Every year Zeeta and her mother, Layla, move to a different country.  Zeeta gets settled in, makes new friends, and Layla gets the itch.  This year Layla has chosen Ecuador.  Besides her one year itch, another of Layla’s other many flaws, according to Zeeta, is her taste in men.  Layla goes for clowns, more specifically wayward philosophers who are balloon-making clowns by day — highly unreliable and highly inappropriate for someone Layla’s age.  Zeeta longs for Layla to put down some roots.  She wants Layla to find a steady man with a steady job and a retirement plan.  She wants Layla to stay in one place for more than a year.  She wants a home in the suburbs not a hut by the beach or a tiny apartment with questionable bathroom facilities.  In Ecuador, Zeeta meets a boy named Wendell who comes from a family that has all that she is longing for but it’s not enough for him.  Wendell is American and only speaks English but he was adopted from Ecuador and looks like the indigenous people from the area of Ecuador where Zeeta is staying.  Wendell loves his adopted parents but longs to find the birth parents who gave him up.  Zeeta agrees to help him as translator and savvy traveler tour guide.  While Zeeta is helping Wendell, Layla has made some changes, including finding a man who fits all of Zeeta’s criteria.  Both Zeeta and Wendell are longing and searching something — the ideal life, the ideal family — but will either of them be happy with what they find?

Reaction: Laura Resau is an amazing writer and really deserves way more recognition than she gets.  I don’t read a ton of realistic fiction and I’m really bad about reading books that take place outside of the Western world but Resau writes both together and I will always read what she has written.  What to say specifically about the book?  It’s great!  Read it!

Ok, more detail…Zeeta is a fairly compelling character.  While she leads a life of which many would be envious, she longs for some normalcy and routine.  Zeeta has had to be the “adult” in the relationship — making sure her mom’s paperwork is filed in each country, dealing with household bills, helping the food stretch when there isn’t any money to buy more — so it isn’t any wonder that she would long for an environment where she can just be a teenager and not have to worry about such things.  I would have to say my major criticisms of the book would be that Zeeta too quickly realizes that normal is not for her and that Layla’s transformation was just a bit too dramatic.  The story kind of shifted focus to Wendell and didn’t leave time to truly develop the “maturing” Layla and Zeeta reactions to her mother’s changes.

On to Wendell.  Trusting Wendell.  Wendell wants his birth parents to be good, kind, caring people so badly that he is willing to overlook almost anything to have it be so.  I loved reading Wendell’s letters to his birth parents that he wrote while growing up.  They show his changing feelings regarding his birth parents as he matured.  He began with not really wanting to have anything to do with them, wanting to be completely American, but as he grew he also grew more curious about his ancestry.  His curiosity grew even stronger when he developed a strange, inherited (he believes) ability that he doesn’t feel he can discuss with anyone.  Zeeta helps support Wendell as he searches for a family that may or may not exist, or may not exist in the way Wendell wants it to exist, but there are some things, some mistakes Wendell needs to make on his own.

Much more than a story about two teenagers, it is a story about the country, its people, traditions, and flaws.  Many secondary characters help add wonderful flavor to the story and to the surroundings.  I am definitely interested to see where Zeeta, Wendell, and Layla will end up next.

The Demon’s Lexicon by Sarah Rees Brennan

Nick and his brother, Alan, have been on the run from magicians and the demons magicians use for power for as long as they can remember. Magicians killed their father and drove their mother mad, and now the magicians are after their mother’s special charm, the only thing keeping her alive. Having dealt with magicians and demons for so long, the brothers are known as something of experts on the subject, and brother and sister, Jamie and Mae, seek the brothers out for help when Jamie is triple-marked by a demon. In the process of helping Jamie, Alan is also marked by a demon. Now two magicians must be killed to remove the demon marks from Alan and Jamie, and the hunted become the hunters. On top of everything, Nick suspects that his brother is keeping secrets and lying, and he’s determined to find out what Alan is hiding. Nick, Alan, Mae, and Jamie are about to embark on the battle of their lives.

A standout in the saturated fantasy genre. The characters are well drawn and three dimensional, especially Nick, who is very different from the others and lacks the ability to experience typical human emotions. The story will appeal to a wide audience. Boys will appreciate the sword fights and fast-paced action and girls will enjoy the depth of the relationships between the two sets of siblings and the new relationships that are forming. The cover may make the book hard to sell. I’ve had it on display at my library and it just sits there. A simpler, more gender-neutral cover may serve to market it a bit better.

How to Say Goodbye in Robot by Natalie Standiford

For her senior year, Bea is moving to yet another new school, following as her professor father changes colleges once again. Bea is used to moving a lot and not having any close friends but she was also used to having a fun-loving mother who was more friend than parent, and this is no longer the case. Bea’s mother has taken a crazy turn. She has become emotional, withdrawn, and obsessed with chickens. When Bea starts her new school, she’s not sure what to expect and is just looking forward to making in through the year and onto the freedom of college. Bea is in for an unexpected surprise when she finds a soul mate of sorts in a lonely boy named Jonah, called Ghost Boy. Jonah hasn’t had a friend in years, since the death of his mentally handicapped twin brother and mother. Somehow he and Bea connect over a late night radio talk show, shared beliefs, and good conversation but their relationship is far from easy.

A very well written story about true friendship. I believe almost everyone hopes to click with someone in the way that Bea and Jonah connect but their relationship is also volatile. Jonah has lived so long alone with his pain and, while Bea seems to help bring him back to life, when Jonah has periods of withdrawal from Bea, it is heartbreaking. The characterizations are wonderful, not only of Bea and Jonah but also the many secondary characters. I especially enjoyed the regular callers to the Night Lights radio program and was impressed with how well Standiford was able to make Jonah’s father a sympathetic character despite all of the horrible choices he made. A fairly typical paragraph structure is broken up by short snippets from the radio program, which adds interest to the book’s structure. While this is a truly wonderful novel, I don’t think it will have a broad appeal. Special readers will be enthralled but others just may not understand it.

*Bea and Jonah’s relationship reminded me of Jennifer and Cameron from Sweethearts by Sara Zarr but with more going on much more substance to the story outside of the relationship.

Chasing Boys by Karen Tayleur

El’s dad is gone and now her family has downsized. Her big house, mostly stay-at-home mom, and fancy private school are gone. Now they live in an apartment where El shares a room with her sister, her mother works long hours, and El is enrolled in public school. The fact that this life is temporary, only until all the legalities are worked out, helps El get through the day. El has made two good friends at her new school, Margot and Desi, but she mostly tries to stay detached, until her crush, a new boy, and a new friend cause her to once again alter the view of her reality.

The title and cover seem to suggest that this is a light, fluffy book about girl/boy relationships but it is so much more. El is struggling with the loss of her father and, to some extent, the loss of her identity as her life is turned completely upside down. El’s thoughts and reactions seem spot on for a teenage girl. Some of my favorite passages are when El is talking in her mind to her therapist, Leonard, to whom she refuses to talk to during their sessions. Short chapters make this an accessible read for reluctant readers. Readers who are expecting a romance with a neat, wrapped up ending may be disappointed but those who can get past expectations will be in for a treat. Great read for fans of Dessen and Caletti.

Other books, reviewed by others, that piqued my interest:

• Riding the Universe by Gaby Triana
• Shadow of the Dragon: Kira by Kate O’Hearn
• The Guardian by Joyce Sweeney — read by two high school boys and given high praise by both.  I don’t hear of that happening often!
• Swim the Fly by Don Calame — sounds like a book for readers who enjoyed Carter Finally Gets It by Brent Crawford.
• Gentlemen by Michael Northrop

The next meeting is in January and these are the titles I will be talking about then:

• Goats: Infinite Typewriters by Jonathan Rosenberg (graphic)
• Ninja Girls, volume 1 by Hosana Tanaka (manga)
• Move Over, Rover: What to Name Your New Pup When the Ordinary Just Won’t Do by Kyra Kirkwood
• Girl to the Core by Stacy Goldblatt
• Possessed by Kate Cann

Rainey is excited about her summer away on an educational tour of Western Canada called WESTEX.  She and five other teens will hike, camp, and learn about survival and Canadian history for eight weeks.  Rainy is looking to get away from her father and his new wife for awhile.  Looking to leave the city that is very different from the small town she grew up in, where she has no friends except a goofy gold retriever named Simon.  Looking for answers about what exactly she wants to do with her future.  What she is not looking for is a meeting with the mother who left when Rainey was only six months old, but she might get that too.  Rainey was born without part of one of her legs due to a condition called amniotic band syndrome.  No matter what her father says, Rainey can’t help but think her mother left because she didn’t want to deal with a “crippled” child.  When Rainey learns her mother lives in a town near one of the stops on the WESTEX tour, she has to make a tough decision about whether or not she wants to meet the woman who gave birth to her then abandoned her.

Reaction: First of all, I would like to say that this book had one of the best first paragraphs I’ve read in awhile:

The night before I embark on my “Wild West Summer,” I split up with Carlos Aroca.  Of course, he didn’t know about the breakup anymore than he knew we were once a hot item.  Sad but true, our torrid six-month romance had been just a figment of my imagination.  An optimistic delusion.  A lavish dinner-for-one buffet, satisfying my appetite for adventure and craving for a little affection.

I loved it.  I thought it was a great hook and it is such a wonderful example of Rainey’s voice.  Her humor, her feelings, and her needs in one small opening paragraph.

Moving on, the rest of the novel remained equally compelling and was quite absorbing.  Rainey is a complicated girl with a complicated life.  She obviously has trust issues due to her mother and she’s constantly trying to overcompensate for her leg to prove to everyone that she isn’t “wimpy gimpy girl.”  She has quite a temper and has trouble with “compassionate verbal strategies” her father, whom she calls Greg, is always telling her to use instead of force or angry outbursts.  Also, she’s a passionate artist but her father, despite what a great father he is, doesn’t want her to “paint herself into a corner” by pursuing art as a career, so she’s determined to find something else she can get excited about before applying to colleges in the fall.

All of the other characters are well-drawn and two dimensional.  Each WESTEXer has his or her own issues that add depth to the stereotypes they seem when first introduced.  The setting is gorgeously described and Canadian history is interesting without being overbearing or preachy, though the reader gets subjected to the WESTEX teacher/leader, Dan’s, “Did you know…” factoids just like the students.

A few complaints, though minor.  It seemed a bit unrealistic that everyone on the trip had a problem.  I think the only one that hadn’t had some major life crisis (or two or three) was Dan, and he was just too jolly to let on if he did have one.  Also, I think sometimes the teens were a bit too self-realized.  For example:

The joy of being seventeen was having the vocabulary to make incredibly mature-sounding speeches — even after spending the preceding half hour shouting and whining like a pissed-off preschooler — without having the experience to know what I was getting myself into. (162)

I loved this quote because it was so true but I do not see a seventeen-year-old actually acknowledging or thinking it.

Complaints are minimal and the overall writing and characterization made it an engrossing read.

Ever since Katie’s mom died, she and her dad have been having a tough time handling their grief.  Katie has pulled away from her best friends, choosing to shut them out because it is too hard to explain how she is feeling.  Her father spends his time buried in work, refuses to sleep in the room he shared with his wife, and plays at being a gourmet chef, always setting a third spot at the dinner table.  To keep herself occupied over the summer, Katie takes a job doing landscaping work at the mansion of the reclusive Miss Martine.  When Miss Martine was young, around Katie’s age, she was the talk of the town and attended all of the society events.  One night, though, she just simply disappeared, retreated into her house never to show her face again.  Katie can’t help but be intrigued by the mystery of Miss Martine.  What happened to make such a social butterfly shun everything she seemingly once loved?  Katie’s questions escalate as she and several of her fellow gardeners are assigned the odd task of hand-digging a hole for a gazebo.  The estate’s caretaker, Old Olson, is acting very strange with this project: just staring at them while they dig and arriving to the site early to sift through the dirt at the bottom of the hole.  As Katie continues to deal with her own grief, she is compelled to figure out the mystery of Miss Martine and the true reason behind the hole she is helping to dig.

Reaction: What a well-written, engrossing story.  There were so many different things (and, specifically, characters) that I really enjoyed in this novel.  First, Katie’s relationship with her dad.  It is obvious that she was always much closer to her mom than her dad but I loved the new bond Katie and her dad have formed.  While they are both still obviously depressed and grieving, they have made it a habit to look out for each other.  Katie’s dad is always pushing her to get back in contact with her friends and telling her to eat more.  Katie is constantly checking up on her dad to make sure he isn’t working too hard and cleaning up after all of his kitchen concoctions.  Then there is the trendy, fashionable librarian Ms. McDermott.  Ms. McDermott is a support system for Katie’s research; I think she somehow understands that the research is just something Katie needs to do.  There is also Sammy, the young neighborhood terror child who can’t sit still and is constantly climbing on things.  It is odd but he seems to be a lifesaver for Katie’s father.  While Katie only barely tolerates Sammy, she is happy to see the happiness that Sammy’s presence brings to her father.  And finally there is Danny, the thoughtful boy who works with her (and his goofy brother Owen) at Miss Martine’s.  Danny is a welcome surprise for Katie, who has never had a boyfriend and at the moment doesn’t even really have any friends.  Danny is ok with the fact that there are things that Katie just can’t talk about yet.  My only complaint may be that Katie’s mother seemed a bit too good to be true, too perfect, though that may just be one of the reflections of grief–always seeing only the good in the dead.

There is so much more that could be said about this small but powerful novel, but I’ll leave it for you to find out about on your own.

Frankie looks up to his older brother Steve.  Steve seems to have it all — he’s an excellent soccer player and is more than likely going to get a scholarship to college because of it, he’s smart, he’s cute, and he could get any girl he wants.  Sure, Frankie and Steve’s parents seem to be a bit lax with Steve because he does so well with soccer and school, and sure they don’t make Steve work in the family’s restaurant like they do Frankie, but Frankie doesn’t resent that too much.  Recently, though, Steve has changed some, just little things.  He’s started hanging out with the cholos, a local gang, specifically Flaco, the gang’s leader.  Steve doesn’t come home much anymore, just stops by for food, he sneaks out at night and doesn’t come back until early morning, and he begins dating a girl that you would not take home to meet the parents.  At first, Frankie doesn’t think too much about these changes and even relishes the respect he gets through association with his older brother, but Steve also begins to become harder, quicker to temper, a bit more violent, and has odd ideas about what earns respect.  The more Steve changes, the less Frankie continues to idolize his brother.  Who is this person Steve has turned into and is there anything left in him that Frankie can look up to?

Reaction: I thought this book was really well done.  While the heart of the story is Frankie and Steve’s relationship, most of the book is simply about Frankie trying to survive high school.  It’s Frankie hanging out with his bestfriend, blowing stuff up in his bestfriend’s backyard.  It’s crushing on a girl he’s been friends with forever and trying to get up the nerve to ask her out.  It’s dealing with the fact that he isn’t too fond of working at his parent’s restaurant but also isn’t so pleased when they sell it without consulting him.  It’s teenage Frankie living.  But all the while, Steve is changing and Frankie doesn’t see it at first.  Frankie knows Steve is probably doing things he shouldn’t and at first it’s just a bit aggravating — like the way his parents are always asking Frankie to narc on Steve but then never actually punish Steve — or funny — like when Steve brings home the girlfriend that no one in their right mind would bring home to meet the parents and their parents freak out.  When Steve finally convices Frankie to do something illegal with him for the sake of their family’s honor, Frankie isn’t so sure Steve is really all that great anymore.  The slow build of Frankie’s change in his feelings toward his brother is subtly and wonderfully done.  This is a great teen boy book and a great book about how any teen, no matter how smart or how good the family situation, can get dragged into a bad situation.

Katie’s parents have this cycle.  They fight, usually over her dad’s inattentiveness and her mom’s need to be acknowledged, things become tense in the house for a couple of days, then her dad buys her mom flowers or jewelry and things go back to normal for awhile.  Not this time.  This time Katie’s mom decides that she is going on extended vacation to stay with some old college friends, the Cooper-Melnicks, at their house in Cape Cod and take Katie with her.  Understandably, Katie’s upset.  Cape Cod is over half the country away from her home and she’s already started off a great summer taking a writing class and hanging out with her best friend.  To make matters worse, when Katie and her mom arrive in Cape Cod, Sarah, the Cooper-Melnick’s daughter, treats Katie like she’s not worthy enough to be Sarah’s friend.  Just when Katie begins to think all hope is lost for her summer, she meets Sarah’s friend Adam.  Adam shares her love of literature and they have a great time when they hang out.  Katie thinks she may have found the guy who will be her first boyfriend when she learns that Adam has a secret.  When his secret comes out, Katie will have to decide what exactly she wants from Adam and their relationship, and whether or not she is girlfriend material.

Reaction: Perfect summer reading!  It is easy to relate to what Katie is going through.  She and her mother have never really been that close because her mother is into more “girly” things like crafting and shopping while Kate is into tennis and writing.  Because of her lack of closeness with her mother and because her parents fighting seems like second nature in the household, Katie is ill-prepared for her mother’s impromptu trip and doesn’t really understand how close her parents are to splitting up.  She really thinks her mother is just throwing a hissy-fit to end all hissy-fits and subjecting Katie to the fall out.  Only after spending some time in Cape Cod and having her father, with whom she’s always been close, brush her off as if he doesn’t have time for her, does Katie begin to see the seriousness of her parent’s relationship problems and view the situation from both her father and mother’s perspectives.

The best part of the story, though, is Katie’s relationship with Adam.  I think every teenage girl should read this story so they can know they’re not alone.  All of the uncertainties that I felt when I first started dating were acted out through Katie: not wanting to read too much into a friendship, afraid after one date or one kiss you’ll never hear from the other person again, and trying to act cool or like you don’t really care when you’re really feeling needy or insecure.  Katie and Adam’s relationship made me feel better about my first dating experiences even though they happened over 10 years ago now! :)

If you’re looking for something light and romantic but something that also has a bit of substance, definitely look for Girlfriend Material.

Auden acts on impulse, maybe for the first time in her life, and decides to spend the summer with her father.  She has missed him since her parents’ divorce and has visions of getting some serious quality time with him before she heads off to college in the fall.  In reality, Auden ends up spending more time with her stepmother, Heidi, and her brand new baby stepsister, Thisbe, as her dad locks himself away in his office to finish his long awaited second novel.  Summer in the beach town of Colby, where her father and stepmother live, turns out to be just as lonely as her summer at home was looking.  Until Auden begins working in Heidi’s store doing some bookkeeping and makes unlikely friends with the girly girls who work retail at the store.  Until Auden meets Eli, a fellow insomniac, who shows her a nightlife unlike any she’s ever seen before.  Until Auden decides to try new things and have the childhood she never enjoyed when she was a kid.

Review: First of all, like many reviews have said, this is a Sarah Dessen novel.  It follows the same patterns all of Sarah Dessen’s novels have followed.  Yes, they are all similar but this does not bother me, yet.  Right now, I find Dessen’s novels comfortable like my favorite jeans, t-shirt, and sweatshirt combo.  I enjoy them and greatly look forward to them.

Moving on, I think Along for the Ride is one of my favorite Dessen novels, though it still cannot trump my beloved Just Listen.  I’m trying to pinpoint exactly what it was about the book that spoke to me and I’m not quite sure.  I don’t think I could relate to Auden on a personal level.  Though I was driven in school, not nearly to the same extent as Auden, who was uberdriven.  Though I wasn’t necessarily a social butterfly, I certainly had more of a life and more of a childhood than Auden.  That being said, I could really relate with Auden’s journey.  I enjoyed Auden’s discovery of views outside those of her parents and her quest to reclaim a small bit of her childhood.  Both Auden’s parents are strong personalities and Auden spent much of her life conforming to their expectations without, perhaps, figuring out exactly what she wants out of life or without viewing the world through her own lens.  I also think Auden learned the very important but hard to take lesson that your parents are people too, flawed just like everyone else.  I believe most teenagers probably understand this to some extent but I think it takes a measure of personal growth before the parents as people idea really sinks in.  Auden was able to view both of her parents with a more mature eye by the end of the book.  For example, Auden’s mother seems very self-centric, and in many instances she is exactly that, but by the end of the book the reader and Auden know that despite her flaws she really does love Auden and want the best for her.

And then there is Eli.  I will just say that I really enjoyed the dynamic between Eli and Auden and how they both helped each other move on and grow into the future.  Very nice.

I don’t approve of:

1. The cover.  Auden would not be caught dead in pink, even with her new, more “enlightened” mindset.  Ever.  Especially not pink with polka dots.  Not Auden.  And, I definitely didn’t picture Eli (whom I am assuming is the guy on the cover) as a character from grease but more skater (in this case biker) dude.
2. The booktrailer.  It relates to maybe 1% of the story and tells you nothing about the true plot line.  Instead of linking the booktrailer, here is a video of Sarah Dessen reading from the part of the book the booktrailer represents but the reading actually gives you a sense of who Auden is and of her new summer surroundings.

Fast Tube by Casper

The only family Samar, who goes by Sam or Sammy, has ever known is her mother.  It’s Samar and her mother against the world and, for the most part, that’s been enough.  Sure, Sammy sometimes gets jealous of her best friend Molly’s huge Irish family but they so often include her in their family’s activities that she almost feels like she’s one of them.  Sam’s feelings about family and about her history change with the sudden arrival of her long estranged uncle, Uncle Sandeep.  Uncle Sandeep arrives on her porch not long after 9/11 looking to reconnect with his sister and niece.  Uncle Sandeep is warm, kind, and funny, and Sam loves spending time with him.  The more time she spends with him, the more she wants to know about the parts of her heritage and her relatives that her mother has kept secret.  Sam goes on a personal quest to figure out who she is and where she comes from.

Reaction: I really, really enjoyed this one.  I sat down and read it in less than a day.  I thought Sam was a very believable and realistic teenage girl who just so happens to be going through a huge identity crisis.  I loved how Sam could switch between worrying about something as superficial as what clothes she was going to wear out to worrying about something as deep as her heritage, religion, and family roots.  I also loved how Sam tended to vilify her mother, suddenly going from completely trusting her mother’s decisions to blaming her and accusing her of wrongful neglect by keeping Sam from her extended family.  I thought this was another very teenage thing to do, to only see the situation as black and white, one person as right or wrong.  Sam eventually saw the shades of gray and began to understand her mother’s choices.  I also really liked how Sam was able to teach her mother something about forgiveness and perspective.

At times I thought the dialogue sounded a bit unnatural, a few times the writing seemed a bit forced, and I found some of the many similes a bit out of place, some jarred me out of the story, but none of these little things really mattered in the end.  As the story got rolling, I felt as though Meminger hit her stride and I just got completely sucked into Sam’s life.

One last thing that I loved.  Meminger mentions websites that Sam uses to learn about Sikhism.  I was wondering if they were real so I searched for pretty much all of them.  I found all but one and I’m sure that one was probably active at the time Meminger wrote the book.  On one of the sites, sepiamutiny.com, I found this post which I thought fit in nicely with one of the issues raised in the book.  If you watch the video you’ll have to read the book to see how it ties in.

Thanks: To The Happy Nappy Bookseller for her review that made me want to read the book.

“Persephone.  Daughter of Demeter, the harvest goddess.  Kidnapped and forced to –”

Wrong! In every book of myths, the same; in every book, wrong!

…

Just once I’d like to set the record straight.

Persephone is trapped in paradise, closed off from the world by her overprotective mother Demeter.  When a mysterious, dark, handsome man finds his way into her paradise, Persephone is both scared and intrigued.  The mystery man continues to visit her and Persephone continues to meet him, never telling her mother of his invasion of her glade.  He finally reveals himself; he is Hades and he wants Persephone to come live with him in the underworld.  She agrees, leaving without word to her mother or her friends, with no thought of the consequences of her actions.  Persephone begins to carve out a new and happy life for herself in the Underworld, but on Earth things are not as happy.  Demeter is convinced that Hades stole Persephone against her will and is causing death and destruction on Earth in order to force Zeus to make Hades return Persephone to her.  When Persephone finds out what is happening on Earth, will she finally have the guts to stand up to her mother and do what is right?

Reaction: Much like the author, I always wondered if Persephone was really stolen, if she really hated her time in the Underworld or if there was maybe a bit more to it.  The romantic, positive person in me always hoped that Persephone actually enjoyed her time in the Underworld.  I think Whitman did a great job re-imagining this myth.  While I enjoyed the scenes between Persephone and Hades, the main focus of the book is on Persephone’s coming-of-age (as cliche as that may be).  When the story begins, Persephone feels stifled by her mother and unable to express herself.  Her mother tries to keep Persephone from growing up and still insists on treating Persephone as a child.  Hades is Persephone’s way out.  As Persephone gains her freedom, assumes more and more responsibility in her role as queen, and makes a friend with a new resident of the Underworld, a young woman who left her young child behind on Earth, she begins to understand how her sudden departure may have affected her mother.  She always assumed she meant nothing to Demeter, who always critical of Persephone and never allowed Persephone to go with her while she performed her rituals, but Persephone looked through her mother’s eyes and saw that many of her mother’s actions were driven by love.  While there certainly is romance in this story, it is mostly about a shaky mother-daughter relationship and growing from a child to a young adult.

Quinn loves her dad.  She knows he’s not perfect but he’s charismatic, outgoing, fun; it’s hard not to love him.  One thing she can’t deny, he’s a womanizer.  Quinn doesn’t even know all of the women he’s ever been with.  She knows he broke her mother’s heart and left her family — mom, Quinn, and baby sister Sprout — to live with another woman when Quinn was very young.  She knows he now lives with Brie, a woman half his age, and her young son.  Quinn, though, sees only the good.  That is until she begins to notice that some of his treasured possessions have the names of the women he’s left behind attached to them.  A large painting, a sculpture, a music box, and more.  Quinn can’t deny the wrongness of her father having these items or his cold reaction when she asks about them.  Quinn takes a daring step and calls the older half-sister she’s only met once, Frances Lee, and asks her what she thinks Quinn should do.  The call is the beginning of a quest for Quinn, Sprout, and Frances Lee to return the possession their father stole to their rightful owners, all of his past wives and girlfriends.

Reaction: I like this one MUCH better than I did The Nature of Jade.  I liked Quinn.  She wanted, needed her father’s love so much she unknowingly overlooked some of his most horrible traits.  Despite the fact that she put her dad on a pedestal, when it came to her own love life she very much sought someone who was decidedly not like her father.  She looked for someone solid, reliable, dependable, pretty much boring.  As much as she loved her father she did not want to date anyone like her father, but despite all of her best efforts to have the “perfect” boyfriend, it didn’t work out.  I liked Sprout.  She was feisty and, in some ways, much smarter than her older sister.  She was protective of Quinn and saw her father for exactly what he was.  Frances Lee was a hoot.  So different from Quinn and Sprout, moody and harder, but she nicely completed the trio of sisters.

There were still some things I didn’t like.  Well, this first one is something I liked but didn’t like.  Interspersed throughout the story were tales from women on past (bad) relationships, what went wrong, and why.  I liked these but they got to be too much.  There were too many of them and I felt they interrupted the flow of the story.  I was so tempted to skip them by the end.  Also, most of them were by minor characters and sometimes I couldn’t remember who it was telling the story.  Again, I liked them I just wish there had been fewer.  While I loved Jake, I thought his relationship with Quinn kind of defeated all of the love lessons the girls were learning on their trip.  Jake and Quinn were instant attraction with little time to build substance to their relationship.  After just a couple of days they were a solid thing.  I wish this would have been a bit slower to build so it could show that Quinn had maybe learned something from all of the women she’d been talking to.  Finally, I was pretty depressed that (I think) only two of the six or seven past girlfriends found stable relationships.  There were so few examples of good, healthy relationships between men and women.  Is this really what the world as come to today?

Overall, I thought The Secret Life of Prince Charming was very well done.  I was hooked.  Despite my enjoyment of Something, Maybe by Elizabeth Scott, which has a similar plot, I think I enjoyed The Secret Life a bit better.  I thought it dove a bit deeper into the absent parent issue, but as hot as Jake was I think I’m still all about Finn. :)