2012 RHS 11th and 12th Grade Summer Reading List

RHS 11th & 12th Grade Summer Reading List

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2012 RHS 10th Grade Summer Reading List

RHS 10th Grade Summer Reading List

When entering your comments, be sure to include the Title of the Book you read first before typing your comments about the book.

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2012 RHS 9th Grade Summer Reading List

RHS 9th Grade Summer Reading List

When entering your comments, be sure to include the Title of the Book you read first before typing your comments about the book.

Be sure to sign your name at the end of your comments.

The Innocent

The Innocent  by Taylor Stevens

Taylor Stevens, the author, has a great series going.  The Innocent is her second novel based on her intriguing and complex female protaganist, Vanessa Michael Munroe. This is an impressive follow-up to her first (best seller), The Informationist, and she definitely has me hooked.  This is a fast paced, intricate thriller, in which Munroe is hired by her best friend to extract a young girl from a religious cult, called The Chosen, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The girl, Hannah, was kidnapped from her mother, eight years ago, supposedly by her father, who is still a member of the cult.  Hannah's mother, and Munroe's best friend, Logan, had both escaped from this cult.

This particular storyline strikes close to home for the author.  According to her brief bio, Taylor Stevens is herself a religious cult survivor.  She was raised in communes across the globe and denied an education beyond the sixth grade.  She escaped from that life style and now lives in Texas.

When Logan and the girl's mother finally determine Hannah is being held somewhere in Buenos Aires, Logan, well aware of Vanessa's special skills as an informationist, hires Munroe to rescue Hannah from the cult.  Munroe once again is teamed up with Miles Bradford, a former special forces turned private contractor, who was introduced in Stevens' first novel.  Bradford is one of the few people who really understands and knows the capabilities of Vanessa, and they make a terrific team.  As the reader, you become invested in these characters, and you genuinely care about them. 

The Innocent is beautifully written, well paced, suspenseful with smart dialogue.  Stevens has joined my list of must read authors, and I will be waiting anxiously for her third Vanessa Munroe novel.

A Night of Long Knives

A Night of Long Knives by Rebecca Cantrell

This is the second in her series of Hannah Vogel novels.  Hannah is a journalist, who in the first novel, A Trace of Smoke, kidnaps her adopted son, Anton, from SA leader Ernst Rohm, who wants to believe the boy is his

son. (As a point of reference, I have not read the first Hannah Vogel novel.) She flees Germany and vows never to return to her homeland until Hitler, Rohm and the Nazis are gone. Yet here she is on a journalism junket, with son Anton in tow, to write about a zeppelin trip from South American to Switzerland.  The zeppelin is diverted to Germany and lands in Munich, where Hannah and her son of captured by Rohm. 

The reason I picked up this book was because I thought it would recreate the time period of when Hitler came to power, and what life was like for the people of Germany.  Ever since reading the City of Shadows by Arianna Franklin, I have been looking for other novels or nonfiction stories which could transport the reader back in time.  There is a section in City of Shadows where you literally felt as if you were in Berlin just as the Nazis were infiltrating all aspects of life.  In that novel, there were times you felt you needed to look over your shoulder to make sure you were not being followed.  The atmosphere was stifling.

While there is a lot of looking over your shoulder taking place in A Night of Long Knives, you never really feel the tension or the fear, as you do in City of Shadows.  I believe the reason is Hannah feels more like an observer or visitor to Berlin, than a native.  As the reader, you feel like you are just watching Hannah, as she goes from one calamity to the next.  You never really feel vested in her character.  While Cantrell is trying to place the reader in Hannah's mind, as she constantly poses one question after another of herself.  The problem is she never seems to have any answers, so the questions become rhetorical and redundant.

Based on the Title, I also was hoping to gain greater understanding and insight into this particular event in Nazi Germany.  However, the night of long knives takes place before you realize it.  It really only serves as a plot device, allowing Hannah an opportunity to escape the clutches of Ernst Rohm.  According to this story, Rohm is arrested by Hitler himself, and eventually executed.

While the review in Booklist claims Cantrell "nails the prewar German landscape", the review in Publishers Weekly states, "Cantrell’s sequel...will disappoint those expecting a realistic portrayal of 1934 Nazi Germany."  I would agree with PW in this case.  If you are looking for an atmospheric and realistic portrayal of Nazi Germany, there are much better novels and even nonfiction stories, such as City of Shadows (See Feb. 5, 2011 post) and Eric Larson's In The Garden of Beasts (See October 2011 post) that will transport you back to Nazi Germany.

Stieg Larsson: The Real Story of the Man Who Played with Fire

Stieg Larsson: The Real Story of the Man Who Played With Fire  by Jan-Erik Pettersson

Ever since reading the Millennium Trilogy and learning about the tragic circumstances of the author's sudden death, I have felt compelled to learn more about this new Swedish author, Stieg Larsson.  And the more I have read about Larsson, the more I feel the literary world has lost a strong, passionate voice for women's rights and social justice. 

Pettersson shows how Stieg's energetic championing of social justice and women's rights characterized his life as well as his work, ultimately culminating in the Millennium Trilogy and particularly the characters of the unforgettable Lisbeth Salander and Michael Blomkvist. Larsson started his career as a journalist and eventually established his own magazine, called Expo, devoted to monitoring right-wing extremists.  In fact Larsson became an expert on extremist groups and was frequently interviewed or asked to consult with other countries, governments and political leaders.

Luckily, this book is not so much a biography, as it is a reflection and personal insight and explanation into a colleague and friend and what motivated him.  While the book starts out somewhat slow and tedious as Pettersson gets bogged down into a description and history of the area in which Larsson grew up, it picks up as he shifts his focus to Larsson himself.  His research spans Larsson's full life (1954–2005) and includes substantial detail about Larsson's early interests in left-wing politics, which motivated him to monitor and counter the rise of neo-Nazi fascism in Sweden, a course that endangered his life.  Pettersson claims this was the main reason why Stieg and Eva, his partner, never married.  He did not want to endanger himself and Eva by having information about themselves on a public register.  Pettersson provides several examples of deadly retaliation on journalists and the general public, when these extremist groups feel threatened.  Consider the current case of mass killings in Norway.

Pettersson claims Stieg had a sense that his books would be successful.  He was involved in the planning, production and negotiations in having rights to his books picked up by publishers in other countries. Stieg also was aware a film company in Sweden was interested in adapting his novels to the screen. Fans of the novels will appreciate this behind the scenes and insightful look into the Man Who Played with Fire.

The House of Silk: a Sherlock Holmes Novel

The House of Silk by Anthony Horowitz

It has been a long wait, but Sherlock Holmes has returned.  The House of Silk is the first sanctioned Sherlock Holmes story by the Arthur Conan Doyle Estate.  And they could not have chosen a better writer to tackle the style and tone of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.  Anthony Horowitz is a meticulous wordsmith, having penned a series of very successful novels, known as the Alex Rider series, but he was also the writer and creator of the BBC series, Foyle's War. 

Horowitz also is a Sherlock Holmes expert, and it definitely shows in this intricately woven tale of three interrelated mysteries.  Holmes is still in top form using his powers of observation and deductive reasoning as he alone connects the dots between three different mysteries. Horowitz gets everything right-the familiar narrative voice, brilliant deductions, a very active role for Watson, and a perplexing and disturbing series of puzzles to unravel.  As a student of 19th Century literature, Horowitz stays true to the master himself, Conan Doyle, in terms of authenticity of plot, language, and characters.

Speaking of characters, they are all here...from Dr. Watson, Inspector Lastrade, Mrs. Hudson, brother Mycroft, and Sherlock's crew known as the Baker Street Irregulars.   The story begins, as most Sherlock Holmes stories do, with a visit from a potential client to 221B Baker Street.  This client is a fine arts dealer who is seeking Holmes' help, because he is being menaced by a strange man in a flat cap - a wanted criminal who seems to have followed him all the way from America.  Holmes and Watson find themselves being drawn ever deeper into an international conspiracy connected to the teeming criminal underworld of Boston, the gaslit streets of London, opium dens and much more.  I mustn't give anymore away.  So come Watson...the Game's afoot!

I know I will be and I am sure other devoted Sherlockians will be hoping for Horowitz to convince Watson to reveal other Sherlock Holmes cases, which he was unable to publish before.