I was intrigued by the synopsis on the back. The book isn't bad, but I wouldn't say it's great either.

It's pretty white-centric. I spent a lot of the first two chapters reading the characters as Black (wishful thinking on my part), until it's sort of made clear that they're all white. There are the unnecessary inclusions of "Indian Chief pads" and a bar called "the Wig Wam."

Holt also uses the term nippy, but that's more a personal pet peeve of mine (chilly works just as fine and doesn't sound like a racial slur... especially since there are Japanese characters in the last three chapters of the book).

Kyle and his sister Emma are both hafu, so of course one of them has dark hair and light eyes (Emma is described as having black hair and green eyes). This isn't a problem in and of itself since genes can present in unusual ways in halfie/mixed kids, but it's really annoying when almost every representation of an Asian half/mixed kid in lit is portrayed as having dark hair and light eyes. A much more common combination is a kid with light brown hair and brown eyes who is often seen as white (or sometimes latinx) before they're recognized as Asian (if they're ever recognized as Asian).

These are small things that impacted my enjoyment of the story. Otherwise it's pretty average MG fiction. I probably won't pick this one up again.

I don't remember rereading this in 2010. I thought the Juan/Scarlett storyline was a lot larger in the book (it's pretty big in Toby's mind, not so much on the page). Overall the story holds up pretty well. The book feels like summer.

... and I cannot tell you how much it excites me to have it lifted. I haven't been buying books for myself for roughly six months. I'm down to my last three four books, namely:

1. Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha (one of those books on my to-read list)

2. Heather Graham's Death Dealer (very random find, found this hiding in my shelf)

3. Susan Scott's Fierce Leadership (very random find, want to read something non-fiction every once in a while)

4. Martin Lindstrom's Buy-ology (a book given to me in 2011 by the company I work for)

In order to complete my five books for July, I picked one book from my to-sell list.

5. Kimberly Willis Holt's Dancing in Cadillac Light (a random find, liked the title)

That's my final list and by August, I'm set for John Green! Yay!

I'm proud to say that this is one of the things that definitely worked out for me. Back in 2012, I barely read anything due to work. This year, I decided to give myself some form of break from work. (Haha, I'm a work-a-holic.) I wanted to get my old hobbies back such as reading and here I am! I managed to read over 33 books in the past six months and I can't be any happier even though, I admit that I was pressured into reading more than one but hey, I enjoyed the ride the books gave me.

So here's to July and my last five. Happy reading to all of us!

Keep on reading,

Anj