Summer Secrets

April 1, 2011

Gr 6 Up-In this sequel to Ask Amy Green: Boy Trouble (Candlewick, 2010), 13-year-old Amy and her 17-year-old Aunt Clover, author of an advice column for an Irish teen magazine, the Goss, are setting out on summer vacation. Amy is convinced that two weeks with her entire family, including her father, stepfather, his sister, her mother, Clover, and all the sibs, will be an absolute disaster. After frantic packing, the gang heads off to an island in West Cork. Soon Clover and Amy are glibly chatting about cute boys, washboard abs, and teen idols. Clover's column offers an avenue to impart information about kissing, PMS, and first periods. The plot clips along with family rivalries, personality clashes, and a near drowning to provide drama. But the greatest adventure occurs when Clover lands an interview with teen idol Matt Monroe in Miami Beach, and the magazine sends the girls to Florida where they solve a mystery about his origins. A chatty read, with a nearly unbelievable plot, for readers attracted to gossipy chick lit.-Kathryn Kosiorek, formerly at Cuyahoga County Public Library, Brooklyn, OH

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011

The characters deepen slightly in Amy Green's new go-round (Boy Trouble, 2010), but Webb keeps the focus on fun in this lively chick-lit sequel. Amy Green, a 13-year-old Irish everygirl, goes to Cork to vacation with her blended and extended family. Amy's messy, harried, TV- and junk-food-allowing mother Sylvie immediately locks horns with her boyfriend's more organically oriented and perfectly groomed sister Prue; Gramps runs into an old flame who's still holding a near-homicidal grudge (dead rat anyone?); and Prue's pudgy and furious son Denis has a serious eating issue. Worse, Amy's boyfriend, Seth, sends letters and emails that show an increasing preoccupation with a bikini-clad female. But there are bright spots to be had, including a seriously sexy gardener, and of course, Amy's 17-year-old aunt, Clover, who is spending her gap year working for a teen lifestyle magazine. Various plot elements come together when Amy accompanies her aunt to Miami so Clover can interview a rising star and teenage idol named Matt Munroe. By this point in the story, there are so many unlikely coincidences and credibility-shredding character connections that any sense of reality is completely and utterly lost. Despite some touching moments and serious life lessons, it's mostly a frothy confection, though, and girls should be willing to suspend their disbelief and simply enjoy themselves. Good fun. (Fiction. 11 & up)

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