High School Books?

Picked up Ephron's The Girl with the Mermaid Hair at the Book Look. From the publisher's description("Sukie Jamieson is obsessed with her own beauty and perfection, until her mother gives her an exquisite full-length mirror that has been passed down through their family and shows both outer beauty and the ugliness within."), I thought it would be a paranomalish fantasy. It wasn't. It was good, but I kept waiting for something supernatural to happen. It doesn't. Instead, this is a problem novel. Not only does Sukie need to come to terms with her own obsession with her looks, her lack of friends, her plummeting grades and her mother's plastic surgery, her father is having an affair and her family is on the verge of collapse. It is appropriate for middle school, but the inward focus will be more appealing to older students.

I was SO excited to get Perl's Vintage Veronica from the public library. A story about a girl working at a vintage consignment shop, meeting new friends and breaking out of her shell. Fun! Only it wasn't. Veronica was unhappy and somewhat unpleasant, but she was a peach compared to the two coworkers she meets. When they decide to start throwing around foul language on page 50, I stopped reading. While it's not appropriate for middle school, this would be fine in high school, and I expect that Veronica's life does become more fun. I'm afraid that sleep trumped reading more of this book. Cool cover and premise, and Perl's web site is very pretty as well.