Review: Absolutely Maybe by Lisa Yee

Maybelline, called Maybe, is a reluctant resident of Kissimmee, Florida, and the daughter of former beauty queen Chessy Chestnut, who now owns the hottest charm school in town, churning out pageant winners left and right. Chessy has been married multiple times, and her current sleazy fiance is the last straw for Maybe. When Chessy takes his side over her daughter’s, Maybe convinced her friend Ted to come along when she hitches a ride with their other friend, Hollywood, to Los Angeles. Hollywood (only he prefers to be called Daniel now) will be going to film school at USC, hopefully on his way from filming Ted and Maybe every chance he gets to directing blockbusters. Tagging along seems perfect to Maybe, because the only thing she knows about her father is that he’s a Hollywood big shot, and she’s determined to find him in LA. Ted and Maybe don’t exactly know what they’re going to do to support themselves in California, though, and they’d better figure it out fast. LA will be a surprise for all of them, and absolutely transform Maybe in ways she can’t imagine. 

Absolutely Maybe is a charming novel full of quirky, endearing, complex, and completely believable characters. I particularly loved Ted, and Maybe is awesome in her own way, too. Lisa Yee manages to write a funny, lighthearted book, with some definite laugh-out-loud hilarious moments, while simultaneously managing to deal with some big issues. Maybe has to figure out her family, her friends, and most of all, herself. This is an intricately crafted portrait of the relationships between people that really rings true. Every page is enjoyable, and Lisa Yee’s first YA novel does not disappoint. It’s a very readable, sweet story that will leave you with fuzzy feelings and some new favorite characters. 

Edited to add something I only thought of later: This book is particularly awesome because it is a contemporary coming-of-age story that does not have a significant romance. There are plenty of close relationships between friends and family, but Maybe doesn’t feel like she needs to be with a guy to be happy. Unusually awesome, no?

Four out of six windows:

 

 

 

 

Review: Lord of Misrule by Rachel Caine

I have been hooked on this series since book one! Lord of Misrule is everything I expected. In this installment in the series, Bishop, introduced in the previous book, is enemy #1, but with the fight against him comes a rebellion by some of the human factions in town. Basically, everything’s a chaotic mess and Claire and her friends are desperately trying to save the day. 

The Morganville Vampires series is most definitely a series, and I haven’t been really hooked on a series like this since I was about twelve. What I mean by that is, books that are a continuation of one long story without, necessarily, any significant complete stories within them, if that makes any sense. In sequels, I look for books that feel complete on their own, even if there is a larger story being told as well. In series, I don’t, and this is a series. 

I love it, though. I love the characters. I love the mythology of Morganville. I love how it reminds me of Sunnydale and Buffy! One thing that does bother me is that some of the characters (like Claire) don’t always have realistic flaws. Some do, some don’t. It’s minor, though, and not something I notice when I’m immersed in the book; just something that occurs to me once I’ve put the book down. 

This is my favorite series-series around today, and these are some of my favorite vampire books. I can’t really differentiate this book from the rest of the series; that’s the kind of series it is. They’re all pretty good, and they rock for spending a rainy afternoon curled up on the couch.

 

Review: Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr

Fragile Eternity is, as expected,  awesome. I guessed it would be, having loved Melissa Marr‘s first two books. It’s a continuation of the same story, this time focused yet again on Ash and Seth. In this installment in the series, Seth and Aislinn are trying to figure out where they fit in the world, since the world as both of them have always known it has changed so drastically, and with each other. This is happening among lots of court intrigue and faery drama, of course, as everyone tries to either prevent or provoke a devastating war on Earth, to make a long story short (it’s a long book, but the basics of the plot can be summed up quite shortly). 

This book (as well as Melissa Marr’s others) is, in a word, addictive. It’s addictive in the same way that books like Twilight are, but better because, well, it’s also actually good. Melissa Marr’s world is seductive, shadowy, and all-encompassing; honestly, until I finished this book, I couldn’t pull my mind out of it (and even when I was done, I found my mind wandering back to Seth and Aislinn while I was ringing up thousands of ugly half price Christmas ornaments at work).  I love the characters, the suspense, and the writing isn’t exactly something to scoff at, either. Melissa Marr’s characters are her strength, though; they’re really well-created. They feel like people.

It isn’t that these specific qualities stand out, though; literary merit isn’t why I love this book (it’s not bad, that’s just…not the reason this book rocks); I can’t even put my finger on it. It’s just so addicting, and it doesn’t even feel like it’s killing my brain! I found it impossible to stop reading (except when forced), and I can’t wait for the next book (impatient much? This one isn’t even out until April!).

The one flaw? It felt like a sequel. Yes, it is a sequel, but my favorite books in series are those that don’t feel like they’re part of a series (a good example of a series-yet-not-series book is actually Melissa Marr’s Ink Exchange). This is very obviously not a stand-alone. I think if the focus had been more on Seth in particular, I would have liked it better because it would have felt more like a complete story. The way it focused on an ensemble cast of characters made it feel more like a sequel. That said, however, I still loved Fragile Eternity and enjoyed every second I spent in Melissa Marr’s wonderfully created world.

 

Review: Love Is Hell by Melissa Marr, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Gabrielle Zevin, and Laurie Faria Stolarz

Love Is Hell is a collection of five short supernatural love stories (around 50 pages each, so on the long side of short) by five wonderful authors. I’ve loved the work of all of these authors individually, so I was excited about this book!

The first story, Sleeping With The Spirit, by Laurie Faria Stolarz, is about a girl who falls in love with a ghost, and it’s  an enjoyable read, if not particularly compelling. 

The second, Stupid Perfect World, by Scott Westerfeld, is set in a futuristic world where students take a class called Scarcity, about the hard parts of history before all the technology they have now that keeps their world “perfect.” The class involves a project in which students suffer one of the ills of the ancient world (our world) for two weeks. When two students choose hormones and sleep (things eliminated by their technology), there are unexpected consequences as they realize that imperfections can be beautiful things. I really loved this story. I loved the spirit of it, and of course I love Scott Westerfeld’s writing. He is able to create a completely captivating world and story in only 55 pages. 

The third story is Justine Larbalestier’s. Thinner Than Water is about a girl in an odd sort of historical tourist village, only the people in the village actually live in old-timey ways, with varying degrees of belief and loyalty to their lifestyle and the odd ideas (like believing in fairies) that come with it. The heroine’s family is very strict in their ways, which include things like schooling only to age fifteen, keeping modern things out of the house, and marrying off their daughter at sixteen. She wants to go to school and be a doctor, which means running away to the city. Meeting a boy who’s not quite like the rest of the village (in more ways than one) will change her, though. I enjoyed this story. It was a little creepy and sad and different, and I really liked it. The setting is intriguing. The story and characters  begged me to keep reading! 

The fourth story is Gabrielle Zevin’s Fan Fictions. It’s about an ordinary girl who meets a boy and reads a book and meets a boy, and, well, it’s really difficult to say anything without giving away the story, but, my god, it is creepy. Eerie and kind of disturbing and shuddery. I wasn’t captivated by the main character, and I couldn’t get past the story’s creepiness. It also doesn’t tie together in a nice sense-making package at the end, and I feel like this is a story not entirely told, and I don’t like it. This was the low point of the book for me, which is sad because I’ve loved Gabrielle Zevin’s books. It wasn’t terrible, but it certainly wasn’t my cup of tea, either. I can’t really speak for its quality because it was so solidly not something that I enjoyed, but not because of anything that made it bad, just because it wasn’t for me. At all.

The fifth and last story, by Melissa Marr, is called Love Struck. In it, Alana is trapped by a selchie (rather than the other way around, which is how the stories she’s heard tell it). She has to untangle fact from fiction and decipher the motives and thoughts of those around her, as well as deciding what part of what she feels is magic and enchantment and what is real. Melissa Marr is amazing. In this story, she’s able to create a character and a story that I could have read entire books about. Alana, more than any of the others in this collection, really feels like a person at the end of the 44 pages (although this may have something to do with the fact that she reminds me a lot of Ash, another of Marr’s characters in her novels). And she is an awesome person at that! The story itself is interesting, too. I would have loved to read more. Melissa Marr rocks. 

Overall, this collection is definitely worth reading. Though one wasn’t really my style (you may think it’s fantastic), I loved three of the stories and liked a fourth. Three of the stories would have been mind-blowing standouts in any other company, but when you put great writers together, it’s hard to pick a favorite! This is definitely worth reading.

 

Review: Persistence of Memory by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

Sixteen-year-old Erin Misrahe is diagnosed with schizophrenia and dissociative identity disorder (multiple personalities), and has spent most of her life institutionalized. Sometimes, she blacks out, can’t remember anything, and her violent other personality (referred to in this book as her alter ego), Shevaun, takes over. Now, she’s been symptom-free for eighteen months and she’s trying to become a part of normal society, living at home and transitioning gradually to a public school. 

She thinks her life is headed for normalcy–until it gets weirder than ever. She wakes up looking through someone else’s eyes, and it’s all crazy from there. She reconnects with an old friend, finds out a secret about a new one, and discovers that there’s a lot more to the world than what meets the eye. Shevaun isn’t part of Erin; she’s centuries old vampire who exists separately from Erin, but they have a connection no one understands. 

Persistence of Memory is yet another unsatisfying peek into Amelia Atwater-Rhodes‘ world. Why unsatistfying? Only for the best reasons–when you’re reading, you can feel that there’s a whole world behind these stories. The characters are people in it, and their roles in the stories that make it to publication are not their lives. I feel like Amelia Atwater-Rhodes knows their whole lives. She knows a lot more about this complete other world than makes it into her books. It’s pretty awesome, especially to know that there are so many other stories just waiting to be written or published! It’s frustrating, too, though, to see glimpses of fascinating places and people, but not to know the whole story. But, as I said, frustrating in a totally awesome way. 

In this book, the different parts of this world come together in a way they don’t in the other books. Witches, vampires, shape-shifters–it’s all here. We see glimpses of characters from other books, as always, and I love it. Amelia’s world-building is fascinating. Her storytelling is wonderful and imaginative. Her writing is fluid. Her characters (for the most part) are real people. It’s captivating reading. 

However, as much as I love this book (and all the others by this author), I do have some issues with its accuracy, mainly Erin’s mental health diagnosis. I know these aren’t issues that people not taking AP Psychology would have, but they bothered me. Erin, as far as I can tell, doesn’t actually show the signs of schizophrenia, just dissociative identity disorder, so I’m not sure why she was diagnosed with it–especially because she’s under 18. Children can’t be diagnosed with schizophrenia; according to DSM-IV, which is a diagnostic manual of mental illnesses, sufferers must be 18, and Erin was diagnosed as a small child. 

My other problem with this book was Shevaun. I didn’t feel like we got to know Shevaun very well, or like her personality, from the glimpses we saw of it, made total sense. For example, it was mentioned that she didn’t kill unthinkingly, and she even felt guilt for some of her killing, but at other times, it seems like she was a cold-blooded, reckless killer. Shevaun didn’t make sense. Perhaps that’s just because of the limited viewpoint that the reader has, and I’m sure she makes sense to the author–but that didn’t translate 100% in the book. Amelia Atwater-Rhodes has said that she tends to overshare in her books before her editor steps in, but there needs to be a balance between oversharing and not revealing enough.

Overall, though, I really enjoyed Persistence of Memory. It was compelling and well-written and just fun to read as well. Addicting, even. Fans should not be disappointed.

 

Review: Leftovers by Laura Wiess

Leftovers chronicles the transformation of two best friends from kids to people who have done something. Something unforgivable, but, they believe, not for unforgivable reasons. We don’t know what when the book starts. All we know is that they are taking turns confessing on tape. They start with the backstory. They start with how they got to where they are, how they became people who could do what they did. 

Blair’s mother is all about image. She doesn’t care about Blair, and when they do see each other, it’s mostly in the company of other people who need to believe that their family is close. Blair’s father is having an affair. They are not the family they once were.

Ardith’s family is what it’s always been. Ardith’s house is the party house, full of drinking and sex and all sorts of things that wouldn’t go on in a place with normal parents. Ardith keeps padlocks on her door to keep out what goes on in the rest of her house. 

Blair and Ardith are best friends. They turn to each other when everyone else in their world fails them. The unfortunate circumstances and cruel people in their lives try to rip them apart, but their bond can’t be broken that easily; just changed, as they change, as does everything around them.

Leftovers is a very intense story. Horrible things happen to Blair and Ardith, and in the end, it’s simultaneously unsurprising and horrifying. Blair and Ardith are very real characters, and their story is disturbingly believable. Blair and Ardith are interesting to the reader, because, to me at least, they still managed to be sympathetic characters. They did something unforgivable, but they were also the victims in this story, in another way. As I read, I could not turn the pages fast enough (and thus have no idea what’s been going on in Chemistry for the past two days). It’s well-written, suspenseful, and kind of like watching two cars go toward each other, toward a head-on collision; you know something horrible is going to happen, but you can’t look away. The format of this novel is interesting, as Blair and Ardith alternate talking, sometimes talking in the present tense to the person they’re confessing to, and sometimes telling the story of what happened. Sometimes it’s in second person, too, which is an interesting effect with disastrous potential, but Laura Wiess pulls it off nicely. This is a powerful book that certainly lives up to the high standards set by Laura Wiess’s first novel, Such A Pretty Girl. 

 

Review: Fact of Life #31 by Denise Vega

Kat is not afraid of being herself. She’s an artist, an athlete, a receptionist at her mom Abra’s midwifery, and does yoga in the hallways at school to center herself. Kat’s not “original” in that cliche, unoriginal way; she’s just herself, and that’s a little different from most people. Sure, she might have self-esteem issues sometimes (don’t we all?), and she pays a little too much attention to the popular crowd at school, but she’s still Kat, and that’s why I love her. 

Kat’s life is imperfect, just like anyone’s. She’s crushing on popular Manny Cruz(who seemed sleazy, but…wasn’t? I didn’t feel like his character made complete sense). She has some problems with her best friend, Christy. Her relationship with her mother isn’t great; Abra pays more attention to her clients than her children. Fact of Life #31 is about all aspects of Kat’s life (friends, school, guys, family–just life), but her relationship with her mother is the big one. 

In Fact of Life #31, Denise Vega takes on a lot. A lot of characters, a lot of issues, a lot of stuff happening in Kat’s life, just like the crazy-hectic lives of most teenagers (not in content but in volume of stuff we have to deal with). And she does it really well. I absolutely loved Kat, and most of the other characters. This was a funny, honest, well-written book that I really enjoyed reading. Kat’s quirky without being a stereotype, and while she has the same issues as a lot of teenagers, she’s unique enough to make reading about it through her eyes interesting. This is a solidly good book. 

 

Review: Size 14 Is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot

In the second Heather Wells mystery, there has been another death in the dorm–excuse me, residence hall–where Heather works as assistant director. This time, a bubbly cheerleader’s head was found bubbling away in a pot on the stove in the cafeteria, with the rest of her nowhere to be found. Ew. And, of course, despite her promises not to get involved, Heather just can’t help it.

And then there’s her personal life. Her father has just gotten out of prison (which he refers to as “camp”) and he’s come to New York. Jordan, her ex-boyfriend, is causing all sorts of trouble for her. And she’s still in love with Cooper, who shows no signs of reciprocating her feelings.

Meg Cabot is amazing. One of the things I love about her books is the fact that, the vast majority of the time, the sequels are just as good as the original books! Just as smart and hilarious and completely fun to read. Size 14 Is Not Fat Either is no exception (and, no surprise, love the title sentiment, again). I love Heather, and I love these books. Sure, they’re pretty much fluffy chick-lit with some mystery thrown in, but they are that particular genre done perfectly. I can’t wait until the next book in the series is finally returned to the library so I can devour it, too! In six words: Fantastic installment in an addictive series.

 

Review: Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot

I love Meg Cabot. I really, really do. Not only do I wholeheartedly agree with the statement made in the title of this book, but I also love everything in between the covers. Heather Wells is one of my favorite Meg Cabot heroines (not that I don’t love them all), and I am so glad there are more books about her already out so there’s no agonizing wait (but, yes, I am also doing my Cybils reading! One Meg Cabot chapter, two Cybils chapters; it’s a good system).

Anyway, Heather Wells. She’s a former teen pop star who used to be stick thin and singing sickly sweet songs in malls across America and is now a size 12 (which is so not fat, no matter what anyone says) working at a college dorm–excuse me, residence hall–at New York College. Which seems to be the fake version of NYU, complete with pierced hipsters and a Washington Square Park location. Heather was recently dumped by her boy-band-member boyfriend, and moved into his brother’s house. Not actually with his brother–she has her own apartment, with its own set of locks and everything. She gets it rent-free for doing some work part-time for Cooper, who is a private investigator. Despite her former semi-star status, Heather can’t actually afford to pay rent because her mother took all her money and moved to Argentina. And as if Heather’s life isn’t crazy and complicated enough, did I mention she is totally head-over-heels in love with Cooper?

Heather’s had to deal with all sorts of things in her short stint at New York College, but nothing compares to what happens when a girl actually dies falling to the bottom of an elevator shaft. Her death is ruled accidental, and everyone seems to accept that, but Heather is certain of one thing: girls don’t elevator surf. This is murder. Even if everyone else seems to think she’s crazy, she’s determined to get to the bottom of this and make sure that no one else gets hurt.

Size 12 Is Not Fat is seriously addictive. It’s typically Meg Cabot in the most awesome ways–witty and smart and sometimes laugh-out-loud hilarious–as well as being a wonderful mystery. Meg Cabot is an amazing YA author, and even though this is an adult mystery, it will definitely appeal to her teen fans. It’s got that same awesomely funny narration, and a smart, real, relatable heroine who, despite being 28 and kind of famous, is at a transition point in her life, something that teens can definitely understand. In six words: Completely fun murder mystery with attitude.

 

Review: Jenny Green’s Killer Junior Year by Amy Belasen and Jacob Osborn

Jenny Green doesn’t seem like a killer. She’s a spoiled JAP from Long Island, and not exactly someone I’d love to be best friends with, but she seems like a pretty typical teenage girl. A completely boy-crazy teenage girl. When things aren’t totally fabulous in the boy department at home on Long Island, Jenny convinces her parents to let her switch to Molson Academy, a boarding school in Montreal where she knows for a fact there’s at least one totally hot guy (he used to go to school with her in Long Island). Plus, there’s a TCBY on campus, which is settles it entirely for Jenny. And, of course, she’s got her parents wrapped around her pinky finger, so it’s off to Montreal she goes!

At first, things seem to be going wonderfully. Although she has to move into the gross hippie art dorm, she finds another great friend who’s only there because the other housing was full, too. And the guy she came to Montreal for seems to actually be interested. But then she realizes what jerks guys can be, and, well, apparently this spoiled princess has an inner psycho killer because before you know it, she’s a murderer.

This book is…Well, the first adjective that comes to mind is “psychotic.” And bizarre. And kind of creepy. Jenny is an annoying, materialistic, boy-crazy, completely superficial teenage girl who is completely despicable, and then she’s no less despicable but certainly a better candidate for being institutionalized. I found it really strange how quickly Jenny changed. I am not sure how much it made sense in the context of the book. But, then, people always say that the serial killer next door seemed normal.

It’s not like she just goes around offing people, though. There are reasons, and she really believes they are good ones, even if, to me, there is no good reason to kill anyone. Jenny is smart, though, and she never really seemed completely crazy because she was the narrator, and, obviously, she didn’t think she was a psychopath. And sometimes, she even felt bad about being a murderer. Sometimes. It was scary, though, how she was often able to rationalize what she did. I didn’t know quite what to think of her character by the end of the book.

Jenny Green’s Killer Junior Year is certainly unique. It’s smart, darkly funny, and well-written. Jenny’s narration is spot-on, fantastically psychopathic and always superficial. I didn’t think that the secondary characters were all particularly well-developed, but Jenny was very, very interesting. I wish there had been more about the book’s setting in Montreal; Jenny thinks it’s a great city, and I’ve heard it’s wonderful, too, but I would have liked to have seen more of it, rather than Jenny just talking about how she liked it. However, that’s more of a personal preference than anything. In six words: Bizarre, psychotically awesome superficial serial-killing.

 

Review: This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous by Nina Beck

Nina Beck’s novel and I had a rocky start to our relationship. Riley, the main character, is described on the back of the book as “plus-sized.” And the main plot point is, she goes to fat camp. However, she is also a size 10-12. That is in no way fat. This upset me, but as the book went on, I came to see that it didn’t look like anyone actually thought of Riley as fat except maybe her stepmother. I don’t like where the word plus-sized was used, but Riley, her friends, her family, and the guys she hooked up with all seemed to think she was pretty attractive. So I’m pretty glad I continued past that point.

Note: this post is slightly spoiler-y, so if you’re really uptight about spoilers, don’t read any further. But I don’t think it’s spoiler-y in a bad way. It just shows that this book is made of awesome.

This Book Isn’t Fat, It’s Fabulous is about a rather shallow girl in Manhattan who is sent away to a fat camp called New Horizons in upstate New York. She leaves all sorts of unresolved issues with her friends (including her best friend, a guy who she thinks she’s in love with and kissed before she left) and family, goes away to fat camp, finds a great guy and some great friends, and some new perspective (ie she becomes less shallow). This is all pretty predictable. But you know what the curve ball is? She never loses weight, and she has remarkably few body issues for a teenage girl of any size! That is why this book is so absolutely fantastic. That is the best message ever! I love that message! But it’s not preachy, and this book isn’t really about fat. This book is about a pretty typical girl (though she spends way too much of daddy’s money) who has relatively normal issues and confused feelings about her guy best friend.

This is a happy book that totally made me smile. I loved the romance, I loved her friends at fat camp (I totally want to know more about Samantha), I was intrigued by her confused feelings about her best friend, and I liked the (admittedly predictable) way her thinking changed while she was at New Horizons. Okay, so the book itself isn’t exactly remarkably deep, but you know what, I’m on vacation and I don’t care. There’s bunches of shallower things in the world, countless terrible books out there that I’m glad I wasn’t reading instead. Nina Beck’s writing style is unremarkable, but in a good way–it doesn’t interfere with the totally fabulous story being told. I love Riley’s attitude. This book has serious attitude. It’s fabulous and empowering and fun and entertaining and an easy summer read. You probably know that I like good body image message books, and this is one of the best I’ve read. Riley’s attitude about her body is wonderful, and by the end she had really grown on me as a character. I only wish this book was longer! My biggest complaint here is that all of this remarkable character development and awesome romance happened in a very short period of time. It would have been a tad bit more realistic, I think, to stretch out the timeline a bit. In conclusion: this book is fabulous, Riley is fabulous, everything is just fabulous. Go, read it!

 

Review: The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

The Goose Girl is a charming fairy tale retelling. Princess Anidori, crown princess of Kildenree, has her own talents, but they are not talents that her mother believes will make Ani a proper ruler someday. Because of this, in a treaty with a neighboring nation, Ani is promised in marriage to a prince she has never met, and sent off on a long trek into the forest with her closest lady-in-waiting and numerous guards.

Before they reach the end of their journey, however, Ani’s lady-in-waiting proves treacherous, and she is overthrown. Her beloved horse is lost to her, and she finds herself alone in the forest as the girl she once considered a friend takes on Ani’s identity so as to marry the prince herself.

While trying to regain her rightful role in this new country, Ani becomes a servant tending to geese. She also meets many wonderful people, and, as you probably know since this is a fairy tale (and so I do not consider this a spoiler), gets her happily-ever-after.

The Goose Girl is sweet and enchanting, with characters who will steal your heart. Shannon Hale’s prose sparkles, and the world of this book, vividly imagined by its talented creator, is easy to get lost in. This novel is beautiful and magical and poetic, captivating enough that I can’t wait to read its two sequels. I thought it was a lovely book, as you can tell, but I have to say that I expected to think it was the best book ever, based on the devotion of some fans, and, well, I didn’t. I thought it was wonderful, but perhaps not as remarkable or unique as I hoped to find it, so that was a bit of a disappointment, perhaps caused by my unnaturally high expectations. Although perhaps I need to read it again, as Miss Erin, whose opinion I trust (she’s one of the reasons I read this book) counts it as a book that she fell “head-over-heels in love with upon rereading,” but “merely liked…the first time around.” I still enjoyed every minute of it, and believe that Shannon Hale is a master of the genre she writes. So, particularly if you enjoy fairy tale retellings, pick this one up–you won’t regret it.

 

Review: All About Vee by C. Leigh Purtill

Veronica is an outgoing, ambitious actress who leaves her small town theater for the big time world of Hollywood, where she’s in for a big shock. She’s gorgeous and talented, but she’s also overweight. In her hometown, she was well-known and well-loved, but in LA, looks count for everything, and Veronica’s weight is enough to keep her from getting jobs that she wants. She’s left behind great friends to follow in her late mother’s footsteps, pursue her dreams, and escape the wedding date set by her father and his long-time girlfriend, as well as her recent unemployment and the absence of any female roles in the upcoming play at her local theater.

Veronica goes to stay with an old friend in Hollywood, hoping for some support, but neither her friend Reed nor Hollywood is what Veronica optimistically expects them to be. Vee deals with some tough situations, but she’s not the sort of girl to give up easily or to let her self-esteem be permanently bashed by the starve-yourself culture of Hollywood. Veronica is a fantastic character, and I loved reading her story.

C. Leigh Purtill does an awesome job of tackling the tough issue of body image and our culture’s idea of beautiful as unhealthily thin. Veronica is an awesome girl, someone I’d really like to know! The story in All About Vee is engaging, and the book is a pleasure to read, if not particularly remarkable in its writing style or anything more literary. It’s fun, it covers important issues, and you will never be disappointed that you read it.

 

Review: How To Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier

Justine Larbalestier‘s latest novel, How to Ditch Your Fairy, takes place in a world where almost everyone has their own personal fairy. These invisible creatures help/hinder humans in various ways: there are loose change finding fairies, good hair fairies, clothes shopping fairies, all boys like you fairies, and parking fairies. Charlie, a student at New Avalon Sports High, is the not-so-happy owner of a parking fairy. Not only is it useless for someone who can’t even drive, it’s a major annoyance because of all the people wanting her to ride in their cars and get them a good parking spot.

How to Ditch Your Fairy is the story of Charlie’s quest to ditch her fairy, get the guy, keep her demerit total as low as possible, find great clothes with help from her best friend’s clothes shopping fairy, and keep her sanity throughout all of these crazy adventures! It’s a pretty fantastic, really funny book, overall pretty great, although I did have a few unanswered questions at the end. I’m hoping that means there’s a sequel in the works! I sat down and started reading this book as soon as it arrived in the mail, and I didn’t put it down until I was finished; I didn’t even notice the time passing, that’s how caught up I was in the story. It’s fun and interesting and has a main character I absolutely couldn’t get enough of! Charlie is seriously awesome, as is this book, and you should all read it as soon as possible (which is October for most of you).

 

Review: Twelve Long Months by Brian Malloy

Twelve Long Months could have had a better title. And a better cover. But the book itself was great! It’s about Molly, who has a huge crush on her lab partner, Mark Dahl. He’s not interested, though, in that way. This is understandably upsetting to Molly, but she’s still thrilled to find out that they’re both moving to the New York City area after graduation, Molly to attend Columbia, and Mark just to move, though he’s staying with relatives and painting houses to make that dream a reality.

Molly is ecstatic when Mark suggests they hang out in NYC, as they will be each other’s only links to home in Minnesota. She is, however, really far from ecstatic when she discovers what has been Mark’s long-hidden secret which he has successfully kept from everyone back home. There’s a big reason that Mark never fell for her, and it’s nothing against her personally. Mark, shockingly, is gay. Which I don’t think is a big spoiler because anyone who reads the flap copy will know. Molly’s more than a little clueless, though, and is devastated when she finds out. It doesn’t change her feelings, though, as much as she’d like them to change, and she still promises to be a friend to Mark. That relationship is more than a little complicated, though, by Molly’s inability to fall out of love with him.

I really enjoyed Brian Malloy’s first young adult novel. Molly is a realistic, relatable protagonist, struggling to adjust to a new city that’s a big change after her life in Minnesota, and life as a college student, all while mending a broken heart and trying to be a friend to the boy she thought she was destined to be with. Molly’s just trying to figure out her life and her independence. I was entertained by the whole cast of characters, though they didn’t have much depth. I wasn’t really bothered by it while reading, though, as caught up as I was by Molly’s story. Still, the secondary characters could definitely have used some work. Brian Malloy’s writing was not noticeable, which meant it flowed nicely, not painful to read or anything, but wasn’t remarkable. This review is making it sound like I thought this book was mediocre, which I guess maybe on a purely objective level it was, but it really drew me in, and I loved it. I loved the subject, I loved Molly, I loved that it was set in New York City. I’ve got to recommend this book, even though I’m not sure why!