A & L Do Summer

April 4, 2011
Blazanin's sophomore novel follows inseparable 16-year-old best friends Laurel and Aspen through their madcap summer in the small town of Cottonwood Creek, Iowa. They are determined (Laurel much more so) to enter their senior year as part of the popular crowd, and Laurel, an easily bored schemer, can be something of a bad influence, getting Aspen in trouble at work and at home ("ometimes Laurel's sparkle is more like a blinding glare," says Aspen.) Laurel's first idea is to pull an end-of-year prank involving pigs in the principal's office, but when a trio of bullies gets wind of the idea, the girls are quickly pulled into a summerlong web of trouble. Blazanin (Fairest of Them All) unfolds her story at a rapid clip, though the scale generally tilts toward melodrama and eccentricity (a crabby neighbor who walks her pet skunk in a stroller; several scatological mishaps) over realism; Aspen's desperate first crush on her older brother's friend should satisfy readers looking for romance. An abundance of humor and surprises keeps this novel light and summery. Ages 12âup.

June 1, 2011

Gr 8-10 Up-Aspen and Laurel are looking forward to the summer before their senior year. This will be Laurel's first summer in Cotton Wood Creek, IA, and she is determined that she and Aspen will make their mark. The plan includes attending parties, attracting boyfriends, and pulling a good end-of-school prank to get in with the popular kids, but they end up dealing with school bullies, jobs, cranky neighbors, a new police officer, and crimes that A & L might be in the middle of. The teens are placed in some interesting situations, and real tension develops from dealing with harassment from the bullies, but character development is limited, even for the two protagonists. Aspen is likable enough, but readers are bound to get frustrated with her continued poor choices, while Laurel's portrayal as a sympathetic character comes late in the book, possibly after readers have ceased to care. The friends get into one scrape after another, including brushes with the law for a school prank, illegal fireworks, underage drinking, and stealing a chicken, but the problems seem contrived and ceaseless, and the resolution to the bully situation is convenient and cliched. Romances for both girls develop late in the book but are cookie-cutter relationships, without any real sense of connection or emotion.-Natasha Forrester, Multnomah County Library, Portland, OR

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