This is the kind of YA fiction that I absolutely adore. It's fresh and new and modern and made me want to jump into the book, become friends with all the characters, and yell at them and hug them and... geez. It was just that good.
"After living in twelve places in eight years, Calle Smith finds herself in Andreas Bay, California, at the start of ninth grade. Another new home, another new school...Calle knows better than to put down roots. Her song journal keeps her moving to her own soundtrack, bouncing through a world best kept at a distance.
Yet before she knows it, friends creep in - as does an unlikely boy with a secret. Calle is torn over what may be her first chance at love. With all that she's hiding and all that she wants, can she find something lasting beyond music? And will she ever discover why she and her mother have been running in the first place?" [taken from goodreads.com]
This review is going to be formatted a little bit differently than the last, but here we go...
Let's start off with the main character - Calle. At first I wasn't in love with her, and sometimes I was annoyed at her, but in the end I thought she was a great protagonist. She wasn't a completely rude and sassy and sarcastic female lead (like, let's say... Maximum Ride pre-Fang romance) but she was strong and independent, and overall likeable. I really was able to admire her for being able to do what she's done. Calle's dad left her and her mother when Calle was just a baby, and now her mother is constantly moving in with new guys she's met, and on occasion married, only to have them leave her. Leading me to my next point...
The "mystery" aspect. No, this book is not a mystery novel. But as I've heard from one place or another - every story should have some mystery aspect. Some question needed to be answered. And this book definitely had that! Details about the moves and about Calle's father were trickled throughout the book, and were satisfying and intriguing enough to keep me going.
Now, the other "part" of the story- the friends and the mysterious boy. I loved it. Something I feel is lacking in YA books nowadays is a standard friend group. Think about it. In a bunch of books I've read, the character has one or two friends, who sometimes remain faceless and don't really change at all. This book was a breath of fresh air - there was a distinct friend group, with some friends playing a bigger part in the story than others, but they were all unique and loveable.
And the love interest - I loved how they didn't give away who it was on the back! I thought once she met her first friend in the school, "Well, there you go, that's the love interest." WRONG! I made that mistake again until it was revealed. And I loved the way that the romance was handled. It wasn't just some cheesy lovey-dovey stuff in which the characters admit their love for eachother and BAM! we've got ourselves a relationship. It was difficult, and although the boy annoyed the crap out of me sometimes, I really loved his different sides and I think his story was definitely unique.
Something I also thought was interesting about the book was the way the chapters were introduced. Calle carries around a song journal, which at first I thought was where she wrote her own lyrics, but it was instead where she wrote down memories that were brought up for her when she heard certain songs. They're all really good songs that she mentions, and I really liked how the memories tie in with the story. She puts the name of the song and the small journal entry at the start of every chapter, which was very interesting. I also liked how the song titles were reflected in the chapters - for example, one chapter called "Perfect Blue Buildings" (the Counting Crows song) then had a part in which they were walking through the blue buildings of their school.
I don't want to give away too much of this book, so I advise that you go out and read it! I read this book in one sitting, I loved it so much. It has a very satisfying, gripping ending, and this book is very deserving of all the awards it has won.
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