Review: Golden by Jessi Kirby

Title: Golden
Author: Jessi Kirby
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Age Group: Young Adult
Category: Contemporary
Release date: May 14th, 2013
Pages: 278 (ebook)
Rating: 3.5 out of 5
Source: Pulse It
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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.

In Parker's small town, everyone seems to know everyone else, which is why it was such a tragedy to lose two of the most popular students immediately after their high school graduation nearly a decade ago.  Now, Parker is about to graduate and she's realized that she's done nothing spontaneous, unlike her energetic and impulsive best friend, Kat.  She's always played it by her mom's rules, but now it's time to start living for herself.  When she finds Julianna Farnetti's journal nearly ten years after the accident, Parker realizes how much she's truly been missing out on.  For all she knows, she life could end just as abruptly as Julianna's did, except Parker has nothing to show for it but a scholarship to what she once thought was her dream school.

After enjoying the emotional roller coasters that Jessi Kirby's previous books put me through, I definitely had to give Golden a try.  Of course, I enjoyed the writing style and the storytelling, but the emotion lacked a little for me.  The characters were diverse, yet I couldn't relate to a single one.  One thing I loved about Parker is her hope and amount of belief she holds throughout the book, even when something seems impossible.  She makes other people believe, too, and that kind of influence is something I always love to see in stories, no matter what kind it is.

Though this isn't my favorite book of hers, I feel as though the author still did a great job with guiding the characters through the situations they were put in.  I never once felt as though any of them were out of line, though Parker kept digging into someone else's personal life.  The story that she told was interesting and held a few very important points to keep in mind when trying to figure yourself out.  Golden isn't just about a young couple's untimely death and the journey it takes to find out the truth, it's also about being able to find and free yourself from the expectation of others.

Golden was a quick and entertaining read that will make you think and keep any contemporary lover turning the pages.