Review: Golden by Jessi Kirby

Title: Golden
Author: Jessi Kirby
Published: May 14, 2013
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher via Edelweiss
Purchase: Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. So when fate drops a clue in her lap—one that might be the key to unraveling a town mystery—she decides to take a chance.

Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High—perfect in every way, meant to be together forever. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story—one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. These are the secrets that were swept away with her the night that Shane’s jeep plunged into an icy river, leaving behind a grieving town and no bodies to bury.

Reading Julianna’s journal gives Parker the courage to start to really live—and it also gives her reasons to question what really happened the night of the accident. Armed with clues from the past, Parker enlists the help of her best friend, Kat, and Trevor, her longtime crush, to track down some leads. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference.

Parker, the goody two-shoes valedictorian, has never kissed her crush, nor skipped a day of school, or really done anything at all that wasn't approved by her mother.  She follows the rules and lives life on the safe side, doing what's right, never what's wrong, and only what's expected of her.  Her BFF, Kat, on the other hand, is quite the opposite.  She forces Parker to make her a promise to finally, just once, do something fun and outside of the rules.  Just once.

In the process of helping a teacher with a school project, Parker unexpectedly finds the journal of a young girl who was in a horrible car accident with her then-boyfriend 10 years ago, the two never to be found.  Against her better judgment, she decides to open and read the journal.  After reading just a page of it, this journal quickly changes Parker and gives her the courage to make a choice she otherwise never would have made.

I had high, and I mean HIGH, expectations for this book.  And though it was a nice story, it didn't blow me away.  I wasn't left weeping or heartbroken like I thought I would be.  Golden ended up being more of a story within a story, along the lines of a Nicholas Sparks novel, somewhat sappy and sad at times, sweet and likable at others.  I could actually see it being a movie.  And honestly, as a movie I may have enjoyed it more.  Though I may be the only person on the planet, I'm not a huge fan of N. Sparks.  His books are often too sappy and love-storyish for me.  Maybe that's why I didn't LOVE this one as much as others.  I did like it though, and I don't really have any complaints on Kirby's impeccable writing style or the story line itself.  I just felt it was a bit slow in the middle for a large chunk of it.  I really enjoyed the ending, which was a bit predictable but still sweet and the perfect ending to this story.  And while the story itself was flawless and sweet, it just wasn't my type of read.

I would recommend this story to Nicholas Sparks fans for sure, along with others that like a beautiful story within a story about love, loss, and doing what's right by your own heart, even if that means going outside of your comfort zone and taking chances.

"High school's almost over, Parker, and what do you have to show for it?"
"Seriously?"
"I mean besides your GPA, and Stanford, and valedictorian and all that crap-which I'm totally proud of you for. I'm not knocking those things. But when's the last time you took a chance? Or didn't do what someone else expected of you? Or did something you really wanted to, even though you probably shouldn't have?"

It seems to me that the experiences that stay with you, the things you'll always remember, aren't the ones you can force, or go looking for. I've always thought of those things as the ones that somehow find you.

"You are too young to see it, but every choice you make matters. Every choice has the power to affect your life later on in ways you can't go back and change."