Golden Review

TITLE Golden
AUTHOR Jessi Kirby
PUBLICATION May 14th 2013 by Simon & Schuster
READ April 26 to 27, 2013
SOURCE Simon & Schuster Canada for review

Love, tragedy, and mystery converge in this compelling novel from “an author to watch” (Booklist).

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

At this point in the year I am so ready to just throw in the towel and declare myself a contemporary fangirl. I have been having no luck with dystopians, paranormals or even post apocalyptic stories but every single time I pick up a contemporary I am sucked in and emotional. Those are the best kinds of reads, aren’t they? GOLDEN is no exception, I absolutely adored this book. From the beautiful writing to the amazing characters and the magical inclusion of great poetry.

Parker Frost is an overachiever, she is at the top of her class and doing anything she can to get a full ride to Stanford to chase her dreams. We meet her as she is in the final weeks of her senior year and helping out as TA to english teacher Mr. Kinney. One of Kinney’s most successful assignments in his role of teacher is when he hands his outgoing seniors a journal and asks them to fill it with the answer to this question: “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Pretty loaded question, right? I love the idea of this assignment so much and how it weaved a bit of mystery into the story. See, Parker finds among the stack the journal of Julianna Farnetti. Julianna went missing on the night of her graduation 10 years ago with her boyfriend Shane Cruz. They were the small towns golden couple and their bodies had never been found. As Parker takes Julianna’s journal and reads her innermost thoughts she begins to see that this romance wasn’t everything that it seemed and unravels some shocking truths.

What always makes a contemporary for me is the characters and this one had a cast of great ones. I really liked seeing Parker change as she did throughout the story. We met her when she was on a strict and disciplined path to get into Stanford and we watch her begin to stray in order to find out who she is. All the while her best friend Kat is there pushing her to do something wild & crazy in her final days of high school. Kat was so awesome! I loved her free spirit and her loudmouth ways. She always had Parker’s best interest in mind and was quick to support her in any way that she could. There were so many little things she did throughout the novel that made her into a best friend that I would love to have in my own life. Even Parker’s mother was incredibly supportive of her (even if she went a little overboard) so it was refreshing to see a present parent in the story as well. Not only do we get to see great friendships and parenting but we also get two sweet love stories.

There is so much romance in these pages! We get to see what Julianna had went through 10 years ago which is romantic, beautiful and sad all at the same time and we also get to watch Parker’s crush slowly grow. I liked her love interest, Trevor. He was really funny and because they had known each other for so many years they were able to poke at each other. It was cute because they were incredibly sarcastic with one another and were always forcing the other to read between the lines. Trevor really went out of his way to put himself into Parker’s life and he became someone that was incredibly supportive of her as well.

As you can see there are so many great relationships in GOLDEN and also a page turning, slow burning mystery. All of these elements came together perfectly and I was enraptured by the story until I reached the very last page. I had told myself at about halfway through that I was going to make myself read a chapter an hour to drag it out because I didn’t want it to end but that didn’t happen. I read this in a single day and wouldn’t change a thing about it. If you don’t have this one on your TBR you need to put it there because this is a beautiful story you don’t want to miss.

In Honor Review

TITLE In Honor
AUTHOR Jessie Kirby
PUBLICATION May 8, 2012 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
READ July 23, 2012

Hours after her brother’s military funeral, Honor opens the last letter Finn ever sent. In her grief, she interprets his note as a final request and spontaneously decides to go to California to fulfill it.

Honor gets as far as the driveway before running into Rusty, Finn’s best friend since third grade and his polar opposite. She hasn’t seen Rusty in ages, but it’s obvious he is as arrogant and stubborn as ever—not to mention drop-dead gorgeous. Despite Honor’s better judgment, the two set off together on a voyage from Texas to California. Along the way, they find small and sometimes surprising ways to ease their shared loss and honor Finn’s memory—but when shocking truths are revealed at the end of the road, will either of them be able to cope with the consequences?

I've been hearing a lot of good things about road trip novels, and when I told anyone that I had never read one I always got a very suprised response and was told to read on ASAP. Well I read my first road trip novel, it was In Honor and it was so much fun! This was a super quick read at just over 200 pages and I loved every page. There are a lot of details in this novel that weren't exactly original such as Rusty resembling Tim Riggins so much and Kyra Kelley is quite obviously the books version of Taylor Swift, "...it was perfect that Kyra was singing a song about a no-good, small-town guy who was just plain mean.", "... And with Kyra Kelley who was singing about wishing she'd never had to grow up." Taylor Swifts "Mean" and "Never Grow Up", anyone? So, while it's not the most original story I've ever read all the components are there for a fun engrossing read.

Honor was a great main character, and seeing the story through her eyes was great. She had been through a lot, lost both of her parents at a young age and became quite attached to her brother Finn. When Finn dies in the line of duty she takes his first and only handwritten letter that she receives as a sort of last wish for him that she must fulfill. She takes the two concert tickets that he sends and sets out on a mission to tell Kyra Kelley about how great her brother is. I felt her pain at losing the most important person in the world to her, and I understood her need to completely one last thing in his honor. Of course the trip doesn't go exactly as planned and when Finn's old best friend Rusty joins the trip things get interesting.

Rusty's hot, that's all there is to it. As someone who was addicted to Friday Night Lights the parallels to the hottie that is Tim Riggins are quite obvious. He's a down-home country footballer who has his demons in his past and finds refuge in a bottle of booze. But underneath that exterior you just know that he cares more than you can ever know, and the little glimpses he gives to his sweet side make you weak in the knees. There's something about the taming of the typical bad boy that is so enticing. Every girl wants to be the one to tame him, the one he finally settles down for. As Rusty's true intentions become clear in the novel you can't help but actually "awww" out loud.

Honor and Rusty's trip is an adventure that anyone would love to go on. They get opportunities to do things they never thought they would, and they deal with their grief as a pair. In Honor has the perfect balance of sadness, romance and fun. It is a novel that can easily be read in a single sitting and takes you through its own array of emotions, so if you are heading for a day at the beach this summer I definitely think you should pack this in your beach bag.