Review of The Crystal Prince

 

The Crystal Prince

 by Jeanette Clinger Hurley

 

Love is the only way. Escape into a world of spellbinding adventure, a world where kindness is king, a world where faith and imagination separate life from death, a world where love is the key that unlocks both mystery and magic…Escape into the world of

 The Crystal Prince.

Jeanette Clinger Hurley transports you to a land where darkness and light are in constant battle, a place where good & evil equally wage war on the heart…challenging both faith and destiny.

Come along and join the charmed prince Xabian and the beautiful Jenevieve on their enchanted and courageous journey, as they discover…The heart is mightier than the sword, that faith conquers fear and that the true magical and transformational miracle of life is simple and pure…That love is the way, love is the only way.

First of all, thanks to Media Guests for another great book to review.  This is a book that I wouldn’t have generally picked up – children’s age level.  It is a very fast, easy read at just 70 pages and some of them have illustrations. It was fun to sit down for a couple of hours and just pretend I was a kid in a fairy tale. This is a fantastic fairy tale with all of the good and bad things you find there- kings, queens, castles, princes and princesses, the evil creature, and the one who saves them all, and of course a sweet love story.

This book has a beautiful, simple message to us all. We have choices to make each day and because of those choices we have consequences – both good and bad.  We can choose to treat people with love and respect even when we don’t get that in return. If we treat people as the type of person we know they can be then they will become that person.  This story is the epitome of pure love of others more than oneself.

It reminds me of a favorite quote that I keep in my office:

I have come to the frightening conclusion

 that I am the decisive element.

It is my personal approach that creates the climate.

It is my daily mood that makes the weather.

I possess tremendous power to make life

miserable or joyous.

I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,

I can humiliate or humor, or hurt or heal.

I all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is

escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized.

If we treat people as they are, we make them worse,

If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they

are capable of becoming.

~ Johann Wolgang von Goethe

Never discount a book by its cover. Heard that one before? Remember that phrase is an analogy for more than just a book!

I give this book 4 stars. Need to just get away to a happy fairy tale for a couple of hours? Then pick up this great story with a perfect message for us all!

~Melissa

Review of Velwythe by Bonn Turkington

Velwythe

Resurrection of the Mind Vol. One

By Bonn Turkington

            His mother vanished. His father killed himself. Vaan, now 21, has no friends, no money, no family, and no hope. All his dreams have vanished. Unable to escape the horror of his own memories, his life has been in stasis.

            But with a bit of luck and a bit of effort Vaan manages to make his first real friend since childhood. Duncan, a man who has watched the growing railline destroy his entire home city, was disowned after denying his birthright.

            Vaan and Duncan become fast friends with troubled pasts. Now, with Duncan’s help and the ‘encouragement’ of a local priest, Vaan decides his life ahs remained in a quagmire too long. Only by selling his house and everything he owns will he have a chance to become a wandering scholar.

            Every year around the FreePort Solstice Festival (and his birthday) Vaan has terrible nightmares of his father’s chronic pain. But the night before the festival Vaan has a dream un like any before. He wakes up thinking he has gone blind – but it isn’t just that, he can feel something, something cold pawing at his head as though it is absorbing his very thoughts.

            After the horrible dream, leaving FreePort isn’t just about getting an education. Ellred, a local priest, tells Vaan there could be more to his non-dream than he could ever imagine. But the only way to figure any of it out is if Duncan agrees to travel with Vaan to the very place Duncan can never return. And on their way to Alpine, Vaan’s encounter with a small militia forces him to question his understanding of humanity and the very reality he thought to be true for so many years.

First of all I want to thank Media Guests for giving me the opportunity to read and review this fantastic book.  I had originally passed up on doing so but had it in the back of my mind that I thought I needed to give it a try. I was not disappointed either!

This book is not an easy read. There is so much dimension and depth to the writing that you really need to pay attention to understand what is going on during the story. This is based on a fantastical new world that you need to figure out what Vaan is trying to tell you. It is not a skimming kind of story. Don’t be frightened about that because it is well worth your time.  I loved how I could not ever guess what was going to happen next or really figure out all of the characters presented. I really want the next book so I can start to piece more of this together.

The prologue is very interesting and hooks you from the first sentence. However, don’t think that the questions it raises will be answered in this book. By the time you get done and read the epilogue you are just more intrigued with more questions.

I give this book 4 stars and will sit patiently for the next book to come out sometime next summer!!! In the meantime though you can go to www.velwythe.com and check out the interactive site the author has created to immerse you into Vaan’s world.

Review of Diary of a Teenage Girl by Melody Carlson

Diary of a Teenage Girl

Becoming Me

By Melody Carlson

January 1, 2000 10 p.m. – “I used to think that being fifteen was bad…well, let me tell you, being sixteen isn’t exactly a walk through the mall either. And so far, I think today’s been about the worst day of my entire life…”

Follow Caitlin O’Conner, a girl much like yourself, as she makes her way from New Year’s to the first day of summer – surviving a challenging home life, changing friends, school pressures, an identity crisis, and the uncertainties of “true love.”

You’ll cry with Caitlin as she experiences heartaches, and cheer for her as she encounters a new reality in her life: God. See how rejection by one group can – incredibly – sometimes lead you to discover who you really are…

I have read Melody Carlson before so when I had the opportunity to read this book I immediately said yes. This was originally published in 2000, so it is not a new book and there are several Diary of a Teenage Girl books out – Caitlin, Chloe, Kim, & Mya. They each have about four in their series. I have to say that I wasn’t sure what to expect since it is written by an adult playing a teenager. Sometimes adults can really miss the mark on the realities of teenage life even though we have already lived those years. Why authors cannot get it right is strange to me. They either go overboard or just stop shy of hitting it right on.

Well Ms. Carlson is the exception and hit it right on the mark! I have a 17 year old daughter right now so I live these realities everyday at home. Caitlin, Beanie, Jenny, Josh, or Zach could easily be one of my daughter’s friends or my daughter herself. The things they discuss as friends and with the diary is exactly what happens to every teenager. Maybe being a mom of a teenager right now is one of the reasons I really loved this book. I couldn’t help but picture my daughter and her friends as these characters. I could actually replace their names with those in the book. It really hit home with me. It made me glad I had to never live those years again myself but also more aware of the teenagers I have in my home daily.

I will give this book 4 stars. It is a great read about a young girl that struggles with life and all of the issues that come her way. She works to find herself in the midst of the pressures of family, school, and growing up.

Thank you to Glass Road Public Relations to re-introducing us to this great series.

~Melissa