River Readers

Devon is your typical teen girl. She is a star soccer player and a good student. Her home life isn’t the best with a single mom who acts more like a child than a parent. Devon has strict rules for herself so she won’t turn out like her mom. One summer day she goes on a date and ends up having sex with the boy. Then she gets pregnant. Devon is so steeped in denial that she denies the sexual experience and the pregnancy. She even denies giving birth and throwing her baby in the trashcan. But she can’t live in denial forever. Devon is sent to jail for her crime and must face up to the legal consequences of her decisions.

I’m not sure if it was listening to this book instead of reading it, but I did not find Devon to be a sympathetic character at all. I found her delusions and denial hard to swallow. Of course, I can’t imagine ever being pregnant and hiding it or not realizing you are giving birth until the baby pops out but that is just me. Devon spends the majority of the book not really present. She doesn’t get why she is in jail and she blocks out the events that led up to her incarceration. We find out what happened through a series of flashbacks. We learn about Devon’s date and how she hid her pregnancy and what happened the night she had the baby. It isn’t until the very end of the book that Devon actually quits fighting her lawyer and owns up to her actions. I have to say that the legal processes in the book seemed spot on. I really enjoyed Devon’s lawyer Dom and her eternal patience for Devon’s bad attitude. Not sure how I feel about the end of the book, but in a way I thought it was justified; stupid but justified.

Campbell Cooper is dying and she has been for some time. The cancer she has been fighting since she was a child is finally winning the battle. Cam’s mom doesn’t accept that and wants to try whatever she can to help Cam. She discovers Promise, Maine, a small town with supposed magical healing properties. So she packs up Cam and her sister Perry and moves from Disney World (where she works) to Maine. Promise turns out to be a strange little town. There are purple dandelions and flocks of flamingos. Cam finds not a cure but a life in Promise. She learns to make friends and finds love.

Cam is a fantastic character and your typical dying teenager (if there is one). She is mopey and sarcastic and difficult and fun. You know how her journey must end but the path there was great. I found Promise to be a charming little town and the unusual aspects of it really made you think for a while that miracles might happen. The true miracle in this book is not anything concrete, like a cure for cancer, but it is the miracle of living each day and finding joy in the world around you. Cam’s journey was a wonderful one and definitely worth the read.

Piper somehow finds herself the manager of high school rock band Dumb. She has one month to prove herself as a manager by finding them a paying gig. The only problems: the band is falling apart and Piper is deaf and knows nothing about music.

I really liked this book. It seemed very real with complicated characters and a great story. I love Piper’s journey in the book. She goes from shy wallflower to badass chick. I like her interaction with the band and I liked that all the band members were distinct characters. The girls in the band got a little more attention than the boys (except Ed); we really don’t know that much about Will and Josh. I also really liked Piper’s relationships with her family; they are complicated and messy and real. She resents her baby sister Grace because her parents raided her college fund to pay for Grace’s implants. So now Grace will hear when Piper never will. She is angry with her father because he never learned sign language and doesn’t appear interested in her. Her mother is so busy working and taking care of Grace she has no time for Piper. And her younger brother is at times a pain and a helper. I really liked that Piper doesn’t use her deafness as a crutch. In fact she uses it to manipulate people (which I loved) and help her get out of situations. This isn’t really a book about a deaf girl managing a band it is about a girl coming into her own and figuring out who she really is and who those around her are.

That isn’t to say that the book doesn’t have it’s problems. The band was a little stereotypical with a nerdy drummer, reclusive bassist, over the top self-absorbed singer, angry girl guitarist and pretty girl who knows nothing. Even with the stereotypes though I still enjoyed them. There is also this whole journey to learn about rock legends like Jimi Hendrix and Kurt Cobain. I liked the journey but I can’t believe someone wouldn’t know who Kurt Cobain was especially living in Seattle. Didn’t seem very realistic to me. After all he is mentioned on every MTV and VH1 special imaginable. I also thought the ending was pretty predictable. It left no problem unsolved and no bad guy unpunished. I like my endings a little more vague than this.

But this book is still excellent and worth the read. I devoured it and really enjoyed Piper’s story.