Eliza is a senior at St. Mary, and is involved in sports and theater. She reads a lot of nonfiction, as well as general fiction and mysteries. Come say hi!
The Next Person You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom is the sequel to The Five People You Meet in Heaven. This book follows Annie, the young girl that Eddie saved in the first book, as her life takes a tragic turn and she meets her five people in heaven. We follow her journey as she learns why her life was so important. This is a must-read book if you enjoyed The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I could not put it down!
This book follows Bryan Stevenson, a young lawyer who finds himself working in Alabama to help wrongly convicted death row prisoners. The story is greatly dependent on one case in particular. Walter McMillian, a young black man who was an upstanding member of his community, was falsely accused of murdering a white woman in the same small southern town where To Kill A Mockingbird takes place. Stevenson finds himself uncovering many lies that were set up by the local authorities in order to ensure McMillian was sentenced to death. Throughout this book, Stevenson not only describes the Walter McMillian case but he also weaves in other personal stories from his many years as a lawyer. Stevenson gives strong statements against racial and legal injustice and touches on the fact that slavery left a legacy for today’s incredibly prejudiced judicial system.
If you are looking to learn more about how the American judicial system is still flawed and inherently prejudiced, especially in the south, this is a great read.
The Arsonist, by Stephanie Oakes, follows three characters, Molly Mavity, a teenage girl whose father was convicted of murder and is awaiting his execution date and whose mother is dead. Pepper Yusef, a teenage boy who immigrated from Kuwaiti. He has epilepsy and struggles in almost all aspects of his life, especially school. He has to write an essay over the summer or he will fail. And Ava Dreyman, a seventeen year old East German resistance fighter who was murdered. Her death eventually led to the destruction of the Berlin Wall. In this book Molly receives a mysterious package that introduces her to Pepper. This unlikely duo is tasked with solving Ava’s mysterious murder from 1989 using her diary and other clues that they discover along the way. On this journey the two teenagers uncover things about their own lives and learn valuable lessons about how there is more to life than meets the eye.