Susan Richards Shreve

{My Thoughts} – Jess is the youngest of the O’fines family. She is the save-the marriage-baby. She is the most compliant. She does what she’s asked and told, she doesn’t argue and just accepts everything at face value. She is extremely close to her her sister Teddy. Teddy is non-compliant when it comes to rules and laws. She has a compulsion to steal things, no matter the consequence. She is the complete and utter opposite of teddy and that helps to bring the two sisters closer then ever, they are thick as blood and in the case of this book it is a good quality for the sisters to share with one another.

Jess is left to babysit her baby niece, while everyone else attends the rehearsal dinner for her older sisters wedding. Jess was suppose to go but then her older brother Danny messed up getting a sitter and she was asked/ told she was to be the one to babysit. She was given explicit directions not to take her eyes off the baby, but she was moping and did just that. She took her her eyes off the baby and because of that someone had managed to kidnap the baby.

When Jess and Teddy where younger before all the shoplifting had started they would play a game where they were detectives and would solve some terrible crimes that happened in their house. This was part of their sister bonding. It helped them to keep things together for awhile for the girls while they tried to work through all the bad that had been happening in their home lives, all the change that they weren’t able to fully deal with at the current time in their lives, a way to work through all the good and bad coming their ways.

It was because of this game they played when they were younger that Jess was able to piece together what had taken place when the baby went missing – she was able to make sense of what happened. She paid attention to the little details and was able to recall them enough to help her sort things out in her head.

This book is a well written mystery and was a very enjoyable read. I really hope that in time my daughter will read these kinds of books, because they help to keep the mind wondering. They help to keep you thinking and on your feet and they help you to use your imagination in the best possible ways. I believe that if any child enjoys cartoons like scooby-doo, they can get into books like these, they just need to be given a little push. Right now my daughter is mostly interested in fairytales and humor type books, but in time I hope she will expand and become more interested in other genres. It is for this reason alone I keep so many different kinds of books on hand for her to be able to read. Who knows, maybe the boys will read and like these kinds of books too, very soon!… (more)

{My Thoughts} – Jess is the youngest of the O’fines family. She is the save-the marriage-baby. She is the most compliant. She does what she’s asked and told, she doesn’t argue and just accepts everything at face value. She is extremely close to her her sister Teddy. Teddy is non-compliant when it comes to rules and laws. She has a compulsion to steal things, no matter the consequence. She is the complete and utter opposite of teddy and that helps to bring the two sisters closer then ever, they are thick as blood and in the case of this book it is a good quality for the sisters to share with one another.

Jess is left to babysit her baby niece, while everyone else attends the rehearsal dinner for her older sisters wedding. Jess was suppose to go but then her older brother Danny messed up getting a sitter and she was asked/ told she was to be the one to babysit. She was given explicit directions not to take her eyes off the baby, but she was moping and did just that. She took her her eyes off the baby and because of that someone had managed to kidnap the baby.

When Jess and Teddy where younger before all the shoplifting had started they would play a game where they were detectives and would solve some terrible crimes that happened in their house. This was part of their sister bonding. It helped them to keep things together for awhile for the girls while they tried to work through all the bad that had been happening in their home lives, all the change that they weren’t able to fully deal with at the current time in their lives, a way to work through all the good and bad coming their ways.

It was because of this game they played when they were younger that Jess was able to piece together what had taken place when the baby went missing – she was able to make sense of what happened. She paid attention to the little details and was able to recall them enough to help her sort things out in her head.

This book is a well written mystery and was a very enjoyable read. I really hope that in time my daughter will read these kinds of books, because they help to keep the mind wondering. They help to keep you thinking and on your feet and they help you to use your imagination in the best possible ways. I believe that if any child enjoys cartoons like scooby-doo, they can get into books like these, they just need to be given a little push. Right now my daughter is mostly interested in fairytales and humor type books, but in time I hope she will expand and become more interested in other genres. It is for this reason alone I keep so many different kinds of books on hand for her to be able to read. Who knows, maybe the boys will read and like these kinds of books too, very soon!… (more)

Kids have to deal with a lot of things in their lives that they have no control over. Some of these things they understand and some they only partially understand, while others may be completely beyond their grasp. In Susan Shreve's novel, Blister, tween main character Alyssa is faced with all of the above and has to muster the resilience to make it through.

The book opens with the stillborn birth of Alyssa Reed's little sister. This loss cracks open the already fragile state of her family's life together with her mother plunging into deep depression and her father moving out (and moving on with someone else). Having to start a new school on top of the loss of the baby and her parents' separation is a lot for any one fifth grader to handle. Renaming herself Blister, she decides she's going to do things her way from now on, including stealing clothes, makeup, and jewelry from her father's girlfriend in the hopes of breaking them up, trying out for the cheerleading squad, even if it is just a popularity contest, and generally taking advantage of the neglect of her parents. She's also going to create a new persona in school. Luckily Blister has her grandmother to lean on when she really needs to and to explain in an age appropriate way the things that Blister just doesn't completely understand.

There were so many issues here, grief, depression, a mental health crisis, divorce, infidelity, cliques, neglect, and more, that it felt like a sort of pile on even though Blister didn't realize the extent of the everything. She also came across as rather precocious and unrealistic for an up to now fairly sheltered ten year old. She shows her resilience and elasticity in the end but even that felt sad on top of so much other sadness along the way. I'm uncertain if I'd hand this to kids Blister's age, not because the issues are tough but because the nuances make it more mature. Tweens probably won't recognize that baby Lila Rose was supposed to save the Reed's faltering marriage nor the depth of the neglect Blister experiences from both of her parents (her mother because of her deep depression and her father because of his affair) but that doesn't make this tale of a young girl trying to find herself in the midst of such terrible tragedy and sadness any less troubling.… (more)