Follow Friday

This week is an activity. Dream cast your current read.

This isn't my current read, but I just finished reading it. I loved this book. This is so fun!
The book:

Summary:

CeeCee is a twelve year old girl from Ohio who's mama is mentally ill and dies in a freak accident. CeeCee's dad sends her off to live with her great-aunt Tootie in Georgia.

 My Cast:

 Baliee Madison as Cee Cee










Lara Linney as Camille

Helen Mirren as Aunt Tootie

Feature and Follow Friday

Summer break is up on us! What would be the perfect vacation spot for you to catch up on you reading and relax?


I have no idea. I'm thinking someplace that's peaceful and quiet. 

This is not my house, but I wouldn't mind stretching out on that loveseat and reading.:)

 

Review: Being Lara by Lola Jaye

Title:  Being Lara

Author: Lola Jaye

Publisher: HarperCollins

Date Published: March 13, 2012












Lara gets the surprise of her life on her 30th birthday. She is an adoptee of two white Londoners who adopts her from an orphanage in Nigeria. All of her life she has thought of herself as an alien. As a little girl, Lara would get stared at while she was out and about with her parents. At 30, Lara starts a new chapter in her life because she finally gets to discover who she is and where she come from. The story weaved her story and her parents' story to explain why Lara is the way she is. We travel from the past to the present from Africa to London. Lara's grandmother and her best friend Sandi were the voices of reason in this book. It was a fabulous read. The main themes were self-discovery, family and forgiveness. I really enjoyed this book. This was the first book I've read by Lola Jaye and it won't be the last.

Review: Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe by Shelley Coriel

Summary from Goodreads:

Big-hearted Chloe Camden is the queen of her universe until her best friend shreds her reputation and her school counselor axes her junior independent study project. Chloe is forced to take on a meaningful project in order to pass, and so she joins her school’s struggling radio station, where the other students don’t find her too queenly. Ostracized by her former BFs and struggling with her beloved Grams’s mental deterioration, lonely Chloe ends up hosting a call-in show that gets the station much-needed publicity and, in the end, trouble. She also befriends radio techie and loner Duncan Moore, a quiet soul with a romantic heart. On and off the air, Chloe faces her loneliness and helps others find the fun and joy in everyday life. Readers will fall in love with Chloe as she falls in love with the radio station and the misfits who call it home.

My Thoughts/Review:

Chloe is an optimistic, happy, sixteen year old girl and her world is turned upside down when she finds out her best friends, Merce and Brie, dumps her.. She works at the school's radio station KDRS 88.8 for her Junior Independent Study Project because her counselor thinks she can help. At first Chloe doesn't want to do it, but she comes around when she learns she has no choice. She turns lemons into lemonade by bounces back from being friendless to finding friends with the radio station group of misfits and she even finds love. I liked Chloe's attitude. She was resilient.  The book had its warm and fuzzy moments but it wasn't one-note, either. It had real issues like teen pregnancy, drug addiction and Parkinson's disease. When I was reading, I felt like I was reading a Disney movie. I can see this book on the Disney Channel with Bella Thorne  playing Chloe because she got the red hair hair. This was a fabulous read.

Review: 32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter

Title: 32 Candles

Author: Ernessa T. Carter

Published: 6/22/2010

Publisher: HarperCollins, Amistad










Summary from Goodreads:
John Hughes's "Sixteen Candles" grows up in this wry and satisfying romantic tale in which an ugly ducking becomes the swan she always dreamed of and gets the prince--but will she be able to keep him?

My thoughts/review:
Davidia Jones is an ugly duckling from in Glass, Mississippi that gets made fun of all throughout her school years by her classmates and abused by her mother until one day she decides that she can't take it anymore and literally takes off to start a new life in Los Angeles. She changes her name to Davie and finds her voice after being mute for so long and comes up swinging. This book is in three parts: the past, now, and the in between. I really liked this book. I've wanted to read this book when I first read about it in Essence magazine. It met my expectations and more. The thing I most like about this book was Davie. I was rooting for her because she was crazy. This was a fabulous read. I laughed, I shouted, "What are you doing?!" It was great.

Follow Friday

Feature and Follow Friday is a book meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read.


This Sunday in the U. S. is Mother's Day, in celebration, what are some of your favorite books with strong mother/child relationships?

My list:


 Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood and The Crowning Glory of Calla Lily Ponder by Rebecca Wells
  Aftertaste by Meredith Mileti
 The Darkest Child by Delores Phillips
 Mama Ruby by Mary Monroe
All That Glitters by Alisa Rodriguez Valdes
Becoming Latina in 10 Easy Steps by Lara Rios
Unbeweaveable by Katrina Spencer

In My Mailbox

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by Kristi of the The Story Siren.
I got these books from the library.

32 Candles by Ernessa T. Carter

Being Lara by Lola Jaye

Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe by Shelley Coriell

Review: The Cranes Dance by Meg Howrey

Title: The Cranes Dance

Author: Meg Howrey

Publisher :Knopf Doubleday, Vintage Books

Publication Date: 5/15/2012

Source: NetGalley








Summary from Goodreads:

I threw my neck out in the middle of Swan Lake last night.
So begins the tale of Kate Crane, a soloist in a celebrated New York City ballet company who is struggling to keep her place in a very demanding world. At every turn she is haunted by her close relationship with her younger sister, Gwen, a fellow company dancer whose career quickly surpassed Kate’s, but who has recently suffered a breakdown and returned home.

Alone for the first time in her life, Kate is anxious and full of guilt about the role she may have played in her sister’s collapse.  As we follow her on an insider tour of rehearsals, performances, and partners onstage and off, she confronts the tangle of love, jealousy, pride, and obsession that are beginning to fracture her own sanity. Funny, dark, intimate, and unflinchingly honest, The Cranes Dance is a book that pulls back the curtains to reveal the private lives of dancers and explores the complicated bond between sisters.

My review/thoughts:
The Cranes Dance is about the Crane sisters: Kate and Gwen. They are both ballerinas and this story gives you a glimpse into the New York ballet world. Kate is the oldest of the two sisters and narrates the story. She talks to the reader and tells us how she has been dealing with her sister's downward spiral into craziness, while showing that she herself is a little crazy as well.  After Kate feels she can no longer handle her sister, she calls their parents. The story goes from scenes of what Kate is doing in the present to when Gwen was acting weird and paranoid. The story got really interesting when you dug a little deeper into the book. It was a fabulous read. If you want to read a book about sisters dealing with mental illness and are curious about how the ballet world, then works this the book for you.