Post number eleven is for Robin Benway's Audrey, Wait!, another required reading assignment for my YA Lit course. I really liked this book a lot. It was a fast read with very enjoyable characters that seemed down to earth and NORMAL, which *cue the choir* has been hard to come by with some of these books.
Slight spoilers follow.
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Audrey is sixteen years old, and – at the start of the book – is dating Evan, a guitar-playing, song-writing lead singer of the Do-Gooders. She decides she needs to break up with him, so tells him the night before a concert. As she leaves, he calls out to her, "Audrey, wait!" but she doesn't, because she knows if she turns back around she'll end up getting back together with him. That night, at the concert, Evan and his band debut a new song entitled – you guessed it – Audrey, Wait! The song is very catchy and it pretty much takes on a life of its own. It gets national radio release, and soon Audrey is the subject of several papparazzi photos and can't even leave her house because people start chasing her and want her autograph/picture/etc. Meanwhile, she's trying to be a normal high school junior – studying for her SATs, going to work at an ice cream shop in the mall, and having a crush on her ice cream shoppe co-worker, James. The book pretty much details her sudden rise to stardom and the effect it has on her life. It is very well done, very funny and lots of fun to read, and I highly recommend it.
James is perhaps the best character in the entire book (and that's saying something, because I love Audrey, and she has this very enjoyable best friend, Victoria, and Audrey's parents are likewise pretty awesome). It takes a bit before we see his wit and charm, because we find out that he's had a crush on Audrey from the first time he met her, which makes him stutter and say stupid things around her at first. But he's the one that helps her keep her head when she first hears Audrey, Wait! on the radio, and he's just utterly charming throughout, even when they're arguing/fighting.
So, seriously, go read this book. I really really loved it a lot. <3
Currently reading: Gossip Girl by Cecily von Ziegesar [RR], Kin (The Good Neighbors) by Holly Black
Read and Reviewed 