After her childhood best (and only) friend Cameron suddenly disappears, Jennifer is lost.  The only way she can cope is to completely transform herself from “loser” into “cool.”  When Cameron reappears years later, Jennifer is shocked.  Suddenly the popular image she has created for herself begins to crumble as she begins to confront secrets from the past.  An excellent young adult novel.

Kate and Tully became unlikely best friends in 8th grade. Tully was beautiful, well-dressed and “cool,” while Kate was definitely not cool. In spite of their differences, the friendship endured through high school while the girls dreamed of making it big as famous news anchors, through college as the girls explored careers and love, and on into adulthood as they finally acknowledged the separate paths their lives were taking. Through it all, the girls disagreed, fought and made up. Tully gave Kate the ability to dream big, while Kate and her family provided Tully with the love and stability she so desperately needed. But then Tully’s desire for success at any cost finally drives a wedge between the women that threatens their friendship forever.

Firefly Lane is a classic tale of mismatched best friends. Although somewhat predictable, Hannah still creates an entertaining story. Some of the side plots that really rang true to me were the mother-daughter relationships. Hannah manages to write about the intensity and love, without being melodramatic. Kate’s growth is especially fun to watch, as she grows from a teenager, fighting with her “overprotective” mother, into an “overprotective” mother with her own teenage daughter. If you’re looking for some fun chick lit to escape into this summer, Firefly Lane would make a great selection.

Deanna’s a sophomore, who is struggling to overcome her reputation as a slut. She gained this reputation at age 13, when her father caught her in the backseat with 17 year old Tommy. Not only is her entire high school still talking about it, but Deanna’s father refuses to look her in the eye, and her mother tries to pretend like it never happened. Deanna tries to find refuge in her summer job, her best friends Jason and Lee, and her plans to move away from home as soon as possible. But ultimately, she must learn to forgive her father, and herself, for past mistakes.

This book was hard to read, and hard to put down. Zarr takes a hard look at the very real effects of teenage sex. I would recommend this book for both parents and teenagers to read. It’s definitely not written from a Christian perspective, and you may not agree with all of the choices that the characters make. But parents in particular will come away from the book with a renewed sense of their own importance, both for good and for bad, in the lives of their teenage children.

This book caught my eye when I was in a reading dry spell–nothing good to read at home, and desperate for a little escape fiction. I finished it, and it did provide me with a break from reality for a few hours. But, they definitely weren’t hours well-spent. I just need to stop reading Luanne Rice. I loved her when I first discovered her, but after the first 10 books, I realized that they were all basically the same, and after the second 10 books, she really started to get on my nerves. And yet, I read another one of her books. . . This one will be the last.

To an outsider, it would seem as if Julie lives a fairly ordinary life. She has a mom, Zel, a cat, Boots, and a slightly eccentric grandmother, Gothel. But Julie’s life is far from ordinary. Her mom’s full name is Rapunzel, of “let down your golden hair” fame. Hundreds of years ago, Rapunzel was responsible for rescuing all of the fairy tale characters from their imprisonment to their stories. Trapped in the Wild, and forced to re-enact their stories over and over again, the fairy tale characters never had a chance for freedom, until Rapunzel defeated the Wild.

Now Zel and her daughter Julie are responsible for keeping the Wild under control. But when the Wild somehow escapes and begins to trap Julie’s friends one by one in its stories, it is up to Julie to make the right choices that will save everyone once again, without being captured herself.

Durst creatively weaves numerous fairy tales into one grand retelling, and challenges both Julie and her readers to decide what is really a “happily ever after” ending.

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