Diminishing Paige by Robert Shields

Genre:  Adult Contemporary

Robert Shields' website
Amazon | Goodreads

Description (taken from Goodreads):

She leaned over and kissed him on the mouth totally catching him by surprise. Her warm lips erased any symptoms of being cold on the bridge, yet she froze him in place. It was wonderful, but it was over in a flash and he thought, "I never kissed her back."

A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is the romantic theme between Paige Wheeler and Storm Lancaster. The intelligent high school expellees serendipitously meet at a garage sale and end up approaching sex in an awkward text book fashion. They start viewing the relationship through the lens of economics as if sex was a commodity.

As they grow closer together, Paige’s promiscuous past comes to light that haunts her, which leads to complications in their relationship. Storm’s ineptness in handling the pressures of a relationship from previously attending an all-boys school causes problems while Paige finds some amusement in his immaturity. Her sterilized view of sex creates consternation for Storm over their rapport.

At their new school, they make a mutual friend in Jamal. The trio engages in pranks as their friendship with him develops. Storm’s proclivity as an adolescent male leads to poor decisions with Paige as Jamal, often the voice of reason and conscience is ignored to the detriment of the couple.

Emotions spin out of control after a frolicking camping trip with Paige’s old high-school buddies and the sexual economics experiment explodes.

The tagline: A fool knows the price of everything and the value of nothing is the perfect tagline for this book.  Meet Paige, the cliche "it" girl who has everything.  She's the kind of mean girl you love to hate because she's got the looks and she somehow manages to snag guys left and right.  However, deep down, she's just as insecure as the next girl.  Meet Storm, your average joe just trying to fit in and survive high school.  With a chance meeting, they become friends and deal with life, relationships, sex, and emotions in an odd way.  This book has a few twists and turns, some expected and some not expected.

In the beginning, I was put off by Paige.  I mean, what kind of girl out there is so straight-forward and confident enough to talk about sex with mere acquaintances?  It's almost as if it's how guys wish girls would attack the subject but girls just don't (i'm generalizing, I know).  But she really grew on me because she is a girl with issues.  And even though I don't have her confidence at all, I feel I can relate to her struggles in life. And her fascination with economics is a little weird, but it worked.  While reading this book, I felt like I got an economics lesson without the pain of learning economics.

On the other end of the relationship, we see Storm: a guy who's very inexperienced with relationships.  And it seems that Paige kind of educates him on relationships and sexual matters while he tends to bring Paige back down to everyday life.  So somehow, these two work well together.  And as their relationship grew, their characters grew on me as well.

This short story is a contemporary tale that weaves economics into everyday relationships.  And it's something I'd recommend to more mature audiences looking for a good afternoon contemporary.

Thanks goes to Robert Shields for providing me a review copy.

Daphne and the Mysterious Girls Secret Bathroom Society by Robert Shields

Genre:  YA Urban Fantasy

Robert Shields' website

Amazon | Goodreads

Description (taken from Robert Shields' website):

Following years of persecution at the hands of Vivica Vance, Daphne Downing levels the playing field wielding her No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil as she belatedly enters the world of witchcraft. Daphne becomes part of the Mysterious Girls’ Secret Bathroom Society and finds out that the politics governing witchcraft are daunting and sometimes deadly. She realizes she is aligned with the Charmers in this political battle with the Spiters led by her nemesis, Vivica. Along the way, she discovers that witches do not perform magic or witchcraft but a differentiated form of physics that only some women have mastered. The story deepens as she learns about the long history of witches’ domination and annihilation of wizards.

It felt like entering the persecution of high school all over again.  But with the addition of witchcraft.  There were some really funny moments in this book, and I enjoyed learning more about Daphne's world and her new world of witchcraft.  However, I wanted more.  More explanations about the Daughters of Spite and the Daughters of Charm.  There was a lot of great background about specific witches and wars in the past, but I wanted a better explanation of why witches and wizards are at odds with each other.  And of course, more funny moments.

This was a different read in the fact that it wasn't super-depressing, there were funny moments, and the book wasn't focused on swooning over a boy.  I would recommend it to young teens and tweens (with the assumption that they are accustomed to swear words which weren't used too often in the book).  I will look forward to the next one (because the books will only get better, right?).

Thanks goes to Robert Shields for providing me a review copy of this book.

Challenges:  Young Adult Reading Challenge