Mary Mary

     Mary Mary  by James Patterson is an intense book full of thrill and excitement. Someone is murdering Hollywood's greatest starts. People with the "perfect family." The killer goes by the name of Mary Smith. "ACT ONE, SCENE ONE, the Storyteller thought to himself, and couldn’t hold back a dizzying rush of anticipation. The truth was that ordinary people committed perfect crimes and perfect murders all the time. But you didn’t hear about it for the simple reason that the killers never got caught." (Page 1 Patterson.) While on vacation with his three kids, F.B.I. agent  Alex Cross gets a phone call saying he needs to help investigate these tragedies immediately. When he gets back, his youngest son is gone. Alex realizes it's up to him to save the lives of innocent people and bring this killer to justice. When he is face to face with death, will he be able to stay strong and finish what he started, or give up and leave it to someone else.
    My favorite character is Alex Cross. He is a single father of three, and at the same time he manages to be a F.B.I. agent. He is always filled with hope and never gives up. Even when it seems like nothing is going his way, he still sticks his head up and gets through the day. He has gotten through murders, his ex-wife's kidnapping, a divorce, and almost dying multiple times. He stays strong and helps the people around him.
    I recommend this book to 14 year olds and up. It's a very good book, but there is a lot of murder. It also is pretty long and the words are pretty small. It would be hard for people under 14 to read. It has a lot of detail and sadness through-out the book, and younger kids wouldn't understand some things in the book. Anyone above the age of 14 should be able to read it just fine, unless you don't like murder-type books.
 

The Dead and the Gone

    He saw the asteroid coming. It hit the moon. In that moment, He realized his whole life was about to change forever.
    In the book The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer, Alex Morales's life changes in front of his eyes. An asteroid hits the moon. The moon goes out of orbit, and everything changes.. for good. This takes place in 2003 in New York. It is the second book in the series The Last Survivors. The three main characters are Alex Morales, Julie Morales, and Briana Morales. Alex is a 17 year old kid. He loves school and is a straight A student. Julie is Alex's youngest sister. She is 12 and helps Alex with everything. Briana is the middle child. She is very weak by the middle of the book, so she can not do very many things. 
    "Alex confessed his sins, including homicidal thoughts, to Father Franco on Saturday and spent the rest of the day silently praying and fasting. He didn't eat again until mass on Sunday, and used the twelve flights of stairs he climbed by Bri's side to meditate on the twelve stations of the cross.
    By Sunday night he'd made his plan. The only thing holding him back was his pride, and nowadays pride can kill. 
    He didn't think twice about the deceptions of Monday morning. Body shopping with Kevin, neither one of them doing much talking. Going back to the apartment with the little he had gathered." 
    This passage explains so much of the book in a few short paragraphs. He is fasting because he feels bad, but also because there is a shortage of food, due to the asteroid that hit the moon. There is rarely electricity, and that is why he had to walk up 12 flights of stairs instead of taking the elevator. Body shopping is stealing from the dead. Taking their belongings that could be worth something. This explains more than half of what the book talks about. It is written very thoughtfully and careful to detail, just like the whole book.