What Light by Jay Asher

The best way to describe What Light by Jay Asher is that it is suitable for one of those Hallmark or Lifetime Channel cheesy Christmas romance movies. So, the less said about it the better.

Synopsis: Sierra’s family owns a Christmas tree farm in Oregon. From Thanksgiving through Christmas they relocate to California to sell the trees. The farm and lot have been in the family for generations.

As a result of this lifestyle, Sierra has two sets of friends, one set in each state and gets emotional every time she has to leave one for the other. She’s also avoided entanglements in California, knowing she’s a short timer.

This year is the exception. She meets Caleb, a boy with a shady past. Her overly protective father, now has cause to be even more protective.

What Light is ready made for TV, cheesy plot, semi-tearjerker ending, set at holiday time. Quite the change from Asher’s overly serious, suicidal Thirteen Reasons Why. I had nothing else to read so I kept going, but luckily I’m not diabetic because the sugary sweetness of the book would have put me in a coma.

If you go for this sort of book (guilty pleasure or not), go for it. Otherwise read Sarah Dessen or Emory Lord or Morgan Matson.

The end.

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The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Yes, I know. I should have posted this a few months ago. Better late than never???

Andie Walker’s summer isn’t going as planned. Her summer program at Johns Hopkins fell through. Her Congressman father is under investigation. In the five years since her mother died, Andie’s been left in her Connecticut home in the care of sitters while the Congressman is in Washington. Now he’s home, thinking he can be the father he hasn’t been in five years. However, there is an awkwardness in the air. They have nothing to say to each other and now she’s got a curfew.

The bad news is that the only summer job Andie could get was walking dogs. The good news is that this is the first summer in several years that her ‘group of four: Andie, Palmer, Bri and Toby’, will all be home for the summer.

The bad news is that before she even started her job she got slobbered over by a runaway dog. The good news is that particular dog walker was kind of cute.

Morgan Matson, author of Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, Since You’ve Been Gone and Second Chance Summer, is a master of the summer time romance. As you know, I rank her up there with the established Sarah Dessen and newcomer Emery Lord (by the way, her new book When We Collided should be on your reading list).

When you pick up The Unexpected Everything you know there will be romance and the inevitable breakup, there will be unrest among the group of four, there will be father-child consternation. But isn’t that what you expect in a ‘beach read’, which this clearly is (and I mean no disrespect by it). I will admit that it took me about 50 pages to start getting into the book, but once I did, I didn’t want to put it down.

The cover of The Unexpected Everything utilizes the ice cream theme found on Since You’ve Been Gone. With the addition of a gaggle of dogs (is that what a bunch of dogs is called?), the cover makes the book totally inviting. Ice cream and dogs. Made for summer.

So, if you haven’t read Morgan Matson, you should start. If you have read her books, this is a welcome addition to her library.

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When We Collided by Emery Lord

When We Collided by Emery Lord begins with Vivi throwing her pill over the cliff into the ocean and carving “Vivi Was Here” in an old tree trunk. From this beginning we, the readers, are waiting for the inevitable crash in Vivi’s life because we can make an educated guess as to what that pill was supposed to do.

Vivi should stand for vivacious (which according to the Merriam Webster dictionary derives from the Latin verb vivere or ‘to live’). She is the embodiment of it: sparkling, effervescent and spontaneous. And exactly the opposite of Jonah who, eight months after his father’s unexpected death, is trying with his two older siblings to keep the family of seven together. His mother stays in bed mostly. The ‘littles’ need to be dressed, fed, taken to school. Yet somehow this unlikely couple seems to work, partly because Vivi has seen some dark days.

Vivi is new to Verona Cove, having come from Seattle to spend the summer, and she loves it. It is a quaint little town; one you can really feel at home in, and Vivi wastes no time making her “Vivi Was Here” mark on the town. She inserts herself into the breakfast routine of loner police officer Hayashi while deciding to try the coffee shop breakfast menu in alphabetical order. She gets a job at the local potter’s shop. She envelopes Jonah’s family, having a profound impact on little Leah. Yet we know, the edge of the cliff is approaching.

Narrated in alternating first person chapters by Vivi and Jonah, When We Collided is the story of a remarkable girl and her impact on those around her. While having a major romantic element as do all of Emery Lord’s books, it also has a serious side to it as well, and in her Author’s Note at the end of When We Collided, Lord talks about mental illness, personalizes it, and provides relevant resources.

Emery Lord is part of my triumvirate of teen romance novelists, in the partnership of Sarah Dessen and Morgan Matson.  So I would heartily suggest you read Open Road Summer and The Start of Me and You. And in her author bio at the end of the book, she says she lives with a blind beagle and a spaniel, so she obviously loves dogs. My kind of person.

On a side note, Matson has a new book out entitled The Unexpected Everything. So there you have it. Your summer reading list has a great beginning.

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Authors I Exchanged a Word With

I was at the American Library Association conference in Orlando last weekend and had a chance to exchange a few (very few) words with some of my author and illustrator idols:

Laurie Halse Anderson

Jerry Pinkney

Jordan Sonnenblick

Morgan Matson

Emery Lord

Laura Ruby

They were all charming, of course. So, now for their latest books:

I’ll tell you that I love the books by these authors (except that I haven’t yet read anything by Laura Ruby but Bone Gap is on my reading list). The Margaret A. Edwards award (contributions to young adult literature) winner Anderson writes about current issues in Impossible Knife of Memory, Wintergirls and Speak. Readers can’t put her books down. Ashes is the third book in her Seeds of America trilogy about the Revolutionary War. She is truly impassioned about her subjects.

Jerry Pinkney is a marvelous award winning illustrator who has done wondrous things with his fairy tales The Lion and the Mouse, The Tortoise and the Hare and Grasshopper and the Ants. Children and adults alike will smile as they read these books. He promised to continue as there are so many more fairy tales to tell.

Jordan Sonnenblick uses humor to discuss serious topics such as strokes, old age and cancer in Falling Over Sideways, Notes from a Midnight Driver, and After Ever After. The topics he writes about are ones you don’t see in young adult literature all that often.

Morgan Matson and Emery Lord are the masters of the summer romance (watch out Sarah Dessen!). Matson’s Unexpected Everything (review to come), Since You’ve Been Gone and Second Chance Summer are the perfect beach reads. (For some reason I’ve bought Matson’s last two books at Northshire Books in Saratoga Springs, NY…I’m not from there! Is this a trend?) Lord’s spin on romance and characters is unique in When We Collided (Vivi is such a great character) (review to come) and Open Road Summer. So get your reading chair, beach umbrella and SPF 50 ready.

You’ll have to wait until I read Bone Gap to know what that one’s all about. But if it is a Michael Printz Award winner, it can’t be all bad.

These six authors provide any kind of reading you want (serious, humorous, romantic, illustrious, mythical) to take you through the summer, into the fall and beyond. Happy Reading!

 

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Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between by Jennifer E. Smith

Clare and Aiden have 12 hours before she departs for Dartmouth in New Hampshire and he jets to Los Angeles to attend UCLA. The question that so many teens face but hasn’t been written much about in YA literature is what do they do. Having been dating for 2 years Aiden is of the impression that long distance romances can work and there are so many folks who have married their high school sweethearts. Clare, on the other hand, thinks that they should break up now, while on an up streak, rather than wait until it fizzles out over time and seeing each other on college breaks becomes awkward. However, Aiden, always the joker, hasn’t been keen on discussing this subject.

So, on their last night together in the suburbs of Chicago, Clare the anal one and list maker in the relationship, has created a list of places of importance to their relationship that they must visit before leaving for separate coasts. Aiden, the unromantic one of the duo, isn’t quite sure what occurred at some of these spots but he’s going along with Clare.

In the 12 hours from 6 PM to 6 AM the next day, Clare and Aiden come to a decision. Along with this, readers get a glimpse of both Aiden’s and Clare’s parents, who play a major role in how the teens react to their situation. Additionally, they get to know their best friends, Scottie and Stella, who also impact their decision.

Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between is a great title because the book is a 12 hour roller coaster of emotions. Should they? Shouldn’t they? Saying goodbye to friends and family is tough even if it isn’t permanent.

I’ve been a fan of Jennifer E. Smith from The Comeback Season, to The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight to Hello, Goodbye and Everything in Between. While at the beginning of the book, it wasn’t my favorite, by the time I got to the end, it was high on the list (I think The Comeback Season will always be my favorite since it was my first (and her first) Smith book). You know what to expect with Smith. A great story. Great characters. A great ending. And possibly a teary eye at the end.

I’d put Jennifer E. Smith up there with Sarah Dessen, and new favorites Emery Lord and Morgan Matson.

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The Start of Me and You by Emery Lord

If we’re truthful, we all have our guilty reading pleasures. Those of you who follow this blog know that I like YA chick lit, like those books written by Sarah Dessen. But I’ve also mentioned two newcomers to my chick lit reading list: Morgan Matson and Emery Lord. The Start of Me and You is Emery Lord’s latest book.

I like the beginning of The Start of Me and You. “…Our town (Oakhurst, Indiana) was too big for people to know everything about you, but just small enough for them to clench down on one defining moment like teeth clamped on a prey. Won the spelling bee in fourth grade? You are Dictionary Girl forever….” Paige Hancock was the Girl Whose Boyfriend Drowned. It might have been a year ago, but she still gets That Look. She’s still afraid to go swimming. She still gets nightmares that she’s drowning.

The beginning of her junior year, she decided she needed to change and make a five point plan.

1. Parties/Social Events
2. New Group
3. Date (Ryan Chase)
4. Travel
5. Swim.

To that end, she joins the Quizbowl team, in part because nerdy Max Watson, its captain, is cousins with Ryan Chase, a guys she’s crushing on. What better way to meet Ryan.

Of course, I’m not giving anything away by saying that The Start of Me and You is about Paige realizing it’s the nerdy guy she likes. But as is said in the book, it’s the journey, not the end that’s the fun part. Lord has given Paige a great group of girlfriends, Morgan, Kaleigh and Tessa, who are always there for each other. She’s provided a wise grandmother and an annoying little sister. And of course, she’s provided some family drama and some boyfriend drama. All the right ingredients. I like her easy going writing style and the story line, which is quite different from her previous book Open Road Summer, which is also chick lit.

If you’re looking for some fun reading, give Emery Lord a try.

P.S. She does the old Sarah Dessenesque mention of characters from her previous book in the current one, but only once that I could see.

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Valentine’s Day Reading

For those of you who haven’t become jaded regarding Valentine’s Day or those of you who want vicarious romance, here are a few good teen romance authors.

There are the old standbys like Sarah Dessen, Julie Anne Peters and Jennifer E. Smith. But there are a few new authors on the horizon. Morgan Matson, Sara Farizan, Emory Lord and Nina LaCour. Here are some books from the newer authors for you..books you might not have heard of

Tell Me Again How a Crush Should Feel by Sara Farizan – Leila, an Iranian American teen, attends a private high school, where her parents have high expectations for her future. She has made it to her junior year without romance complicating her life, and that’s just fine with her. Leila would just as soon not have everyone find out that she likes girls. But when beautiful, confident, worldly Saskia breezes into the narrator’s life, everything turns upside down.

The Last Forever by Deb Caletti – After a trying bout with cancer, Tess’s mother has died, but she’s left behind a one-of-a-kind pixiebell plant. When her impulsive, pot-smoking, less-than-dependable father takes her on an extended road trip to the Grand Canyon, Tess brings the plant with her, but keeping it alive during their journey through the desert is a struggle. Unexpectedly, Tess’s father brings her to the home of his mother, an artist Tess barely remembers. Tess is in for some life-changing lessons about old family grudges and secrets held by new acquaintances, including a boy who makes it his mission to help Tess save the withering pixiebell, and wins her heart in the process.

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson – Seventeen-year-old Taylor and her family-her mother, father, older brother, and younger sister-are off to the Poconos for the summer, whether everyone wants to or not. Taylor falls in the latter category. Returning to their lake house after a five-year absence fills her with dread: she’ll have to face her estranged best friend as well as the boy she left without saying goodbye.

 

Everything Leads to You by Nina LaCour – Eighteen-year-old production design intern Emi is getting over her first love and trying to establish her place in the Los Angeles film industry. Set during the summer before her freshman year of college, Emi spends days designing sets for a blockbuster, and, later, a low-budget indie film (complicated by the presence of her ex, also working on both films). When she and her best friend Charlotte find a letter hidden in the possessions of a recently deceased Hollywood film legend at an estate sale, they begin searching for its intended recipient. Eventually that leads to Ava, a beautiful teen to whom Emi is immediately attracted.

Open Road Summer by Emery Lord – Reagan joins her best friend Delilah’s summer concert tour to escape some poor decisions and break some bad habits, finding romance and complication instead.

 

 

 

 

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Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Most of you know two things about me by now: (1) I do like young adult chick lit (OK, romance!) and (2) I feel compelled to seek out independent bookstores wherever I am and buy something. The problem with working in a library and also reviewing books for library journals is that I have most of the books that I want at my fingertips.

So, when I found myself in Northshire Books in Saratoga Springs this past week it was tough finding a book I wanted to buy. (As an aside, Northshire Books is a great bookstore. Two levels, the upper level children’s and young adult. I could have browsed there for hours…actually I did, on two separate occasions.)

My purchase, however, finally ended up being Morgan Matson’s debut novel Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour, her other books being Second Chance Summer and Since You’ve Been Gone. Although I have a long history reading and loving Sarah Dessen’s books, Ms. Matson is certainly moving up the ladder and is challenging Ms. Dessen for the top YA Chick Lit spot.

In March, Amy was driving and involved in an accident. Her father was in the passenger seat and was killed. Rather than rallying around each other, her mother and twin brother, Charlie, seemed to withdraw into themselves, not talking at all about what happened. What was worse was that she was her father’s favorite. They shared so much and suddenly he was gone.

In an abrupt move, Amy’s mother, a college professor took a job across the country in Connecticut. She left in May after putting their California home on the market, leaving Amy alone in California to finish school and then drive their car to the East Coast. However, since Amy stopped driving after the accident, her mother recruited Roger, a friend’s son to drive with Amy as passenger. Amy, Charlie and Roger used to play together eons ago.

Amy needs to get to Connecticut but Roger has an ulterior motive for taking the cross country trip. While Amy’s mother has plotted out a 4 day route, made motel reservations and everything, Amy and Roger decide it might be worth it to take a ‘road trip’. I’m sure you can guess the ending, but in this particular case, the journey (no pun intended) is delightful. Ms. Matson’s inclusion of Playlists, photos, receipts, drawings and more just add to the enjoyment. In an afterward, she mentions that she is a road trip fan and actually took the trip about which she is writing.

By the way, my favorite character is Bronwyn, who plays a small but pivotal role. She a combination of southern hospitality and wisdom.

I’d suggest that Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour is a great beach read, but while it is 60+ degrees out (in November), I’m not sure if it’s beach weather. So, instead, settle down on the couch, get a drink of some sort, fluff up the pillow and meander through Amy & Roger’s Epic Detour.

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Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson

Sarah Dessen may have some competition with love stories, in the form of Morgan Matson.  Since You’ve Been Gone is Matson’s latest book. And while the premise reminds me a bit of Maureen Johnson’s Thirteen Little Blue Envelopes (having a list of things to do that takes you out of your comfort zone), Since You’ve Been Gone stands on its own as an enjoyable read.

Emily’s best friend, Sloane, has disappeared. Emily came back from vacation to find no one home at Sloane’s house. She doesn’t return texts or phone calls. A week goes by. Two weeks. No Sloane. Emily and Sloane were a team. They talked/texted constantly. They went everywhere together. Emily was the shy one and Sloane the outgoing one. They complemented each other. What is Emily without her?

Then one day her mother tells her she got mail. It’s a letter from Sloane, or rather a list of 13 things Emily must do. Such things as skinny dip, hug a Jamie, steal something. The first thing she tries is going to the Orchard, a former orchard which has become a hangout. Usually she’d go with Sloane. But now she’s got to go alone. There she sees Frank Porter.

Frank. The senior class president. In the running for valedictorian. Boyfriend to Lissa. When she finds she is out of gas, Frank takes her to a local gas station. In return for the favor, he asks Emily to teach him how to long-distance run, since she’s on the cross country team. Thinking it’ll never happen, she agrees.

But of course, Frank keeps turning up. While Emily’s jogging. At the drive in. At the Orchard. What’s going on? They ultimately become friends and spend a lot of time together, especially since Lissa is in Princeton for a summer program.

I’m sure you can guess the rest, but even if you can, it’s the journey, not the destination that’s fun. And…what about Sloane?

Since You’ve Been Gone is a great summer romance read.

P.S. I also liked Second Chance Summer, so give that one a try as well.

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Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson

Birthdays are supposed to be great, but not so for Taylor Edwards. It was on her seventeenth birthday that she found out her father had pancreatic cancer and would not last the summer. So, it was decided that the family would spend the summer at their summer home on a lake in Pennsylvania, a place Taylor left abruptly five years earlier and had not returned to since, leaving behind her best friend, Lucy, and her boyfriend, Henry.

It was a big shock for everyone being back at the lake. Of course, Lucy and Henry were still there harboring unresolved hostility towards Taylor. Taylor wanted to be anyplace else but the lake, however circumstances wouldn’t allow it. And how do you act ‘normal’ when you know it’s your father’s last summer?

Morgan Matson’s Second Chance Summer is a book about second chances…second chances with friends, family, yourself. Taylor, always in the habit of running away when things got tough, is forced to stay and confront all those difficult situations. In doing so, she becomes a stronger person.

In this day when there are many families with two working parents there’s not enough time for family. Second Chance Summer reinforces how fleeting life is and how important family is. The book is 468 pages and I was fine until the last 15 when tears welled up in my eyes. While I don’t want to think about my own mortality and leaving my children, I admire the way Taylor’s father made sure he was still in their lives long after his passing. Second Chance Summer is quite nicely done. Congrats, Morgan.

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