Review: A nice read for young teens
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 07 12, 2012
I would have liked to have given this book 3.5 stars as it was better than three stars but not quite four.I hated the opening.  Quite a few pages of a girl getting up and getting ready for school.  We all did it and, honestly, it's just not that interesting.  I almost gave up at that point, but when I got to the section beginning, 'I almost missed the 7:00 am ferry', I began to get interested and the story started for me right there.I loved Tessa and was excited to think Willow was going to find herself in more interesting and exciting situations because of that. Tessa was the cement that held the story together and without her it wouldn't have worked.  The situations Willow found herself in, and the life lessons she learned, were all because of her relationship with Tessa. I was disappointed that Tessa dropped out of the story as I think with a little development her character, alongside that of Willow, would have made Willow's future much more interesting.  In the end, Willow does get into a few scrapes - nothing particularly unusual for a teen, and turns out to be just about as good a girl, and as boring, as she was before they became friends.  An opportunity missed, perhaps.While I did like the romantic aspect of the relationship between Michael and Willow, I didn't feel it had much depth and, for me, it did not develop sufficiently to make the characters, or their love for one another, memorable enough.Having said all that, I really did enjoy the read - the author understands very well what makes girls tick, how they think, what they are interested in, and I loved the way she handled Willow's growing maturity with regard to her family. As a mother, I found that aspect of the story perceptively handled and it worked very well indeed.