Top Ten Clues You're Clueless

THE RUN-DOWN
Chloe, who has a bit of an obsession with making lists, gets to work the early shift at her local grocery store (on Christmas Eve, of course). When the donation box is opened only to discover about $70, when there should be close to $10,000, Chloe and her fellow teenage coworkers get the blame placed on them. They get to spend their Christmas Eve in the "jail" waiting for the police to show up, which may take awhile...

MY THOUGHTS
After reading Ask Again Later, which is by the same author, I really wanted to read some more cuteness! Ask Again Later was such an amazing, adorable read and that was exactly what I was expecting from Top Ten Clues! Was I disappointed? No, I was not. This book still has adorableness, just a bit less than Ask Again Later. Now, to be honest, while I was expecting adorable-ness in this book, and I did get that, I was also expecting some mystery involvement.
I know, I know, weird, but based on the fact that the teens were being accused of stealing $10,000, I thought that there would be some kind of "Who Done It?!" And there was mystery involved, a very predictable one, since it's kind of obvious from the start Who Done It! But I had no problem with the predictability of the mystery, since the money being stolen was not the focus. Actually, the story was about all of the teenager coworkers hanging out and becoming friends (sort of). This was a much more entertaining storyline than just a Who Done It and I really enjoyed seeing it! And,another plus, the characters were so quirky!

I keep raving about how cute and fun this book was, because it is indeed cute and fun, but now it's time for me to point out what was wrong with this book. Bad wording there, THERE WAS NOTHING WRONG WITH THIS BOOK! I loved it! But I did have one issue and that is the fact that this was a candy book. A candy book is basically a book that is so enjoyable while reading it, but it doesn't do anything substantial. It doesn't change my way of thinking, it doesn't knock my socks off, it was just an awesome, fun read. Kind of like a piece of candy.

IN CONCLUSION
This was a very enjoyable read! If you are feeling down, I highly recommend picking up this book (or Ask Again Later) because it will definitely put you in a good mood!
On another note, I will be on the lookout for any other books that Liz Czukas writes!

Chloe is working the 6:30 a.m. shift at the GoodFoods market on Christmas Eve. Saying her day isn't going well would be an understatement. Her way to get through the day is to make lists in her head, on any subject matter she can think of, and it's working. At least until she and her fellow teenage co-workers find themselves being accused of stealing from the store's charity box.

This book was a lot of fun to read. It was fast, the whole book took place within around 9-10 hours, it was playful, the lists Chloe made were amusing, it was just a lot of fun and entertaining. Having worked retail in high school on Christmas Eve, I could easily relate to a lot of what Chloe was going through with the stressed out bosses, pushy customers, strange customers, and just general chaos. I liked that she and her fellow teens still managed a few stolen fun moments during their shift.

Chloe was very likeable for me. Her reaction to things, her frustrations, the weird things she would notice about customers, her lists, all those things made her feel like she could have easily been one of my co-workers in high school. Her interactions with her co-workers were amusing and awkward. She felt believable to me.

All the characters were great. They were diverse and had distinct personalities so it was easy to separate them instead of them blending together. It would be hard for me to chose a favourite since all of them had moments and things about them that I really liked. I make no secret about loving when misfit characters come together to form a bond and that was definitely present in this book. It had a Breakfast Club vibe to it, taking place in one day, authority figure thinking they're all delinquents, finding ways to amuse themselves. It all added up to me being very entertained.

There were moments in the plot that had me shaking my head, not in frustration, but because I could easily believe events unfolding in the same way. Money goes missing and the blame automatically goes to the teens working there, working with someone day after day and knowing so little about them, not telling your co-workers about a health issue because you think they'll treat you differently. These were things I could see happening in real life.

This is likely a book I'll pick up again just to re-read certain parts of it after a long day because I know it'll amuse me.

Chloe has to work at GoodFoods on the Christmas eve and that wasn't all that bad since all the employees are gonna be there, including her crush, Tyson, but nothing prepared her for what was coming: the charity box of the store has been stoled, worse than that she and all the minors that work there are being accused of stealing the money. So now Chloe has to spend all her day with a bunch of people she barely know and maybe, get a chance to play Veronica Mars and figure out who stole the money.

This book started great, I laughed out loud so many times right in the first chapter but them it turned kind of boring, I mean there was things happening but I really didn't cared about it and them more towards the end (like the last 50 pages or so) the book started again to be more interesting - so yeah mixed feelings about this one.

I think the point that more let me down was the characters, this is a contemporary novel so if I don't care about the characters I will not care about the story. So my main problem was that it took the entire book for me to get sympathizing with the characters, not that they're bad characters or anything is just... This book is small and the story passes only in like one day, so it's hard to get really attached to this people.

But in the end this is a gush, cute story about completely opposed people bonding after being obligated to spend time together and it was fun while it lasted but it will be completely forgotten between others books.