Charlotte's Library

Perfect You written by Elizabeth Scott I'd been waiting a very long time to read this book, and I'm sorry to say that I was underwhelmed.  Granted, it is one of Scott's earlier works, and she also has a history of being a hit-or-miss writer for me, but the summary sounded like it had the potential to be a cute, well-written book, and I was sad to see that it didn't deliver.  That isn't to say that there weren't good ideas.  There were.  The focus on the family and friendships outside of just your typical YA focus on a relationship were so good in theory...but ultimately also fell short.  It was mostly just frustrating  to read.  Most of the problems, if not all, could have been solved with a dose of communication, and other than a particularly moving scene between old friends toward the very end of the book, when it didn't mean much, the characters just didn't spend enough time talking to each other, leading to overblown problems.  It's unfortunat...

Because It Is My Blood written by Gabrielle Zevin Zevin's intricate storytelling ability continues to amaze me.  Where the latest trend in YA fiction is to write serial fiction with cliffhangers and stories that are like puzzle pieces that make no sense without their companions, Zevin takes the time and effort to craft her stories into books that fit together, but do stand on their own two feet as well.  The self-contained nature of the story allows new readers to jump right in without necessarily having to read the predecessor, which tells me that Zevin cares more about the story than the additional revenue that comes from writing serialized books.  And as a reader, that matters to me.  But beyond all that, there's just the fact of the matter that this is a good story .  There are so many layers to everything that unfolds, but Zevin keeps it all at just the right amount of character development, settings, and plot points to keep it from getting confusing. ...

Claim to Fame written by Margaret Peterson Haddix Claim to Fame is a book with a pretty interesting concept but ultimately questionable execution.  Everything is wrapped up a little too neatly, a little too hastily.  With Haddix's popular Shadow Children  series, the length of the story gave us the opportunity to really delve into the depths of her created world.  Here, she created a world but didn't seem to have enough time to fully explore it.  Some of the characters and plot points ultimately seemed entirely unnecessary upon the book's conclusion, and it just seemed like the story was trying to do too much.  It had some pretty cool plot twists, but fell flat overall. Rating: 3/5