Elixir by Hilary Duff

genre: young adult

Clea has led a pretty crazy-amazing life. With amazingly gifted parents and jet-setting life, everything was perfect until the disappearance of her father. While working through her grief, she finds solace in her camera until she notices something disturbing in her pictures - something that she has a really hard time explaining. When dreams start feeling more like reality and the mystery of her photographs seems to lead to answers beyond the realm of facts she can believe in, life takes a frantic turn. Could the man of her dreams be even more than he seems?

I wasn't sure what my expectations should be for this book. Can a teen-y bopper actress really write a book I can take seriously? On one level, yes. I did read the book in one sitting (granted, it was a road trip and the last book left in my bag...). It was a unique-ish spin on an old theme and the plot was interesting enough in a paranormal-romance-type way. I will say, though, that time seemed to fly by sometimes in the book in a way that make me confused, and then in other instances, people are doing things for way longer than there was apparently time for. I wasn't sure I believed that Clea was as incredible and famous as the book made her out to be, for some reason parts of her celebrity and camera skillz just didn't ring completely true. She dropped a few major plot points - and the ending left me feeling like maybe there needs to be a sequel to clear things up? But maybe not? (I've since looked at Goodreads and it does say "#1" after it, so that means ANOTHER series???)

If you're looking for one of those love stories, though, it's not completely horrible - I think younger readers would appreciate that it's otherworldly and hip and wouldn't be as frustrated by the things that bogged me down. So, we'll just say that I didn't hate it and I'll leave it to the young adults to maybe love it.

book 27 for the YA Reading Challenge 2010