First and foremost, BREAK by Hannah Moskowitz is officially out! I wrote a quick review of it on Amazon:Jonah is on a mission to break all his bones. There, you've got the plot of the book.
Not so fast. Because a person's life isn't isolated. Jonah spends most of his time (when he's not intentionally falling off skateboards) trying to save his younger brother from dying from food allergies. His best friend is egging him on to keep breaking bones, while his brother is having reactions all over the place and begging him to stop. His parents are clueless and trying to take care of a baby who won't stop crying.
Everything going on in Jonah's life pushes him to keep going. The reason for his actions make sense, in a way. When you're reading this book, you ARE Jonah. You are completely in his head, and while the leaps in logic seem crazy to the outside world, when you're Jonah, it all ties together. And as a reader, I was dragged into his thoughts and emotions.
Moskowitz has written a fantastic debut novel. Jonah's voice stays present through the whole book and doesn't lose much steam in the middle, the way many first-person novels do. I would recommend this book to anyone (as long aren't a pansy when it comes to blood and pain.)
Sound intriguing? Go buy it!
Also, I'm a little slow and just read HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins. WOW. I devoured this book. It's one of the best books I've read in a long time, and gave me that warm fuzzy post-amazing-book feeling. I ordered CATCHING FIRE, the next book in the series from Amazon, but it won't be here until I'm already gone! Alas.
I also just read GODLESS by Pete Hautman. I wasn't as impressed by it, but a lot of that might be because I read it so close to the awesomeness of the first two books. I thought it was still a pretty decent book, but I wasn't blown away by it.
Next up? Not sure. THE THIEF LORD, maybe.
