The Wonder of Us by Kim Culbertson, 2017

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Riya and Abby are:
Best friends.
Complete opposites.
Living on different continents.
Currently mad at each other.
About to travel around Europe.

Riya moved to Berlin, Germany, with her family for junior year, while Abby stayed behind in their small California town. They thought it would be easy to keep up their friendship-it's only a year and they've been best friends since preschool. But instead, they ended up fighting and not being there for the other. So Riya proposes an epic adventure to fix their friendship. Two weeks, six countries, unimaginable fun. But two small catches:

They haven't talked in weeks.
They've both been keeping secrets.

Can Riya and Abby find their way back to each other among lush countrysides and dazzling cities, or does growing up mean growing apart?

(336 pages)

Oh, gosh. This book is like heroin for travel addicts.

I mean it. I got such a high from reading the descriptions of all the different places Riya and Abby visited. I've actually been to three of the cities they visit (well, two if you only count ones I was old enough to remember), and the details were so perfect that they took me back to my own travels. It's clear that Culbertson is a fellow travel lover, and that she spent a good amount of time in the countries her characters visit. I love it. And also, now I want to visit all of the other countries she described.

The gorgeous town of
St. Andrews, Scotland

Because seriously, I am addicted to traveling. So much so that there's an 85% chance (barring a sudden onset of nerves) that I will be moving to Scotland next year to do my undergrad at the University of St. Andrews. It's 600 years old and stunningly gorgeous. Check out a picture of it on the left and wish me luck.

Anyway, moving on from the traveling, let's talk characters. Basically, I related to both of them. I can understand Abby's love for the comfortable and familiar of her hometown, and her obsession with history. I can also relate to Riya's travel bug and her itch for adventure. I understand the struggle to balance so many factors in deciding what to do after high school. That said, I do think Riya was kind of a jerk at times.

Sorry, can't elaborate on that for spoiler reasons. Suffice it to say that I don't really like how she did things. Anyway, I also adore Riya's cousin Neel. He seems like a straight-up trope at first, but over the course of the book he really develops into a believable character. I love his push-pull relationship with Riya, where they basically annoy each other constantly but love each other underneath it all. His burgeoning friendship with Abby is even cuter, though it becomes a bit heavy by the end–but again, I can't say much for fear of spoilers. He makes the perfect third party in their traveling trio, though, and I'm glad he was there.

Basically, I loved The Wonder of Us because it's a story about people just like me, facing problems like growing up and moving away and making big college decisions, who get to hash out their friendship problems while traveling around Europe. While I might not like every single choice they make on the way (they seem much more relaxed about kissing new acquaintances than I would be!), I heartily enjoyed reading it. I'll be keeping ahold of my copy for a while, because I know I'll want to revisit the characters as well as the stunning settings. If you like to travel and read about the struggles of growing up, then you might enjoy The Wonder of Us, too. If you do decide to read it, let us know what you think in the comments section down below!

Disclaimer: I received an unsolicited copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Cody and the Rules of Life by Tricia Springstubb, 2017

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Doing the right thing can be hard! When prized possessions start going missing, Cody gets a crash course in the most important rules of all — the rules of life.

In Cody’s life, many things are hard to predict. Like why her older brother, Wyatt, is obsessed with his new bicycle called the Cobra, or why her best friend Pearl suddenly wants to trade favorite toys. Pearl says she will trust Cody with Arctic Fox because Cody is a trusty person. But Cody doesn’t want to give up her beloved Gremlin, and she regrets it as soon as she hands him over. When the Cobra goes missing, Cody has to decide for herself who is trusty and who is not. If only she had Gremlin to talk to! Surely Pearl wouldn’t mind if she secretly traded back . . . it’s not stealing if it belonged to you in the first place, right?

(176 pages)

I don't usually review books this short, but I was offered a copy of Cody and the Rules of Life and it looked intriguing enough that I couldn't say no.

And really, it was a good book. It has much more depth to it than I went in expecting, and a variety of storylines that weave together to make the story. My favorite scenes were probably actually with Cody's teacher, Mr. Daniels. Cody writes in her class journal about the search for her brother's missing bike, which is a model Cobra, and Mr. Daniels thinks her brother lost an actual snake! It's funnier than you'd think watching him ask Cody concerned questions about her family's lifestyle, and her confusing him even more (while thinking they're on the same page!).

I didn't care much about the storyline with the swapped toys, largely because Cody should never have traded Gremlin away. I have a hard time relating with a girl who would do that–there's no way I would ever have given my treasured baby blanket away to anyone when I was her age, no matter how nice they were to me. In fact, now that I think about it, I still wouldn't give it away for anything.

But what really appealed to me about the book was the way Cody grapples with issues bigger than herself. She's grown up in a home with strict "rules of life," not just against hitting and saying mean things and stealing and all the other things that aren't nice but also against just generally being mean or unkind to anyone, and she largely views the world as black and white through the lenses of those rules. As the book goes by, she has to face that fact that someone did a very mean thing–and that her brother is terribly angry at whoever that person is. For her, this combines with other moral issues (some of them connected to the loss of Gremlin) to result in her learning several valuable lessons over the course of the book.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Cody and the Rules of Life. It was a pleasant read, far more complex and mature than I expected it to be, and just the sort of book I would be happy to hand over to elementary and middle schoolers looking for an interesting read.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this novel from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Truth or Dare by Barbara Dee, 2016

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A few white lies during a simple game of truth or dare spin out of control and make life very complicated for Lia in this brand-new novel from Barbara Dee.
When Lia returns after a summer with her eccentric aunt, it feels like everything has changed within her group of five friends. Everyone just seems more…dramatic. And after playing a game of Truth or Dare, Lia discovers how those divides are growing wider, and tells a few white lies about what really happened over the summer in order to “keep up.” But is “keeping up” with her BFFs really worth it?

(256 pages)

When I got an email from Barbara Dee asking me if I wanted to review her latest novel, I was absolutely thrilled. I'd only read one of her books before - the amazing Solving Zoe - but I'd loved it so much that I can't believe I never looked up Dee's other books. That's why I jumped at the chance to read Truth or Dare, even though I probably normally would have said no - I figured, just this once, I could read a book about girls going through puberty and trust in the author that it wouldn't be cringe-worthy.

And you know what? I was right to say yes; I was happy to read Truth or Dare. I enjoyed it. The puberty drama was mixed in with much more serious storylines about grief, parental relationships, peer relationships, and bullying. Lia and her friends play truth or dare, sure, and Lia lies about hitting milestones that she hasn't. But the reason for this isn't just some lame one-upmanship game - instead it's the result of a complex cocktail of emotions and social politics.

I will say, though, that I never once competed with my friends in this arena the way Lia does. Heck, it never even came up! With that in mind, maybe the girls' obsession with puberty isn't exactly the most realistic thing in the world to me, but I'm willing to turn on my suspension of disbelief and accept this as the compelling, meaningful story that it is. Because Lia's dealing with some really hard things in her life: she's still trying to move past her mother's death, she's struggling to see her (rather eccentric) aunt as a mother figure, she's trying to one-up her friends because they're slightly cliquey and she's terrified of being left behind. These and many more storylines intertwine themselves throughout the book, grounding it. Making it feel real, and honest, and true-to-life even when the troubles Lia's dealing with aren't ones that I can personally relate to.

I'm not going to recommend this book to "anyone and everyone," because I don't think it would do well with such a broad audience. Most boys would be turned off by the mentions of bras and periods; some girls who actually are Lia's age might get the wrong idea about what sort of emphasis to place on the milestones of puberty. But for the rest of us, Truth or Dare is a good book. If you've read this far and you're sitting there thinking it looks cool, then I can almost guarantee that Truth or Dare will be a great book for you.

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary ARC of this novel from the author in exchange for an honest review.

The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt, 2007

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In this Newbery Honor-winning novel, Gary D. Schmidt offers an unforgettable antihero. The Wednesday Wars is a wonderfully witty and compelling story about a teenage boy’s mishaps and adventures over the course of the 1967–68 school year in Long Island, New York.
Meet Holling Hoodhood, a seventh-grader at Camillo Junior High, who must spend Wednesday afternoons with his teacher, Mrs. Baker, while the rest of the class has religious instruction. Mrs. Baker doesn’t like Holling—he’s sure of it. Why else would she make him read the plays of William Shakespeare outside class? But everyone has bigger things to worry about, like Vietnam. His father wants Holling and his sister to be on their best behavior: the success of his business depends on it. But how can Holling stay out of trouble when he has so much to contend with? A bully demanding cream puffs; angry rats; and a baseball hero signing autographs the very same night Holling has to appear in a play in yellow tights! As fate sneaks up on him again and again, Holling finds Motivation—the Big M—in the most unexpected places and musters up the courage to embrace his destiny, in spite of himself.

This book . . . it was good. Really good. And I don't really know what I can say in this review, other than that. It's not exactly my go-to type of book, mainly because of the age of the main character. A lot of the events that take place in the book still make me cringe just thinking about them - but at the same time, they were pulled off more tastefully here than anywhere else I've ever read them. This is probably the least gag-worthy middle school romance I've ever read, due in large part to the fact that the romance doesn't take center stage. In fact, if the book doesn't mention numerous times that it's set in middle school, I could easily have mistaken it for a high school romance, not because of mature content but because of the maturity of feelings both characters show for each other - they may not have always been on the same wavelength, but at least they didn't spend the whole book in an on-again-off-again relationship.

One thing I loved in the book was the copious amount of Shakespeare references. Holling begins halfway through the book to use Shakespeare lines such as "toads, beetles, bats, light on you!" as his go-to curses, and the results are rather hilarious. He also begins to mix and match his Shakespeare lines, making up his own curses like "strange stuff, the dropsy drown you." His teacher Mrs. Baker seems really awesome, and for once in my life I almost envied a public school kid for having teachers who weren't his parents! But then again, my parents aren't as horrible as Holling's so I don't need a teacher like Mrs. Baker.

And tthat brings me to Holling's family. I hate his father, I really do. I also have zero sympathy for his mother. The father steamrolls, the mother gets steamrolled, and anything and everything must be sacrificed in the pursuit of appearances for the sake of his father's career. The first time his father told Holling to behave nicely to someone because it was important to his father's career, I was okay with it. The second time I was annoyed. By the end of the book, if he so much as started a sentence with the phrase "____? As in related to ____?" I just wanted to punch him. When  Holling talked about his life, all his father heard was "business potential!" I empathized much more with Holling's sister Heather. She was about my age, and supported everything her father detested. She wanted to join the flower children in protest against the Korean war, but her father basically called her an idiot who would make him look bad in front of potential customers, and forced her to act the part of the perfect daughter. I don't blame her at all for what she did later in the book, and I love Holling all the more for the way he was the only one who supported her when things got rough.

Basically, this is probably one of the best Newberry Honor books I have ever read. If you think it looks interesting, then go read it! I promise it's worth your time.