72. Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett

listened to on Audio, borrowed from the library
read by Amy Melissa Bentley
Unabridged audio (11:23)
2018 Simon Pulse
421 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished before 8/5, but forgot to write it down
Goodreads rating:  4.04 - 8750 ratings
My rating:  3
Setting: contemporary Melita Hills, CA (just outside SF) and in the national park wilderness/high Sierras just north/northeast

First line/s:  "Spontaneity is overrated."

My comments:  I greatly disliked the beginning of the book, so much so that I almost put it down.  It took forever to get to the "roughing it" in the wild.  I couldn't believe that Zorie would be friends with a girl like Reagan (et al.) or that her father was such a JERK and she hardly rebelled at all.  Also she'd been best friends with Lennon since she was quite young and she drops him like a hot potato without looking into what was really going on.....  And although she lost her birth mother when she was 8, she'd taken on loving her stepmother incredibly (which is good), but the infrequent mention of her birth mother is weird, as if she didn't remember her  (or even care) much...but she was EIGHT!  Not a baby. And again, she had an incredible dirt-bag father. Quite a few aspects that bugged me.  But the second half of the book was pretty decent, for the most part.  Not as good as The Anatomical Shape of a Heart, which is also recently read.

Goodreads synopsis:  Ever since last year’s homecoming dance, best friends-turned-best enemies Zorie and Lennon have made an art of avoiding each other. It doesn’t hurt that their families are the modern-day Californian version of the Montagues and Capulets.
          But when a group camping trip goes south, Zorie and Lennon find themselves stranded in the wilderness. Alone. Together.
          What could go wrong?
          With no one but each other for company, Zorie and Lennon have no choice but to hash out their issues via witty jabs and insults as they try to make their way to safety. But fighting each other while also fighting off the forces of nature makes getting out of the woods in one piece less and less likely.
          And as the two travel deeper into Northern California’s rugged backcountry, secrets and hidden feelings surface. But can Zorie and Lennon’s rekindled connection survive out in the real world? Or was it just a result of the fresh forest air and the magic of the twinkling stars?

81. Everything Beautiful is Not Ruined by Danielle Younge-Ullman

read on my iPhone
2017 Viking Books for Young Readers
368 pgs.
YA CRF
Finished 8/18/18
Goodreads rating:  4.22 - 1251 ratings
My rating: 4
Setting:  The woods of northern Ontario, Canada

First line/s:  "Dear mom,  Thanks.  Really.  I can't wait for this tiny excuse for an airplane to take off into the sky, and then deliver me into the dismal middle of nowhere."

My comments:  I do enjoy these books that put the protagonist ubri a summer camp/survival situation, a sort of upward/outward bound of staggering proportions.  This is the second one I've read this year, but very different from Wild Bird (Van Draanen).  It's told by slipping back and forth between the three-week tough hiking/survival experience and Ingrid's life, which is entirely dependent upon and wrapped up by and with her mother.  A few interesting twists and turns, though not especially unexpected, add to the story, which is set in the forests of northern Ontario, Canada.  And I really did read this in one long sitting!

Goodreads synopsis:  Wild meets The Breakfast Club in this story of a girl who must survive an extreme wilderness experience to prove to her mother that she has the strength to pursue her dreams.
Then 
Ingrid traveled all over Europe with her opera star mother, Margot-Sophia. Life was beautiful and bright, and every day soared with music.
Now 
Ingrid is on a summertime wilderness survival trek for at-risk teens: addicts, runaways, and her. She’s fighting to survive crushing humiliations, physical challenges that push her to her limits, and mind games that threaten to break her.
Then 
When the curtain fell on Margot-Sophia’s singing career, they buried the past and settled into a small, painfully normal life. But Ingrid longed to let the music soar again. She wanted it so much that, for a while, nothing else mattered.
Now 
Ingrid is never going to make it through this summer if she can’t figure out why she’s here . . . and why the music really stopped.