What You Left Behind by Jessica Verdi

Title:  What You Left Behind

Author:  Jessica Verdi

Publisher:  Sourcebooks Fire

ISBN:  9781492608745

Price:  $9.99 U.S. (paperback)

Publish Date:  August 1, 2015

Target Audience:  Young Adult

Meg Reynolds has been in love with Ryden Brooks for years.  When he finally notices her in AP English, she is elated.  She doesn't want to ruin it by telling him about her cancer.  They fall in love, and then she gets pregnant.  She decides to forego cancer treatment to carry the child, which inevitably leads to her demise.  Now Ryden is a 17 year-old single father, heartbroken over the loss of his beloved girlfriend, whom he believes he killed by getting her pregnant.  In What You Left Behind, Ryden is learning how to balance his new life as a father with work, school, soccer, and friendships, while attempting to cope with the loss of his love Meg.  After finding one of Meg's notebooks with a checklist in the cover, he believes there are more, filled with her words of wisdom about how to be a good father.  What he finds isn't what he expects, but what he needs to help him move on.  

This book was so hard to put down!  Between the cancer and the love story, it was very The Fault in Our Stars-esque.  The writing wasn't quite as brilliant as John Green, but it was very good.  I liked this book for multiple reasons.  First, the main character is a seventeen-year-old boy dealing with the aftermath of teen pregnancy.  I'm not the leading authority on teen pregnancy literature, but I would venture a guess that this is rare.  Second, I loved Ryden's mother.  She was the appropriate amount of supportive, setting parameters for her son regarding her duties as a grandmother, and insisting he make the decisions as a father.  I liked how Ryden's feelings were valid and real.  Verdi was able to really convey the heartbreak and hopelessness that he was feeling at some of his lowest points.  

I did not enjoy the biggest plot twist that Verdi wrote, regarding one of the journals.  I'm still trying to figure out why she did it, and the only thing I can come up with is so as not to martyr Meg.  Throughout the book you are believing that Meg made the ultimate sacrifice, choosing her daughter's life over her own, when in reality that was not necessarily the case.  It was, for lack of a better word, a strange twist.  

Verdi tidily wraps up the story, though I can't help but wonder what happens to Ryden as time goes on.  Will he go to college and make a life for himself and Hope?  I think so.  

Reader Rach gives What You Left Behind four stars.  

Edgewater by Courtney Sheinmel

Title:  Edgewater
Author:  Courtney Sheinmel
Publisher: ABRAMS Kids/Amulet Books
ISBN: 9781419716416
Price: $17.95 U.S. (Hardcover)
Publish Date:  September 8, 2015
Target Audience:  Young Adult

You guys are going to think that I love every single book I read.  It's really not the case, I promise. I just happen to have a really good knack for picking out books that I think I will love.  And to be honest, the books I don't end up loving are usually ones that are recommended to me by others.  So once again, I really loved Edgewater by Courtney Sheinmel.

Lorrie Hollander comes from a wealthy family.  Her grandfather practically built the wealthy town of Idlewild in New York.  His sprawling mansion, named Edgewater, was once a sight to behold.  But ever since her mother left Lorrie and her sister Susannah to run away with her new boyfriend, Edgewater has been in a state of disrepair.  Lorrie's guardian and aunt Gigi appears to have a mental illness and Lorrie just can't stand to be around the family anymore.  Since her mother left her with a trust, she chose to go to a boarding school to get away from Edgewater.  At the beginning of the book, Lorrie learns that something is wrong with her trust.  Her summer horse camp has not been paid and she must return to Edgewater to sort things out.  Lorrie never worried about money and always spent freely.  Without access to her trust, she is now poor.  At first in denial, she soon gets a job and begins to clean up Edgewater.  One day, while cleaning the attic, Lorrie finds a journal that her mother kept.  This is the climax in the story, as a family emergency arises and Lorrie's world pretty much turns upside down.  

This book reminds me of We Were Liars, in a way, rich youth living in a world most of us do not understand. The rich youth in this book, however,  Lorrie, her best friend Lennox, and her new friend, the charming son of a senator, Charlie, are much more likeable characters.  Although money is no object for them, they are still down-to-earth and practical.  The friendship between Lorrie and Lennox is one which all girlfriends strive for. Lorrie and Charlie meet in an embarrassing way, but their friendship and eventual relationship grows throughout the book and it turns out they are much more connected than even they realized. 

Reader Rach gives Edgewater 5/5 stars. 

Another Day by David Levithan

I was given an ARC of this book by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Title:  Another Day
Author:  David Levithan
Publisher:  Random House Children's/Knopf Books for Young Readers
ISBN:  9780385756204
Price:  $17.99 U.S./$20.99 CAN.
Pages:  336
Publish Date: August 25, 2015
Target Audience:  Teens & YA

Another Day is a companion book to Every Day by David Levithan. In an author's letter at the beginning of the book, Levithan explains that this book, although labeled as companion, can be read before or after Every Day, or it can even stand alone.  I completely agree.  This is such an original and interesting concept for a book; one that I do not recall ever seeing before.  The main characters are the same.  The story is the same.  Every Day is from the point of view of "A," while Another Day is from Rhiannon's point of view.  Of the same story!  How cool is that?  We already knew how amazing David Levithan is, but to be able to write the same story from two different character's points of view, is just brilliant.

In Another Day, Rhiannon is a high school student in desperate and desolate relationship with Justin.  Justin has a lot of issues and is an unhappy person in general.  Rhiannon seems to be the only person to have any compassion or understanding for Justin, and she loves him despite his many flaws.  Rhiannon herself seems to be a needy person, constantly needing Justin's attention and affection. One day, Rhiannon and Justin have a fantastic, absolutely out-of-the-ordinary day.  A perfect day.  They go to the beach.  They laugh.  They genuinely have a good time.  Rhiannon is reminded why she is in love with Justin.

Except, it's not Justin she just spent the afternoon with.  It's "A."  A can only be described as a soul.  He's not a human being.  He's not male or female.  He inhabits a body for one day, then moves on to another body. Every day.  A has learned not to disrupt the life of the body he's living in each day, but when he meets Rhiannon, he cannot help himself.  He goes out of his way to see her every day.  One day he's Justin, another day, he's an Asian girl who is into Anime, another day he's a beautiful meangirl, another day he's a heavy metal kid, another day... another day...  A eventually reveals himself to Rhiannon, and as odd as it is for her, she eventually falls in love with A.  Not a particular body, but the soul of A.  You can probably imagine the problems that arise with being in love with a soul and not a whole person.  The main one being, A wakes up as a new person every. single. day.

I think I've already conveyed to you how much I love this book.  I had already read Every Day before reading Another Day, so I already had somewhat of a connection to the characters, but I think I loved this book even more than it's counterpart.  I think it's more the originality of the concept than the actual story.  I did not read the two books back to back, though I do think it would be fun to do that.  I did not remember a lot of the specifics of Every Day but all of the situations that occurred between Rhiannon and A also occurred during Another Day.  We just get to hear Rhiannon's side of the story.  I think the most interesting revelation to me was her relationship with Justin.  In Every Day, we see Justin as an asshole.  In Another Day, I get a more wounded puppy-vibe from him.  As Rhiannon and A's relationship unfolds, the reader begins to see A's love for Rhiannon and just how deep it goes.

A beautiful love story that teaches us that love does not have a face, color, or gender. Another Day by David Levithan gets 5 stars from Reader Rach.