Two Book Reviews for the Day

Please check out the two reviews below. One for young adult and one for middle grade.

First let me recommend a light, funny young adult book called Freaky in Fresno by Laurie Boyle Crompton.

Life is rough right now and a light read may be just what you or your teen are looking for.

In Freaky in Fresno two female cousins switch bodies.  You’ve probably seen the move Freaky Friday. In that story a mother and daughter switch places.

I have always enjoyed this concept and that’s what drew me to this book.

Here is an excerpt from the book blurb.

Ricki has one goal: save the Starlight Drive-in movie theater from going dark forever. Okay, make that two goals … she may also want a first kiss from her cinema-rescuing partner and major crush, Jake. Lana definitely has only one goal: grow her online makeup channel to keep her momager off her back, even if the posts attract ugly internet trolls.

The two cousins couldn’t be more different, but their opposite personalities come crashing to a head when their aunt gifts the girls a vintage cotton-candy-pink convertible. To share. After a major fight and a minor electric shock while wrestling over the wheel, Ricki wakes up as Lana, and Lana wakes up as Ricki.

Ricki and Lana have only a day to un-Freaky Friday themselves. But it turns out experiencing a day as each other—with a mini road trip and Chihuahua wrangling—may be the one thing that help the cousins see each other and themselves more clearly.

Though this book is funny it also shows us the importance of family and that we never know what another person is feeling.  Lana appears to be the perfect beauty queen, but Ricki soon learns that she is not as happy- go -lucky as she appears.

Even the girl’s mothers learn that they need to accept one another and appreciate the gift of a loving family.

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor by Ally Carter

Ally Carter writes young adult and middle-grade books. I have read several of her YA books and enjoyed them, especially her Embassy Row series.

Winterborne would fall more in the MG category because the main character is twelve years old. I enjoyed this story a lot and I am much older than twelve! 

The book blurb is below.

April didn’t mean to start the fire. She wasn’t the one who broke the vase. April didn’t ask to go live in a big, creepy mansion with a bunch of orphans who just don’t understand that April isn’t like them. After all, April’s mother is coming back for her someday very soon.

All April has to do is find the clues her mother left inside the massive mansion. But Winterborne House is hiding more than one secret, so April and her friends are going to have to work together to unravel the riddle of a missing heir, a creepy legend, and a mysterious key before the only home they’ve ever known is lost to them forever.

This is the story of five orphans who live in a mansion owned by an elusive billionaire. A mysterious woman runs the mansion and museum since the billionaire disappeared years before.

This book is exciting and suspenseful. The characters are great. Each child has a very unique personality with quirks that make them come to life. The mystery is very compelling. I’ve read the second book and it’s great too.

So here are your two reviews – one YA and one MG.  I hope you will check them out and let me know what you think.