VVMBookBlog

It’s the first day of her senior year in high school and Jessica’s world changes with the appearance of Lucius Vladescu, an exchange student from Romania.  She quickly finds out that she had been promised in a marriage pact to Lucius, son of one of the rival vampire families, by her doomed-to-death parents back in Romania when she was a baby.  Her adoptive parents, present at the time of the pact, took on responsibility for her care while never telling her about the pact or her connection to vampires…until now!

Jessica just wants to enjoy her senior year as a normal girl but soon falls under the spell of the very attractive Lucius.  She does her best to help Lucius keep his “condition” a secret but rumors start to fly when Lucius begins to show an interest in Faith Crosse, a shallow airhead cheerleader in Jessica’s opinion!  As action heats up toward a conclusion, Jessica works to convince Lucius he isn’t the evil person he’s been raised to be by his evil uncle.  But what kind of a future is Jessica heading for–college student or vampire princess?  Fun book, lots of humor!

This third book is the conclusion to the Sharon Draper trilogy beginning with The Battle of Jericho and November Blues.  While I didn’t read the first two books, I still liked this story about a group of students who have survived a lot together and now just need to get through their senior year and get on with the rest of their lives.

Much of the story is told from the perspective of Arielle who, along with her mother, must deal with an abusive stepfather, and Kofi, who must be the adult to his irresponsible parents while dealing with a growing addiction to prescription drugs given to him for an injury to his arm.  Added to seeing how they all deal with major issues in their lives is the mystery of who is committing thefts of money and electronic devices, and who keeps pulling the fire alarm in the middle of winter!  Lots of action leading up to a dramatic ending!

Here’s another book from the 2008 Maud Hart Lovelace list and what a great story!

Scott is nervous about going into high school as a freshman.  He and his friends have the usual problems with upperclassmen on those first few days of school.  But even as Scott is adjusting to high school, his world takes on a new dimension when his parents tell him that his mother is having a baby in the spring!  He’s kind of used to being the younger brother and the youngest kid, so what will this new creature do to his comfortable world?

Well, the combination of his school experiences and his still-embryonic sibling causes him to begin writing a survival manual for high school…and many other aspects of life.  In fact, his writing skills lead him to joining the school newspaper, and other school activities in his quest to get the attention of Julia, who suddenly turned beautiful over the summer!  Whatever he does in school has surprising results and usually no one is more surprised than Scott himself.

Very funny, very entertaining!  Lots of life lessons from Scott’s survival manual and journal (NOT a diary), but really funny and reader-friendly!