Rating: 
Summary: Richie's Picks: BLIZZARD'S WAKE
Review: "Inside the forlorn station a man in a wrinkled shirt studied Zeke from behind the counter. Zeke knew that even if Dwayne's phone were working, he wouldn't try calling him at eleven forty-five at night.
" 'What time do you close?' he asked the ticket agent.
" 'Long as the buses keep comin', I'm open,' the man in the wrinkled shirt said.
" 'Any objection to me waiting out the night in a chair over there?'
" 'What bus you waitin' on?'
" 'No bus. Had a change of plans, and my ride won't be here till morning.
" 'Well, you're welcome to a chair, but it can't be all that comfortable, seeing as how you just got off a bus. There's a hotel two blocks away--rooms half price after midnight. Real cheap and you won't get lice or nothing.'
"Zeke thought it over as the man gave directions. 'Out the door there, turn left, two blocks down, it'll be on the right.'
"A shower and a bed would feel good, Zeke decided. Why not?
"Once in the room, however, he could not sleep. He showered, put on his shorts and undershirt again, and crawled under the covers, but his body seemed restless, wired.
"At two thirty he got up, wrapped a blanket around him, and pulled his chair over to the window, looking out onto the street below--the neon sigh outside the hotel, the pool hall across the way, the occasional car, the stoplight at the corner, the little restaurant farther on, closed and locked for the night. He used to think of it as his town, but he didn't think like that anymore." "As eager as [Kate] had been to look out the [school bus] window before, she did not want to look now. Yet out of the corner of her eye, in the periphery, where trouble begins, she could make out the single cottonwood tree, then the Norton's barn..." As I tell my own children and our students, I was in the lucky fifty percent: There was a fifty-fifty chance I was destined to kill myself or someone else, back when I was a high school student, and then a college student, who often drank and drove. All those times, and I never killed anybody. In fact, I never even got pulled over or dented a fender. But there were certainly some nights when I was so blind drunk that I wouldn't have been able to remember the next morning even if I HAD been pulled over. As they say, "There but for the grace of God go I." Zeke, now 29, was not in the lucky fifty percent with me. It is March 1941, nine months before Pearl Harbor, and Zeke has just been released from prison early for good behavior, after spending three years incarcerated for a crime he cannot remember committing. He was that drunk when it happened. Kate is the still-bitter teenage daughter of the town's country doctor, whose mother was killed on the way home from choir practice when Zeke's car ran the stop sign near the Norton's barn. It took two hours to extricate her mother's body from the wreck. In Kate's mind, she would dearly love to give Zeke a couple of hours of his own medicine. And, as we can guess, Kate will somehow be given that opportunity. "Hadn't anybody else ever made a mistake? Hadn't anyone else in the jury ever run a red light? Hadn't the judge ever rolled past a stop sign? The difference, of course, was that his mistake has cost a life, and he was sure sorry about that. But the fact was that any of their mistakes could have cost a life too. They just hadn't, that's all. He wasn't one whit a better man for having been in prison than he was before. Just a little angrier, that's all. The catalyst for bringing Kate and Zeke into close range is a violent winter storm that really did take place--and took a tragic toll--in March 1941 in the Red River Valley of North Dakota and Minnesota. "To Kate, it seemed that the wind was on fiercely intimate terms with her, licking at her eyelids with an insistent tongue, probing under the edge of the red flannel scarf as though trying to uncover her neck, forcing itself up the sleeves of her heavy jacket, despite the sweater she wore beneath. Kate kept going." It takes a killer blizzard for us to see the other side of Kate Sterling. This is actually a bright, observant, and courageous girl who--for a reason we later discover--has been unable to escape from the darkness that the unexpected loss of her mother has cast over her. "Outside, in the blizzard's wake, life itself seemed frozen. No birds flew, no snow fell, no cars moved, no children played. Even the wind had lost its breath. The white earth lay stunned beneath a heavy white sky." And in that blizzard's wake, Kate has to come to terms with the fact that nothing she does or doesn't do will bring back her mother. Phyllis Reynolds Naylor has written a book that magnificently poses questions about punishment and revenge and forgiveness. There are entertaining details about country living sixty years ago. And there is just enough tension to make 10-14 year olds hold their breath, wondering what Kate is going to do next. " 'So, what do you want to do, Kate? Kill him?' Jesse asked simply.
"Kate didn't answer."
Rating:
Summary: I Just Loved It!!!
Review: After 4 years Kate still hasn`t gotten over her mother`s death. Caused by Zeke`s drunk driving, she pictures every single way in her mind to picture herself killing him.
Zeke just left prison on an early release, after killing woman while drinking and driving. He justs wants to get his life on the right track.
After a blizzard hits their city they somehow meet each other.
Fast paced and excellent, this is one of the best books I have ever read!!!!
Rating:
Summary: A Cold Hatred
Review: Blizzard's Wake
Phyllis Renold Naylor
Atheneum
2002 A Cold Hatred This was a story about a girl who has a lot of hate toward the man who killed her mother. This guy gets out of prison early for good behavior. The story takes a turn from that point on; you have no clue of what will happen next. This book was good because it kept me wanting to know more. This book kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time, wanting to know what would happen next. I enjoyed this book because it was thrilling and suspenseful. I recommend this book to any person who likes mysteries or suspenseful stories. This is a good book to read if you have had a family member die. I give this book 5 stars.
Rating:
Summary: This book was great!!!!
Review: I am a middle school student and I thought this book was great. There are sad moments and happy moments. This book is an adventure with tons of suspense. It is also exciting. This is probably one of the best books I've read.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Was Great!
Review: I loved this book! It was so interesting and it was one of those books that keep you on the edge of your seat toward the ending.
Rating: 
Summary: HORRIBLE
Review: I thought this book was one of the worst books I have ever read. I thought it was boring at the beginning and it never did get exciting for me. I got sooo tired of it and i had to put it down, so I personally don't recommend this book to anyone.
Rating: 
Summary: a challenging book
Review: It was a very complicated book. It was about a guy that goes to jail because he was in a car accident with a lady. It starts where the guy gets out of jail. It was confusing because it goes from thing to another and back again. It wasn't the best book but it was o.k. I wanted to read it because the cover looked interesting. I wouldn't recomend the book to anyone that doesn't like challenges.
Rating:
Summary: Terrible
Review: This book is absolutely awesome! I was on the edge of my seat not knowing what was going to happen next. If there is one book that I could suggest to you, this is it. It is suspenseful, sorrowfull, and filled with some action. When you put all three of these ingredients into a book, you got a winner, and that's what this is. Its about a family who's mom was killed by a drunk driver, Zeke Dexter. when he is released from prison after serving three of his five year sentence, the family finds Zeke at the hands of their mercy. They could kill him easily if they wanted to, or they can take him in and help him get started on his feet again. It is a book about forgiveness and finding out who you are in a time of grief and sorrow.
Rating:
Summary: you won't want to stop
Review: This book is absolutely awesome! I was on the edge of my seat not knowing what was going to happen next. If there is one book that I could suggest to you, this is it. It is suspenseful, sorrowfull, and filled with some action. When you put all three of these ingredients into a book, you got a winner, and that's what this is. Its about a family who's mom was killed by a drunk driver, Zeke Dexter. when he is released from prison after serving three of his five year sentence, the family finds Zeke at the hands of their mercy. They could kill him easily if they wanted to, or they can take him in and help him get started on his feet again. It is a book about forgiveness and finding out who you are in a time of grief and sorrow.
Rating:
Summary: Blinded By The Snow
Review: This book is sad,happy,and it struggles in some places for the characters and the reader. This is one of the best books I've read in my life. It is a book that is so exciting that it keeps you from putting it down because you never know what's going to happen next. I also like this book because it's not one of those books where it's bad at the beginning but good at the end or the books where they kind of dissapoint you at the end. This book is so good. I highly recommend you to read this, no matter how old you are.
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