I'm Reading a Great YA Book

So I just finished the Vampire Academy series, and let me tell you, it was awesome. You know what though? I totally skipped Frostbite. Somehow I failed to notice it in the list of books, and I went straight to Shadow Kiss. The characters kept referring to this person who died, and I always wondered, are they EVER going to tell me how that happened? Um...I suspect they probably did. In book 2. The one I managed to not know about.

But! That is not what this blog post is about, though I will say one last time, kudos, Richelle Mead, for a fantastic series.

No, this blog post is about the book I picked up next, Beautiful, by Amy Reed.

I'm not done with it yet, in fact I'm not even halfway through, but I had to blog now to tell you what an amazing book it is. I don't know how it ends, though it could be that it ends twenty five years later and the main character is a happy, fairly well adjusted married mother of two toddlers who likes to write in her spare time.

Because seriously, I think this book could be about me. Amy Reed, were you hiding under my bed for my entire 8th grade year? (Good job changing the main character to a seventh grader. And calling her Cassie.)

This book has been painful to read. But I can't stop, because it is so awfully, heartbreakingly true. It's even set in Washington, where I live. I used to live across the Agate Pass bridge, *just this side* of Bainbridge Island, where our main character was from (though the story takes place in Kirkland, where my kids' eye doctor is located).

Attention writers! If you write edgy YA, then this book is required reading for you. Not kidding. Go buy it right now, because Beautiful gets it right.

Oh, how I love spot on contemporary YA. And I'm loving this book. I have every reason to believe it will continue to break my heart.

And thank god I'm not in 8th grade anymore. Sometimes I can't believe I lived through that year.