Maybe One Day

Maybe One Day

by Melissa Kantor

Synopsis:

Zoe and her best friend, Olivia, have always had Big Plans: They''ll tour the world as prima ballerinas and live in a swanky Manhattan apartment (where they''ll hang out with their fabulous boyfriends, of course). But when they''re cut from the ballet company, their plans for the future evaporate. Suddenly, Zoe''s dodging cheerleaders who want her and Olivia to go out for the squad, and Olivia''s got a crush on Calvin Taylor, who Zoe can''t stand. 

Zoe can''t imagine anything worse happening . . . until Olivia gets sick. Really sick. Suddenly, not being able to dance is the least of their problems.

Olivia has always been the nice one, the happy-go-lucky one. Zoe has always been the snarky one, the look-on-the-dark-side one. But when your best friend is in the hospital, you better learn to step up fast. Now Zoe needs to put on a brave face and be the positive one. Even when Zoe isn''t sure what to say. Even when Olivia misses months of school. Even when Zoe starts falling for Calvin.

The one thing that keeps Zoe moving forward is knowing that Olivia will beat this thing, and everything will go back to the way it was before. It has to. Because the alternative is too terrifying for Zoe to even imagine.

My thoughts:

Best friends Zoe and Olivia have made Ballet their whole lives until according to Zoe “the worst thing that will happen to us in our entire lives” happens to them; they are cut from their prestigious ballet school. Livvie doesn't seem to fazed by this rejection and finds other activities including teaching a ballet class at a community centre but Zoe is upset and angry and renounces dance especially ballet.  Sadly Zoe’s prediction about being cut from ballet being the "worst things that will happen to us in our entire lives" isn't true when Olivia is diagnosed with Leukemia at the start of the new school year and Zoe’s world is once again shattered.  Kantor does a marvelous job of showing the real life ups and downs that cancer patients and their families and friends have to go through.  Maybe One day is told from Zoe’s point of view which is a change from some of the other “cancer books”; as most of those books are told by the person with cancer. But cancer doesn’t affect just the one person it affects everyone in that person’s life.  Kantor has done a wonderful job of depicting Zoe’s struggles as she simultaneously has to deal with the realities of Olivia’s cancer (that Olivia will not be better over night, as Zoe’s dad says cancer “is a marathon, not a sprint”) but also accept that life still goes on and it’s okay to enjoy it.

Only Everything

Only Everything

By Kieran Scott

Synopsis:

High school romance is tough—even for a bona fide love goddess. Can Cupid succeed as a mortal matchmaker?

When Eros (aka Cupid) is expelled from Olympus for defying Zeus after falling in love with Orion, she is banished to what she believes to be hell. We call it New Jersey. If she ever wants to go back to the comforts of her old life, she will have to find love for three couples—without using her powers.

Eros, now calling herself True, immediately identifies her first project in Charlie and believes finding him love will be a piece of cake. Charlie is new at school and eager to break out of his old image of band geek, so it’s lucky for him when he falls in with the right crowd on his first day. But music is still his passion. That is, until he meets Katrina...

Katrina is floundering after the death of her father and takes refuge with a boy who, while not entirely supportive, will be there when she needs him, unlike her mother. Too bad True thinks any girl Charlie talks to is perfect for him. Can she get out of her own way and help Charlie and Katrina connect, or will she be stuck in New Jersey forever?

My thoughts:

Eros, a minor goddess (yes goddess, no cute cherub baby in diapers in this story), has somehow many to pull Orion out of the sky.  She has no idea how she did it, she's a minor goddess, she's not supposed to have that kind of power!  Scared of Zeus reaction, Eros, with her mother Aphrodite’s help, hides Orion away, visiting him every chances she gets and slowly ends up falling in love with him.  But of course nothing lasts forever and when Zeus finds out he banishes Eros and her mother to Earth with the ultimatum match up three couples without using her love powers (which Zeus strips from her just to be on the safe side) or Orion dies and Eros will be an outcast.  What follows is a light and highly amusing read as Eros tries to navigate high school, relationships and life on earth.  The story is told through three different characters each struggling with their own issues.  There is Eros who takes on the name "True"; she befriends Charlie, the new kid yet again, and tries to help him find his "soul mate" by setting him up with several different girls all of whom are so not compatible and one who is completely crazy.  There is Charlie who wants nothing more than to just be able to play the drums but with a coach for a dad and two older athletic brothers it's a losing battle.  Then there is Katrina, a nice quiet girl who recently lost her father, is having problems with her mom, and has probably picked one of the worst boyfriends she possibly could for herself.  Though it is completely obvious right from the beginning that Charlie and Katrina are the couple that "True" needs to match readers will not be able to put down this page turner. Full of easily relatable relationship drama and funny teenage mishaps Scott has written a wonderfully light hearted romance novel that is sure to please any romantic. Once Charlie and Katrina (finally!) get together it seems like the story has come to an end and everything is wrapped up in a nice neat little bow; However, readers should remember that Eros must match three couples and Zeus won't make it easy for her and nor will Scott who ends Only Everything in a surprising cliff-hanger that will leaving readers gasping at the unfairness of it all and begging for the next book.

I'll Give You The Sun

I'll Give You The Sun

by Jandy Nelson

Synopsis:

Jude and her twin brother, Noah, are incredibly close. At thirteen, isolated Noah draws constantly and is falling in love with the charismatic boy next door, while daredevil Jude cliff-dives and wears red-red lipstick and does the talking for both of them. But three years later, Jude and Noah are barely speaking. Something has happened to wreck the twins in different and dramatic ways . . . until Jude meets a cocky, broken, beautiful boy, as well as someone else—an even more unpredictable new force in her life. The early years are Noah''s story to tell. The later years are Jude''s. What the twins don''t realize is that they each have only half the story, and if they could just find their way back to one another, they’d have a chance to remake their world.

My thoughts:

I'll Give You The Sun is told in alternating voices by twins Noah and Jude who used to be inseparable. Noah tells his side of the story when he is 13.  Both twins are artists and their mom decides they should be attending the California School of Art, a very prestigious art school.  Jude has no desire to go to the "freak school" and leave all her friends but Noah, who has never fit in, loves the idea and becomes almost obsessive in his quest to gain a spot at CSA. The arrival of Brian to their coastal town is the only other event that Noah truly cares about as he experiences first love and the pain that can accompany it.  Jude's story is told three years later when the twins are 16 and the twins are barely talking to each other. She is on a "boy boycott" after a bad sexual experience followed almost immediately by her mother's death in a car crash; she has been accepted into the art school and is a sculptor student there while Noah for reasons unknown was not admitted.  Jude believes she is being haunted by both her grandmother who tries to help and her mom who hates her; in an effort to please her mom she turns to a brilliant but troubled sculptor for mentoring and meets Oscar who is a definite threat to her self-imposed boy boycott.  I'll Give You The Sun is a story about grief, betrayal, and love. Over the course of this novel the reader sees the twin’s relationship fall apart in Noah's story and slowly start to mend in Jude’s. With both twins being artists, the narration is stunning and Nelson is to be congratulated on her ability to give each twin such a distinct voice; Noah's narrative is a full of dramatic over-the-top descriptions as well as lots of unbelievable color while Jude's, which has been affected by her mother's death, is deeply emotional and peppered with her grandmother's "bible wisdom" (such as Nothing curdles love in the heart like lemon on the tongue). Between all the emotional highs and lows that the twins experience and the beautiful writing Nelson offers this is a novel that will not be quickly forgot by readers.