Review: What a great YA novel for everyone...
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 12 4, 2012
Don't you love it when you pick a book up having no expectations and it just pleases the heck out of you??  That is what I found with my most recent read `None of the Regular Rules' by Erin Downing.  I came across this book through my favorite tech friend Twitter.  See Erin was offering up copies of None of the Regular Rules to bloggers for free in exchange for reviews so I thought "what the heck!"  Now I had never read an Erin Downing book but I loved the cover and blurb so I shot her a message and she sent me the book.  Well can you say win-win?  Thanks Erin for offering up your book because I loved it and here is my review...The official Blurb:Sometimes, a few dares can change lives...The weekend before the start of senior year, Sophie Erickson and her best friends, Ella and Grace, discover a handwritten list of dares tucked away in the glove compartment of Sophie's beat-up old Toyota. But this isn't just any list; it's a dead girl's bucket list.Sophie's beloved aunt Suzy died as a teenager in a fatal fall, leaving Sophie with an overly cautious family, a few fading photographs, and a bucket of bolts that barely passes for a car. But now, Sophie has Suzy's list of the things she wanted to do in her last year of high school. Sophie can't help but wonder: What would happen if she tried to fulfill Suzy's last wishes, to live out the longed-for life of her aunt, her hero?As Sophie and her friends attempt to knock off the things on Suzy's list of dares, love blossoms in unexpected places and Sophie begins to feel that her life is finally coming together...when in fact, everything is slowly unraveling around her. When the truth about a long-held family secret threatens to shatter everything she believed to be true, Sophie is forced to question everything she knew about the life and people she believed in, and ultimately herself.My thoughts upon finishing:- Awwwwww!- I need a reasonable bucket list to work on.Meet Sophie, a smart go with the flow type of girl starting her senior year with her two best friends hippie Ella and over achiever Grace.  Despite their differences the girls have been best friends since elementary school and are celebrating the start of their senior year when they come across a list of "dares" written by Sophie's dead aunt when she was a senior.Bring in Johnny Rush, Sophie's uber popular neighbor, and longtime crush, who's about to head off to college but becomes a key in helping Sophie begin to find the confidence to complete some of her bucket list.  Johnny and Sophie have lived side by side for years but she was always  too timid to step outside her invisible fence to speak with him.  Now, thanks to the bucket list, she and her friends attend their first "Johnny Rush" party which starts a chain of events that have the power to change their lives and their friendships.As Sophie begins to feel happy with herself and the changes she has made she begins to realize that things are not quite what they seem and a huge family secret destroys her at a time when everything else has already fallen apart.None of the Regular Rules is full of teenage fun and angst.  I was brought back to high school as I recalled the need to want to fit in, the longing for that one guy that will never be the right one, the struggle with parents who didn't understand and the need to find yourself.  I read the book in two midnight sittings and thoroughly enjoyed it.  A true YA novel with minimal (if any) language and no overtly sexual situations.  This is a book you could give to an actual high schooler without worry of their parents getting mad at you ;)  If you are a fan of YA realistic fiction, with a bit of drama, romance and comedy I would highly recommend None of the Regular Rules to you.