The Running Bibliophile

Betrayal (The Secret Diaries, #2) by Janice Harrell picks up where the first book in the series leaves off.  When Casey starts drinking and blackmailing Johanna's group of friends, they start to worry about his well being and whether he will spill the beans about what happened to Laurie Jenkins. This is one of my favorite series from when I was a teenager, and I have to reread it every so often . . . it's that good and in my opinion, has stood the test of time despite none of the kids having cell phones.  Although cell phones were a thing in the early 1990's, they were still expensive to make phone calls on, so not everyone had one, and that is the reason they aren't featured in this story.   Part suspense, part horror, this is a great young adult novel for kids thirteen and up.  It even has some romance in it.  One of the characters does have sex in the book, but it doesn't go into any detail at all about it other than the characters were kissing.  It was...

You're invited to a murder . . . that is how the ad read, but in all actuality, it's an invitation to an unsupervised birthday party at the vacation home of Dusty Ellis. Meg Redding is the only one who knows the true motive behind Dusty holding the murder mystery party . . . to find out who murdered his twin sister and why. However, when one of the guests turns up dead, everyone is on edge and don't know who they can trust in The Murder Game by Janice Harrell. The Murder Game by Janice Harrell is a young adult novel that I read as a teen. I remember being completely on edge the entire book and was taken by surprise when the killer was revealed. When I decided to reread this book as an adult, I didn't remember much about it other than what I've already mentioned. What I enjoyed about reading it as an adult is that Janice Harrell did a nice job of laying out motive of several of the characters and giving clues as to who the killer was, and as an adult, I was able t...

Mark and Cara Burroughs' parents were late coming home, so they decided to throw a party after school. When their parents still hadn't come home or called that night, the siblings aren't too worried as this is typical behavior of their parents. As the days go by with no contact with their parents, Mark and Cara begin to panic and contact the police. Missing (Fear Street, #4) by R.L. Stine will have you on the edge of your seat to the end. I was excited to reread Missing (Fear Street, #4) in my quest to reread my way through my childhood, especially after The Overnight (Fear Street, #3) by R.L. Stine was such a great book. However, the fourth installment of the Fear Street book series was not one of my favorites.  The biggest issue I had with it was that the first few chapters kept repeating some of the same information over and over. An example of this was reiterating that Mark was the shy, introverted sibling, and Cara was the outgoing sibling that wasn't afraid o...

Synopsis of Temptation (The Secret Diaries, #1) : From the moment Joanna Rigsby moves to Barton City, North Carolina, she fixates on Penn Parrish and his friends. She desperately wants to date Penn and hang out with his group, so when he randomly asks her to The Bakery one day, she jumps at the chance. She slowly becomes part of their group but notices small oddities that makes her feel like she doesn't quite belong. As a high school student, I absolutely fell in love with The Secret Diaries trilogy by Janice Harrell, and I'm still in love with it as an adult. I reread this book and the rest of the trilogy every few years. In fact, I've lost count of all the times I've actually read the trilogy. Of all of the young adult books I read as a teen, this would make for a great movie in my opinion. Something I found interesting when I read it as a teen and as an adult is that when Joanna is at a party, she meets a girl who is very into celebrating the solstice and...