend Simon and club security show up the three teenagers disappear leaving Clary confused about what she actually witnessed.
The next night after having a fight with her mother she takes off to a local coffee shop with Simon.  Suddenly she sees one of the teenagers from the night before.  She rushes outside and finds him in the alley.  He tells her that he and his friends Alec and Isabell are "Shadowhunters". He explains that she should not even be able to see them.  As Clary is trying to wrap her mind around what Alec is telling her she receives a frantic phone call from her mother.  She tells Clary not to come home and to go to Simon's house.  She races back to her apartment to find her mother missing and she also finds herself not alone.

"It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead center in the front of its domed skull. Something like a cross between an alligator and a centipede, it had a thick, flat snout and a barbed tail that whipped menacingly from side to side.  Multiple legs bunched underneath it as it readied itself to spring."

Clary soon discovers that her mother has been keeping secrets from her.  She even went so far as to have someone block certain memories from her.  No one seems to be able to help her retrieve those memories.  She soon learns that her mother has been taken captive by the evil Valentine, The only way to save her mother is to find something called "The Mortal Cup".  Along the way she will have to fight demons, vampires and werewolves.  She will also learn who she can truly trust and who she can't.
The story starts off a little slow but does pick up as the story progresses. It ends with a really good twist that makes the reader eager for more.
Rating 3.5/5
ISBN# 978-1-4169-5507-8

Saturday Signs #3

I saw this at the park the other day.  Was a bit surprised signs like this were still up.  Its was up in front of the bathrooms.