young adult

OCD Love Story by Corey Ann Haydu

Ok seriously. If I were to judge this book by its cover, I’d think it was a fun, quirky romance with some harmless stalking thrown in. It just looks fun.

However, we all know you can’t judge a book by its cover. And that’s so true in this case.

Yes, there is romance.

Yes, there is fun and quirk.

Yes, there is stalking.

But my goodness, nothing about this book is harmless.

I am absolutely fascinated by this, and I have no idea how Haydu was able to write this without going completely insane. Fortunately, I’ll be interviewing her on the blog in September so I can ask her about it.

Bea, the protagonist, struggles with a diagnosis of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and its many manifestations in her life. She also struggles to balance those compulsive behaviors with a budding romance, a best friend, her parents, school, and driving. This story is engrossing and enthralling and intense and disturbing. Bea is unreliable and loveable – you don’t always think she’s telling you the truth (if she even realizes the truth for herself) but you always want her to be ok. You want to see her get better.

OCD Love Story may not be your average light-hearted romantic comedy, but it’s rich and sweet and well worth the time you’ll invest in reading it. I definitely recommend this for high school and up. Grab a copy and enjoy!

Great Retelling of an Austen Classic

So it’s sort of impossible to be a fan of romance in stories and not appreciate Jane Austen. Even if you wouldn’t choose to sit down and spend the day reading one of her classic stories, you still have to recognize them for what they are – iconic romances that inspire story after story even today.

Claire LaZebnik’s latest, The Trouble With Flirting, is a clever take on Austen’s Mansfield Park. In it, Franny is a student working a prestigious summer theater program in a humbling role: assistant to the costume designer (who just happens to be her very serious and tediously boring aunt). To say the least, Franny’s not thinking it’ll be a really exciting summer… until the theater participants arrive. One of the students there is a guy Franny’s had a crush on for years, and she starts spending as much time as she can with him and a new group of friends. Of course, she tries to get his attention by flirting with a guy who’s showing some interest in her, and that’s where the trouble with flirting really begins.
I’m a fan of Franny in this. She’s spunky and smart and she stands her ground in most situations. And, even though she’s stuck being the costume designer’s assistant, she’s not sulking around and being miserable… she’s out there having fun, making the best of it, getting the guys. She’s someone I would have waned to hang out with in high school.
Check out The Trouble With Flirting! Hope you enjoy. :)

Jennifer Echols

Here’s a great summer reads author for you guys: Jennifer Echols! 
Echols’ books are romantic dramas with a sense of humor – she’s so good at writing a developing romantic relationship between two characters that you’ll feel like you’re there with them. The three pictured here, Forget You, Going Too Far, and Love Story, were the first books I read this summer… and I went through them all in about three days.
For content reasons, I’d recommend these to teens in their upper high school through college years. I’m pretty conservative with my recommendations, I know, but that’s just me. Overall, the stories here are engaging and I loved watching each romance spark and ignite. 
Echols has a new title, Dirty Little Secret, coming out in July. I’m looking forward to it!
Enjoy. :)

Dessen’s Latest… Not Her Best.

I’ll start by saying that I’m generally a fan of Dessen’s, and several over her titles have made their way to my Goodreads “favorites” shelf. See my previous write up for The Truth About Forever.

One thing I love about many of her books is the summery beachiness and good, clean, fun teenage romance. Many of her books take place in a fictional (though clearly Carolina) beach town called Colby. Seeing so many of the characters and stores and landmarks show up again and again is cool, but there were so many references to Colby residents from previous books that I feel like I need a Colby directory because I couldn’t remember everything.

I didn’t feel like The Moon and More was full of her best characters, either. I found Theo completely unlikable and thus super annoying, which hindered my ability to connect with Emaline when she didn’t agree. I did really enjoy the family relationships between Emaline and her mom, sisters, and Benji, but then I wanted to throw something at her over Luke (who I really did like, because who doesn’t like a shirtless beach house pool boy?). 

I mean, it was good as Dessen always is, but not my favorite of hers by a long shot.

Colleen Hoover, I’m a FAN.

Words really can’t express how much I love these books. And the fact that I don’t have a copy of the third and final related book, This Girl, right now is just killing me.

I’ll confess that I’ve loved the whole idea of performance poetry ever since Mike Meyers’ role in So I Married An Axe Murderer. I don’t know if Colleen ever imagined her beautifully written books being written about in the same blog post as the cheesy Meyers’ role, but I’m going for it.

Anyway, performance poetry is just COOL in a way that I feel like I’ll never be cool enough to perform it. And it’s powerful. To listen to and watch someone perform a poem is a really wonderfully moving experience.

So, when I read the little synopsis for Slammed and realized it involved slam poetry AND an incredibly hot, magnetic romance, I absolutely had to read it. And then I absolutely had to read Point of Retreat. And now I absolutely have to read This Girl, which just came out recently.

You totally don’t have to be an existing fan of slam poetry to read these books, but I do think you’ll gain an appreciation of its power to convey emotion and deliver a message emphatically through the poems that are artfully woven throughout the books. And it’ll probably make you want to find a slam poetry night in your city and go watch. I know I do.

But enough about the poetry – Hoover’s characters and the way they interact with each other are great. The instant connection and ensuing romance between Will and Layken is SO ADDICTING. The life situations they find themselves in, together with the other characters, make you root for them. They’re so right together, even though they go through more crap than any couple should have to endure.

I highly, highly, highly recommend these books (definitely upper high school and older). I love them. You should too.

Enjoy!

This Is What Happy Looks Like by Jennifer E. Smith

Here’s my confession: I have a HUGE crush on this book. In fact, I’ll tell you what happy looks like – my face when I’m reading Jennifer E. Smith’s sweet, funny, and cleverly written exchanges between Graham Larkin and Ellie O’Neill.
In this story, a simple mistake in typing an e-mail address leads to a correspondence between two teenagers from opposite sides of the country. The teenagers don’t know much of anything about each other, and yet it’s that anonymity through e-mail with a stranger that allows them to open up to each other about things they’d never tell anyone they actually knew. What results is a conversation of thoughts and feelings in the moment – things they can’t say out loud but can say to each other. This ranges from seemingly insignificant observations about the annoyingness of smiley faces used in e-mails (J) to the soul-searching question of what happiness looks like.
Each still holds an important secret, though.
Graham Larkin is a teen heartthrob movie star, trapped in a world of paparazzi and feeling like nobody really wants to be around him for him, but only for his looks and his fame. In his correspondence with Ellie, he gets to be himself and get to know her without the trappings of fame. He’s just a witty, smart, normal guy who’s falling for a girl he’s never met.
Ellie O’Neill is a seemingly typical small town girl, but she and her mom have changed their names to keep a scandalous past hidden. Ellie is the only child of a single mom, and life gets lonely even with her friends to keep her company. This anonymous pen pal deal is exactly what she needs – a guy she can be honest with and dream about.
Only, what if it doesn’t have to be a dream anymore? When Ellie lets her town’s name slip, Graham starts pulling strings and gets the location for his next movie shoot changed… to Ellie’s small coastal town. Sounds like every girl’s dream – what teenage girl doesn’t want the teen magazine centerfold showing up on her doorstep, ready to sweep her off her feet? For Ellie, though, Graham’s fame and constant media attention complicate and change everything.
Watching these two characters navigate the challenges they each face as they explore the possibilities the future holds is great summer fun. The characters are great to spend some time with, the writing is full of smart romance and beautiful description, and the story holds enough excitement to keep us all daydreaming about our teenaged selves opening the door to find our adolescent celebrity man-crush there, declaring his love for us. All in all, I highly recommend you check out This Is What Happy Looks Like… and soon!

Anna and the French Kiss deleted chapter? HECK YES!!!

Seriously, words cannot describe how much I loved this book… Or how much it made me want to move to Paris.

Just this week, author Stephanie Perkins released a deleted chapter from the book on her website. It’s every bit as adorable as the rest of the book. Also, check out my previous review of Anna and the French Kiss. Enjoy!

the perks of being a wallflower

After being told by many people that I needed to read Perks, I finally did. And WHY did I need to read this? Bleh.

First of all, maybe a few master authors could tackle the topics of drugs, drinking, child abuse, molestation, rape, homosexuality, and more in relation to teenagers in just 200 pages, but this author is not one of them. And why would this book be promoted by MTV? Just because it addresses “forbidden” topics? It doesn’t address them well. Not at all. I have serious issues with this book. AND WHY WAS THIS TURNED INTO A MOVIE? Bleh.

Frustration.

Catching Jordan – Miranda Kinneally

A few weeks ago, I discovered and loved Stealing Parker by Miranda Kinneally. I mean, I seriously couldn’t put it down and stayed up all night reading it.

I’m not sure why I found Stealing Parker first instead of Catching Jordan, which is actually the first in this series of connected books, but I’m kind of glad I did. I liked Catching Jordan, but I don’t know that I would have read another one of the series if I’d read it first. I know. That sounds kind of weird. I’ll try to explain. 
Jordan, the protagonist in Catching Jordan, is the quarterback of her high school football team… which means she surrounded by gorgeous football players constantly. But, they see her as a teammate and their leader, not necessarily as girlfriend material. On a certain level, I can identify with that from my own middle and high school experiences, but I struggled with really connecting to Jordan at first because she truly sounded like a football jock. Like, not just her spoken words on the football field but even in her narration of the story.
Once I got past that, though, I really enjoyed Jordan’s story and what she went through with her family, team, and romantic life. And really, it’s the kind of romance EVERY girl, jockette or not, dreams about. I also enjoyed learning more about the characters from Stealing Parker… and now I need to go back and read Stealing Parker again. :)
I’m excited for the third book connected to these Hundred Oaks books which is due to be released in March of 2013. I’d be even MORE excited if I got an ARC of it… Hahaha.You can read an excerpt of the third book here.
As with Stealing Parker, I’d recommend this for upper high school and college-aged girls. Enjoy the Hundred Oaks books! 
~Melissa

The Scent of Rain – Kristin Billerbeck

I have been reading Kristin Billerbeck’s books for years, and I always enjoy them thoroughly. Billerbeck is a Christian author, so I appreciate the clean cut content of her books, but I also appreciate that she’s able to write Christian books without having her characters be all perfect and cheesy. She captures very real characters who struggle with issues of faith and temptation and decision-making just like we ALL do. Plus, she’s a smart and witty writer, which I love. :)

In The Scent of Rain, the protagonist is Daphne Sweeten, a perfumer straight out of training in Paris who suddenly finds herself left at the altar and without her greatest asset as a perfumer – her sense of smell. Determined to get on with life and figure out what to do with herself, Daphne goes ahead and reports for her first day of work at a new company, faking her sense of smell the whole way.

Of course, she meets all new people who love and support her, deals with the heartache of being left at the altar, and even finds room in her heart to love again (because really, if she didn’t fall in love again, the book would be sucky and depressing). Daphne is a stubborn, flawed, and hard-headed protagonist that you just can’t help but love and root for.

Upper high school, college, and early career girls are probably the one’s who like this the best, though I’m not putting any age restriction on it. The content is certainly appropriate enough for middle school and relevant enough for those of us who have been out of school for longer than we’d care to admit. And if you like this one, check out Billerbeck’s other titles! Enjoy.