Senior Year.
Middle of nowhere.
What's the new girl to do?
For Piper Marks, the answer is simple. She's determined to have her photography rock the cover of National Geographic someday, and moving to Clarkton, Iowa for her last year of high school is not going to stop her. Even if her usual subjects have changed from bright lights and skyscrapers to fields, cows…and more fields.
But when photographer at the local paper quits in a huff, she steps into his spot. Her new job keeps Piper busy capturing tackles, and zooming in on first downs and end zone dances, not to mention putting her directly in the path of varsity football star Les Williams IV. Her new friends warn her off, but she can't resist the pull she feels toward this mysterious country boy. But this small town is keeping a secret, and it's one that could destroy any chance they have to be together.
It's up to Piper to decide what to do with the distorted truth. Can she risk exposing her heart? It might be worth it, 'cause Les is about to change her world from black and white to fully saturated color.
My Review:
4 Out Of 5 Stars
Genre: Teen--
Piper's life has been thrown on it's head. Her parents divorced and now she is being forced to live with her distant mother and new step-father in the middle of nowhere Iowa instead of her beloved father who is busy. If her family life weren't enough of a mess, she now has to spend her senior year of high school at a new school as the new girl, with no friends or activities to get involved in. At least Piper has her camera to hide behind.
I will admit that I was expecting a teen mystery, where Piper gets roped into helping her mom at the paper and ends up taking a picture of a crime or something. Well, that was not at all what I got. Don't get me wrong, I liked the book, it was just not what I expected when I first started reading. This was a story about a very lost and lonely girl trying to figure out who she is, what she wants, and how far she will go to get it. Definitely a coming of age story.
I liked how Piper chose to speak her mind and be honest with everyone. Based on her internal monologue, in the past she had tried to play nice with her friends instead of speak out if she was upset. In her new town, Piper takes a bold stand to be herself no matter what and I completely respect that, even if it makes her unliked at her school. The reader goes through every hurt right along with Piper, and man were there a lot of hurts. By the end of the book I wanted to wrap Piper in bubble wrap to keep her safe, but that would not have stopped the comments from attacking her. She was such a strong person to keep her head up and face everyone even after everything that was said and done to her. The last bit about her father was even worse for me than all the rumors at school. I'm not going to lie, I totally though all the secrecy about her dad was because he was dying of cancer or something similar, but the truth was much, much worse. The journey was incredibly painful, but Piper learned who her true friends were as well as how much her mom loved her. I also loved how wrapped up in her photography Piper became, blocking out the world to wait for the perfect image to capture. It inspired me to want to take a photo.
My biggest complaint with the book was the ending. It felt so abrupt, like I was missing the last chapter or something. One issue was solved, but really there were so many more that I needed to know what happened. How did her portfolio finish, what happened to her feud with Morgan and the yearbook, what school did she get accepted to, what will happen with her father? So many big questions that the book was leading to, and yet the way the book ended was as if the story had not led to these choices and was just about a romance. Which is wrong, because the book was about life and growing up, hard choices and discovering who you are, not just a perhaps fleeting romance with a boy. It let me down a little bit. That being said, if this is the first in a series, then maybe I will get some closure, but I was under the impression this is a stand-alone book. I am not certain what will happen next, except for the fact I loved the story right up until the last few pages.
I was overall pleased by what I read and look forward to more by this author.
I received this title from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.
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