Tiger's Curse

Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck is the first book of the Tiger's Curse series. It is about a young girl named Kelsey Hayes from Oregon who just graduated high school. She takes a part time 2 week job working for a circus. She gets awestruck with the tiger at the circus. After a surprise visit with an interesting stranger she end us going to India with the presumtion that she is going to help the tiger acclimate to the jungle. However after a twist of events she finds out that the tiger she grew to love was actually a prince over 300 years earlier and he and his brother were cursed into being tigers. It turns out she was chosen by the Hindi Goddess Durga to help break the curse that these princes were under. The original 4 books of the series are about the 4 different parts of the curse. They must collect 4 different gifts for the goddess and each book is a gift. In the beginning the tigers can be human, but only from 24 minutes for every 24 hours. They end up traveling to a strange underground world. In this world the original tiger named Alagan Dhiren Rajaram, aka Ren, is somehow capable of being a human the entire time. In this world they fight and defeat strange creatures, and collect the first of the 4 gifts. Once they collect the gifts and return to the real world that runs in real time, the princes are each granted 6 hours to be human. However, through the time that they have been together in this strange world and in the real world Kelsey and Ren have fallen in love. Kelsey refuses to believe that he could actually love her and at the end of the bookwhich is the end of the summer she decides that she is going to go home to Oregon for the school year and return the next summer to help break the second part of the curse.
For some reason, I got really into this book. I was able to substitute myself into Kelsey's place and I felt everything that she felt. This I'm sure is due to excellent writing on the part of Colleen Houck. When I finished this book and I lived to read the next one. The very next day I went to Barnes and Noble and got the rest of the books in the series. I loved this book!! I cried and I laughed and I yelled at Kelsey because she wasn't making the decisions I wanted her to. I was very sad to see Kelsey leave Ren. They belonged together. I don't think I have been so involved in a book for a long time. My entire being was so enveloped in the book that I lost track of time when I was reading. I was Kelsey. The brilliant author also combines actual history, with history from the Hindi culture along with the fantasy and storyline.
I recommend this book to anyone who like teen fantasy and teen romance. I loved it. It wasn't your typical fantasy or your typical romance. It's a great book and the gateway to an amazing series. I recommend that you read it, but make sure that you have the rest of the series at your disposal before you start reading it because I can guarantee that once you start, you won't want to stop until you have turned the last page of the last book.

TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY

Thirteen Reasons Why is told from two perspectives. A young boy who is a senior in high school and a young girl who killed herself before she finished her senior year. Clay Jensen is surprised to see a box of tapes addressed to him on his from porch when he gets home from school. When he starts listening to the tapes he hears the voice of Hannah Baker which is surprising because she had killed herself weeks prior. On these tapes Hannah explains why these 13 people are the 13 reasons she decided to take her own life.
The book may seem a bit dark. No one wants to talk about death, especially suicide, but this books makes you think about your own life and makes you question if you are by chance becoming a reason why is someone elses life. This book really makes you want to change your life for the better. It makes you want to help people and to try and notice how you are impacting everyone's life around you.
I would recommend this book to everyone in high school or above. This book really teaches a lesson, but I don't think it is appropriate for young, or younger, children and preteens to read. Like I said, it is a bit dark, but it truly, truly has a great lesson to be learned. Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher.

Things Not Seen

Things Not Seen is a book that I read a long time ago when I was in elementary, and again in high school, and again in college. It is a book that I have loved for a very long time. It is about a boy who suddenly unexplainably becomes invisible. He tells his parents and they search for a solution. In the midst of all this chaos he meets a girl about his age. He finds out she is blind and they become friends. He eventually tells her and her parents about his problem and they all search to discover what happened and if they can't figure out what happened, what to do about the problem they are in.
One thing I liked about the book is that as Bobby, who is the main male character in the book, lives his life in a way that is new to him and without alarming everyone around him about his condition. He faces the problem of not only being physically invisible, but he starts to feel emotionally invisible. This can relate to almost every single teenager that I have ever met and myself.
I really like this book and I think it is a great book for anyone to read at any time in their life. Especially if you are feeling like you are invisible or you just want a good quick read. The book is only 251 pages long. I have read it in a night. It truly is a great book. I recommend it for EVERYONE!! Things Not Seen by Andrew Clements.