The Beautiful Between by Alyssa B. Sheinmel

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Summary:

If high school were a fairy-tale kingdom, Connelly Sternin would be Rapunzel, locked not in a tower by a wicked witch but in a high-rise apartment building by the SATs and college applications—and by the secrets she keeps. Connelly's few friends think that her parents are divorced—but they're not. Connelly's father died when she was two, and she doesn't know how.

If Connelly is the Rapunzel of her school, Jeremy Cole is the crown prince, son of a great and rich New York City family. So when he sits down next to her at lunch one day, Connelly couldn't be more surprised. But Jeremy has a tragic secret of his own, and Connelly is the only one he can turn to for help. Together they form a council of two, helping each other with their homework and sharing secrets. As the pair's friendship grows, Connelly learns that it's the truth, not the secrets, that one must guard and protect. And that between friends, the truth, however harsh, is also beautiful.

This lovely and memorable debut by Alyssa B. Sheinmel contains many of the hallmark themes found in young adult literature—friendship, coming of age, finding a place to belong, and overcoming the death of a loved one. Emotionally moving from start to finish, The Beautiful Between introduces a strong new voice to the genre, a voice with a long future ahead of it.

Summary taken from Goodreads.com

So this book to me to the great old US of A on my Around the World challenge. To be more specific I went to New York. This book is another one of the books that I got on my wanderings into the teen section of the library a few days ago when I found myself immediately drawn to the cover which I love!

Thankfully this was not one of those cases where the cover was beautiful and the story was blah. I actually liked Connelly most of the time but there were a few times where I thought she was an annoying little *beep* because of her attitude and her woe to me attitude.

At first when I read the back I thought it would be like a fairy tale retelling but unfortunately the more I read of the book I realized that it wasn't which was diappointing. But all in all I enjoyed this book. It had all the regular teenaged angst that seems to come hand in hand with YA books but this one didn't seem over done.

My only critisms of this book are that sometimes for a couple pages here and there the story would drag on a wee little bit and that the characters came off a little whiney in some parts and made me want to smack them for it.

This is author Alyssa B. Sheinmel's first book and I thought it was a great start to a hopefully long career in writing because she was able to make a book that was only 182 pages long seem much longer. I thought that the plot was interesting as well as the writing which I felt was quiet stong. I hope she continues writing because I think she's a talented young new author who I highly recommend others checking out.

As in go check it out right now.

Seriously.

Now.

★ ★ ★ ★