Peaches by: Jodi Lynn Anderson

In Anderson's stunning start to the celebrated and bestselling Peaches series, we meet three teenage girls: Birdie Darlington, Leeda Cawley-Smith and Murphy McGowen. Through a series of coincidences, all three girls wind up at the Darlington Peach Orchard one magical summer.

Twists that most readers can easily predict keep this book a conventional, not controversial summer read that will keep teenage girls going. It's also a great pick for the coldest part of winter when the lush descriptions of juicy peaches, swimming and summer love can melt the ice outside and the coldest heart.

What I Loved About This Book
How relate-able the main characters were. Birdie is probably the most like me in the sense that she is not adventurous or flirty or daring or anything like that, but she is also the most hopeful, people-person of the group.
Leeda is the outsider at the orchard, if only because she's such an insider everywhere else. I can't really relate to having a huge house, but I think her relationship with her mom (a total perfectionist and more like Leeda than she'd like to admit) is very close to reality.
As for Murphy. I love how she always speaks her mind and she is definitely reminiscent of those schoolgirls who steal all the attention without bothering to notice. Of the three, though, she's probably the most unlike any teenager I've ever met (or, um, you know, been)

What I Didn't Love About This Book:
How none of the characters beyond Birdie, Murphy and Leeda were explored. Especially with characters like Murphy's mom, Jodee, who fits neatly into the mold of "small town slut," there was much room for character growth and explanation that never quite occurred. I was always waiting, tearing through page after page, for that one thing that would make me understand how another character (such as Horatio Balmeade, country club owner, or Leeda's mom) acted. This ah-ha! moment never came.

All in all, Anderson's Peaches is a good choice for fans of The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants series, (as the blurb on the cover from that series' creator should tell you) and is good for anyone tired of authors who seem to know nothing of modern day teenagerdom.

Total: Three stars.