Ninth Key by Meg Cabot.

Heroine: Susannah Simon
Category: Young Adult
Grade: B-

Everything is going great for Suze. Her new life in California is a whirlwind of parties and excellent hair days. Tad Beaumont, the hottest boy in town, has even asked Suze out on her very first date. Suze is so excited that she's willing to ignore her misgivings about Tad... particularly the fact that he's not Jesse, whose ghostly status—not to mention apparent disinterest in her—make him unattainable.

What Suze can't ignore, however, is the ghost of a murdered woman whose death seems directly connected to dark secrets hidden in none other than Tad Beaumont's past.

This was a great addition to the series, it's got me hoping and wishing that in the next book, Reunion, that we'll be reunited with the boys that just up and disappeared from the first book. I want to see Bryce Martinson again, I want to see if him and Suze will hit it off like Tad Beaumont did in this book, even though Suze didn't really like him the same way that most girls like boys in school, I mean she only liked making out with him. But whatever, I want to see Bryce and Suze before I find another hottie guy for her to like.

I'm really excited to see Suze's reunion with her best friend, Gina from New York. I think that will be such an awesome story. I've been anxious to see what Gina would be like from all the talk that Suze does about her in the previous books.

But back to this book, it was good. I liked Shadowland better but I still enjoyed this story as well.

I enjoyed the whole "vampire" thing going on and I hecka enjoyed reading Suze's reaction to all of that. She's seriously the bomb.

I fell a little more in love with Jesse and dude, what is up with him and Suze? Can she really have relations with a ghost?

I WANT THAT FOR HER!

Nobody that Meg has introduced us to has come close to being perfect for Suze as Jesse has but I want her to get some experience before she goes on her merry way with Jesse, however that will be possible.

That's why I want her to have a thing with Bryce.

Well that and because he's such a cutie, even if he is a whiny baby. HA!

What I really enjoyed about this story was how the dynamics for Suze at home have changed and she DOES have a family with her step brothers and with Adam....and how her life in Northern California is started to grow on her and is becoming...HOME to her.

I loved the change in her relationship with her younger step brother, David. I have a soft spot for David and his nerdy geeky facts but I really love that he's in on Suze's little secret and understands. I just love this little guy a whole bunch!

Brad cracks me up, him and Suze's relationship is so funny to witness. Brad thinks he's all rough and tough and I totally think that Suze can kick his ass!

HA!

Jake, goodness, I want that boy to hurry up and get his Camaro so that he can get back to having a life. He's a handsome boy, he needs to start living it before a ghost comes and gets him and there goes his life. I really like him though, he's funny and he's good to Suze.

The parents are cool and it was cool to see Andy get all pissed off at Suze and yell and hollar at her the same way he'd yell and hollar at the boys.

They're a family, YAY!

I liked getting to know Tad and his crazy family and his Uncle? Holy wow, I wonder if he'll make an appearance later on in the series...hey, it could happen.

Anyway, this story was really good, I enjoyed the storyline, the interactions with all of the characters and it's made me look forward to a whole lot more from these guys. I'm really enjoying this reading experience and can't wait to start on the next book...tonight.

Great read for sure!

Shadowland by Meg Cabot.

Heroine: Susannah "Suze" Simon
Category: Young Adult
Grade: B+

Suze is a mediator -- a liaison between the living and the dead. In other words, she sees dead people. And they won't leave her alone until she helps them resolve their unfinished business with the living. But Jesse, the hot ghost haunting her bedroom, doesn't seem to need her help. Which is a relief, because Suze has just moved to sunny California and plans to start fresh, with trips to the mall instead of the cemetery, and surfing instead of spectral visitations.

But the very first day at her new school, Suze realizes it's not that easy. There's a ghost with revenge on her mind ... and Suze happens to be in the way.

Meg Cabot strikes again!

A big thank you to Dance Chica for pimping this series to me a few months ago. I'm finally reading them and am super stoked about it. This was a great way to start out the Mediator series, it was great getting to know Suz and her new family.

You see, Suze's Dad dies and a few years later, her Mom remarries a guy named Andy from Northern California. He comes with 3 sons and his own construction business so it would be easier for Suze and her Mom to relocate themselves instead of having the Ackermans move to New York. Suze moves to California to make her Mom happy and she thinks that she can start fresh.

Because, you see, Suz has a gift.

She can see and talk to dead people.

She's a Mediator.

This story introduces a great cast of characters from Suz to her Mom, her new Step Dad Andy who seems pretty cool so far, her 3 step brothers, Sleepy, Dopey and Doc. I enjoyed meeting Adam McTavish, CeeCee and Father Dominic and holy wow, Izzy, how funny is it that Suz goes to get this, Father Junipero Serra's Mission School?

HA! We were just talking about Missions and Father Junipero just the other day.

But this was a great book! I loved it and I loved getting this little glimpse into a Mediator's world. I loved the little world that Meg Cabot created with Suz, Suz is one kick ass little girl and when she put Debbie Mancuso in her place that first day of school, I was laughing at the same time I was rootin' her on.

One thing I really enjoyed was her friendship and crush on her roommate ghost, Jesse.

Jesse is a fox and I cannot wait to find out more about him and his life. The mystery behind Jesse is a huge part of why I want to continue this series. I'm anxious and eager to see where the next adventure takes Suz but mostly I want to see her world unfurl before me.

I want to see if Adam and CeeCee ever get together, I want to see if David really is using steriods (yeah I know it's highly doubtful but I want to know for sure), I want to see what Sleepy does that makes him so tired and I even want to see if we see anymore of Bryce now that he's going to another school.

This book opens a door of great adventure and loads of laughs, I cannot wait to read the others!

A great read!

Every Boys Got One by Meg Cabot.

Hero: Cal Langdon
Heorine: Jane Harris
Category: Chick Lit
Page Count: 200+
Grade: B+

When cartoonist Jane Harris’s best friend Holly, New York Journal art director, announces that she’s eloping to Italy with longtime doctor boyfriend Mark, and asks Jane to come along as her witness, Jane jumps at the chance, delighted by the prospect of her first ever trip to Europe.

What Jane doesn’t gamble on is Mark’s witness, New York Journal foreign affairs correspondent Cal Langdon. It’s hate at first sight for Jane and Cal, and neither is too happy at the prospect of sharing a villa with one another for a week —not even in the beautiful and picturesque Le Marche countryside.

But when Holly and Mark’s wedding plans hit a major snag that only Jane and Cal can repair, the two find themselves having to put aside their mutual dislike for one another in order to get their best friends on the road to wedded bliss, and end up on a road themselves —one neither of them ever expected....

This was one of those, I hate you but I'm falling for you and I don't want to love you stories that I thought was just so cute. I finished it in one day and just enjoyed the heck out of it. It's a really quick read, with no really steamy love scenes because this story is told through emails, blackberry IMing's and PDA journal entries and travel diary entries.

It's fun, light and just extra cute.

I loved Cal, even when he was a psycho cell phone guy in the airport and a I do not believe in the institution of marriage jerk to Jane, Jane was funny, quirky and just cute all over. She reminded me of me, she remembers all sort of pop culture trivia, like only I would remember when Britney Spears filmed one of her commercials in Italy and talk of the oil problems in Saudi Arabia would bore me to death, much like it did for Jane, the cartoonist though that's where our similiarities stop because she loves cats and I hate them.

But the story moved at a great pace, the characters were fantastic (though it appears we've read about these characters in Meg Cabot's other books, The Boy Next Door and Boy Meets Girl)...Cal is one of John Trent's journalist friends and Jane Harris used to work with her best friend, Holly at the NY Journal with Amy Jenkins and Dolly Vargaz (remember them, Izzy? They're in this book) ...Cal is a pimp too and I love it!

Read this book when you're in the mood for something fun, cute and light, this is the book for you. I'm telling you, I heart Meg Cabot.

Size 14 Is Not Fat Either by Meg Cabot

Object of Her Affection: Cooper Cartwright
Heroine: Heather Wells
Category: Chick Lit
Page Count: 200+
Grade: B+

Former pop star Heather Wells has settled nicely into her new life as assistant dorm director at New York College--a career that does not require her to drape her size 12 body in embarrassingly skimpy outfits. She can even cope (sort of) with her rocker ex-boyfriend's upcoming nuptials, which the press has dubbed The Celebrity Wedding of the Decade. But she's definitely having a hard time dealing with the situation in the dormitory kitchen--where a cheerleader has lost her head on the first day of the semester. (Actually, her head is accounted for--it's her torso that's AWOL.)

Surrounded by hysterical students--with her ex-con father on her doorstep and her ex-love bombarding her with unwanted phone calls--Heather welcomes the opportunity to play detective . . . again. If it gets her mind off her personal problems--and teams her up again with the gorgeous P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives--it's all good. But the murder trail is leading the average-sized amateur investigator into a shadowy world. And if she doesn't watch her step, Heather will soon be singing her swan song!

Okay seriously? I can't get enough of this series, I'm sucked into the world Meg Cabot has made up for Heather Wells and Cooper Cartwright, yeah they don't get together in the first book and it doesn't seem like they'll get together throuhgout this book but Meg is expertly dangling the hook of hope before me and I have no doubt that they WILL get together, cause though Cooper does not seem like he likes her in both of these books, we, the readers know different...we know that he's got it just as bad for Heather as she's got it for him, he's just very covert about it, instead of coming out and saying that he's got the hots for his brother's ex girlfriend, he does sweet things for her like, saves her from herself and the many enemies that she makes while trying unsuccessfully to stay out of the trouble Cooper told her to stay out of, she should be this TSTL heroine, but she's not...she's just so funny and so damn smart, it makes for great entertainment and reading.

In this book, Heather's dorm is being labeled, Death Dorm because of all the dying students from last semester and really, who could blame them? But, Heather loves her dorms (even if she refuses to call them dorms but to hell with all that, they're DORMS dammit!) and even though she'd like to stay out of everything, she can't help but ask questions and go to parties and unknowingly lead students who have crushes on her on all in the hopes of getting into the party she needs to get into to get to the people she needs to talk to in order to get the answers she needs to solve the crimes Cooper has told her to stay out of, but gosh...she's like Stephanie Plum for the college kids and I'm a fan! She may not be a size 6 hot shot klutz who is bangin' the hottie cop with the adorable dog and the sexily mysterious Bounty Hunter with which she works with from Jersey, but Heather Wells holds her own, she's a lively crackhead that totally cracks me up.

Her personality as seen through these books is very catchy and just fun.

And I just love it!

My favorite character of this book? Gavin McGoren. We saw him as the elevator hopping student from the last book, but he shows up again in this book and has a bigger part in it and I just love him to death, he's so effing cute and funny, good gosh he's funny...and I hope to see more of him!

So many things are happening in this book and the flow is fantastic, the writing superb and just everything is on point and I think you lovely ladies will enjoy it, so make sure you read it!

Good stuff.

Size 12 Is Not Fat by Meg Cabot.

The Object of Her Affection: Cooper Cartwright
Heroine: Heather Wells
Category: Chick Lit
Page Count: 345 pages
Grade: B+

Or, at least, she did. That was before she left the pop-idol life behind after she gained a dress size or two -- and lost a boyfriend, a recording contract, and her life savings (when Mom took the money and ran off to Argentina). Now that the glamour and glory days of endless mall appearances are in the past, Heather's perfectly happy with her new size 12 shape (the average for the American woman!) and her new job as an assistant dorm director at one of New York's top colleges. That is, until the dead body of a female student from Heather's residence hall is discovered at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

The cops and the college president are ready to chalk the death off as an accident, the result of reckless youthful mischief. But Heather knows teenage girls . . . and girls do not elevator surf. Yet no one wants to listen -- not the police, her colleagues, or the P.I. who owns the brownstone where she lives -- even when more students start turning up dead in equally ordinary and subtly sinister ways. So Heather makes the decision to take on yet another new career: as spunky girl detective!

But her new job comes with few benefits, no cheering crowds, and lots of liabilities, some of them potentially fatal. And nothing ticks off a killer more than a portly ex-pop star who's sticking her nose where it doesn't belong . . .

I.heart.Meg Cabot.

She's such a great writer, I haven't read a book by her that I didn't absolutely love and this book was no different. I enjoyed Heather Wells persistence is trying to find her groove after having been dealt the worst life hand ever handed out.

She's a pop sensation to all the tweeny girls out there but as soon as she turns 18, her life falls apart. Kind of like Britney now, hehe...Getting dropped by her label (who happens to be runned and owned by her fiance's father) Britney Spears Heather Wells comes home to find her boy band fiance', Justin Timberlake Jordan Cartwright getting tender attention from the other tweeny bopper girl singer, Christina Aguilera Tania Trace, but if that wasn't enough to depress anyone, Heather's mother runs off with all of her money and her manager or someone, leaving her flat broke and all alone since her dad is in jail.

Poor girl.

But she just keeps right on trucking along, she finds herself a job, the black sheep of Jordan's family and Jordan's older brother, Cooper, offers her the apartment in his brownstone, free of charge in return of her doing Admin work for him, because he's a hottie Private Investigator. Heather develops a big time crush on Cooper which changes to her being full blown in love with him because he's like her Knight in Shining Armor, the only problem with all that is that Cooper doesn't seem to see her like that, he treats her as a brother would a younger sister...much to Heather's chagrin.

So anyway, Heather finds a job as an Assistant Director at Fischer Hall at New York College. Girls are turning up dead and everyone seems to think that they're just freak accidents, everyone but Heather. So Heather takes it upon herself to investigate these deaths and see what turns up.

It was funny, exciting to see the mystery unfold before me in the book. I hecka enjoyed reading about Heather's world through her eyes and I just loved Heather Wells. She would totally fit in with me and Mulu (my best friend), she's the right amount of funny, ditzy and cute all mixed up to make a great character.

This book was a fun read and I totally recommend it to anyone who wants a good time of a read.

Great job, Meg Cabot!

And THANKS SO MUCH to Mailyn for buying this book for me, I hecka loved it!

The Boy Next Door by Meg Cabot

Dylan Says

Hero: John Trent
Heroine: Melissa Fuller
Grade: B+

Using the clever medium of email transmissions from character to character, Meggin Cabot -- author of the popular young-adult Princess Diaries series -- crafts a hilarious story of a New York gossip columnist with journalistic aspirations, romantic complications, and one very large problem: what to do with her comatose neighbor's Great Dane. For Melissa Fuller, the path to true love is riddled with a pretentious ex-boyfriend, a best friend who's marrying into a crazy Italian family, nosy coworkers, and a boss who might fire her at any minute. If that's not enough, there's the mystery of who bonked her elderly neighbor on the head, and whether the neighbor's nephew is the man of her dreams or just a bad nightmare. This zany romantic caper is truly a novel for the 21st century!

I read a fantastic book last night, I started and finished it in just under four and a half hours. I was so proud of myself, I felt like one of the great speed readers of all time, Holly. LOL. This book was so different from any other book I've read because the entire story was written through emails and so you know my nosy ass was all over this one. It totally reminded me of our group work day emails throughout the day, EVERYDAY, the ones between Izzy, Holly, Grace, Jazz and myself. We have a group email usually sent out by Izzy since she's the first to arrive to work each day before anyone else or maybe now that Jazz has her computer back, we'll be hearing from her first like today, since she's a full 3 hours ahead of us and usually if we're talking about something about the blog, I'll call Grace all the way in Australia at odd hours of the early morning to wake her ass up to get her input on everything, it's hilarious how many times I've called Grace and woken her up, gotta love the torture older sisters get to play on the younger ones....hehe.

But anyway, I digress (as usual)...back to the review for The Boy Next Door. It was such a cute read, it wasn't some drawn out drama with an emotional train the size of the United States, although I did think that Mel went a little overboard with her retribution for John's little fib about just who he was, I mean I seriously thought she crossed the line with her revenge but that's just me, it didn't take away from the greatness of the book though, because I still enjoyed the heck out of the book, although I thought that John was too easy on forgiving her.

You see, it's like this. Mel is a gossip columnist for The New York Journal, her 80 year old neighbor gets knocked on the head by someone and is left to die in her house all alone, on Mel's way to work she notices that her creature of habit neighbor hasn't picked up her newspaper, which is NOT the paper that Mel writes for, but her rival newspaper, The New York Chronicle. So wanting to see if everything is alright, because not only did she not pick up her newspaper but her dog is barking something fierce up in that apartment, so being the caring neighbor that Melissa is, she goes to check on her elderly neighbor to find her laying face down on the floor, so she takes it upon herself to call 911 and take care of the old lady as best she could, which I thought was really cool of her.

While all of this is happening, the emails at work are running wild, her HR department is writing her up for excessive tardiness, her boss is yelling at her to hurry up and get to work to get her article in, her best friend is wondering where the hell she is and giving her a heads up that their boss is on a warpath because she hasn't called and isn't in at work, her coworker is writing her to tell her that she saw her at the restaurant last night with yet another coworker, who also happens to be Mel's boyfriend and she saw her bean the boyfriend over the head with her Kate Spade clutch (I was so jealous that Mel has a Kate Spade clutch, I want one so bad) and wants to know if it's over so she can make her move.

It's a whirlwind of activity going on and it's just hilarious to read how fast the story goes and even though the story is moving at a fast pace, it doesn't leave you confused, I think Meg Cabot did a great job bring life to these emails and she did an excellent job telling a story and making it work with the kind of format she used, I absolutely loved it.

We meet John Trent because he owes Max Friedlander (the 80 year old's last living relative, her nephew) a fovor and Max is cashing in on it, he's going out of town with a super hot model and he wants John to pose as him since his Aunt is in the hospital and since Max stands to inherit a crap load of money, he has to be there to help the old lady so that the old lady doesn't disinherit him and leave him with no money. So Max instructs John to go and walk his Aunts dog and feed her pets until he gets back, a thoroughly disgusted John does it because Max DID save his butt back when they were in college so he agrees to do it, shouldn't be so hard, right? Just go over to the aunts house, feed the pets and walk the dog? No problem...

Melissa isn't expecting to like "Max" so much and John isn't expecting to like the neighbor near as much as he is, so something that was supposed to be so easy turns into something so hysterical to read about, it's funny, it's sweet and it has a happy ending, so I was one happy camper.

As a whole, the book was great. Nadine, Mel's best friend and her fiance', Tony were too cute and too funny. They were a great addition to the story, but I have to say that my most favorite addition to this story was the emails from John's family. His brother, Jason had me crackin' up at flippin' 2 o'clock this morning, the constant ribbing between brothers was such a joy to read about and then the hormonal emails from John's sister in law, Stacy had me laughing out loud, plenty of times. Even, his emails from Jason and Stacy's two girls, were fun to read. The work emails between Mel and everyone else was a riot.

This book was just a fun read, ya'll should definitely read this.

Isabel Says:

Awwww, I like this book. It was a very fast read. Once I got into it, it was hard to put down. I felt like I was spying on everyone's emails.

I loved Dolly, oh she cracked me up. ha ha. I thought it was funny when Mel came into work all glowing after the first time they had sex. John's email to his brother: "we did it." Ha ha. So funny.

Then he wrote emailed her "I love you- Han Solo" Mel replied, "I know- Princess Leia" I just thought it was soooooo cute. The roses he gave her, the short story he wrote after they had sex. It was just sooo cute.

Max was a jerk. Ugh, glad he got his.

Yup, I really enjoyed this one. I loved John. Will agree with Dylan, Mel took her revenge a little too far.

Grade: A-/B+

Boy Meets Girl by Meg Cabot.

Hero: Mitch Hertzog
Heroine: Kate MacKenzie
Grade: B-
Meet Kate Mackenzie. She:

works for the T.O.D. (short for TyrannicalOffice Despot, also known as Amy Jenkins,Director of the Human Resources Divisionat the New York Journal)

is sleeping on the couch because herboyfriend of ten years refuses to commit
can't find an affordable studio apartmentanywhere in New York City
thinks things can't get any worse.

They can. Because:

the T.O.D. is making her fire the most popularemployee in the paper's senior staff dining room that employee is now suing Kate for wrongfultermination, and now Kate has to give a deposition in front ofMitch Hertzog, the scion of one of Manhattan's wealthiest law families,who embraces everything Kate most despises ... but also happens to have a nice smile and a killer bod.

• The last thing anybody -- least of all Kate Mackenzie -- expects to findin a legal arbitration is love. But that's the kind of thing that canhappen when ... Boy Meets Girl.

Okay, I've done it again.

I read an entire book of about 300+ pages in one sitting. Either I'm getting really lazy or the books I'm reading are really capturing my attention. And what a joyful discovery I made when I picked up Meg Cabot's Boy Meets Girl last night and began reading, only to find out that this book takes place AFTER the last MC book that I read, The Boy Next Door. It's actually about one of Meg Fuller's co workers, Kate MacKenzie who moved to New York from Kentucky with her soon to be Rock Star Boyfriend, who won't commit to her and the hero of the book is Mitch Hertzog, who's actually John Trent's sister in law, Stacy's little brother. Remember the hormonal sister in law from the numerous emails from John to his brother Jason's wife? Well, it's her little brother, Mitch's story and I've got to say that Mitch is just adorable.

As much as I loved this little quirky little story about Kate and Mitch Hertzog, told through the hilarious IM's between Kate and her best friend, Jen Sadler and numerous emails from Mitch and every single member of his family, I've got to say that I enjoyed and loved The Boy Next Door a little more. I mean, don't get me wrong Boy Meets Girl was a great, fun and quick read, but it lacked the character development or relationship development, I should say that John Trent and Melissa Fuller had in The Boy Next Door. Mitch and Kate are a great match and Kate is your usual, good girl next door who cares about everyone and Mitch is the perfect guy in which he's a tough guy lawyer who wears cartoon character ties that his nieces give him (his nieces being Brittany and Hailey, the same nieces that email John Trent in The Boy Next Door, hehe), he volunteers at the Y to play wheelchair basketball with the paraplegic (sp?) and he's really a public defender who works for those that can't afford the big time fees of a big shot lawyer and he's a really good lawyer as well, he goes to whatever lengths possible to fight for his clients, to make sure that the good guys always win. He's really a dreamboat and seriously? If it was possible to fall in love with a guy through emails, I'd be in total love with Mitch Hertzog, despite having that impossibly annoying last name.

You see, Mitch's brother, Stuart Hertzog is the biggest ass in the whole world, and Mitch knows it. So when he has his fiance', Amy Jenkins (you'll remember this heiffer from TBND, she's the HR Director for the New York Journal and Kate's boss) fire the food cart lady, who is nothing but a sweet old lady because she refused to serve Stuart any key lime pie, they're all in for a surprise when Mrs. Lopez sues them for breach of contract. Kate is drawn into all of this because she's the one that was put to the task of actually firing Mrs. Lopez and she's thrown for a loop when Amy tries to frame her with all kinds of nonsense, when Kate is honest and forthcoming with any kind of information that paints the NY Journal is a bad light, Amy fires her and thats when all the fun begins.

Mitch is besides himself because it was his fault that Kate got fired so he decides that he's goign to go for his future sister in law's throat, he's goign to bring her down and she was goign to be sorry that she messed with Mitch and Kate.

Oh gosh, the things that happen throughout the book, the jealousy Mitch shows for Kate and her many "boyfriends" is so cute and the things he does for Kate is uber cute and I was totally smitten throughout the entire book with him.

The emails between Mitch's family and Kate and Jen had me cracking up until about midnight this morning, right up until I closed the book. Although, the ending was abrupt, I enjoyed the rest of the book to let that get to me. There were a few things that got on my nerves like Kate's ability to whine about the way her life is and her constant calling herself a loser was a bit much, but not so much that I didn't enjoy the story. It was a good story and I enjoyed it very much, I think you guys will too.

But I'm warning you now, if you're expecting some deep dialogue, an intense storyline, this isn't the book for you. This book is very light, entertaining and funny...that's all there is to it.

I give this book a low B because it was good but not OMGOSH great!