Girl Overboard

This is a young adult book by Justina Chen Headley. I wouldn't put it on the must-read list, but it is an interesting, fun read, with some emotion thrown in there.

Girl Overboard is about a teen girl in an obscenely wealthy, Chinese-American family as she tries to find her own way in life without depending on her father's name. Syrah deals with a lot of issues--I just began typing out all the things she's confronting in this book and finally deleted the list because it's too long. She resolves a lot of problems with her family and ends up making an impact through snowboarding in a way that's all her own.

I didn't like the excessive use of capitalization on words just to give them extra meaning. Some parts of the book were a little too cutesy-wootsy. It's not going onto my list of young adult books that are truly great for all ages, but it would be a good teen book.

Lurlene McDaniel

I read a lot of young adult books since they tend to be clean and are shorter, and lots of them are really well written. When I was a pre-teen/teen, I loved Lurlene McDaniel books. In the last couple of years I have found a few of them on bookshelves where I'm staying, so have re-read a few.

They aren't really worth it.

If you want an over-dramatic, quick story about a teen who is either A: dying, B: has a family member who is dying, or C: has a terrible disease, these would be good books to read. Especially if you want some teen romance thrown in there.

But they don't have much to recommend them beyond being touching stories--they aren't particularly well written, and what bothers me most is that from my limited experience of hospitals and the medical field, they aren't very accurate.

Still, I remember loving them as a teen, so if you fall into that category, you would probably enjoy them.