THE DAY BEFORE, by Lisa Schroeder

THE DAY BEFORE

by Lisa Schroeder

AR: Not Yet

Interest Level: 9th and Up

Wow, I have been so bad about keeping up with this blog. I've read a lot of books; I just never seem to tie myself to a chair long enough to post about them! This one, though...I simply MUST share, for several reasons:

1. It's written by Lisa Schroeder, and to put it plainly, Lisa rocks my face off. Click HERE to find out why. :) Click HERE to visit Lisa's blog.

2. It's written in verse, which means it will automatically fly off of the shelves the same way my (multiple) copies of I Heart You, You Haunt Me, Chasing Brooklyn and Far From You do. While it's true that novels in verse tend to resonate with reluctant readers, they are by no means easy to write! It takes a true gift and talent to use so few words and still manage to capture enough emotion to fully develop a character.

3. Emily, my (you should read this next part real fast and run the words together without taking a breath, or it will just look like poor sentence structure) "unofficial library assistant for the past four years who picked out so many great books for our collection and just graduated and I'm going to miss her so much I can't stand it," bought it on our Kindle at like midnight the day it was released, and raved about it.

4. When I opened the book on the Kindle and skimmed through the acknowledgments, imagine my GLEE (hate the show, love the word) when I saw, right next to each other, the names. "Teresa" (as in, uh...ME!) and "Hailee" (as in my daughter!) I would have thought it coincidental, but they were right next to each other and I've never seen anyone spell Hailee like that...so what do you know? We got an acknowledgement from a real live ROCK STAR YA author!

OK, I guess I should stop pontificating on the magnificent jumble of awesome that is Lisa Schroeder, and get on with what I thought of this book:

This is Amber's story--or rather, one day of her story. Amber wants one day at the beach--just one--for herself, with no obligations, no family, not even her best friend, with whom she shares everything. She wants one perfect day. Just one. After this one day, she knows that her life is going to unequivocally change, and she's resigned to, and even accepted that fact. She just doesn't want to think about anything but this one day: the day before. (The day before what, you may be thinking--but I'm not gonna give that away, because it's Lisa's privilege to determine when that is, which she does, in the book--but you'll have to read it to find out!)

Amber meets Cade at the aquarium. Cade is also on a mission to get away--for one day--from his own situation. They have an instant connection, and both understand immediately that the other needs this day. They make a promise to not ask any questions about the other's life. Then they set out to escape from the world--for just one day.

That's all I'm going to tell you about this particular book. What, you thought this would be any different than my others? I never give away a book in a blog post! That's the author's right and privilege to do, not mine! Of course, you can probably surmise that Amber and Cade don't end up keeping that promise, they bond, and...ack, there I go again.

My favorite part of this book was Amber. I loved her personality--and her taste in music. P!nk is one of my own personal favorites, so I felt an instant connection to Amber because of her love of the artist and her music. I will never hear "Glitter in the Air" in quite the same way again.

I have no doubt that I will have to order multiple copies of this book, as I had to do with all her others.