Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson
Suite Scarlett
by Maureen Johnson
(Audio)
http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/9773022/
I read this just a week or two ago and already got the second book in the series out of the library :-)
I've followed Maureen Johnson on Twitter for more than a year now because she's a friend of one of my favorite writers. And she is crazy awesome in her own right. I'd never had a chance to read any of her novels before (though I'd read a short story or two in collections).
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and its characters. Scarlett spends the whole book talking us into how boring it really is to live in a hotel your family owns and operates. But no matter how much she tells us this, I can't believe it--not with the hotel and family she has! Each of her family members is interesting and complex, from a younger sister who survived Cancer to an older brother desperate to make it as an actor in New York City.
The story has the necessary complications and the formulaic romance that a young adult novel seems to need. But, even so, the plot is highly enjoyable to follow. You wonder how it's all going to work out and then, in the end, everything is so perfect you wonder how you didn't see it from the start :-)