13 Little Blue Envelopes

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

Ginny a seventeen year old girls receives a package in the mail from her recently deceased Aunt. In the package are thirteen little blue envelopes and a set of instructions. The envelopes can be opened one at a time and only after the task on the opened envelope is completed. While completing this project she can have no contact with anyone in the United States and she must leave with only one backpack, nothing else. The first envelope takes Ginny to London. From there she will meet people and travel all over Europe. Ginny is trying to better understand her wacky Aunt and herself on her trip. She makes friends, ends up in some questionable situations and manages to learn the lessons she needed to learn. I enjoyed this book because of the travel aspect, we see each country through Ginny's eyes including the small things most tourists might not see.

Whats with the titles being questions?

If I Have a Wicked Stepmother, Where's My Prince? by Melissa Kantor

Lucy Norton is a teenager who has been transplanted from San Fransisco to Long Island because her father has gotten married. She now has a stepmother and two stepsisters and she begins to see parallels between her life and Cinderella's. Lucy likes art and basketball, it is her like of basketball which brings in the boy she thinks is her prince, the star basketball player hoping to take the team to finals. Lucy thinks she is happy with her boyfriend and even gets the prom invite she has been looking for. However when everything should be coming together for Lucy it all seems to be falling apart, why isn't she happy? After some drama she discovers that her life isn't quite as similar to Cinderella's and that what she was looking for in a boyfriend was right by her all the time. While this story is fairly predictable it is a happy and fast read which ends in a happy storybook fashion.


What If . . . Everyone Knew Your Name by Liz Ruckdeschel and Sara James

This story is similar to the Choose Your Own Adventure books that everyone read when you were younger. These stories though are aimed at teens and deal with that type of subject matter. This story begins with teenager Haley who just moved in to town and starts school at her first public high school. The reader chooses the path Haley will take, who her friends will be, what sort of social activities she will participate in, which party's she will go to and much more. While I was excited at the concept of this book I was disappointed in the execution. The story does not flow well for many of the paths that you choose. It is obvious that selections are better suited to alternate story lines. There is one more book in this series which I will try to see in the next attempt at this story format works out any better.