2/5 stars
Absolutely Truly, by Heather Vogel Frederick (2014)
This is a fun YA novel set in the fictional little town of Pumpkin Falls, New Hampshire. I feel badly giving in 2 stars because I really did enjoy it. It's just that the ending was kind of blah, and the story was a little too young (Y) and not enough adult (A).
Truly Lovejoy is from a big family - two older brothers and two younger sisters - that gets uprooted often, due to her father's military career. But when her dad, JT, is injured overseas and loses an arm, they move to the sleepy little town in NH where he grew up. His parents own the local (struggling) bookstore, which has been in the family for over 100 years. But they want to join the Peace Corps! So they've asked JT and his sister, Tru (short for Truly - there's one in each generation), to take it over.
JT runs everything with military precision, while Tru is as free a spirit as they come, but they work fairly well together trying to find ways to keep the bookstore afloat. JT gives it a deadline of a few months. If they haven't been able to turn a profit and pay off the loan by then, they'll have to shut it down.
Truly and her siblings start at a new school, but unlike many "fish-out-of-water teenager" stories, she makes friends fairly quickly. Her little crew consists of Cha Cha, daughter of the dance studio owners, Jasmine, sister to the obnoxious boy in class (Scooter) who always calls her "Truly gigantic" because of her height, and Lucas, son of an overprotective single mom. When Truly finds a mysterious letter inside a first edition, signed copy of Charlotte's Web she and her friends work to uncover the truth of the letter writer and recipient. The plot thickens when the book goes missing from the rare books cabinet.
The plot is so-so, and Truly's inner monologue can get repetitive, but I really liked Truly's family members and friends, plus some of the other quirky townsfolks we meet along the way - like the old lady who travels around with kittens in her jacket, and Cha Cha's extravagant dance teacher parents.
I'd say this book would be good for middle schoolers who like mystery, if you have one of those!
UP NEXT: How to Be Eaten, by Maria Adelmann
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