Skip to main content

GIRL, STOLEN by April Henry



copyright date: 2010
primarily marketed for: Grades 7 and up

The premise of this book promises a good story and April Henry delivers just that: a good story. 

Cheyenne Wilder’s stepmom has left her lying in the backseat of the car while she runs into the pharmacy to pick up medicine to help Cheyenne fight off pneumonia.  Cheyenne begged her to keep the car running so that the heat would stay on. 

When Griffin sees the Escalade running with the keys inside, he thinks he has scored big time.  He jumps in and takes off with a stolen car to impress his criminal-minded father. 

Griffin has no idea there is a girl in the back, which means he also doesn’t know she is the daughter of the owner of the Nike corporation. 

Cheyenne is in trouble.  She has pneumonia.  She has been kidnapped.  And she is blind.

This story is satisfying.  It has just the right amount of creepiness, the right amount of character development, the right amount of plot twists, and the right amount of resolution. 

I initially picked up this book because of the cover.  There was just something about the look of it that interested me.  In a blog comment, the author revealed the following about the cover:

“The cover designer added the nail polish and diamond earring in PhotoShop, and then scuffed up the nail polish, again in PhotoShop. The girl he used for the photograph is actually his neighbor.”

Those were elements I hadn’t even noticed.  How refreshing to have a book cover designed by someone who actually read the story! 

If you are interested, you can view a book trailer by clicking on the link: Girl Stolen.

Labels:

Comments

  1. Linda BJanuary 7, 2012 at 12:29 PM

    Taken from the headlines! We just had a baby taken here just the same way, but when the thief realized it, he abandoned the car & called in where it was-one good deed anyway. The book does sound interesting.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ONE FOR THE MURPHYS by Lynda Mullaly Hunt

copyright date: May 2012 primarily marketed for: intermediate readers (5 th grade and up) I sort of expected One for the Murphys by Lynda Mullaly Hunt to be one of those overly sappy books with unrealistic, sickeningly sweet characters.  However, although the storyline might make it sound sappy, the characters are realistic and dynamic.  After a traumatic incident that lands both she and her mother in the hospital, Carley Connors is taken away and placed in foster care with the Murphy family.  The only life Carley has known is one of put-downs, food scraps, and shopping for clothes in Salvation Army drop boxes.  Until she meets the Murphys.  The Murphys are too good to be true: Julia, the mom, happily makes home-cooked meals for her three boys and firefighting, sports-loving husband.  In fact, Julia isn’t even rattled by Carley’s rough around the edges attitude.  At first, Carley despises the Murphys and the way they make he...
4 comments
Read more

ALL THESE THINGS I’VE DONE by Gabrielle Zevin

copyright date: September 2011 primarily marketed for: young adults (8 th grade and up) I wish I would’ve known this was the beginning of a series before I started this book.   Then again, I might never have picked it up if I thought I might be committing to multiple books… At any rate, this is not a story I will be sad to return to this fall when the sequel is released.   Anya’s story takes place in New York City, in the future.   Around the time you will be old enough to be grandparents. This is a sort of post-apocalyptic, dystopian kind of book in a mild way.   Basically, the United States has self-destructed, and yet life seems to go surprisingly similar to the way we live nowadays.   Except that water and paper are costly and hard to come by.   Chocolate is prohibited.   Caffeine is an illegal drug.   Which is all to say that the setting alone is intriguing. Add to that setting, the fact that Anya is the oldest daughter of the ...
3 comments
Read more

THE BIG CRUNCH by Pete Hautman

copyright date: January 2011 primarily marketed for: young adult (8 th grade and up) The Big Crunch by Pete Hautman is a book of rare quality.   It is one of the very elite books that could give any John Green book a run for its money.   That is high praise.   This story of Wes and June opens, “The first time Wes saw June, he thought she was kind of funny-looking.”   Aren’t you charmed already?   The Big Crunch is a love story with universal appeal.   It is one of the few books I would call a romance for guys.   And he gets inside the head and heart of both Wes and June in equal doses.   Although I still sense that Wes is the protagonist here—it is more his story than it is June’s.   I am confident Hautman got Wes’s character right because he certainly wrote June accurately as a female teen in love.   I continuously found myself wondering how Pete Hautman could possibly know exactly what went on in my mind when I was her ag...
1 comment
Read more