My Sister’s Keeper is known as an emotional and loving story that revolves around the Fitzgerald Family. The main character, Kate, known as the eldest child is diagnosed with a rare form of leukaemia at the age of 2. Kate’s parents fail to find her a suitable donor until they finally decide to have another child that can donate a kidney to her. However, the child, Anna, decides not to give up a kidney for her sister and instead she files a lawsuit to be medically emancipated.

My Sister’s Keeper expands across 2 weeks and focuses on many different characters and how their relationships with each other change. I believe that it was easy for me to lose focus in this novel as it jumped from one thing to another, but the author did a good job of reminding me of Kate’s medical condition as she included many flashbacks of when she was the happiest. The author gave her a much more human side by doing this.

The novel makes the reader feel very alarmed and interested in Kate and her condition. The main two themes in this story are hope and love as Kate struggles to find both but in the end finds her way into both worlds by each character. The sensitive issue causes a few drops of tears but overall it leaves the reader wanting more.

I highly recommend this story to anyone if they are up for an emotional journey.

Ms Ferretti’s class.

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix is a novel about love, betrayal, friendship, loyalty and much more, but most of all, it’s about magic and Harry Potter’s courage to stand up for himself against his enemies.

Harry Potter is in his 5th year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and his summer holidays have been tiresome and boring, with his aunt, uncle and their son Dudley. Harry’s best friends, Ron and Hermoine, are being very secretive and not giving him the information he desires. Harry is desperate to get back to Hogwarts to try and find out what has been going on. However, Harry’s discoveries about his friends’ secrets are far more than he can handle, and on top of this, his dreams always lead to a recurring place, in a dark mysterious corridor known as the Department of Mysteries, where the true mysteries indeed begin….

J.K. Rowling has done it again, producing a novel full of secrets and suspense, leading to her characters having an electrifying adventure like never before. J.K. Rowling is ensuring that you will never be able to put this spectacular novel down until the end.

Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix deserves a solid 9 3/4 out of 10 (for platform 9 3/4 of course), because it is a truly enjoyable novel for ages seven and above as the language is easy to understand, except for an exception of one hard word here and there. This is a novel in which it is a challenge to try and put the book down and walk away, because it keeps the reader on edge and wanting more (as every novel should). It is definitely worth a read.

By Zoe McCall 10G.

The book that I read is called The Curious Incident of the dog in the night-time, by Mark Haddon. It;s about a boy called Christopher, who is 15 and finds his neighbour’s dog stabbed to death with a garden fork. He lives with his Father and his pet rat Toby and his Mother died two years ago. Christopher narrates the story himself and takes it upon himself to solve the mystery of Wellington’s death.

I really like the way in which the book is written. It reminds me of Perks of being a wallflower and Extremely loud and incredibly close in the way things are said, and I like the character of Christopher and how he is very determined to solve the mystery of Wellington’s death. The way that the book is written suggests that Christopher has Asperger’s Syndrome as everything is said in a very literal sense and he has certain things that he can’t tolerate.

The book takes an unexpected twist when Christopher finds a bundle of letters in his Father’s room that were for Christopher from his Mother, who Christopher thought was dead. He then loses trust in his Father and goes in search of his Mother, which turns out to be quite a traumatic experience as Christopher is very uncomfortable with being around strangers and he doesn’t like people touching him.

I didn’t really know what to think about the book once I’d finished. I liked the way it was written and when Christopher veered off the track and let the reader in to his view on the world, which is starkly different from normal people. But on the other hand, I would get really frustrated with him when he kept groaning and when he would only think of himself, and couldn’t see how much people were struggling around him. The book also made me realise how difficult it would be for a family to live with a child that has autism and what an incredible job they do.

Ms Ferreti’s class.

Safe Haven, by Nicholas Sparks

You can forget about The Notebook, forget about Dear John. Nicholas Sparks has out done himself once again. Safe Haven is a gripping tale of love and survival, a riveting “read all night” page turner. This story lets us into the complicated life of Katie, who is in an abusive relationship that ends up in the small town of Southport in North Carolina.

Katie is quite determined to keep her old life a secret but her sudden arrival to southport raises many questions. While trying to reform her life she ends up falling for the local General Store owner, Alex. He is a widower with two children. His daughter Kristen attaches to Katie like glue but his son Josh isn’t keen on the idea of his Mum being replaced. As well as this new found love, Katie manages to become good friends with her new neighbour  Jo. She gives Katie a helping hand with her new house and getting to know about the people in Southport.

Now that her life is stress free she receives an unexpected visitor from the last place she expected. Has her past caught up with her? She comes to realise that her love for Alex is the true Safe Haven.

Ms Ferreti’s class.

Nick Bugeja // Jul 16, 2013 at 10:02 pm (Edit)