In Your Room by Jordana Fraiberg Book Review

In Your Room by Jordana Fraiberg
(Razorbill, Paperback, 2008)
Rating:

Charlie and Molly have their perfect summers all planned out. Until their parents decide to swap houses, that is. Molly lives a perfect city life in Los Angeles, filled with shopping, hanging out with her friends, and designing clothes. Charlie has a laid-back life in Boulder, filled with mountain biking, sunny meadows, and backyard barbecues. Now they are living in each other's rooms for 3 whole months and their email correspondence may be the only thing that saves the summer.

Can you describe a book as being cute? Because In Your Room is definitely cute. Not in a condescending way but, rather, in a warm and fuzzy post-reading feeling. Fraiberg deftly handles the heartache and pitfalls of growing up and utterly connects her characters to their two settings. Having been to Los Angeles and Boulder in the last year, I could see that Fraiberg did her research. The two locations could almost be considered characters of the book if you were studying it from a literary standpoint. Boulder was my favorite place of the two because it was fun to see Molly relax and embrace a new side of herself while there. Despite the fact that Molly and Charlie are in two separate cities for the summer, it was no stretch of the imagination to see them falling in love. When I first read the back of the book, I was skeptical. However, the emails and IMs between Molly and Charlie are filled with little details and with feelings about their lives. I can always tell how good a book is by the amount that I can remember as time passes. I read this book in October and it's still fresh in my mind. Jordana Fraiberg is definitely an author to watch out for.