Candy Bunny Reader

  Another great book by Ann Liang ! Never Thought I'd End Up Here is about Leah, a former teenage model who messed up in trying to congratulate her cousin at her wedding in broken Mandarin. Her mother thinks she can sharpen her Mandarin skills by going on an immersion trip to Shanghai sponsored by the department her aunt works in at Stanford. Also going on this trip is a guy named Cyrus--who has been Leah's number one enemy for the last several years. He was responsible for "the Incident" at Leah previous high school.  But when Leah gets to Shanghai--it ends up becoming an unforgettable trip! New friends, new places--and she gets to learn who Cyrus really is, while also confronting her past.  I love how at first this book seemed like it was going to be a silly enemies to lovers story, but it ended up being a lot deeper than thought. This book explores so many themes ranging from connecting to your roots, finding out what you really want in life, overcoming low self-e...

  I think Rachael Lippincott is slowly becoming a new favorite author of mine! Before we start, the title of this book is quite misleading. It is not a retelling of Pride and Prejudice. It has P&P in the title because the main character Audrey gets transported back in time to the Regency era, which is when P&P also happens to take place. So even if you weren't a fan of P&P like me, you might still like this book! But why does Audrey get transported back in time to the Regency era? Well, things haven't been working out so well for her recently. She just broke up with her boyfriend Charlie and has just been waitlisted in her dream art college. Audrey has had no inspiration to do any art, and has gotten bored working at her family's convenience store every day. Although, one frequent visitor to the store is a mysterious man named Mr. Montgomery. One day, to pay for his newspaper, Mr. Montgomery gives Audrey a quarter. It's a magical quarter that transports he...

TW: Discussions of death Yes, another great book by Sharon Creech . She is a favorite author of mine now.  Chasing Redbird follows 13-year old Zinnia Taylor, or Zinny as she is nicknamed. She lives with her large family on a farm in Bybanks, Kentucky (not a real place in Kentucky, by the way). Living next door to them is her widower Uncle Nate. She was very close with her uncle, aunt, and cousin, as she would sometimes go over to their house to escape her noisy big house. But her aunt Jessie and her cousin Rose died a few years earlier, and Zinny feels guilty because she thought that she was responsible for their deaths (she was sick then her cousin Rose got infected and died, and aunt Jessie happen to die shortly after one day Zinny showed her a snake, which aunt Jessie was horribly afraid of). Even after everyone in her family told her it was never her fault.  Well, one day Zinny discovers that the small stone-paved trail behind her house that she sometimes walked with her...

  This is the 3rd book of the Amber Brown series by Paula Dazinger.  In Amber Brown Goes Fourth , Amber is finally in fourth grade! Except she isn't super excited about it because it's her first school year without her best friend, Justin, who moved away in Amber Brown is not a Crayon. Amber isn't sure if anyone else at her school wants to be her new best friend. Amber's mother has also started dating a guy at her workplace named Max, and Amber is not ready to meet him. She still wants her parents to get back together.  On the first day of fourth grade a girl Amber knew last year who was friends with her rival Hannah sits next to her. Her name is Brandi. Amber tries to befriend her at first, but a brief miscommunication happens, and Amber feels bad about it and wonders if fourth grade will be a lonely year. But her opinion on Brandi changes for the better when they start hanging out in after-school care everyday before their moms come to pick them up. Amber starts to fe...