Book Review: Melodies






Author: Pamela Srey
Published: 2012
Number of Pages: 239
My Rating: 5/5  (for YA fans)


Summary from GoodReads.com:

        Seventeen year old Bianca Grey had a not so usual teenage life. Adopted with an abusive foster mother and unpopular at Philadelphia High School, Bianca found peace with her artistic talents. Pete Carrara Jr., had a different life. He was popular in school, musically talented with good looks and brains. Pete had the ideal perfect life with the perfect family and friends. Love had never crossed his mind until one day when he ran into Bianca. That very day, he thought love to be very possible.        
        Bianca was guarded and had never let anyone get close to her. No one knew she was adopted, not even the school. The more Pete got to know her, the more he fell in love with her. Bianca was not so certain on how much Pete should know about her personal life but the more she learned about Pete, the more she cared for him. With him, her complicated life wasn't so complicated anymore.        
        Their young romance blossomed through the difficulty of a drama filled high school and a series of mysterious killings in the city. But just when Pete thought that things were perfect with Bianca, her past surfaced. Can their love overcome the scariest reality out there, the so called life?





Wow. All I can say about this book is- When does the next one come out?! 

I was asked to review this book by Pamela Srey and at first I wasn't too sure about it. The plot seemed very interesting, yes, but I am not a die-hard fan of Young Adult romances and so I started reading it with the intention of stopping if it wasn't my cup of tea. Let me tell you, I was completely wrong. This book does have teenage love elements in it, but it is so much more than that. 

Melodies is a YA novel about a seventeen-year-old Bianca Grey. She has been through many awful things in her life that cause her to not only push others away from her, but that also cause her to feel like she has no worth. I enjoyed Bianca’s character so much as she seemed like a real teenager. Yes, she was smart and artsy, but she was also a hard worker that was extremely independent. I loved that she didn’t need to rely on anyone else and she definitely wasn’t your typical teenage girl damsel-in-distress. In her mind, she couldn’t wait to get out of high school away from the stupid girl drama and make something of herself, until she met Pete.

Pete Cararra was another amazing character that truly felt real. He was too good to be true, but it wasn’t in an unrealistic way. Pete is one of the most popular guys in school and has a large group of friends along with girls that are constantly swooning over him. He isn’t really interested in any of them, preferring college girls to the immature high school ones, until he meets Bianca. While their romance at first seemed like it might be something typical of A Walk to Remember, it turned out to bloom in a completely tangible way that often gave me butterflies and would cause me to grin like a huge idiot. His true personality began to shine through and I was able to picture him as so much more than just a pretty face. Pete has many great qualities that I can imagine would take most teenage guys a little time before they would let you see them.

          As I mentioned earlier, this book was way more than a love story between an artist and a musician; there were serious and suspenseful parts to the plot, as well. As mentioned in the summary, Bianca is dealing with abuse, neglect, and an awful family situation that she is too embarrassed to reveal to anyone. Srey does a great job making these more intense scenes very vivid and lets you really see what Bianca is up against. Srey also addresses bullying and girl drama, which I felt was sadly pretty typical of the types of things girls might have to deal with in high school these days.

          The one thing about this book that was disappointing was that it ended. I could not get enough of Bianca, Pete, and their friends and families and I was so sad when I got to the last page. I absolutely have to find out what happens to everyone and I will be waiting very impatiently for the second installment in the series.


          Overall, I cannot stop talking about this book. If you like YA, it is a MUST read. I felt it gave me the same feelings as Colleen Hoover’s Slammed and that was a book I loved so much that I immediately read it again as soon as I finished. Pamela Srey has done an amazing job creating characters that you care about and that make you feel all their emotions while you read. I promise you, if you check this book out, you will be dying to find out what happens to Pete and Bianca, too. 





-Busy Brunette  




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