Jen Ryland Reviews

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Review of Lucky in Love

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Review: Lucky in Love - original photo of the book cover by Jen RylandReview: Lucky in Love

by Kasie West

To be published on July 25, 2017 by Point

Synopsis from Goodreads: Maddie doesn’t believe in luck. She’s all about hard work and planning ahead. But one night, on a whim, she buys a lottery ticket. And then, to her astonishment — she wins!
In a flash, Maddie’s life is unrecognizable. No more stressing about college scholarships. Suddenly, she’s talking about renting a yacht. And being in the spotlight at school is fun… until rumors start flying, and random people ask her for loans. Now, Maddie isn’t sure who she can trust. Except for Seth Nguyen, her funny, charming coworker at the local zoo. Seth doesn’t seem aware of Maddie’s big news. And, for some reason, she doesn’t want to tell him. But what will happen if he learns her secret?

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My review of Lucky in Love:

Kasie West has written a cute contemporary that’s an ideal summer read. While I didn’t find it perfect, there was a lot to like.

Maddie is a (supposedly) responsible girl who’s laser- focused on college and her future. But then, on her eighteenth birthday, she impulsively buys a lottery ticket, and her whole life is changed – and not necessarily for the better.

I think my favorite part of Lucky in Love was the way it showed how Maddie’s life gets turned upside-down after she wins the lottery.

One minute, she’s volunteering at the zoo with Seth, her cute co-worker, and the next, she’s gifting huge amounts of money to friends and family. Can money buy happiness? Does money change relationship dynamics in sometimes unexpected and unpleasant ways? No and yes.  I felt bad for Maddie because she seemed to be the only adult in her family, and when she won the money, she didn’t really have anyone to give her solid advice. I also loved the scenes of her working at the zoo. All West’s comtemporaries feature romances that are PG-rated, making her books a good pick for tweens as well as older YA readers. On the negative side, the romantic connection in this book between Maddie and Seth was a little underwhelming – maybe there was just too much else going on?

In short: Lucky in Love is a cute contemporary that’s on the fluffier and more PG side, but still worth a read if that is what you are looking for.

Looking for more YA rom coms? Here are all my favorites in one place!

Review of What Goes Up

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What Goes Up by Katie Kennedy

To be published on July 18, 2017 by Bloomsbury

Source: ARC from publisher

Synopsis from Goodreads: Rosa and Eddie are among hundreds of teens applying to NASA’s mysterious Multi-World Agency. After rounds of crazy-competitive testing they are appointed to Team 3, along with an alternate, just in case Eddie screws up (as everyone expects he will). What they don’t expect is that aliens will arrive from another dimension, and look just like us. And no one could even imagine that Team 3 would be the only hope of saving our world from their Earth-destroying plans. The teens steal the spacecraft (it would be great if they knew how to fly it) and head to Earth2, where the aliens’ world and people are just like ours. With a few notable exceptions. There, the teens will find more than their alternate selves: they’ll face existential questions and high-stakes adventure, with comedy that’s out of this world.

Review of What Goes Up

I really enjoyed Katie Kennedy’s first book. Learning to Swear in America,  and I loved this one as well. At first, What Goes Up felt like a crazy astronaut version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a group of teens competing for spots on the Interworlds Agency, a division of NASA that deals with the exploration of parallel universes with intelligent life. The competition was fierce, filled with psychological tests and intelligence tests and logic tests and stress tests.

Then, just as the testing is winding down and a final two candidates are about to be chosen, something dramatic happens. (I was going to be vague so as not to spoil it, but as the synopsis suggests, aliens from an alternate earth arrive and things get complicated. ) Then the three finalists, aided by their instructor, have to band together and figure out how save the world in a crazy, funny, suspenseful sequence of events.

I’m not a huge fan of books set in space, but I still found a lot here to love.

The characters are scary-smart and hilarious, a Scooby Gang of nerds with a lot of heart. You have Rosa, the daughter of a Los Alamos scientist, and Eddie, the son of a mean drunk who’s recently out of prison, plus Trevor and Reg, their instructor. Parallel universe stuff always freaks me out, and that aspect of the book was no exception. But this story also leveraged the humor behind the freakiness.

If you are a genius or space nerd, this is the book for you. I’m neither but loved trying to keep up and appreciated the book’s emphasis on the value of friendship and teamwork.

Have you read this or do you have a favorite book about space travel?

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