Graceful by Wendy Mass, 2015

Stop right there! Don't go any further unless you've read the other four books in the Willow Falls series. I've done my best to avoid spoilers, but when you're reviewing the fifth book in a series you're bound to ruin something from the earlier books. Click the links to go to my reviews of the first, second, third, and fourth books in the series. And if you read on and spoil the entire series for yourself? Well, don't say I didn't warn you.

Click to view
on Goodreads

An exciting new story in the bestselling Willow Falls series from Wendy Mass!
Angelina D'Angelo has left town to see the world. It's now Grace's turn to use her magic to protect the people of Willow Falls, and she is up to the challenge. This is her destiny, after all. But destiny is a funny thing-it doesn't always behave the way you'd expect it to.
Mysterious postcards from Angelina begin showing up in the mail, Grace's parents are freaking out with worry, and something BIG is coming to town that will affect everybody who lives there. But all Grace is powerful enough to do is turn leftover meatloaf into pizza.
Fortunately, she's not alone. She has Team Grace on her side! Amanda, Leo, Rory, Tara, David, and Connor know a thing or two about magic and how it works. But none of them are prepared for what's coming, and none of them know how to stop it. Life in Willow Falls is about to change forever.

(272 pages)

Every Willow Falls book is told in first person present tense from the main character's POV, and Graceful is no exception. This time around it's Grace, learning to deal with her new magical abilities, who takes center stage. However, in this book Mass also adds snippets of narration from the other characters: there are diary entries by Amanda, letters from Tara to her pen pal/friend Julie, texts to and from Rory (who finally got a real phone!), poems written by Leo, inventor's notes from Connor, and more. I really like how Mass did that because it keeps the narration focused equally on all of the many characters. Otherwise she would've had to include long pages of second-hand descriptions as characters waited in line to tell Grace everything important that happened to them since the last time they talked to her. And that would not be fun.

The things that I expected to feel fake/annoying (like the middle school couples popping up every time I turn around) turned out to be perfectly fine, and actually pretty enjoyable. I think a large part of this success is the more disjointed technique of using all the different mediums to tell the story, because it dilutes the effect of having so many people running around with different things on their mind. Learning about the magic of Willow Falls was also really interesting - Mass does a good job of explaining it without sucking out all of the mystery and wonder.

Despite how much I did enjoy it, Graceful is not a perfect book. For one thing, I disagree with Grace's decision in regards to her parents. Just because they're stressed about your magical powers, does not mean you should use said abilities to make your parents forget about them! I'm not saying whether Grace succeeds in inflicting amnesia on her parents; it's the fact that this is treated like such a great idea by everyone involved that slightly annoys me. Surely someone would have pointed out that it wasn't really the ten-year-old's place to wipe her parents' memories? Another quibble is that the book can feel a bit disjointed. This wasn't a big deal for me, because I don't know of any other way for a story with that many characters to be told, but I know some might find it annoying. Also, did I mention there are three middle school couples? Yes, that's three. As in 3. As in two more than one.

To be fair, though, they're not just a bunch of random couples off the street; they're our couples, the ones we've watched from the very beginning, the ones we've rooted for and laughed at with and cried over. So I can't really fret too much about how many of them there are, because just in this one series, it doesn't really matter. I love them all with a passion that makes chapter fifteen particularly amazing for me - oh, you want to know what happens in chapter fifteen? I'm sorry, but you'll have to read Graceful and find out for yourself because I just can't bring myself to spoil it for you.

Bottom line: I love this book. A lot. It's the perfect ending to the series, and now that I've read it I can't imagine the series being complete without it. Is Graceful a standalone? Never! Is it the perfect close to an amazing series? Absolutely! So please take the time to read just one more Willow Falls book. But definitely make sure to re-read the other books before you delve into this one: trust me, Graceful is that much better if you understand all the references to the earlier books. And by "better," I mean "funnier." This book is hilarious!

Disclaimer: This is an Amazon affiliate link, and I received a free ARC from Scholastic Press in exchange for an honest review.

Teaser Tuesdays: Graceful by Wendy Mass (April 21)

Okay, so for those of you who are new to this meme, here's how it works:

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My current read is the fifth Willow Falls book, Graceful by Wendy Mass Please don't read ahead if you haven't read the other books in the series! Here is my review of the amazing first book, 11 Birthdays.

Synopsis (from Goodreads):
Angelina D'Angelo has left town to see the world. It's now Grace's turn to use her magic to protect the people of Willow Falls, and she is up to the challenge. This is her destiny, after all. But destiny is a funny thing-it doesn't always behave the way you'd expect it to.
Mysterious postcards from Angelina begin showing up in the mail, Grace's parents are freaking out with worry, and something BIG is coming to town that will affect everybody who lives there. But all Grace is powerful enough to do is turn leftover meatloaf into pizza.
Fortunately, she's not alone. She has Team Grace on her side! Amanda, Leo, Rory, Tara, David, and Connor know a thing or two about magic and how it works. But none of them are prepared for what's coming, and none of them know how to stop it. Life in Willow Falls is about to change forever.

(272 pages)

This week's quote comes from the Amazon preview of Graceful, because I'm not supposed to quote my ARC. This quote comes from page 6, if you want to check it out:

At first I'd tried to explain to the others how it felt to be able to see what I'd never imagined existed, like the way every person seemed connected to everyone else. Seeing the history of our town unfold in front of my eyes, it was like living a hundred years in seven days.

Does this interest you? Check back on Friday for my review!

The Last Present by Wendy Mass

Click to view on Goodreads

Amanda and Leo have a history with birthdays. Now their friend's little sister, Grace, has fallen into a strange frozen state on her birthday, and Amanda and Leo must travel in time in order to fix whatever's wrong. As they journey back to each of Grace's birthdays, they start seeing all sorts of patterns . . . which raise all sorts of questions.
Amanda and Leo are going to have to unravel the threads of the past and present - and travel much further than they ever imagined - if they're going to save Grace. Luckily, a little birthday magic always helps in the charming and funny Willow Falls series by Wendy Mass, where everything is possible and there are no coincidences.
(256 pages)


This is the fourth book in the Willow Falls series by Wendy Mass. I am reviewing all of them, so click the links if you haven't read my reviews of the first, second, and third books. Also, read ahead at your own risk: there are some unavoidable spoilers from the previous books in the series.

This is a fun book because it circles back to Amanda and Leo! We get to see inside Amanda's head for the first time in three books, and it's kinda awesome. In The Last Present, David's best friend Connor's little sister Grace (whew, that's a mouthful) goes into a sudden coma. Leo  and Amanda are given an assignment from Angelina: they have to go back in time to each of Grace's birthdays and make sure Angelina's protection over Grace is established. Something has been preventing Angelina from placing the usual blessing on Grace for the last ten years, and Amanda and Leo have a second chance to fix it.

I have to say, I was a bit disappointed that time didn't repeat itself the same way it did in the first book, where the same events happened over and over again. Granted, that would have made the book a little too similar to 11 Birthdays, and it would have shut out virtually any character developement/storylines involving the other main characters we've come to love, and all-in-all would have been a bad way to do this. But still, it does seem a bit out-of-sync with what we already knew about the Ellerby-Fitzpatrick curse.

Anyway, complaints about plot decisions aside I really like this book. It's basically everything readers were waiting for, wrapped up in one big package that literally had a bow on the front. In fact, if I had to make one (more) complaint about the book it would be that it's so happy it's cloying. I suppose that's what happens when you have a series focusing on three different characters, all of which have some sort of love interest at the end of the so-called series closer (due to popular demand, Mass is now writing a fifth book entitled Graceful that might be really good, or might . . . not be).

Honestly, this is a wonderful series closer. It reminds me of the last Septimus Heap book, Fyre - not because of plot similarities (because there are, like, none) but because both books wrap up the series with a bang, tying off all the threads I care about and even throwing in some extra plot points to make it extra special.

If you haven't read the other books in the series, don't read this one! Please, I beg of you, don't read this one. If you've read the other books, then I beg of you: read this book. But, of course, if you've read the other books I don't need to beg you to read this one. If you've made it this far, wild horses probably couldn't keep you away from this one. I know they couldn't have kept me away.

This concludes my four-week review of the Willow Falls series! Thank you so much for reading these. Now I'd appreciate a little bit of feedback: have my reviews made you more likely to read the series? Did you like the way I reviewed the entire series, or would you prefer that I stick to reviewing unrelated books?

13 Gifts by Wendy Mass, 2011

When Tara, a self-proclaimed shrinking violet, steals the school mascot, a goat, in order to make some friends with the popular crowd and gets caught, she gets herself in a heap of trouble. In addition, her parents decide that instead of taking her on their summer trip to Madagascar to study the courtship rituals of the Bamboo Lemur, she must go stay with her aunt, uncle, and bratty cousin Emily St. Claire in Willow Falls. Tara thinks it's a good time to start over; she'll be turning 13 after all, so she might as well make the best of it and perhaps even attempt to break out of her shell (in a non-criminal manner). What Tara doesn't know is that this charmed town has something big in store for her on her 13th birthday. It's not a typical birthday. But then again, nothing is Willow Falls is exactly typical!

My copy of this book is very special to me: it was the first arc I ever received. A kind librarian gave it to me a short while before its release date, and I was in awe at this strange and magical idea that you could read a book before it came out. I had no idea how to get an arc on my own power and figured that I wasn't important enough to get one - but I cherished my copy of 13 Gifts and have taken care of it for years.

All right, let's get going! This is the third book in the Willow Falls series. Click here to read my review of 11 Birthdays, and here for my review of Finally. This is one of my favorite series; a comfort read I fell back on when I felt miserable after surgery. I decided to review the entire series so others could discover it.

This is the first book in the series that really leans on the ones before it, making it much more enjoyable if you've read the earlier books. Tara, our latest heroine, comes to stay with her cousin Emily (from Finally) and becomes friends with characters from the other books. I'm sure you could make it through this one without having read the others, but it would spoil the first books and would be a lot less fun. One of my favorite things about this book is that it is full of nods and references to the first two books. Inside jokes, old friends, and past mishaps all make appearances throughout the book - and poor Tara is completely befuddled by them!

For many years I cherished this book because of the way it felt like a culmination of the others. Tara is actually the least relatable of the main characters, because I would never steal a comic book from my uncle, no matter how much I needed the money. It's not that I don't like her, and in most of the book she's great. I just don't find her particular predicament relateble. The story is fun, though, and I've reread it numerous times. This is the book that really solidified my love for the series, because while a first book doesn't affect the books that come after it, and the second book that's also a standalone can be an anomaly, by the time you get to the third book in the series and you love that one you know that without a doubt you love the entire series. After reading this one, I hunkered down and started counting the days until the next one came out.

Have you read this series? How do you like it? And if you haven't, do you think it looks interesting? Next week is my review of the fourth and last (published) book in the series.

Finally by Wendy Mass, 2010

Synopsis (from Goodreads):
A humorous look at what it means to FINALLY turn twelve years old.
You can pierce your ears when you're twelve. You can go to the mall with your friends when you're twelve. You can babysit little Timmy next door when you're twelve. You can get a cell phone when you're twelve. Hey, you can even ride in the front passenger-side seat when you're twelve.When you're twelve, when you're twelve, when you're twelve . . .
My name is Rory Swenson, and I've been waiting to turn twelve my whole life. In exactly 18 hours, 36 minutes, and 52 seconds, it will finally happen.
My life will officially begin.
(304 pages)

Hopefully you will have read my review of 11 Birthdays, the first book in the Willow Falls series, before reading this review. I am reviewing all four of the books in the series because I started rereading all of them when I was recovering from wrist surgery (side note: physical therapy is going well!). While I love the first book, I haven't actually purchased it yet. I don't really know why, but I've always just thought that if I wanted to read it I could get it from the library. I do, however, own this one. I bought it with a gift card almost 2 years ago, and have reread it countless times. It is arguably better than the first book, and was the book that truly cemented my love for the series.

The book follows Rory as she ticks off a birthday bucket list of sorts: she has been waiting her whole life to turn 12, which is when her parents will finally let her do "grown-up" things like drinking coffee and going to boy-girl parties and staying home alone. The first time I read this book, I had done practically nothing on Rory's list. Several years later, I have done most of the things on her list (still waiting for the coffee, though!). Rereading it now is like a step back in time to my first experiences with things like getting my ears pierced, babysitting, and getting contact lenses. Rory's experiences as a sheltered girl trying out grown up activities for the first time mirrors my life in more than one way, and out of all the characters I believe I share the most in common (both in life experiences and personality) with Rory. Though I have to say, my mishaps were never near the scale of hers.

You don't have to read these books in order. Well, at least you don't have to read the first two in order. The third one is much more enjoyable if you've read the first two, because the characters from the first two books are featured heavily in the third one. The fourth book is definitely much more meaningful and less confusing if you've read the other books 1st. But for the first two books, you can read them in either order. They are both built to be standalones, and are perfectly wonderful under their own power. I read them in order, but it wouldn't have mattered if I'd read Finally first. In fact, if the plot of the first book doesn't appeal to you, just read this one. They are very different books, but both are excellent reads.

Stay tuned for my review of 13 Gifts!

11 Birthdays by Wendy Mass, 2009

Synopsis (from Goodreads):It's Amanda's 11th birthday and she is super excited -- after all, 11 is so different from 10. But from the start, everything goes wrong. The worst part of it all is that she and her best friend, Leo, with whom she's shared every birthday, are on the outs and this will be the first birthday they haven't shared together. When Amanda turns in for the night, glad to have her birthday behind her, she wakes up happy for a new day. Or is it? Her birthday seems to be repeating iself. What is going on?! And how can she fix it? Only time, friendship, and a little luck will tell. . . 

I read this book for the first time several years ago. In many ways it helped me start a new era of flexibility in my reading patterns: up until this point I refused to read any book not written in third person past tense. For those of you who have not read this book, it is written in first person present tense. I basically read it because my mother told me to and because I had nothing else to read and once started, could not put it down. It made me realize that sometimes you have to be flexible in your reading habits, because sometimes you can find the most wonderful books written in ways that you are not accustomed to.

Now, I'm sure you can tell from my opening paragraph that I really liked this book. That is true. I really, really like this book. In fact, I like the whole series. No, I love the whole series. Frankly, I love almost every book Wendy Mass has ever written. And it all started with this book, five years ago. Over the next few weeks, I plan to post my reviews of all of the books in this four – book series. As some of you may know, I recently had surgery on my dominant wrist and have spent a lot of time lately with nothing to do but read a book. Unfortunately, that time has now ended and I am scrambling to catch up all of the schoolwork that I got behind on while recovering from the surgery. But while I was still incapacitated, I started rereading the Willow Falls series as a sort of comfort read. Now I plan to review them so that others can see why I love these books so much.

The story itself in this book is a fun if slightly cliché set up: Amanda is stuck in a Groundhog Day-esque scenario where every morning when she wakes up she has to repeat the same birthday over and over again. It was miserable the first time; by the third time, it's practically unbearable. She has no idea what is going on, or how to fix it. It's like her worst nightmare: she has spent a year feeling very alone without her ex-best friend Leo, but now she is truly alone with no one to confide in as she has to repeat the same day over and over again. I love the set-up of the story (part of which I can't mention for spoiler reasons), and while the book literally takes place over the course of one day repeated over and over aagin, it's really cool seeing how the choices Amanda makes affects the world around her. It's like one of those models I'm learning about in AP Macroeconomics: how does a change in one factor change the entire economy? How does a change in the behavior of one(ish - sh, spoilers!) person?

I love the two main characters. Amanda is, obviously, the main focus of the book. The story is told from her point of view so you get a firsthand view of the worst day of her life. While I personally have never gotten in a huge fight with my best friend, stressed about getting onto the chearleading squad (while really wanting to join the much nerdier marching band as a drummer), or gotten stuck in a time loop where I have to repeat a terrible day over and over again, I was still right there with Amanda every step of the way. She was not like me in any way, but she was someone I'd like to be friends with. The other MC, Leo, doesn't really get involved directly in the story until about halfway through the book. I can't really go into much detail with Leo because of the risk of spoilers, but suffice to say I wouldn't mind having him as a friend, either!

I love this book. I just want to end on that point. Because of reading this one book several years ago, I have now read (and loved!) over ten other books by Mass. And the wonderful thing about this series is that it builds in the most delicious way. Each book focuses on a different person and a different storyline (except the fourth book, which focuses on Amanda once more), and each book is just as good if not better than the one before it. Stay posted for my reviews of the other books in the wonderful Willow Falls series!