Review Detail

Reader reviewed by Chelsea, 2008 Teen Demi-Goddess

Vaughn Vance wants a new beginning to a hopefully exciting and meaningful life so she starts out by dumping her three superficial friends in hopes to find new, exciting ones with more on their minds than just new shoes and shopping malls. But her summer begins, and Vaughn just finds herself lonely and bored, lacking anything exciting enough to use her new camera on. That is, until she meets Sophie Birch at Dragon Park and they instantly become friends.

Vaughn's passion is photography, and Sophie is definitely not shy around the camera's lens. Their friendship grows strong fast, and Vaughn now spends most of her time taking pictures with, and of, Sophie, who seems like the perfect subject for her photography and she needs some good pictures if she wants to get her artwork into "Youth Visions."

The girls start spending even more time together when Sophie gets into a fight with her mother and moves in with Vaughn and her parents. Sophie takes over the guestroom, flinging clothes everywhere and trying to predict the future with her tarot cards whenever possible. But no matter what the cards say, things don't go exactly as planned; events start to unravel that could break Vaughn and Sophie's friendship forever.

Even though I know practically nothing about cameras or darkrooms, I still really enjoyed reading this. Vaughn's photography, while a main subject in the book, doesn't directly take over the storyline. There are so many other things that make this book great: the characters, the friendships, the emotions, the quirks, and just the general writing of the story they all work together to make a high-quality book that is completely lovable.