Reviews written by Ed Goldberg

I must say that Wild Things by Clay Carmichael was an unexpected reading pleasure.  It is the story of Zoe who is forced to move to Sugar Hill, North Carolina to live with an uncle she has never met, Uncle Henry, after her mother dies.  Zoe has been pretty...

DJ Schwenk from Dairy Queen and Off Season returns in the final book of the Dairy Queen trilogy.  In the book, shes confronted with the trauma of dealing with boyfriends, basketball and college.  If you recall Dairy Queen, over the summer she coached Brian Nelson,...

Liam is definitely King of the Screwups.  Even when he tries to screw something up, it backfires and it comes out right.  His father is the eminently successful and totally domineering Allan Geller.  His mother, Sarah, is a former runway model.  Liam has an eye for fashion and window...

Billed as the prequel to Kristin Cashores wonderful fantasy, Graceling, Fire is a prequel only in the most remote sense.  In an off-the-cuff manner, it introduces the concept of a graceling (a person endowed with almost superhuman ability in a specific area) and a graceling character that appears in...

What is the Real World?  For each of us, it is different.  For Hannah, it is her best friend, Joelles suicide.  How could Hannah have been blind to Joelles sadness?  For Charlie Waters, Jr. it is taking over the pawnbroker business of his father, Charlie Sr., the govnor of...

The transition from middle school to high school is difficult in the best of circumstances.  When youve got ADD, its even worse.  Will Carter doesnt have it easy.  His mind wanders and when it does focus, it focuses mostly on girls.  The summer between middle...

In Broken Soup, three freaky things happened to upset fifteen-year-old Rowans life.  The first thing was that her older brother died from a freak swimming accident in France.  As a result, her mother withdraw into herself and her father withdrew from her daily life, moving...

Mazzy is way too young to be taking care of her mother.  But thats what shes doing ever since her father left to work for ESPN.  He came home for a short visit but left again and they hardly ever talk.  But things arent going all that well.  Her...

Johanna is in love with Reeve from afar and has been since she first saw her.  But Reeve has never taken notice.  Reeve hangs with the LBD (LesBo Dykes) crowd and Johanna is more of a loner, hanging mostly with Novak who also uses Johannas apartment as a rendezvous...

Bridget Benson beat Margarita Diaz (Madge) out of a TV role when they were 8 years old.  Madge was devastated.  But she was even more devastated when Bridget didnt return her phone calls.  It was the end of a beautiful friendship. Bridgets...

We all react differently when we lose someone.  In Nothing but Ghosts by Beth Kephart, when sixteen-year-old Katies mother, Claire, dies of cancer, Katie disappears, avoiding her friends Jessica and Ellen who would no doubt ask questions, for fear that &if I talk, if I say too much about...

It is rare that I love a book for its writing, for I am a story reader.  I read books usually because the stories are good.  However, Beth Kepharts Undercover and House of Dance (which I reviewed a few months ago) are exceptions to the rule.  They are beautifully...

The lure of outer space has existed since time began.  People looked longingly up at the stars since the dawn of man.  It has spawned great scientists such as Galileo and Copernicus.  But, how do you get to outer space?  That has been the age old question. ...

My favorite and first Ron Koertge book is Shakespeare Bats Cleanup, poetry about baseball and life from a sidelined teen athlete.  This prompted me to read Stoner & Spaz, another great Koertge book, which, as the publisher states is about a sheltered cinemaphile with cerebral palsy and the tattooed,...

Heroes of the Valley by Jonathan Stroud is truly a tale of epic proportions, reminiscent of the Norse Sagas of feats of extraordinary strength and bravery.  The Valley in this book was populated centuries ago by twelve families (Houses), each one carving out its own niche.  After a time...