How It’s Done

How Its Done
By Christine Kole Maclean

How its done is about this girl, Grace is eighteen, who wants to be like every teenage girl, she wants to be able to break free from home and her parents, to become independent from her overbearing, strict father, and coy mother. She feels imprisoned in her suburban home that looks like every other house in her neighborhood and each house is laid out the same. She has a best friend, Liv, who decides to check out Corbin College.

She meets a charming college professor Michael. He is the one giving the lecture at Corbin College. He’s not much older than she is. He uses a very broad and bold vocabulary and he’s so much more mature that high school boys. Grace gets all caught up in her love for him.

What she had anticipated to be an exciting ride, quickly turned into complication, and twisted lies to her father. She doesn’t want to stay home anymore, she wants to be free, but she’s having problems with Michael. Blinded by her love for him, she’s not sure what to do. Will she choose to leave her fathers side or leave Michael?

Twilight

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Twilight is a captivating story about the complex love two people can share. Bella Swan moves to Forks, Washington to live with her father. Her first day of high school consists of her feeling hated by the most beautiful guy she has ever seen. This boy is Edward Cullen. Edward attempts to convince Bella to stay away from him for her own safety, but there is no hope. Soon they fall in an undeniably deep love. There’s only one problem… Edward’s a vampire. Twilight paints a picture of an impenetrable love only made more spectacular by the fact that at any second Bella could be killed by the one thing she feels the need to live for.

Water for Elephants

Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Take Dumbo and Dr. Dolittle and mix the two stories together and you get Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. The story peels off the page as Jacob Jakowski, now into his nineties, begins to see his young adult life through a nursing home window; where a circus is being constructed across the street. As Jacob daydreams back to his old life, he is reminded of the death of his parents and his life-changing choice to join he circus as the official veterinarian for the Benzini Brothers Most Spectacular Show on Earth.

But this story is much more than a boy’s experience of traveling with the circus; it’s a journey of his heart. As Jacob becomes more entangled with the inner workings of the circus, he quickly discovers the darkening secrets that lie beneath the Benzini Brothers. Water for Elephants fills each page with reverting emotions that are often bypassed by other writers. With a twisted love, The Great Depression, a Polish speaking elephant, all portrayed through the misty memory of a old man, Gruen leaves you lost in the 1930s waiting for the next live performance. Step right up ladies and gentleman and experience the deepest expression of passion of all . . .

Kristine B., Junior