Something bothered me about this book. The whole time I was reading it I felt wary. Maybe I was expecting something else to happen. Everything that did happen, though, was just so ordinary. So normal. Our main character, Terra, has a large birthmark on her face. People stare at it. She gets made ...
It wasn't particularly bad. But it wasn't really good either. Just mediocre, and reminded me far too much of an author the world knows as Sarah Dessen. The plot to me meandered on and on, and took a while to get to some more interesting topics. I found Terra to be awfully dull at times and never ...
"Getting her fortune told by a Taiwanese 'belly-button grandmother' (who feels up her navel) instead of attending the spring dance is just one of the joys of being Patty Ho, a covertly snarky 'hapa' (half Asian, half white) struggling with her dual heritage. Patty's domineering mother is determin...
Everybody thinks Syrah is the golden girl. After all, her father is Ethan Cheng, billionaire, and she has everything any kid could possibly desire: a waterfront mansion, jet plane, and custom-designed snowboards. But most of what glitters in her life is fool's gold. Her half-siblings hate her, he...
The barest suggestion of stone buildings could stop us. Yet it was the first sight of the sickly green Trekkers’ Hostel that made me tear up, and not because the eyesore of modern architecture was long overdue for a date with a bulldozer. I wasn’t the only one grateful for this last official camp...
My hand trembling, I flicked on my bedside lamp. A wave of fresh sorrow snagged my heart, a real weight pressing against my chest in both dream and reality. This ache went beyond missing Jackson; it was mourning stripped of blinders, a permanent lump in my throat. Part of me wanted to run into Mo...
I should say, Stu is studying math, and, technically, I’m studying him. For a while, there’s nothing but the sounds of people talking, plates clinking, pencils scratching and my heart thumping because Stu is sitting just a touch away. Stu’s pencil darts all over the equation we’re supposed to be ...