Jumping the Scratch, by Sarah Weeks

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Jamie Reardon has always heard that bad things come in threes. So after his cat, Mister, dies, his father leaves, and his aunt Sapphy has an accident that causes her memory to develop a skip, Jamie hopes his life will go back to being as normal as cornflakes.

But unfortunately there's one more bad thing in store for Jamie -- something he'd give anything to be able to forget -- and this one leaves him feeling like a stranger to himself.

Jamie tries in vain to find the magic trigger that will help Sapphy's memory jump the scratch, like the needle on her favorite Frank Sinatra record, but in the end it's Aunt Sapphy who, along with a curious girl named Audrey Krouch, helps Jamie unravel the mysteries of memory and jump the scratch in his own life.

Sarah Weeks's poignant characters and powerful prose come together in a story that is both heart wrenching and inspiring -- another gem from the award-winning author of So B. It.





***Trigger warning: this review contains information about sexual assault that may be upsetting to survivors***

This was a hard book to listen to because it was so real.  Because it's a kid's book, there are no gory details (thank goodness) about what happened to Jamie, but it's painfully clear.  Well, at least to an adult.  I don't have 8- to 12-year-old children, so I'm not sure how quickly they'd pick up on the molestation.

I worry about how to talk to my kids about sexual predators.  I feel sick to my stomach at the thought of someone hurting either of them, but how do you bring up such a difficult subject?  Adults tend to forget about what they knew as children; I knew about "bad touching" when I was little.  We were taught by our parents, our teachers, and our daycare providers.  But as parents?  We don't want to expose our children to such an awful part of life.  We want to protect them!  Shield them!  Make sure no harm comes to them!

This book is a great way to help explain what happens when a child is molested, why he acted the way he did, and how he'll deal with it in the future.  I am adding it to the list of books to read with my kids in a few years.

The Dead and Buried, by Kim Harrington

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A haunted house, a buried mystery, and a very angry ghost make this one unforgettable thriller.

Jade loves the house she's just moved into with her family. She doesn't even mind being the new girl at the high school: It's a fresh start, and there's that one guy with the dreamy blue eyes. . . . But then things begin happening. Strange, otherworldly things. Jade's little brother claims to see a glimmering girl in his room. Jade's jewelry gets moved around, as if by an invisible hand. Kids at school whisper behind her back like they know something she doesn't.

Soon, Jade must face an impossible fact: that her perfect house is haunted. Haunted by a ghost who's seeking not just vengeance, but the truth. The ghost of a girl who ruled Jade's school — until her untimely death last year. It's up to Jade to put the pieces together before her own life is at stake. As Jade investigates the mystery, she discovers that her new friends in town have more than a few deep, dark secrets. But is one of them a murderer?



The Dead and Buried started out as a four-star book, but I ultimately had to give it two stars.

I should know better than to read ghost stories.  I have an over-active imagination and freak myself out over the smallest things.  :: shudder ::

This is not, however, a book that will scare me and keep me up at night.  It's a quick read à la R.L. Stine or Christopher Pike: enjoyable, but without a whole lot of depth.  This book is marketed to the Young Adult crowd, but I would recommend it for the middle grades.  It has a much younger feel to it than what I usually read in YA.

There are a few things that jumped out at me when reading this book:

1. I'm tempted to take away another star for these comments alone:

I felt guilty for my snap judgement earlier about his behavior in the office.  He wasn't a jerk.  He was just . . .broken.

and

He was broken.  Maybe beyond repair.  I had to accept it and move on.

I am SO.TIRED. of the "broken" generalization.  It's over-used and seems like such a "crutch" description in the YA genre.  Don't know how to portray a character?  Call him broken and get your point across without having to do any work!  This rant isn't necessarily directed at The Dead and Buried (it's the whole genre, really), but the moment I came across this phrase, I groaned aloud.

2. Do five-year-olds play with Star Wars figurines and watch the movies?  I can't imagine letting my son watch something that violent.  Not a criticism, just something I wondered about while reading.

3. Incorrect usage of number vs. amount.  A person does not have an amount of shirts.  A person has a number of shirts.  It really bugs me when editors miss such glaring grammatical errors.

If I hadn't received this as a review copy, I would have given up.  Thankfully, it didn't take too much time to read.

I received this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Oh, Dear. Boy Child is My Mini-Me.

DH and I are readers.  We are both introverted nerds and happily spend our evenings reading.  It's a rare night when we go to bed before midnight because we're too wrapped up in our respective novels.

When I was a kid, I frequently did the whole flashlight-under-the-covers thing so I could keep reading long after my parents said goodnight.

Super sneaky.

The other night, I caught my almost-five-year-old Boy Child with his bedroom light on, sitting in the middle of his room, reading.

At 10:00pm.

Two hours past his bedtime.

I have a lot to teach him about being stealthy.