Tween Tuesday: Gossip from the Girls' Room

Tween Tuesday is a meme hosted over at GreenBeanTeenQueen.  This meme highlights great books for tweens.

Gossip from the Girls' Room: A Blogtastic Novel 

by Rose Cooper 

New York, NY: Delacourt Press

199 pages
4 out of 5

Gossip from the Girls' Room fills readers in on all there is to learn about middle school life at Middlebrooke, where Sofia has her very own blog and discusses all the juicy gossip that comes out of the Girls' room; read along to find out just what happens when class is not in session.

In Sofia's words...

Mia St. Claire is only the most popular girl in all of Middlebrooke Middle School.  For three very obvious reasons:

1. She's very rich.

2. She has ton of money.

3. She can buy anything and everything she wants. And she does.

I'm sure people like her for other reasons too, but none of those reasons are obvious enough for me to really know. Or care about, for that matter.

If books could mate, this book would be the love child of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Popularity Papers. It is formatted as Sofia Becker's pre-blogging notebook, where she keeps track of gossip she overhearss, her thoughts on that gossip, as well as updates on other happenings in her life and around the school. It also has cute little doodles that, much like DoWK, often finish a sentence.

I like the blogging element of this story, because you get to see what Sofia considers blogging about and what she actually ends up blogging. Choosing to reveal gossip can lead to trouble so it's interesting to see the decisions she makes in terms of letting something slip or keeping it to herself. Also, a book like this would not be complete without some kind of parental embarrassment. This element adds humor, and makes me glad that I am no longer in middle school.

To sum up, this is an enjoyable story that is a perfect read-a-like to other series listed above.

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Disclosure: I borrowed this title from my local library.

In My Mailbox (20)

IMM is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren.  The idea is to share books bought, borrowed, scavenged, traded and won.  For more information click here.


Scavenged:

The Mostly True Story of Jack by Kelly Barnhill

That's all for this week.  A little light, but it sounds really interesting.  Also, it's a debut!

In My Mailbox (20)

IMM is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren.  The purpose is to share books bought, borrowed, scavenged, traded and won.  For more information click here.

Borrowed:

 

The Hidden Gallery by Maryrose Wood

The Pull of Gravity by Gae Polisner*

Bought:

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester

Scavenged:

 

Wildwood by Colin Meloy*

Charlie Joe Jackson's Guide to NOT Reading by Tommy Greenwald *

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*2011 Debuts!

In My Mailbox (18)

IMM is hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren.  The purpose is to share books bought, borrowed, scavenged, traded and won.  For more information click here.



Borrowed:

 

Marcelo in the Real World by Fransisco X. Stork

Sunrise Over Fallujah by Walter Dean Myers

Scavenged:

The Coven's Daughter by Lucy Jago*
This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel

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* Debut

In My Mailbox (17)

IMM is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi @ The Story Siren.  The purpose is to share books bought, borrowed, scavenged, traded and won.  For more information click here.

Borrowed:

 

Gossip from the Girls' Room: A Blogtastic! Novel by Rose Cooper*

Dust City by Robert Paul Weston (ebook)

Bought:

The Magic of Finkleton by K. C. Hilton*

Scavenged:

 

The Great Hamster Massacre by Katie Davies^

Free ebook:

Songs for a Teenage Nomad by Kim Culbertson

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*Debut novel

^US Debut - Published in the UK Jan 2010

This looked fun, so I nabbed it off the ARC shelf.

Just a note: it is way too easy to buy books on my Nook.

Tween Tuesday: The Rendering

The Rendering by Joel Naftali 

Egmont, USA, 2011

288 pages

4 out of 5

One mad scientist + one evil mercenary vs. two kids + three skunks = nonstop adventure

Doug Soloman was a normal kid.  But that ended once he became wanted for murder.  Now he's being hunted by VIRUS--an evil organization bent on world domination.

Only Doug and his friend Jamie stand between mad scientist Dr. Roach and VIRUS's success--well, them and three superpowerful skunks.

The Rending is a wild technological adventure that pushes the limits of reality with out-of-this-world gadgets and fun.

It was after I finished reading the book that I realized that is a skunk on the cover.  Brilliant.  Who in their right mind would think "I need an animal to turn into a superpowerful being.  A skunk! Perfect."  Apparently, Joel Nafatali would and it's awesome.

This science fiction novel is heavy on the tech speak, but it's not exclusionary if you don't know your way around.  The tech savvy characters discuss it in tech talk, then break down for the lay person, otherwise known as the main character.   And it's all done in a way that is not condescending to the character or the reader.

Doug's story is told in the form of a blog.  Since is a techie novel and the reader meets Doug after everything has already happened, this medium makes sense.  Some "posts" end abruptly for  various reasons, which I had a little bit of a hard time with because blogs are not in real time.  But this can be easily overlooked.

I love that these characters have real names: Doug and Jamie.*

This book is great.  It's got adventure.  It's got a loving (if not odd) family: Doug and Jamie are like brother and sister (no romance here!), there's Auntie M, and the Skunks (two male and one female) who are like surrogate parents to Doug.

The story is fresh and entertaining.  Wonderful debut.

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Tween Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen.  The purpose is "to highlight great reads for tweens!" 
 
Disclosure: I purchased this title for review and my own enjoyment.


*This may sound strange, but I have a pet peeve about characters (and children) given an odd name for the sake of having an odd name.  This is in no way relevant, but it was in my notes.