Good read
This week’s read is Lucy Christopher’s “Stolen.” Gemma and her parents are on layover in Bangkok Airport on their way to Vietnam. She steps away from them for a few minutes to grab a cup of coffee in the airport’s cafe, when her world is turned upside down. A handsome, rugged, older, and distantly familiar guy offers to buy Gemma’s coffee, and she accepts.  They sit and chat, briefly touch, and Gemma starts to feel funny.  She realizes that she has been drugged. She awakes later in the Australian outback with Ty, her captor, and no means of escape, for Ty is convinced he has helped her escape from parents that never cared about her. He is in love with her and determined to make her feel the same way about him.  Gemma tries, on multiple occasions, to escape from the home Ty has built for them in the outback, but fails.
She uses her time to get to know Ty by figuring out his insecurities and weaknesses, by listening to stories of his past. She tries to figure out how she fits into it all and when his obsessions began. Though Gemma finds herself disgusted by Ty, she cannot help but sympathize with him and find the same beauty and freedom in the desert that he does.  In her debut novel, Christopher has woven a deep and complex tale of a girl placed in an unimaginable situation and how she copes with it.
She has created characters readers will be able to empathize with and understand.

Youth events

n The after-school reading program, Chips ‘n’ a Chapter, continues at 4:30 p.m. today in the story room in the children’s department. The group starts a new book, “Legend of the Worst Boy in the World”  by Eoin Colfer.
n Girls Read and Guys Read book clubs will meet on Thursday in the boardroom, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. and 6 ti 7:30 p.m., respectively. This month’s book for Girls Read is  “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” by Carrie Ryan.  The Guys are reading “Rot and Ruin” by Jonathon Mayberry.
n Chess Club meets  from 10 to 11:30 a.m. on the first and third Saturdays of each month in the children’s department.  Players of all ages and skill levels are welcome. Beginners will learn the fundamentals of the games, and players of intermediate and expert levels can come to learn new strategies.

Adult events
Movie nights for One Book, One Michiana is at 6 p.m. today with Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in the BBC adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work.
n Brentwood movies are from 2 to 4:30 p.m. Tuesday.
n Reader’s Circle meets 6:30 to 8 p.m. Wednesday in the boardroom. The book is “The Castle of Wolfenbach” by Eliza Pearson.