Showing posts with label Siobhan Vivian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Siobhan Vivian. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian

Mary Zane
When she was younger, Mary grew up on Jar Island. She and a fellow classmate, Reeve, would take the ferry to the main land for school. You wouldn’t exactly call it a friendship since Reeve tortured Mary about being overweight, but they grew friendly since they had to spend so much time together.

Until Reeve did something so unforgivable and humiliating toward Mary that she finally left Jar Island. But now she’s back. Different than before and wants to make Reeve pay for what he did to her when they were younger.

Lillia Cho
Lillia always loved coming to Jar Island for the summer vacations and spending time with her summer friends that she finally convinced her parents to live their year round. She’s the popular girl, cheerleader, and her family is wealthy.

But when Lillia finds out that one of her friends, Adam, was seeing her younger sister, Nadia, in secret, along with doing something so horrifying, Lillia decided she was done with guys. That guys needed to pay for how horrible they treat girls.

Kat DeBrassio
Kat is considered “white trash” at school. She lives in the poorer part of town and everyone thinks she does drugs because of her older brother. Many don’t remember that Kat used to be best friends with Lillia and Rennie, until Rennie ditched Kat when Lillia came to live at Jar Island year round.

Many also don’t know that Kat spent a lot of her summer vacation hanging out with Alex Lindly – one of the “popular boys” who don’t associate with Kat during the school year. School isn’t exactly the best of times for Kat, so when Reeve says one too many untruthful statements, Kat decides to get revenge. Reeve will be sorry she was so mean to Kat all of these years after she’s done with her.

Read Burn for Burn by Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian to find out how each girl gets their revenge!

My Thoughts/Reflections
When I heard that Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian were writing a book together, I was so excited! I love both of their novels and knew that they were going to create an amazing book together – which they did!

This was a great novel. Each character has a reason for getting revenge and their back story, or flash backs, were a great key idea for the reader to really get to know the characters and see why they are ready to seek revenge.

I think my favorite girl out of the trio is Kat. She’s down to earth and fights for what she wants. She’s the one who initially came up with the idea to get back at the ones who tortured each girl. And I think I can relate to her out of the three of them.

The nice thing about this book is there are three girls, so the reader should have someone they can relate to. There are different situations for each girl: one fighting her weight, one living in a high class society – both at home and at school, and one trying to get through senior year so she can leave a prejudice island full of people who know everything about everyone.

This is part of a series and the authors do leave us at a little cliffhanger, so I’m excited to read the next book Fire with Fire sometime in 2013 (no date that I know of yet)!

Also, I labeled this book as a contemporary, which for the most part it is, but at the very end I think the authors are cooking up something supernatural? Maybe? I’m excited to find out more in the continuing books!

I would recommend this to every female reader. There are so many situations and events that happen that I think any girl can relate to and it is so well written that I flew through the book really fast!

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

The List by Siobhan Vivian

The List Results

Ugliest:
Danielle Demarco - Freshman
Candace Kincad - Sophomore
Sarah Singer - Junior
Jennifer Briggis - Senior

Prettiest:
Abby Warner - Freshman
Lauren Finn - Sophomore
Bridget Honeycutt - Junior
Margo Gable - Senior

It happens every year, on the first Monday of September. At Mount Washington High, the lives of 8 girls will change for the rest of the school year, giving them a label that the school will not forget.

For each girl, different things will happen to them over the next 7 days. Events will unfold because of what the list said about them, and the true colors of each girl will come out.

The whole school has an opinion of who is the "prettiest" or "ugliest" of the class, but the week before homecoming, the 8 girls will look into their own self, figuring out who they really are.

In the end, every girl will face their greatest fears and will be forced to redeem themselves not only to their classmates but to their own beliefs.

Will the girls follow their "label"? Read The List by Siobhan Vivian to find out!

My Thoughts/Reflections
I feel as if my synopsis does not capture the essence of this great novel. I didn't want to split it up with each girl because that might give it away, but it feels very bland and not too in-depth...

I really enjoyed this novel. At first, it was very difficult to keep track which girl was who (which is why, in my nerdiness, I made a list to refer back to!) but after awhile I remembered which girl was which grade and which label on the list.

Getting to know each of the 8 girls was great because the reader could see who they really were without having their label attached to their name.

It was also nice because the reader saw one girl as a swimmer, another as recently-homeschooled, one girl having issues with her looks and another who is haunted by her past. There are stories behind this horrible list that comes out each year.

And the ending for each girl is what the reader might least expect, but I feel it was the ending each girl needed based on their actions after the list came out.

While reading this, I was thankful that I never had to worry about the first Monday in September at my high school. High school is tough enough without having a list of Uglies and Pretties at school!

Siobhan Vivian is a great writer. I've read most of her books and have really enjoyed them so I would definitely recommend this book to any female reader, teen or adult. This novel hits a lot of subjects and different cliques that I think any female could relate to throughout her life.

A great novel! I really enjoyed it and it's a stand-alone (I think anyway) so no waiting for the sequel!