Hallie Mayhew's single-minded focus her senior year of high school has been to earn money and win the prestigious Verhaag scholarship that will allow her to go to a college of her choosing. Hal would love to get away from her bickering divorced parents and her tandem jobs for each of their businesses-her father's pest control company and her mother's pond cleaning service. However, the Verhaag scholarship has a streak of giving the money to a Verhaag descendant, and this year a new student and direct descendant has just joined her class. Hal scrambles to pad her resume with extracurricular activities that she doesn't have time for, but a loophole in the Verhaag judging rules might give her a second chance at the scholarship if she can only get her next-door neighbor, Spencer Salazar to submit an entry as well.


Pest is an entertaining contemporary young adult book with a fresh plot and interesting characters. Hal's character is dealing with a lot. Her divorced parents are pulling her in two different directions, her jobs are taking up all of her free time and don't exactly make her popular and the scholarship competition is taking up all of her headspace. Luckily, Hal's friends help her with her endeavors. Hal's story allowed me to see the crazy amount of pressure that many teens are under. Through the story Hal realized just what life is all about, other ways of achieving her dreams and dropping her laser focus for a little bit to try and enjoy life. Hal deals with all of this with as much grace as possible. I enjoyed seeing Hal and Spencer's relationship develop, it was very natural and wasn't the main plot in the story. Overall, Pest is an intriguing, cute and fun young adult story with touches of mystery and romance.


This book was received for free in return for an honest review.

Nicholas and Sebastian have been friends since they were six, united over their short and scrawny stature. Now it's 1984 and Sebastian has stayed short while Nicholas has grown and secured a role as the heartthrob on popular show, Heights High. Nicky's face is plastered all over Tiger Beats and buses while Sebastian, up to his neck in homework, still has yet to kiss a girl. When Sam lands a role on Heights High, she can't believe her luck. Sam's boyfriend is abusive, and she has become addicted to drugs. Sam needs a consistent job and money. She latches onto Nicky and, by default, Sebastian turning up wherever they are, usually as a complete mess. Nicky has no interest in Sam as a girlfriend, even though she is constantly throwing herself at him, but does see an obligation to help Sam. Sebastian sees Sam as a huge headache yet finds himself intrigued by her wild nature.



Showmances and Stage Kisses is a young adult romance that gives a wonderful sense of time and place in 1980's New York City. I could easily imagine the set for Heights High, the diners, and the house parties. It was clear that the author had first person insight into how kids were treated on sets at this time. Nicky, Sam and Sebastian's characters were all very interesting to follow; however, I'm not really sure that I liked any of them. They were all very flawed, needy and whiny for 17 years old. Their growth, if any, throughout the story was very slow and didn't amount to much. All three of the kids fell into the absent parent trope, I was expecting at least one crazy stage mom. The pacing of the story fell flat in the middle for me as the plot fell into a will they or won't they scenario between Nicky and Sam as well as Sebastian and Sam. I really wanted to see some grand realization or discovery for these characters, but it just sort of fizzled. I also expected this story to be a little more fun and light hearted, although, being true to the 80's, there was an overall serious tone as the characters all dealt with some pretty significant issues.





This book was received for free in return for an honest review.​