(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Danielle Levine's used to feeling like an outcast, even at her special school for "high-potential kids with learning disabilities."  Even there, her OCD makes her a total freak.  How does the 18-year-old with the unruly red hair deal?  By chronicling everything she thinks and feels in exhaustive detail.  She collects her writings—school essays, e-mails, letters, personal "me-moir" entries, etc.—in a perfectly organized, color-coded binder she hides under her bed.  

Since Danielle doesn't have much of a life in the first place, she's not expecting anything different from her senior year of high school.  She'll do what she always does—blend into the scenery, lust after gorgeous Jacob Kingston from afar, and, above all, keep her weird, obsessive rituals to herself.  The one place she can't seem to restrain herself, though, is in the essays she writes for English class.  That's how she ends up in an off-campus social skills class with kids who are even less communicative than her.  Her last year of high school cannot possibly get any worse, can it?

It can.

Danielle has a place to vent all her anger, humiliation, self-loathing and fear, not to mention a cool aunt who always gives excellent advice.  But, Danielle still longs for a real friend, someone her age who understands her.  Jacob would do very nicely.  Too bad that option's about as likely as Danielle fitting into a pair of size 2 jeans.  Fortunately, friendship is closer than it seems.  So is happiness.  Even for a chubby ginger with a major case of OCD. 

The first thing that drew me into OCD, The Dude, and Me, a debut novel by Lauren Roedy Vaughn, is the voice.  Vaughn's a high school teacher English teacher, who's definitely got the lingo down.  Danielle feels authentic, like a real teenager struggling with all the problems with which real teenagers struggle every day.  But, it's her painfully distorted view of herself that makes her so sympathetic.  Because I found Danielle such a compelling heroine, I enjoyed all her jottings about life, love and The Big Lebowski.  In fact, I was loving everything about the novel—until Daniel came along.  Not only does he embody one of the biggest clichés in contemporary YA lit, but he also has some disturbing quirks and illegal hobbies.  Why those things needed to be mentioned is beyond me, since honestly, they contributed nothing to the story and made me think less of both Daniel and Danielle.  Call me a prude, but there you go.  Overall, I found OCD, The Dude, and Me engrossing, but the Daniel thing really derailed my enjoyment of the book.  Which is a real bummer.  

(Readalikes:  Reminds me a little bit of The Fault in Our Stars by John Green)

Grade:

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of OCD, The Dude, and Me from the generous folks at Dial (an imprint of Penguin Books) via those at Pump Up Your Book Promotion.  Thank you!

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

Stay-at-home mom Jenny Lipkin is doing just fine, thank you very much.  She's left behind her career as a magazine editor to raise her daughters, 2-year-old Betty and baby Rose.  So what if her Park Slope apartment's about the size of a Twinkie?  Or if her husband doesn't make enough money to afford one of the fancy new strollers all the other moms are sporting?  So, Jenny's not as svelte or skilled as the other women around her.  So what?  She's happy enough.  Isn't she?  Actually, she's tottering on the brink of insanity.  She loves her kids, but they're sucking all the life out of her.  She loves being at home, but it's making her crazy.  She loves her life, but it's not turning out quite the way she's planned.  And then there's the unrelenting heat; it's boiling her brain.  That, combined with new-mommy sleep deprivation, is enough to make Jenny want to crawl into her bed (baby spit-up spattered sheets, be darned) and never, ever come out.

Then, her husband bails.  Harry's disappearance isn't even all that unusual—he's a gambler, who goes on frequent binges—but it's enough to put Jenny over the edge.  Especially when weeks roll by with no word from him.  Numbed by anger, fear and desperation, she makes a shocking decision, one that will change her life forever—just not in the way she thinks.

With help from a very unlikely source, Jenny looks at her life in a whole new light.  As she changes her attitude and approach, she finds herself starting to become the woman she's always wanted to be.  But a little attitude can go a long way and when Jenny crosses a line she swore she never would, it's time to step back and ask herself the tough questions:  Who is she, really?  What does she truly want?  How much is she willing to sacrifice to finally find happiness?

I wasn't sure what to expect from The Mermaid of Brooklyn by Amy Shearn, but the novel surprised me.  In a very good way.  From the first sentence of her story, Jenny proves herself to be the kind of honest, self-deprecating character with whom any woman can relate.  She's funny and sympathetic and so real, you just want to reach out and hug her.  Even when she messes up big time, you feel for the girl.  This is a character-driven novel and Jenny Lipkin's more than strong enough to carry it.  The book's got some annoying typos/copy-editing errors, but overall, I ended up really enjoying The Mermaid of Brooklyn.  It's a fierce, empowering read, a perfect novel to savor during the long, lazy days of summer.

(Readalikes:  Hm, I can't think of anything.  Can you?)

Grade:  B+

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  R for strong language and sexual innuendo/content

To the FTC, with love:  I received a finished copy of The Mermaid of Brooklyn from the generous folks at Simon and Schuster via those at BookSparks PR.  Thank you!

(Image from Barnes & Noble)

(Note:  While this review will not contain spoilers for Dead Silence, it may inadvertently reveal plot surprises from earlier Body Finder novels.  As always, I recommend reading books in a series in order.)

With her unique ability to match a victim's "echo" to the "imprint" carried by the person responsible for his/her death, Violet Ambrose has never felt particularly normal.  But now that she carries her own imprint, she feels like even more of a freak.  It doesn't help that the imprint is a haunting music box tune that trills through her head constantly.  The music invades her dreams, her every thought, and each breath she dares to take.  It's making her crazy.  Maybe literally so.  She's popping pills to help her sleep, but that means revealing her weakness to the last person she trusts with her feelings—Dr. Lee.  But, if she doesn't take the medication, she can't function.  And she has to function in order to help the special investigative team of which she's a part.  She has no choice.  If she doesn't do what her superiors need her to do, her loved ones will be punished.  There's no way Violet will allow that to happen.  

When Violet is drawn to a beautiful, lakeside estate where a family has been brutally murdered, she finds herself entangled in the mysterious crime.  As detectives question one of her classmates, Violet gets the distinct impression that the police have the wrong guy.  The only way to clear her friend's name is to find the person who's truly responsible for the family's grisly deaths.  But, once again, that puts Violet in the path of a killer.  And this one is like none other she's encountered so far.  

As if tracking a madman isn't enough of a strain on Violet's fragile psyche, she's also got boy trouble.  Her heart's torn between warm, comfortable Jay and the daring, dangerous Rafe.  And then there's her grandmother's journals, which are giving Violet a disturbing peek into just how far and wide her superiors' influence really goes.  And, of course, there's the whole trying-to-have-a-normal-senior-year-in-high-school thing which, frankly, isn't going so well.  Can Violet sort out all her problems before it's too late?  Or is this mesmerizing new killer the one who will finally best the indomitable Violet Ambrose?   

When I finished the first book in the Body Finder series by Kimberly Derting, I was practically salivating for the next installment.  And, you know what?  It just wasn't that drool-worthy.  In fact, none of the other novels in the series have impressed me nearly as much as the first did.  The series— which I had very high hopes for after the first book—kind of dwindled into a been-there-done-that-not-too-thrilled-about-doing-it-again thing.  The plots got generic, the writing clumsy, and the characters remained pretty static.  I still love the whole imprint/echo idea, but the originality of that premise just didn't pan out in the rest of the books.  That being said, there are definitely things I enjoyed about Dead Silence: it's fast-paced; the subplot about Violet's grandmother's journals adds depth to the overall story; as does our heroine's internal struggle with her own guilt over causing someone's death.  And yet, the love triangle is annoying; the characters act way too mature for their age; the male main characters have no personality; and some of the story elements are so far-fetched it's ridiculous.  So, yeah.  Although I begged God for a sequel to The Body Finder, three books later I'm not all that sorry the series is ending.  I've been over it for awhile now.       

(Readalikes:  Other books in the Body Finder series [The Body Finder; Desires of the Dead; and The Last Echo]; also the Wake series [Wake; Fade; Gone] by Lisa McMann)

Grade:  B-

If this were a movie, it would be rated:  R for strong language (a handful of F-bombs, plus milder invectives), violence/gore, sexual innuendo and the depiction of illegal drug use

To the FTC, with love:  I received an ARC of Dead Silence from the generous folks at HarperTeen.  Thank you!