52. Paintbrush by Hannah Bucchin

read on my iPhone
2014 Blaze Publishing
306 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 8/30/17
Goodreads rating:  4.17 - 151 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting: contemporary rural North Carolina

First line/s:  "Sometimes I close my eyes and imagine what a normal school morning looks like."

My comments:  Love the cover.  It's gorgeous.  This is a love story with two protagonists, alternating chapters with their first person accounts.  The only problem was that they both sounded exactly the same; they had the same voice, the same kinds of quirks, the same angst.  The same "goodness."  Each had one single close friend.  I loved the setting and Bucchin's description of it: a commune on a mountain in North Carolina.  40 cabins, 100 or so people, and a once a week community meal.  However, out of those 100 people we only get to meet a very few.  I so wanted to meet more, and it was hard to visualize this commune full of so many people when you're only thinking about eight or nine.  Lost the big picture a bit.  Pretty well written love story, all in all, with a pat, satisfying ending - always okay with me.  There are definitely going to be some females that swoon over this book.

Goodreads synopsis: Mitchell Morrison and Josie Sedgwick have spent their whole lives at the Indian Paintbrush Community Village, a commune full of colorful characters tucked in the mountains of North Carolina, and they aren't particularly close--at least, not anymore. Josie wishes she could spend all of her time at Paintbrush planting tomatoes, hiking the trails, or throwing giant communal birthday parties, while Mitchell can’t wait to escape the bizarre spiritual sharing and noisy community dinners. Luckily for both of them, high school graduation is just around the corner.
          But when Mitchell’s mother makes a scandalous announcement that rocks the close-knit Paintbrush community, and Josie’s younger sister starts to make some dangerously bad decisions, the two find themselves leaning on each other for support – and looking at each other in a whole new light. Their childhood friendship blossoms in to something more as they deal with their insane families, but as graduation approaches, so does life in the real world, forcing Josie and Mitchell to figure out what, exactly, their relationship is – and if it can survive their very different plans for the future.