Reviewed by OHS student, Cyrus P.

River McIntyre is a young high school trans person who spends his life in Haley, Ohio swimming, raving about jellyfish, exploring life and love, and battling all forms of discrimination. He spends the most significant of his days at the local SeaPlanet swimming with fish and being queer. Giving the full scope of a coming of age novel this book puts the reader through the full athletic queer experience the perfect read for someone who wants to learn about marine biology and life as a queer person.

I like the “sciencey” aspects to the book and the ways that River connects those aspects to themselves. At times I felt that it was egregiously queer. Gay to a fault – making the issues seem too forced at times. Queer people and athletes may like this book. They should read it because it’s a great, full journey and keeps you invested in the lives of these people while teaching you about marine biology.

Reviewed by OHS Student, Connie C.

The book “The Quiet and the Loud” highlights the importance of addressing your mental health and your personal needs, and raises awareness to ongoing problems in our world. Set in Australia, we follow Georgia, a girl who finds peace in kayaking and art. As we watch her overcome her past struggles and her present struggles we learn what is truly important in life. The heavy emphasis of art and poetry makes this book both touching and beautiful. As well as the common reoccurrence of mental health/abuse makes this book relatable and deep.

I like how this book is extremely relatable and how you can see things that are happening in real time in the book. I also like how poetic/artistic is it and how it battles important topics of mental health, relationships, and climate change. I dislike how poorly they built the setting. I had to guess they lived in Australia but I didn’t know exactly until like halfway through the book where the header said “Sydney”… That made me really confused. And (since it dealt with tough topics) it was not the most interesting book and I found myself getting bored really easily and I really wanted the book to end.

I think people who are interested in reading books about LGBTQ+ romances and mental health/climate change topics.

True to form, Ellen Hopkins latest book pulls readers right in! Sync follows twin siblings, Storm and Lake, as they try to navigate their circumstances of being pulled apart and sent to different foster homes, repeatedly throughout their adolescent years. Although the siblings are physically forced apart their connection cannot be broken, not through time spent in juvenile detention or on the streets. Fortunately for each, they have people to love and care for no matter the circumstances.

Lake is placed with a foster family who is very conservative and expects her to follow suit; however, she has a girlfriend and wants to challenge the ideals consistently pressed upon her within the foster home. Storm is placed with a loving, caring foster father, but ends up in juvenile detention after trying to seek revenge on someone who sexually assaulted his long-time girlfriend.

In the worst of circumstances, the siblings are unable to connect – trying to keep tabs on each other through their caseworkers. Although things seem pretty hopeless for both twins, they continue to persevere.

Students who like to read about difficult topics and trauma will be pulled in by these characters and their circumstances. Ellen Hopkins knows how to tug on a reader’s heartstrings. If you have other books by this author in your collection, you will want to add this as well.