Chasing Lucky - Jenn Bennett

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐✯ (That's supposed to be 3.5, I did the best I could with what I had)

From the cover:

"Budding photographer Josie Saint-Martin has spent half her life with her single mother, moving from city to city. When they return to her historical New England hometown years later to run the family bookstore, Josie knows it's not forever. Her dreams are on the opposite coast, and she has a plan to get there.

What she doesn't plan for is a run-in with the town bad boy, Lucky Karras. Outsider, rebel...and her former childhood best friend. Lucky makes it clear he wants nothing to do with the newly returned Josie. But everything changes after a disastrous pool party and a poorly-executed act of revenge lands Josie in some big-time trouble - with Lucky unexpectedly taking the blame.

Determined to understand why Lucky was so quick to cover for her, Josie discovers that both of them have changed, and that the good boy she once knew now has a dark sense of humor and a smile that makes her heart race. And maybe, just maybe, he's not quite the brooding bad boy everyone thinks he is..."

I am so conflicted about this book. Parts of it had me all in, but others it felt like the book version of a scratched DVD, experiencing the story in fits and starts and filling in the details I missed. We kick off with Josie and her mom arriving in Beauty, where almost immediately Josie runs into her childhood best friend, Lucky - now Lucky 2.0, Tall, Dark, and Brooding. 

I am here for this - hooked and prepared for their first real confrontation! Except after revealing that Lucky and his family now own a boat repair shop across the street from the Saint-Martin bookstore, we fast-forward four months. We're told that Josie's welcome to Beauty was less than warm, and while she has dodged rumors and kept her distance from her classmates at school, Lucky has been her mysterious shadow, constantly popping up on the outskirts wherever she goes, watching her with those dark, bad-boy eyes but never saying a word.

"We never talk. Not really. He's never said, So, let's catch up! Or, How's life been treating you? Nothing normal like that. We don't acknowledge that we were once best friends and spent every Sunday eating dinner at his house. That we used to secretly meet up after school at an abandoned cedar boatshed at the end of the harbor...No. He's just...around."

Intriguing behavior to be sure...I only wish we had been able to watch this unfold. Instead, we get a couple of chapters telling us Lucky is ruggedly handsome but surly and mysterious, and then we get Lucky taking the fall for Josie accidentally committing an act of vandalism. I need more character building, damn it! And speaking of character building, given what a huge part she plays with basically everything that happens, I wish Josie's mom had been fleshed out a little more. Don't just tell me your mom is horrible...paint me a word picture. 

 

Again, we get story in fits and starts - Winona immediately forbids Josie (based on...what, exactly?) from seeing Lucky, then is reliably absent from the story except to pop up and remind us that Josie is Not Allowed to see him. Until (fits and starts!) with zero discussion, suddenly it's fine. Sigh. I just...don't teleport me from A to Z, take me all the way through!

My desire to see more of the story play out aside, Chasing Lucky did pull me in, and Jenn Bennett continues to do what she does best, which is capturing the longing and uncertainty of a budding possible relationship. Honestly, it says a lot about her ability as a writer that my complaint essentially boils down to "why didn't you make this book longer?" I felt every tug of the heart and flutter of butterflies (or in Josie's case, bats?), and with one glaring exception, I was swooning. 

(For the record, that glaring exception was the most awkward euphemism I've ever read - "I'm achingly aware of the hard outline pressing against the place in my jeans where my seams converge" - but we don't need to talk about that.) 

I want to go to all of the Karras family dinners, be best friends with Evie, and punch Adrian Summers in the face. Possibly more than once. Chasing Lucky isn't going to dethrone Starry Eyes or Alex, Approximately on my mental list of best heart-eye emoji books, but it's still a good read, and I will still eagerly read any YA that Jenn Bennett writes.

Somewhere Only We Know - Maurene Goo

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"10 00 p.m.: Lucky is the biggest K-pop star on the scene, and she's just performed her hit song "Heartbeat" in Hong Kong to thousands of adoring fans. She's about to debut on The Tonight Show in America, hopefully a breakout performance for her career. But right now? She's in her fancy hotel, trying to fall asleep but dying for a hamburger.

11 00 p.m.: Jack is sneaking into a fancy hotel, on assignment for his tabloid job that he keeps secret from his parents. On his way out of the hotel, he runs into a girl wearing slippers, a girl who is single-mindedly determined to find a hamburger. She looks kind of familiar. She's very cute. He's maybe curious.

12:00 a.m.: Nothing will ever be the same."

Lucky has just wrapped up a huge tour in Asia and is preparing for the next step, launching her career in America. This next move is one she has been preparing for since she was young, sacrificing typical childhood experiences for dance lessons, singing lessons, and other training required if one is to make it as a performer. She is understandably exhausted and anxious, and after taking her sleeping pills and (shhhh, secret!) anxiety meds, all she wants is a hamburger.

Jack is taking a gap year, interning at the bank where his dad works, and trying to ignore the fact that the life his parents want for him makes him feel suffocated. All he wants is to be a photographer, but since his parents don't approve he has been secretly scratching that itch by moonlighting as a paparazzo. He's on the bus on his way to meet a friend for a drink after scoring some photos for his boss when a young, obviously inebriated Asian-American girl catches his eye. Ever the good guy, Jack takes her under his wing for the night and ends up letting her crash at his apartment that night, since he doesn't know who she is or how to get her home.

Early the following morning, fledgling tabloid reporter Jack discovers that "Fern," the pretty, drunk girl he rescued, is actually Lucky, super famous K-pop star, and he hatches a plan. He is going to spend the day with her, give her the Hong Kong experience, and document it all for his editor to publish when he's done. A story like that will score him a full-time job with the paper...as long as his growing feelings for Lucky don't get in the way.

I have some complicated feelings about this book. I adore Lucky, her drive and her enthusiasm for life, and most of all our shared love of food. Ohhh boy, food...this book made me so hungry. I loved that Jack was taking a gap year and really trying to think about what he wanted to do with his life, and I especially loved that when he finally decided he was ready to fight for it. Transitioning from high school to whatever happens next is hard, and I will take all the YA books that show people making that jump and figuring out where to go next. 

My one big qualm, and the one I find myself circling back to every time I think about this book, is how long Jack was committed to sharing his Lucky story with his editor. I can give him a pass for coming up with the idea. He didn't know Lucky, he was looking out for himself, and I'm not going to fault him for fighting for a career, even if it is one that makes me wrinkle my nose. But the longer the day went on, the harder it was for me to excuse him continuing to take pictures and plot his narrative, especially after the pair realized that they had feelings for each other. Huge spoiler here, so stop reading here if you don't want huge things given away...have you stopped reading? I hope so. He had already passed what would have been the point of no return for me, but the moment where he truly became unforgivable was when he went to his editor and gave him the pictures. Did he take them back after his editor was a gross asshole? Sure. But what the actual fuck? How did it ever go that far?! Hard no, there is no redeeming yourself after that. 

*deep breath*

So...yeah. I was not rooting for Lucky and Jack to end up together. That being said, I did not want to put this book down. The characters were well-developed, the writing was fast-paced and fun, and I enjoyed the story. You should probably read it...just maybe don't root for Jack. ;)

Love and Gelato - Jenna Evans Welch

My rating: ⭐⭐

From the cover:

"“I made the wrong choice.”

Lina is spending the summer in Tuscany, but she isn’t in the mood for Italy’s famous sunshine and fairy-tale landscape. She’s only there because it was her mother’s dying wish that she get to know her father. But what kind of father isn’t around for sixteen years? All Lina wants to do is get back home.

But then she is given a journal that her mom had kept when she lived in Italy. Suddenly Lina’s uncovering a magical world of secret romances, art, and hidden bakeries. A world that inspires Lina, along with the ever-so-charming Ren, to follow in her mother’s footsteps and unearth a secret that has been kept for far too long. It’s a secret that will change everything she knew about her mother, her father—and even herself.

People come to Italy for love and gelato, someone tells her, but sometimes they discover much more."

I waited a long time for this book, and I really wanted to love it. I mean, teenage girl loses her mother to cancer and goes to Italy to spend the summer with the father she never knew existed...yes, please!

As it turns out, this was more of a "meh.Take it or leave it."

I get that Lina was grieving, but she wasn't very likable. She was pretty selfish, kind of bratty, and made some questionable decisions. Not my favorite protagonist. She was shitty to a lot of people, most notably Howard and the poor, forgettable British dude she liked because he was hot and then suddenly didn't like but still led on, until he conveniently ended up being a total dick after seeming perfectly fine for 95% of the book. While we're on the topic of things suddenly changing very suddenly...

Someone please do Jenna Evans Welch a favor and teach her how to use the thesaurus feature in her word processor. Things happened "suddenly" so many times that it started to give me a twitch. There were occasions where something suddenly happened and then suddenly something else happened in back to back sentences. There are so many words! Pick a different word! Also, while I can appreciate that she was trying to be creative, soooooooooo many weird metaphors. I'm all for clever descriptions, but when your descriptive comparisons start to pull the reader out of the story, that's not great. 

Finally, let's talk about Mimi and Ren. So many questions. Did he just like her because she was hot? If so, gross. That doesn't endear him to me. Was she nice to other people, or did she treat everyone the way she treated Lina? Why is it that in love triangle situations the non-protagonist in the triangle is always a douchebag? Sometimes people aren't right for each other. What's wrong with showing that in literature? Why does the reason for main character 1 choosing main character 2 always have to be "well, their other option was a total jerk, so..." Guh. Maybe if books did a better job of showing that sometimes you try to date someone and the two of you simply don't jive real people would be better at navigating relationships.

Anyway...yeah. Not my favorite read. It could have been worse, but it also could have been way better.

By Your Side - Kasie West

My rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

From the cover:

"When Autumn Collins finds herself accidentally locked in the library for an entire weekend, she doesn’t think things could get any worse. But that’s before she realizes that Dax Miller is locked in with her. Autumn doesn’t know much about Dax except that he’s trouble. Between the rumors about the fight he was in (and that brief stint in juvie that followed it) and his reputation as a loner, he’s not exactly the ideal person to be stuck with. Still, she just keeps reminding herself that it is only a matter of time before Jeff, her almost-boyfriend, realizes he left her in the library and comes to rescue her.

Only he doesn’t come. No one does.

Instead it becomes clear that Autumn is going to have to spend the next couple of days living off vending-machine food and making conversation with a boy who clearly wants nothing to do with her. Except there is more to Dax than meets the eye. As he and Autumn first grudgingly, and then not so grudgingly, open up to each other, Autumn is struck by their surprising connection. But can their feelings for each other survive once the weekend is over and Autumn’s old life, and old love interest, threaten to pull her from Dax’s side?"

Librarian note: What the hell kind of library has no phones and no snacks?! If two teenagers got locked in my library for the weekend (speaking of...how crazy that I read this book the week before MLK weekend?), there would be so much food for them to eat. There are like four giant bags of candy just at my desk alone. That being said...on to what actually matters.

I have now read three Kasie West books, loved two of them, and been driven crazy by the third. I'm trying to decide if it's a coincidence that the two I enjoyed I listened to on audio and the one I didn't I read in book form...I think it's just a coincidence, but if you're an audiobook fan, you should definitely check Kasie's out. Her audiobooks are great. Is that the most times the word audiobook has been use in one paragraph? Perhaps. I'm ok with that.

This book is a great one to recommend to reluctant readers. The characters are likable and easy to relate to, it's an engaging read, and in a shocking twist, Autumn's friends are pretty awesome. From the beginning, the story pulled me in. Two teenagers ending up locked in the library together over a holiday weekend? I have a few teens who have begged me to help them hide at the end of the night so they could spend the night in the library, so I have a feeling that's a plot line that would capture their attention. I was nervous about what would happen after they got out, and the closer I got to the end of the book, the more nervous I got waiting for one of her friends to do something shitty, but they were supportive, kind, and understanding...a rarity in a lot of books, and an example of friendship that a lot of people could benefit from reading about. Finally, huge shout out to a book whose main character struggles with an anxiety disorder. I have struggled with anxiety for a long time, and until very recently I felt like I was overreacting or being a baby when I spiraled or had an anxiety attack. It's amazing to read a book about someone who has shared that struggle and see that not only is it something that should be taken seriously, it's something others deal with too. Hooray for books that open a dialogue about mental health!