Nobody’s Perfect
Katie

            I read an excellent book called No Body’s Perfect Chicken Soup for the Teenage Soul. I loved this book because it has poems and true stories about kids my age going through the same problems every teenage girl goes through. I also love how at the end of this book there are questions about each of the chapters. Some are personal questions that the reader answers to get things off their shoulder, but don’t feel comfortable talking about.  It’s easier to write it.

      I also read another book in the series: More Stories Life, Love, and Learning, but  Nobody’s Perfect is my favorite.  I think the Chicken Soup series is good for girls not yet teenagers but around my age, twelve.  This book talks about what we should be ready for when we do become teenagers, like peer pressure, boyfriends and girlfriends, school, friends, money, sports, and many more.

            One of my favorite parts of this book that really changed me was the part about being yourself and not what everybody wants you to be. I loved how at the end of the chapter they had poems. One of my favorites was the poem called Take a Look. I love it so much because it reminds me of a problem in my life. The poem is about how a girl is only who her friends want her to be and not what she wants to be. This has happened to me before. I have gotten over it, but for the people that haven’t I think to read this book would be very good for them. If I had known about this book earlier, than I think that I would have achieved my problem sooner and quicker.

Notes From a Liar and Her Dog is a story about a girl named Antonia (Ant) and the troubles she goes through every day. Her dad keeps quitting his job so the family has to move a lot. Ant’s sister Elizabeth is the opposite of Ant. Her younger sister Kate is just like Elizabeth and keeps a notebook filled with all the things Antonia does wrong. And her mother just doesn’t understand how important Antonia’s dog is to her. When Ant’s dad is going to move the family again, Antonia and her family have to get along in order to stop the family from leaving Sara’s Road.

I would recommend this book for girls. I liked the plot and it’s characters.

Nothing Feels Good                                          St. Martins Griffin
Andy Greenwald 2003, 310 pg
Reviewed by W.R. - 2004-2005

Nothing Feels Good written by Andy Greenwald is a great book that displays the essence of what it’s like in your adolescent years. Its main theme is the uprising music genre, "emo", which stands for emotional music. Emo is a much more emotional form of punk rock music and is much more confessional and softer, than +punk rock. There is no real definition for emo, but in this book you will find out something very, very close to it. Also in this book you will find the history of emo, from the 80’s to present day. Andy Greenwald tours with bands like Saves The Day, Weezer, Dashboard Confessional, and Jimmy Eat World, to name a few. Andy Greenwald talks to influential people in the emo and punk-rock industry, like Blake Schwartzenbach of the band Jawbreaker, Richard and Stefanie Reines, the brother and sister founders of Drive-Thru Records, Geoff Rickly of Thursday, and more. He gets their view on the growing emo scene. Andy Greenwald interviews kids about how music has helped them, and changed them. Also shows how the internet plays such an important role in teenage life, and how Live Journals are so helpful to kids who need to express themselves. Greenwald travels to Long Island, New York to talk to Ben Holtzman, and Joe Carrol about the DIY (Do It Yourself) punk rock scene.

I would give this book 4 out of 5 stars. I would give it a 4 out of 5 stars because there were some sections that just repeated themselves, and some sections just talked about the same thing too long. This book is good because it is a very well decrypted book about what it is like in your teenage years, with all the movies, the relationships, and music. It had good adjectives and was really well descriptive of what emo is, and who emo kids are. I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the up-rising, underground music industry.