Review: Want to Go Private by Sarah Darer Littman

Title:	Want to Go Private?
Author:	Sarah Darer Littman
Genre:	YA, Social Issues
Rating:	PG-13
Publisher:	Scholastic Press
Release Date:	August 1, 2011
Pages:	330
Source:	Finished Copy
My Rating:	5*

 [Goodreads | Amazon]

Abby and Luke chat online. They've never met. But they are going to. Soon.

Abby is starting high school—it should be exciting, so why doesn't she care? Everyone tells her to "make an effort," but why can't she just be herself? Abby quickly feels like she's losing a grip on her once-happy life. The only thing she cares about anymore is talking to Luke, a guy she met online, who understands. It feels dangerous and yet good to chat with Luke—he is her secret, and she's his. Then Luke asks her to meet him, and she does. But Luke isn't who he says he is. When Abby goes missing, everyone is left to put together the pieces. If they don't, they'll never see Abby again.

   

 “...I grab my laptop and log on to ChezTeen.com. Within minutes, I'm surrounded by friends, even though I've never met any of them. There, I can pretend that my first day of school was fantastic, because no one is going to know anything different. I can be anyone I want to be when I'm online and I don't even have to wear makeup.”

This book had been sitting in my TBR pile for quite some time. On a whim, I decided to pick it up for what I thought was going to be some 'light' reading. Yeah, so not a good call. While I would consider this book an 'easy' read it is definately cannot be considered a 'light' read. Want to Go Private? reads as a cautionary take depicting the alienation and grooming of a vulnerable teenager by an online predator and her journey to heal.

The story is told mainly from the prespective of th emain character Abby. There are instances where a portion of the story is told by one of the cast of supporting characters. Watching Abby go from a happy, but insecure teenage to a victim is pretty difficult. Want to Go Private? is pretty detailed and in my opinion fairly accurate in showing jus thow Abby was being groomed and not even realizing it. There was something so disturbing about watching Abby descend down this path unaware while you, the reader, is fully aware where this is headed.

Reading Want to Go Private? by Sarah Darer Littman was like watching an episode of Dateline's How to Catch a Predator, but in reverse.

Review: Generation Kill

Title: Generation Kill
Author: Evan Wright
Genre: Non-Fiction, Military, War, Contemporary
Age restriction? PG-13
Series: None
Pages: 368
Publisher: Berkley Caliber
Release Date: February 1, 2004
My Rating: 4 Stars

[Goodreads | Amazon]

Synopsis


Generation Kill follows the twenty-three Marines of First Recon, in a platoon that spearheaded the blitzkrieg on Iraq. This elite unit, nicknamed "First Suicide Battalion," took the fight directly to the enemy by racing ahead of American battle forces, literally driving into suspected ambush points from the opening days of the invasion until after the fall of Baghdad. 


Author Evan Wright was embedded for two months with this group and saw frequent action, never leaving the side of the battle-hardened team. In one thirty-day stretch they participated in violent engagement nearly every day. He was welcomed into their ranks - even offered a weapon. From this bird's-eye perspective Wright tells the unsettling story of young men trained by their country to become ruthless killers. He chronicles all the triumph and horror - physical, moral, emotional and spiritual - that these Marines endured." 


Like such works as Michael Herr's Dispatches and Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers, Wright's book is a portrait of a generation. There is Sergeant Colbert, the icy professional who somehow manages to keep this ragged fraternity together; Corporal Trombley, the shy one who develops a taste for killing; Lieutenant Fick, the Ivy League graduate who would challenge his commander but never break faith with his men; and Captain America, the swaggering, out-of-control commander who is later investigated for war crimes.


My Thoughts


Ok, so this book has become my recent obsession. You see, I have this thing for war books, specifically modern war books. Generation Kill is one of the better modern war books that I have read in a long time. It's not a cautionary tale, or even a tale about the difficulty of military life. This is just simply the story of the First Recon Battalion of the United States Marine Core and their experience in the opening days of the war in Iraq.

Told by Evan Wright, a staff reporter at Rolling Stone Magazine, the book originally started as a series of articles back in 2003 called "The Killer Elite". The articles spawned the book and more recently the critically acclaimed 8 part HBO series (here's looking at you Alexander Skarsgard and Rudy Reyes).

The book itself is actually quite funny, and more often than not, without even trying to be. I frequently found myself laughing out loud while reading it. This of course has now lead to everyone on my train route thinking I'm insane for finding anything funny in a book titled "Generation Kill". All in all, this is a great book and I would recommend it to anyone. I guarantee that after reading it, you will have a hard time not telling everyone to "stay frosty"