2018-2019 Waltham Hawks Honors Freshman Book Reviews

The Pursuit of a Dream Thara Belony On The Come Up Angie Thomas How far have you gone to make your dreams a reality? Is it something that you hope to pursue, or is it a matter of survival? Brianna (Bri) Jackson is a girl who is just trying to make it. Her only dream is to become a rapper. As the daughter of a legendary underground rapper who died just before his career took off, she has big shoes to fill. She lives with her mother (Jay) and her older brother Lawrence--mostly referred to as Trey--in Garden Heights. Life for Bri and her family begins to spirit downwards when her mom suddenly loses her job. In a matter of weeks, the fridge is almost empty, and the threat of being evicted is becoming ever more real. All of this anger and frustration in Bri comes out by way of a song that ends up going viral for the wrong reasons. People from her father's past also begin to play a role in Bri’s life. Bri finds herself after having been through the terrible storm that all these ...

Catherine Perez Slasher Girls and Monster Boys By Multiple Authors Have you ever thought about the origin of some of your favorite stories? How about Alice in Wonderland except the bunny is the villain... A group of authors come together and take classic stories, movies, and even shows that have happy endings and transform them into something the reader would almost not even recognize. There is a total of fourteen short stories that are included in this book. Each story takes a previous work of art and twists it in a way you would never have imagined or thought possible. When reading these tales, I find that some are far more frightening than others, but they are all scary in their own way. I don’t like many books, but this particular book kept me interested throughout the whole time I was reading it. There are many parts within the book where I questioned what was happening; books like this are the ones I end up liking the most because they get me to think deeper about the ...

Love and Other Trainwrecks Leah Konen      Love is not the only trainwreck involved in this book. Love and Other Train Wrecks by Leah Konen is a realistic fiction book that follows the story of two teenagers, Noah and Ammy, on a train to Hudson, New York. They’re forced to sit next to each other for the entirety of the hour and a half ride. When they start talking, they realize they are complete opposites: Noah is kind-hearted and a complete hopeless romantic, whereas Ammy is cold and doesn’t seem to believe in love at all.      The main reason why Ammy doesn’t believe in love is because of her poor experience with it. Her parent’s marriage didn’t go well, and she grew accustomed to pain and betrayal being associated with love. Noah is on the opposite end of the spectrum; his reasoning for going to Hudson is to attempt to revive his relationship with his ex-girlfriend by proving that he can be “exactly who she wants...[him] to be”(Konen 62).   ...

Ashley Marquez The Fault in Our Stars By John Green      “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world … but you do have some say in who hurts you” (313).      This sad and tragic story is a love story full of emotion. 16 year-old Hazel Grace suffers from stage 4 Thyroid cancer with metastasis forming in her lungs. As a cancer fighter, she has been able to do maintain her GED, take college classes, all while she has her regular doctors appointments. As a teen, she is reluctant to go to a support group that takes place in the basement of a church. Later in the story, she realizes how beneficial going to this group was. In support group, she meets a young man: Augustus Waters, a cancer survivor. He suffered from osteosarcoma.  He is drawn to her in a way that makes Hazel uncomfortable because she has never had a relationship before. They begin to talk and hit it off, but she tries to push him away because she believes she’s “a grenade and...

Sarah Toole Empire of Storm Sarah J. Maas This the fifth book in the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J Maas. The story is told from 3rd person omniscient view, and three storylines are alternated throughout the entire book until they all meet. Aelin Galathynius, former assassin and princess, arrives at her home country Terrasen at the beginning of the book after freeing the Adarlan people from the corrupted king and giving the crown to the crown prince, her friend Dorian. She and her court arrange a meeting with powerful allies, but the meeting goes poorly and no alliances are formed. They set off for a coastal city to free it from Adarlan occupation. Meanwhile, the witches in the mountains are ordered to sack Rifthold, the capital of Adarlan, to get it for Erawan, the main bad guy in charge. Manon, the wingleader of her coven and all covens in the Morath mountains goes to the palace and ends up killing a Yellowlegs witch and saves the king, Dorian. This goes against all witch ...

Rylie Warren Marcelo in the Real World By: Francisco X. Stork      Do you ever wonder what it is like living with a disability that would make you think differently, act differently, or even have an entirely different personality? In the realistic fiction novel, Marcelo In The Real World written by Francisco X. Stork, the main character Marcelo struggles with an autism-like condition that generates him to see and think of things very differently than others around him, and no doctor can identify what it is. Marcelo has many things about him that make him special: he’s shy, quiet, private, and most importantly, he’s himself. Unlike other boys his age, Marcelo enjoys conversing about religion; others enjoy the topic of girls. Patterson is the name of the school that Marcelo attends, Patterson is made for kids with disabilities where he can secure with peers that are just like him. Unfortunately, in the summer of his junior year, his father demands that Marcelo gets a job ...