Two Reviews: Make Lemonade and True Believer

Book: Make Lemonade

Book: True Believer

Author: Virginia Euwer Wolff

Genre: YA Fiction

Rating: A- for both of them.

These two books (and I think there's a third one too) star LaVaugnn. In Make Lemonade, she's a ninth grader who gets a job tending two kids of a teenage mom. She really helps them and manages to help the mom get back on her feet too. It's actually pretty amazing that a 9th grader could be so beneficial to this 17 year old girl and these two kids. In the meantime, LaVaugnn herself learns a lot about life.

In the 2nd book, we are focused more on LaVaugnn's character and some stresses she is having. A boy she was friends with years before moves back into the neighborhood and she stresses about him. She stresses about school, and her mom who has a new boyfriend, and about her friends who she is becoming less and less connected to. I think this book, True Believer, won several awards.

Both books are written in free verse, which makes for very easy and fast reading. I loved the descriptions and the uplifting "you go girl" kind of moments, though there are quite a few downers too.