Golden by Jessi Kirby

      Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

     Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

     Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

     It's been a long time since I could honestly say I've read a satisfying book, and I am delighted to say that  Golden has broken my streak of unfulfilling reads. It's been a while since I've read a purely "chick-lit" book (I think it was Sarah Dessen's Along for the Ride) and this was a great leap back into the genre.

    Parker Frost was definitely a character I could relate to in terms of her small-town home, her relationship with her mother and her best friend, and her love and desire for the romantic, dreamy way of life to play out in reality. I felt that Parker was relatable in the way her thoughts work and her decision-making process. 

Things That I Liked:

     I really appreciated how the story remained focused on Parker's relationship with Julianna's journal, and the story of her relationships with her friend Kat and her crush Trevor were always back-burner plots.

     I thought that it was really interesting how Parker's vision of Julianna's "local legend" status changed for Parker as she read the journal. I wasn't expecting the revelation in Julianna's journal, and I definitely wasn't expecting Parker to be able to actually solve a mystery no one in her town knew needed solving. 

     I liked that the expected conclusion for the Julianna-plot came, but in a way I wasn't anticipating, and I definitely didn't see Parker's personal "conclusion" coming as it did. 

Things That I Didn't Like:

     I think my one complaint for this story is the lack of view on Shane, Julianna's boyfriend, but ultimately this book was focused on Julianna, her journal, and what she wrote in it. There wasn't much involvement of Shane and his thoughts and feelings because they both weren't sharing the journal and Julianna can't read minds.

Overall Impression:

    A great, easy, and entertaining read from a new-to-me author. I had very few issues with this novel, and I highly recommend it for a summer read!

Blonde Rating: 4.5/5

Amazon Rating: 4.4/5 

Goodreads Rating: 4.2/5

I hope you'll pick up a copy of this book and enjoy it as much as I did,

Thanks!

The Blonde

Icons by Margaret Stohl

Your heart beats only with their permission.

Everything changed on The Day. The day the windows shattered. The day the power stopped. The day Dol's family dropped dead. The day Earth lost a war it didn't know it was fighting.

Since then, Dol has lived a simple life in the countryside -- safe from the shadow of the Icon and its terrifying power. Hiding from the one truth she can't avoid.

She's different. She survived. Why?

When Dol and her best friend, Ro, are captured and taken to the Embassy, off the coast of the sprawling metropolis once known as the City of Angels, they find only more questions. While Ro and fellow hostage Tima rage against their captors, Dol finds herself drawn to Lucas, the Ambassador's privileged son. But the four teens are more alike than they might think, and the timing of their meeting isn't a coincidence. It's a conspiracy.

Within the Icon's reach, Dol, Ro, Tima, and Lucas discover that their uncontrollable emotions -- which they've always thought to be their greatest weaknesses -- may actually be their greatest strengths.

     It sounds pretty cool, doesn't it?
     It doesn't sound like it would be very confusing, or repetitive, or like it would leave you with more questions than answers, does it?

     Well, it does. I'm not saying it wasn't worth the read, but it was confusing, and, after reading the book twice, I'm still not sure what the four main characters "are" in terms of their weird powers and their strange inner connection to each other.
     I did, however, enjoy the interesting aspect of these "Big Brother" alien invaders and how the whole society changed around their invasion and their loyal followers. I thought the dynamics between the main characters was unique, but I was confused by some of their motivations and morals.

Things I Liked:

     I think my favorite character was definitely the computer, which goes by a myriad of different science-fiction inspired names. "He" was quirky and had more personality than the evil villain Ambassador that we meet once and her right-hand-man Colonel Catallus possessed. 

    I liked the glimpses readers got of Tima's background. We didn't have a whole lot of character development from any of the four main characters, but the bits we got into Tima's past helped show readers that she has the potential to be a deep and complex character. Same with Lucas's inability to side with the other three, or his mother and her oppressive army.

    I was really interested in the brief bit of mystery that was peppered into the ending about the origin of how the aliens came to be drawn to earth.

Things I Didn't Like:

    Dol needs to let go of the freakin' pig. We barely met the people she shared her whole life with (the Padre, Bigger, Biggest, and Ramona Jamona the pig) yet all she talks and thinks about is this pig. Maybe it's just supposed to be another symbol for a scene later, but it got annoying after a while. All the readers ever really knew about this pig is that she had soft ears and she pooped in the Church the day Dol was taken away. Either Stohl needed to expand on the relationships between Dol and these characters, or she needed to cut the pig out.

    I wanted to understand why the Ambassador was bothering to educate Tima, Ro, and Dol, if they were just tools to begin with. Obviously she wants to treat her son with the best she can give, but I don't understand why she felt that the others were just as special, or why anyone thought it would be a good idea to have them interact with each other so freely.

    What is Fortis's deal????

Overall Impression:

    It was an interesting start to a new series, and I'm definitely interested in reading on to see if the four can shut down all 13 icons, and if Ro will actually act out on Lucas as all signs point to him doing eventually. I'm also interested to see the new "twist" of what these four children are and what they were made to do.

    I was a bit confused through a lot of this book, but the read is non-stop and it ends on a can't-put-it-down kind of note.

Blonde Rating: 2.5/5
GoodReads Rating: 3.7/5
Amazon Rating: 4/5

Thanks for reading,
The Blonde