Good Reads for Black Friday Shoppers

It is 3 a.m. and you are sitting in a folding chair outside your favorite retail store, along with 400 other bargain hunters. Sounds like you could use something good to read. Here are my suggestions for Black Friday shoppers … you brave souls.

Books for the reader who wants a new camera

• Chopsticks by Jessica Anthony (2013 Popular Paperbacks nomination)
  In this photo-mosaic love story, Glory falls in love with Frank, much to the disappointment of her father, eventually leading the piano virtuoso into madness.
• Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip by Jordan Sonnenblick (2013 Amazing Audiobook nomination)
  An injury leaves Peter out of the pitching game … and leads him to a new hobby: sports photography. His new interest brings a new girlfriend, new fame, and a deeper relationship with his grandfather.
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs (2012 Readers’ Choice, 2012 Best Fiction for Young Adults)
  Jacob has never believed his grandfather’s stories about the strange children he grew up with in Whales. But when Jacob has the chance to explore the place his grandfather talked about, he can’t pass up the opportunity. And he discovers a horrifying truth behind the strange sepia photographs in his grandfathers collection.

Books for the reader who needs the newest video game

• Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2012 Alex Award winner)
  Wade Watts escapes to Oasis to avoid his real life problems, including an empty bank account. Wade’s goal in this virtual world is to find the three keys left behind by the creator, an eccentric billionaire, that rumor tells are the key to the dead man’s fortune.
• Insignia by S.J. Kincaid
  Tom, a natural at virtual reality games, is recruited by the government as a soldier in intergalactic drone wars.
• Erebos by Ursula Poznanski
  Nick is immediately draw in to the mysterious game Erebos. Unfortunately, Erebos is more than just a computer game, and it has a strict code. When Nick tries to break the code in the virtual world, it has real world consequences.

Books for the reader who wants a new laptop

• Don’t Turn Around by Michelle Gagnon
  After waking up on an operating room table, Noa teams up with teenage hacktivist Peter to try to find out who operated on her and what they inserted in her chest.
• Burning Blue by Paul Griffin
  After the most gorgeous girl in school is disfigured by acid burns in an attack on school grounds, Jay, a talented hacker, tries to find the culprit.
• The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler
  You’ve Got Mail! When Emma’s AOL CD arrives in the mail, she invites Josh, her neighbor, over to check out the new Web. But somehow the two log on the Internet 15 years into the future, viewing their own future Facebook pages.

Books for the reader who has to have the best phone

• iBoy by Kevin Brooks (2012 Quick Pick)
  Tom Harvey was a regular guy until an attack left shards of an iPhone implanted in his brain. With his new found abilities, Tom tries to strike back at the gang that injured him.
• Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski
  When fourteen-year-old Devi Banks drops her cell phone in a fountain at the mall, she worries that it is ruined. Instead the phone now has the mysterious ability to call her future self.
• Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson (2009 Best Books for Young Adults)
  Scarlett Martin hopes for a phone for her birthday. Her family doesn’t have much money — running an antique hotel in New York City doesn’t pay many bills — but when a new guest arrives, Scarlett gets more than she asked for.

Books for the reader who needs a bigger TV

• Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous by Kathryn Williams
  Sophie Nicolaides, aspiring teen chef, is convinced by one of her friends to participate in a reality TV show called Teen Test Kitchen. Is the scholarship to one of the best cullinary schools in the country worth the drama, harsh judges, and cameras?
• Me and Earl and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews
  Greg and Earl spend their time hanging out and making movies, which no one ever sees … until they meet  Rachel, a terminally ill girl who has decided to stop treatment. Greg and Earl decide to make Rachel the best movie ever.
• Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler and Maira Kalman (2012 Printz Honor, 2012 Best Fiction  for Young Adults)
  A cinephile, Min, explores the archaeological remains of her two-month relationship with and secret math geek, Ed.

– Kate McNair, currently reading Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield

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