#14-15

#14 Gone by Michael Grant (Gone series Book 1)

Finally, I've read this book! I see it all over my library at school and have wanted to read it for some time. In the story, everyone over the age of 15 disappears, leaving all the children in the town to fend for themselves and learn to survive. Not only do the kids have to deal with this craziness, but some of them begin showing signs of strange unexplainable powers and a mysterious barrier is found around the town too. A great read and I've got my name down to get the second in the series next.

#15 The Rapture of Caanan by Sheri Reynolds

This book was incredibly powerful. This is the kind of book you hope your friends read so that you can talk to them about it. A young girl named Ninah narrates the story and we follow her through her life living with followers of the Church of Fire and Brimstone and God's Almighty Baptizing Wind. Her grandpa is the leader of this church (think Pentecostal, but scarier and with ugly consequences) and whatever he says is taken as Gospel. Ninah and her family try hard to follow all the rules and stay true to God, but Ninah begins to question the religion and her own sense of right and wrong. She tries to keep herself from sinning, but she and her prayer partner James find themselves getting too close and she becomes pregnant. What happens to her community of believers and herself is compelling, intense and difficult to read all at the same time.