The Distance Between (Bobbie Lamont, #4)
by Zelmer Wilson
My rating: 4.2 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite
With college graduation only recently behind her, Bobbie Lamont had given up on life, she thought she had experienced all life had to offer and that she would never find love again. Enter Miller, a young and somewhat different seventeen year old, who spent the summer teaching Bobbie that there was so much more yet to experience in life. The Distance Between is the story of young love, and not so young love, of a seventeen year old and a twenty-two year old, but who have so much in common, and who teach each other how to live again. Author Zelmer Wilson takes a typical girl been dumped response, there is nothing else out there, and turns it into a new adventure with someone completely unexpected.
The Distance Between is a unique look at emotions and thoughts. Bobbie is a deeply emotional person, writing everything down into millions o pages of diary, yet when she is dumped by her latest boyfriend, she is ready to give up. To run into another reader/writer like herself in Miller, even if he is five years younger than her seems like the lifeline she needs and it becomes just that. Author Zelmer Wilson not only writes about the life o this one character, Bobbie Lamont, but about the need of all people to be able to connect with someone that sees the world the same way they do regardless of age or distance. Although the book is filled with a lot of drinking and smoking, typical of the time period that it is written in, I still feel it is a good read for young adults as well as adults. There are some good things to be learned here.
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How Barbie Met Ken
by Chelsie Nikol
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Reviewed for +Readers' Favorite
Barbie has it all, good looks, popularity, the rich and handsome boyfriend, she's cheerleading captain and a beauty pageant winner. So then why is she so unhappy? Maybe it's because the handsome boyfriend is actually an alcoholic who is also taking steroids, and has a tendency to be a bit violent with her. Or maybe it's because she wants something more out of life than the plastic dreams being told to her. Kenji is the loner of the school, his father passed away and he is into photography. Everyone calls him a tattletale, and he doesn't care. He just wants to survive long enough to get out of high school and be on his own. He is dealing with more adult stuff than anyone in high school. How Barbie Met Ken pairs these two people from opposite ends of the social spectrum in high school together for a class project, and how it ends up effecting them each. Chelsie Nikol does a wonderful job of creating characters we can visualize by using these familiar names, and adding in modern pressures and trials.
How Barbie Met Ken is a wonderful young adult and teen book, set in the senior year of high school, that talks about popularity, boyfriends, cheating, drugs and alcohol, college and careers, family and friends and so much more. It goes into all aspects of everyday life, but it does so with two characters that we can easily see in our minds, Barbie and Ken. Chelsie Nikol brings these two iconic names into the modern world and then turns it upside down as they become real people with real issues and problems to deal with. This is an excellent book for that high school age reader.
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