Rowena’s review of Golden by Jessi Kirby.
Main Character: Parker Frost
Love Interest: Trevor
Love, tragedy, and mystery converge in this compelling novel from “an author to watch” (Booklist).
Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.
Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.
Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.
l’ve read all of the books that Jessi Kirby has out so far and I haven’t hated any of them. I really like her writing style and that didn’t change with this book. Once I started this book, I didn’t stop reading until I was completely done with this book. I was so wrapped up in what was happening, what was going to happen and what we were finding out about every character in this book. From Parker to Trevor to Parker’s best friend to the dead couple. It all made for such an interesting story that I kept right on reading until I was done.
So in this book, Parker Frost is a senior in high school and she’s gearing up for a speech she’s got to give to win a scholarship to Stanford. She wants to get that scholarship, mostly to get her Mom off her back but also because she’s worked very hard for it. Her best friend isn’t as brainy as she is but Parker loves her anyway. On top of the scholarship thing, she has this fierce crush on Trevor Collins. She’s had that crush for so very long but for some reason, she won’t go there. Maybe it has to do with the fact that all the girls want him and he hasn’t shied away from their attention but from that very first scene with them together, the chemistry sizzles and I thought it was adorable.
Parker is a T.A. for a teacher who has his senior students write in a notebook about who they are now and what they hope to be in the future. After ten years, he mails the notebooks to those students and Parker is tasked with putting the next batch of envelopes together for mailing out. While she’s going through the envelopes with the notebooks, she comes across the notebook that belonged to a young girl who died ten years ago named Julianna Farnetti. Julianna Farnetti was part of the golden couple back in the day. She was memorialized all throughout town so everyone knows who she was. She was Shane Cruz’s girlfriend and though their bodies were never found, they never returned to town so the memorial went up. There are billboards up with their pictures and everything. Parker grew up knowing all about it, she even remembers her father being part of the search and rescue volunteer group that went out looking for the couple. So when she comes across the notebook, she has no idea what to do with it and with her best friend’s voice fresh in her mind, telling her to do something memorable and daring before they graduate…she takes the notebook. And she reads it. And she finds out things that nobody knew about Julianna Farnetti. Except for Orion.
This book takes place as Parker is trying to read as much as she can about Julianna Farnetti in this notebook that she wrote in years and years ago and it also takes place while Parker is finding out what she wants for her future and not just what her Mom wants for her future.
Jessi Kirby is a great writer. She writes great stories with great characters that really come alive for me when I’m reading her books. Every time I pick up a Kirby book, I know that I’m going to be just as invested in the book like I was with every other book that I’ve read by her. I’m a total fan of her work and I hope she writes forever.
In this book, Parker was a really likable protagonist and watching her try to figure out what was happening to her and what happened to Julianna and Shane had me turning the pages so fast it was hard to keep up with myself. The romance is extremely light but it’s there and it adds to an already impressive story that will be a hit with fans of Kirby’s previous works and fans of contemporary YA.
Grade: 4.5 out of 5
This book is available from Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher for an honest review.
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