The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Back/Inside Cover:
"This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes o fage during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invasion by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people have been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence-forces that continue to threaten them even today." --The New York Times Book Review

"A Powerful book...no frills, no nonsense, just hard, spare prose...an intimate account of family and friendship, betrayal and salvation that requires no atlas or translation to engage and enlighten us. Parts of The Kite Runner are raw and excruciating to read, yet the book in its entirety is lovingly written." --The Washington Post Book World

My Thoughts:
This was a great school book and would have been a good book to read outside of class too. This is one of the very very rare books I've come across that even though we disected it a lot I never grew tired of the story. This is a great book that never got old for me.

Reccommendations for...:
High schoolers looking for a good, modern book to read. It really opens your eyes to what is going on over in Afghanistan.

Price, genre, publisher, info:
US $14
CAN ???
Fiction
Penguin Group
http://www.riverheadbooks.com/
http://www.penguin.com/

A Yellow Raft in Blue Water by Michael Dorris

Back/Inside Cover:
Michael Dorris's contemporary classic novel is a fierce saga of three generations of Indian women, beset by hardships and torn by angry secrets, yet inextricably joined by the bonds of kinship. Starting int he present day and moving back in time, the novel is told in the voices of three women: fifteen-year-old part-black Rayona, searching for a way to find herself; her American Indian mother, Christine, consumed by tenderness and resentment toward those she loves; and the fierce and mysterious Ida, mother and grandmother, whose haunting secrets, betrayals, and dreams echo through the years, braiding together the strands of the shared past - and their future.

My Thoughts:
This is a good book for school because you can easily pick up on the themes and symbols in the book. I wouldn't read it outside of school because I found the story to be drawn out and some what pointless, but for school, it's great.

Reccommendations for:
Uh, only to teachers looking for a book that students wouldn't get confused with.

Price, genre, publisher, info:
US $14
CAN $20
Fiction
Picador Distributed by Holtzbrinck Publishers
http://www.picadorusa.com/

The Catcher In the Rye by J. D. Salinger

Back/Inside Cover:

My Thoughts:
I didn't enjoy this book very much. I found Holden to be very annoying and I couldn't follow where the story was going. Writing a paper on it was even worse. Anyway, bad book, didn't like it.

Reccommendations for...:
No one really.

Price, genre, publisher, info:
US $6.99
CAN $9.99
Teen Fiction - Boys and Young Men
Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
http://www.hachettebookgroupusa.com/

Fences by August Wilson

Back/Inside Cover:
In the powerful, stunning dramatic work that won August Wilson his first Pullitzer Prize, Troy Maxson has gone through life in a country where to be proud and black was to face pressures that could crush a man, body and soul. But the 1950s are yielding to the new spirit of liberation int he 1960s. It's a spirit that is making him a stranger, angry and afraid, in a world he never knew and to a wife and son he understands less and less.

My Thoughts: (Read for school/sophomore year)
If you dislike reading plays, this isn't for you. If you don't like reading about history, this isn't for you. If you like a quick, simple read, this isn't for you. If you like action, this IS NOT FOR YOU! If you like boring, boring, boring stores, THIS IS FOR YOU!!
I absolutely cannot stand this book! I'm sorry, but I found this book to be a difficult read because I couldn't become captivated in the story. I didn't relate to one character in the book, and I didn't like the story line, whatever it was. I didn't like this book at all.

Reccommendations for...:
I pretty much covered that above lol.

Price, genre, publisher, info:
US $12
CAN $17
Drama
A Plume Book
http://www.penguin.com/