Book Review: Miss Fortune Cookie by Lauren Bjorkman

Miss Fortune Cookie
Author: Lauren Bjorkman
Reading Level: YA
Genre: Contemporary
Released: November 13th 2012
Review Source: Henry Holt and Co.
Available: Amazon

Summary: (from goodreads) Meet Erin. Smart student, great daughter, better friend. Secretly the mastermind behind the popular advice blog Miss Fortune Cookie. Totally unaware that her carefully constructed life is about to get crazy.

It all begins when her ex-best friend sends a letter to her blog—and then acts on her advice. Erin’s efforts to undo the mess will plunge her into adventure, minor felonies, and possibly her very first romance.

What’s a likely fortune for someone no longer completely in control of her fate? Hopefully nothing like: You will become a crispy noodle in the salad of life.

This book was a cute story with action and adventure. A little bit of love tossed in made it better for me. Though I found myself a little bored with most of it, I stuck it out and it had a great ending.
Erin Smart is a senior in one of the best High Schools in San Francisco. Born in China, Erin loves everything Chinese. Her best friends are Chinese Americans and she feels kind of left out because she wants so badly to be like them. I think we all had issues growing up trying to fit in so I could sympathize with her in this area.

What most people didn’t know about Erin is that she has an advice column aka “Miss Fortune Cookie.” Linny, the only person that knows about the column is Erin’s closest friend. Mei is the other friend that runs in this trio but she and Erin haven’t been too close lately. Mei made Erin feel as if she wasn’t good enough to hang around since she wasn’t Chinese. Here was another example of Erin not fitting in.
The story gets tricky when Mei sends in a letter to “Miss Fortune Cookie” asking for advice. Erin thinks she is giving her the right advice but to her dismay she may have screwed things up royally.

This book not only is about friendship but family and loyalty as well. It did have some action to it and it did have a major protest in it as well. It also had a smidge of romance which rounded out the story well. Like I said before the story was cute and would recommend to the young adult world for sure and any adult who wants to break away from their normal genre.

Book Tour: My Invented Life Book Review

My Invented Life
Author: Lauren Bjorkman
Pages: 240 pgs
Reading Level: YA
Published: September 29th 2009
Review Source: Teen {Book} Scene 

What a unexpected surprise I got from reading this book. The cover doesn't do the book justice. The Story is fun, crazy and witty. The author delivers in this book sexuality and acceptance as a main theme. Lots of teenage drama and angst with plenty of humor thrown in the mix while reading such deep themes.

You meet the sisters Roz and Eva. Roz is pretty much what makes the book what it is. Roz is the funny sister. Roz has a mission and that is to get her sister to open up about a secret she believes she has. The sisters are very competitive and just make you out right laugh sometimes. So Roz starts her own lie about herself to see if that will work towards getting her sister to "come out". Roz didnt expect that her plan would not work and now she "made her bed and must lie in it".

Summary: With Roz and Eva everything becomes a contest—who can snag the best role in the school play, have the cutest boyfriend, pull off the craziest prank. Still, they’re as close as sisters can be. Until Eva deletes Roz from her life like so much junk e-mail for no reason that Roz understands. Now Eva hangs out with the annoyingly petite cheerleaders, and Roz fantasizes about slipping bovine growth hormone into their Gatorade.

Roz has a suspicion about Eva. In turn, Eva taunts Roz with a dare, which leads to an act of total insanity. Drama geeks clamor for attention, Shakespearean insults fly, and Roz steals the show in Lauren Bjorkman’s hilarious debut novel.