Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen

Hardcover, 417 pages
Published May 5, 2015

Peyton, Sydney's charismatic older brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving the lion's share of their parents' attention and—lately—concern. When Peyton's increasingly reckless behavior culminates in an accident, a drunk driving conviction, and a jail sentence, Sydney is cast adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world. When everyone else is so worried about Peyton, is she the only one concerned about the victim of the accident?

Enter the Chathams, a warm, chaotic family who run a pizza parlor, play bluegrass on weekends, and pitch in to care for their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Here Sydney experiences unquestioning acceptance. And here she meets Mac, gentle, watchful, and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time.
The uber-popular Sarah Dessen explores her signature themes of family, self-discovery, and change in her twelfth novel, sure to delight her legions of fans.

It is no secret that I loooooove Sarah Dessen (GO HEELS!!!). This is her newest and I was so glad that I got to see her again at my conference and catch up. Seriously, she is the coolest person ever! This book definitely did not disappoint. Sydney is living in the shadows of her older brother Peyton and the mistakes that he has made. While he is away serving time, she is forced to come to grips with who she is, what her life has become, and how she will move forward. Being a teenager is hard enough, but add on a brother in jail, his best friend who gave even me the creeps, a mom who totally doesn't get it (in ANY way, shape or form), and a family who ends up being Sydney's saving grace, and you fall into the story and find yourself wanting to wrap your arms around Sydney and help her figure out life however you can. 

The honesty and raw emotion that I felt while reading were a true testament to Sarah's writing and her ability to suck you into a story and become invested in the character's lives. While being a teenager is tough on most all of us, it is often hard to realize that no matter which side of the tracks you are on or what your life is like, we all experience trials of all shapes and sizes. 

Like Sarah Dessen's other novels, this one will suck you in and take you on an emotional roller coaster while having you beg for more. And I have to say, the ending is perfection. The last like... wow. Enjoy!

Review: In It to Win It by Morgan Kearns

A tiny break from YA to pump up a pal!!

In It to Win It
Morgan Kearns

Genre: Romance
Pages: Paperback, 304 pages
Publisher: Goodnight Publishing

Sportscaster 'Plain Jane' Alexander was a late bloomer. Back in the day, she blended into the background, content to watch from the sidelines while Grayson Pierce soaked up the spotlight. Content until he broke her heart. Bitter, hurt and angry Jane did the college thing, came out of her shell, and never looked back. Grayson loves baseball. It was his pastime in high school, his passion in college, and now ... his career. However baseball isn't the only thing in Grayson's heart. The problem is that Grayson has the reputation as a bad-boy. He likes fast cars and loose women and expensive liquor. All things that make him deplorable in Jane's eyes, throw in his hot and cold attitude and she is ready to scream. When the promise of an exclusive interview brings a very reluctant Jane to Grayson's home, she realizes that not everything is as it appears.

How often do you get to text the author of a book the day you get it in the mail… signed by her? Not too often for me, but in this case I got to do just that. I am so honored to consider Morgan one of my great friends and promise not to have too much bias in this review… maybe!

I think that we can all relate to being someone who feels looked over by the hot guy. Jane Alexander experiences the same thing only hers comes back to face her high school problems when she least expects it. She has recreated herself and avoided Grayson Pierce up until now, but it seems that fate has something else in mind for Jane. Grayson seems to be your typical self-obsessed jock yet Jane can see a different side of him and yearns to let everyone else see that. Every time she sees a redeeming quality within him, he does something to shoot it down and remind her why she has avoided him all these years.

The plot, characters, twists and turns and especially the romance are sure to keep you turning page after page until you get to the end and are dying for more. In Morgan’s second novel you are left with a great sense of who the characters are and feel as if they are your long lost friends just as you did with her debut novel Fade to Black. Another great read!!

You can purchase Morgan’s book HERE and she will even sign it!! Enjoy all!

Bloom by Elizabeth Scott

Genre: YA Romance

Age Level: 7^th grade & up

# of Pages: 240

Award Winner:

Publisher: Simon Pulse (April 24, 2007)

Lauren’s life seems perfect. She has the most popular guy in school pinning after her, she just got her first jazz band solo, she is doing great in school, and she and her best friend Katie have gotten seats at the coveted table at lunch. Lauren’s outside appearance of happiness is in total contrast of the inner turmoil that she faces daily. She isn’t happy and she can’t figure out why. As she analyzes her life she realizes that her boyfriend, Dave, is just a little bit too perfect and his ultra-religious parents only add to the misery. She wants to get away from the perfection in her life and move toward the happiness that she knows is out there for her. The only problem is, she doesn’t know how to gain that happiness without hurting people around her, especially Dave. She doesn’t want to be like her mother who left Lauren and her dad behind when she was little to pursue what she wanted. Yet after meeting Evan Kirkland, Lauren sees that passion and happiness are hers for the taking and that she can leave behind the safety and monotony that her life currently has.

Lauren and Evan quickly find that they have a connection that is on a much deeper level than that of any relationship she has had before and that both excites and terrifies her. She begins making decisions to pursue her happiness and in the mean time begins lying to everyone around her and losing those who are closest to her, especially her best friend Katie. Lauren is faced with the decision of going against what she has always known to avoid confrontation or following her heart, and Evan, and gaining the happiness that she constantly craves.

Bloom is a wonderful coming of age story as well as a powerful love story. The tile gives the reader a glimpse of what is to come in this story through Lauren’s voice. I love Lauren in this book because she is so relatable. She is funny, strong, well written character whose distinctive voice and likeability make this an easy read. This was one of those books that I read in a day because I just couldn’t put it down. Lauren deals with things that even adults deal with in life even though the circumstances may be different. We all want to be happy and Elizabeth Scott has done a wonderful job using Lauren to show how happiness isn’t always easy to come by. Scott is a wonderful writer and this being my first read of hers only excites me to see what else she has coming our way!!

Visit Elizabeth at http://elizabethwrites.com/

Elizabeth Scott - Love You Hate You Miss You

I haven't read this yet but I love Elizabeth Scott and her other books. Check out why she says she writes for teens! More to come today...
xoxo

jennie

more about "Elizabeth Scott - Love You Hate You M...", posted with vodpod

(originally posted 8/24/2009)

The Hollow by Jessica Verday

Genre: YA Paranormal Romance

Age Level: 7^th grade and up

Hardback: 544 pages

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Other Info: This is author Jessica Verday’s debut novel and is the first in a trilogy of novels featuring Abbey and Caspian and the haunting intertwining of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

There is so much to say about this amazing novel that I don’t know where to start!! Abbey is a typical teenager except for the fact that her best friend, Kristen, recently vanished from the bridge near the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery and everyone thinks that she is dead. Abbey doesn’t want to believe them because they haven’t found Kristen’s body. While seeming to fool everyone into believing that she is indeed mourning the death of her best friend, Abbey meets a series of people who begin to play more important roles in her life as she spends more and more time in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Caspian, a gorgeous and mysterious boy, shows up seemingly out of nowhere at Kristen’s funeral and continues to show up and allows Abbey to explore emotions and feelings that she finds both exciting and frightening. While her relationship with Caspian blooms Abbey discovers that her best friend had been keeping major secrets from her, ones that could have changed both of their lives forever. Abbey feels betrayed by Kristen’s secrets and turns to Caspian who clearly has secrets that he is not willing to share with Abbey. She begins to feel that maybe she can come to some sort of understanding she discovers something that could easily break her façade and presents a major test when it comes to her love for Caspian and even her own well being. Abbey has to decide whether her new found love or her well being are more important in the grand scheme of things and realizes that her decision could change her life in more ways than one.

Seriously… I cannot wait for you all to get your hands on this book!! It is amazing and will have you hooked from the very beginning. I love it when an author reels you in and you become completely invested in a book so much so that you don’t realize that you are 400 pages into a book and dreading it coming to an end. I also love that it is going to be a trilogy because there were so many little things that were touched on in this novel that have me still reeling and wondering but I am going to have to wait to find out the answers until later. AHHH! That drives me nuts and makes me want to harass Jessica Verday (but I promise I won’t)!! I love, also, that she WROTE this entire book in notebooks originally… most of us are so stuck in the technology world that we forget the magic of pen and paper. Oh and another thing I love is that she is bringing back one of my favorite legends and putting a new spin on it! I am dying for the next book and hope that I get it early too!! I may have to get on my knees and beg… and believe me, with this book, I am NOT past that!!

The Hollow hits a bookshelf near you on September 1, 2009! Mark your calendars and GO GET IT!!! While you are waiting you can go to Jessica’s site and check out all the cool things she has going on and even read Chapter 1 of The Hollow!!

Happy reading all!!

(originally posted 8/5/2009)

That Summer by Sarah Dessen

Genre: YA Romance

Age Level: Young Adult

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Speak (May 11, 2004)

Award Winner:

• An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

Other Info:

• With Someone Like You, adapted into the motion picture How to Deal, released July 2003, staring Mandy Moore

Fifteen year old Haven thought that life was going according to plan until her dad broke the news that he was leaving for the local weather girl, who is only five years older than Haven’s older sister Ashley. Her parents’ divorce, father’s new bride and her sister’s upcoming wedding to a guy who she believes is all wrong sets her summer into one of complete chaos. She is quietly suffering through all of it and watching from the sidelines while everything around her falls apart. Her best friend comes back from camp with a new lease on life, a new boyfriend, and an idea of what love is which only adds to Haven’s skewed view of love. Add all of this together along with the fact that Haven is taller than everyone else she knows and is still growing which only angers her sister more as the bridesmaids dress has to be altered yet again. Haven feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere (literally and figuratively) and that the only good times she experienced were during the summer she and her family spent in Virginia Beach with her family and her sister Ashley’s then boyfriend Sumner. Haven spends the summer wondering if her life will ever get back to the happy times of that summer. When Sumner comes back into her life and seems to puller her from her suffering, she can seemingly see the light at the end of the tunnel. She begins to find out, however, that things happen behind closed doors and there are some secrets that should be left between the parties involved.

This book is yet another fun read that makes you think at the same time. Haven is trying to find out where she fits in within every aspect of her life and it causes her too look backwards and forwards at the same time. I love that Dessen has, yet again, written a book that is so relatable to teens and adults alike on many levels. Teens will be able to relate to Haven’s desire to fit in and find herself in the midst of chaos, and adults will be able to put the “Been There, Done That” hat on. This book isn’t you’re a-typical love story because your main character doesn’t fall in love in the book and yet it is because she finds out about love on many different levels and the effects that love can have on a person. She finds that love comes in many shapes and sizes and that it isn’t always something that you can depend on.

Now I am off to watch the movie that combines both of these (“How to Deal” staring Mandy Moore)!!! I will let you know how it is!!

xoxo

jennie

(originally posted July 3, 2009)

Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen

Genre: YA Romance

Age Level: Young Adult

Paperback: 281 pages

Publisher: Puffin Books (May 11, 2004)

Award Winner:

• An ALA Best Book for Young Adults

• A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year

• A barnesandnoble.com Best Teen Novel of the Year

• Winner of the South Carolina Young Adult Book Award 2000-2001

Other Info:

• With That Summer, adapted into the motion picture How to Deal, released July 2003, staring Mandy Moore

The themes of teenage rebellion and first love are often over used in today’s young adult fiction. Dessen, however, takes those themes and gives them a fresh face in this novel. They are both moral issues that all teens face at some point and yet there are very few examples of them not being thrown into you face through literature in a cliché way. Halley has grown up with a therapist for a mother and a radio jockey for a father and has been the subject of her mother’s books and her father’s jokes on the radio for as long as she can remember. She had always valued her close relationship to her parents and enjoyed the summer vacations, late night conversations, and complete honesty with them. All of that changes the summer before her junior year in high school. That summer is when she begins to cut loose from her parents and truly discover who Halley was, not who her parents wanted her to be or expect her to be. She and her best friend, Scarlett, spent the first half of the summer hanging out with Ginny Tabor who was "a cheerleader with a wild streak a mile wide and a reputation among the football team for more than her cheers and famous midair splits" and that is when things began to change. Halley dumps her bland boyfriend, Noah, and she and Scarlett set out to change. And change they did. Scarlett was the opposite of quiet, reserved Halley and provided the balance that she needed in order to find herself. When Scarlett and Halley started hanging out with Michael, they had no way of knowing how drastically their lives were going to change. Two months after Michael was killed in a motorcycle accident, Scarlett finds that she is pregnant with his baby and Halley finds herself becoming deeply involved with his best friend Macon, a rebellious boy who her parents have forbidden her to see. Halley and Scarlett are finding themselves walking the line between childhood and adulthood and lean on each other for the support they so desperately need instead of their families. This is a wonderful coming of age story that takes Halley and Scarlett through pregnancy, drugs, alcohol and sex all the while helping them both to find out who they truly are deep down, and not who they are according to their parents, their friends, or even each other.

The characters in this novel are fully developed and the conversations, situations, and outcomes don’t fall into the cliché category at all. I read this book in a day and loved every second of it. I found myself pulling for Halley and Scarlett throughout their turmoil and joy. I found the book very relatable because all teens go through a soul searching period and I could relate to what the girls were dealing with in the larger scheme of things. I highly recommend this book and I am definitely going to be checking out more of Dessen’s books in the future. Her writing is very fluid and was very easy to follow and get sucked into. Check out my amazon.com store for this book as well as others! I have already started another book so I hope to add it soon! Enjoy!

xoxo

jennie

(originally posted July 1, 2009)