Ketchup Cloud: Annabel Pitcher

This was another sad story, that had an even sadder ending. A teenager gets attention from a boy that obviously just likes her body, but being young and insecure she likes the attention. She then falls for his older brother, though she doesn't realize right away that they are brothers. He gets her and her humor. When she finally realizes the brother likes her as she does him, she can't break it off with her boyfriend because he is distraught that his dad is getting remarried. He takes to drinking the night he finds out his brother and her were seeing each other behind his back and ends up drowning. The "star crossed" lovers still love each other, but both hold themselves accountable for the death and don't want to be together to remind the other always of the brother. The tory is told through a set of letters she sends to a man wanting for the death penalty in prison for killing his wife.

Buried: Graham Masterton

This was really good! An Irish cop tries, Kate, to nab a notorious criminal, Bobby, but he is s sneaky he keeps getting off because he kills off his associates once he realizes the cops are on to him. As a guarantee that Kate will let him continue selling cigarettes, he kidnaps an old love interest, John, and won't release him. If Kate arrests Bobby again he will have John killed. After John's failed escape effort, Bobby drills through John's legs and attaches him to the bed. Kate sends an undercover cop in to find out John's location, she is raped, peed on and beat up. At the end Kate teams up with another cop, Alan, who was put in the same situation that she was and his wife was killed. At the end Alan shoots Bobby and Kate rescues John and the undercover cop. The book ends with Kate realizing she doesn't love John and John telling the Doctors that even if his legs get amputated, he knows Kate will take care of his the rest of his life. She is miserable. Things I didn't understand- She left Alan's house in a hurray and must have left some sign she was there, a cup, something of hers... and if the undercover cop was recovering from an internal injury, how could she help carry John?

My Sister Lives on the Mantle: Annabel Pitcher

This was a heartbreaking, yet oddly inspiring book. 9 Year old Jamie's parents are separated because the loss of one of their twin daughter to a terrorist bomb has made them drift apart. Jamie still holds out hope that his mom will come back, and his surviving sister acts as a mother to Jamie. Jamie manages to make one friend at school, a Muslim girl, who he knows he must keep secret from his dad. His mom forgets his birthday and his sister Rose gets him a spider man t-shirt, which he loves and refuses to take off until his mom sees him in it. Finally his mom comes to see them preform at a talent contest and he realizes his mom didn't get him the shirt, she forgot his birthday and has moved on with her life. No one seems t realize Jaime exists, but his sister and his ne friend, but that is enough for Jaime.

Because You Love to Hate Me: Ameriie

This was an awesome collection of short stories made even cooler by how they came about. A group of bloggers came up with a list of ideas to write about based on fairy tales and other fictional characters, a group of writers took their ideas and wrote short stories about them. I loved several of them and have been searching out those writers works- like Andrew Smith. Very creative book, I hope they do another!!

Her: Christa Parravani

This was a fantastic book. It was raw and painful, but also a tribute to the sister she lost and had to learn to live without. Twins Christa and her sister Cara were inseparable until Cara is raped. Christa lives with guilt of not being the same as her sister anymore and Cara becomes self destructive as a way to get through her grief. At 28, Cara overdoses an dies and Christa's guilt over her sister comes to the point where she cannot live without Cara. Christa finds love through a friend of a friend and finds peace through a medium. eventually she is able to write about her sister and the journey that got her to present day. Fabulous writing, fabulous book.

The Mountain Between Us: Charles Martin

This was a really long book. I know it was meant to be, but by the time we got to the kicker at the end I was more involved with counting how many pages were left. A man and woman meet at an airport when flights are cancelled. he is getting married the next day and he is a Doctor going to a conference. They hire a charter flight and the pilot dies of a heart attack, but safely lands the plane in the mountains. She has broken her leg and he has broken ribs, but they survive the next few weeks eating mountain lions and rabbit. She is obsessed about him falling in love with her, but he is not interested and talks about his estranged wife. In the end, after pulling her 60+ miles on a sled, we find out his pregnant wife died a while ago. The two end up falling in love.

Survival in Auschwitz: Primo Levi

This was the story of how one man, through what he felt was luck, survived Auschwitz. He happened to get sick and went into the hospital about the time of liberation, so he wasn't forced on a march which he wouldn't have survived. On top of everything we already learn about the concentration camps and the relationship between inmate and guard, we see how prisoners treated one another.

A Villains Collection: Serena Valentino

I was sort of confused on the target audience for this book, it would seem to be for children, but some of the material was possibly for adults? It seemed waaay to long and drawn out for me, though the idea was good. It was the Disney stories from the villain's point of view. Covered were snow white, beauty and the beast and Little mermaid and all the stories are connected by three ornery witches.