The Victoria in My Head

Well, another contemporary YA that I really liked. I feel like I'm making a liar out of myself. Or I've been incredibly lucky. Or YA Fiction is changing.

I'm gonna go with the latter.

The Victoria in My Head is about Victoria, a Cuban-American high school student in New York who's focused on getting into a good school (this feels familiar, right?), but her life is incredibly boring. She can predict everything that happens from the time she wakes up in the morning to dinner in the evening. Nothing ever changes.

But.

There's always a but.

Victoria sees a boy putting up a flyer for band auditions. And the boy is gorgeous,  BUT A BAND! The band is looking for a lead singer, and in a moment of insanity, Victoria believes she can do it.

A brief moment.

Then she realizes not only is it a crazy idea, but her parents would never let her.

But luckily, she has a best friend named Annie who isn't afraid to share a video of Victoria's 11 year old self singing. And the band says, come audition! And despite being completely humiliated that they saw the video, she does.

Aaaand she bombs it. Stage fright. She does ok, but didn't blow anyone away.

I mean...of course she gets in. What story would there be without that? She has to hide it from her parents--pretends she's still in track. They find out, of course. She gets in trouble. Pretends to quit. Oh, and there's a love story. The whole time Victoria is with this one guy, I just wanted to scream at her: HE IS CLEARLY THE WRONG ONE! YOU'RE DOING THIS ALL WRONG! It was a first boyfriend, so of course it was all wrong.

Ultimately, it was a cute story. There was nothing spectacular or life changing about it, but it was a fun read. Probably made more fun by the fact that I didn't expect to like it much. I mean, I don't know anything about music, and that was a big part of the book. Every chapter title had a song name and band, and I didn't recognize even one. I probably would have appreciated the story even more if I had.

The characters are fun. The story is fun. Worth reading if you like contemporary fiction.

The Epic Crush of Genie Lo

I was blown away by how good Genio Lo is!

First: Chinese mythology! So fresh and welcome!

Second: Badass heroine!

Third: Spectacularly hilarious!

Genie Lo is a Chinese high school student who is preoccupied with beefing up her college apps to get into an Ivy League school. She's also freakishly tall, which makes her stand out. And to top it all off, the new transfer student walks into class and claims her in front of everyone.

At first, I was like No! We don't need an aggressive male love interest! I thought we were past that.

And we are! That was not what was happening (though Genie punched him for it anyway).

Turns out, Genie is powerful. Like, tear down the gates of heaven powerful. And Quentin (the new kid) needs her help to stop the demons that are breaking into this dimension. Obviously, Genie thinks this kid is crazy.

But then she meets a demon. And she's one of the few beings on Earth who can actually help defeat them. As Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility. And she can't just ignore the evil demons going around trying to eat people. The problem is, how is she supposed do stop them and get into an Ivy League School?

There are so many good things about this story. Genie has a strong friendship with a girl named Yunie, even though she can't tell Yunie anything about why she keeps ditching study sessions to spend time with Quentin. (And it's not to make out). The relationship between Genie and Quentin grows slowly and perfectly. Most of the time, Genie is royally pissed off at Quentin. He kind of invades her life and she resists every step of the way. Unfortunately (in her eyes, not mine) he is gorgeous and she feels alarmingly pulled toward him. Finally, the book is just stinkin hilarious! I read so many scenes out loud to Joe because I kept laughing and I wanted to share with him what was so funny. And I want to share with you what is so funny! But then you won't be pleasantly surprised as I was and I feel like it would just diminish your reading experience if you decide to read it.

So go read it so we can talk about it!