And there’s a best friend, too, who is always urging Parker to branch out and take risks. Parker’s had a crush on him for aaaaaaages.

Oh, and of course, there’s a boy, Trevor. In a rare show of rebellion, Parker reads Julianna’s journal and unearths all kinds of secrets. Of course, one of the journals belongs to Julianna Farnetti, the town golden girl who disappeared one night 10 years ago with her golden-boy boyfriend and is presumed dead. Parker’s job is to locate this year’s batch of journal owners and mail them off. In that vein, she’s spending her last couple month at school serving as a TA for a teacher who gives all of his seniors a journal to write in, which he then saves and mails to them 10 years down the road. She’s also judgy, and practically demands that Parker stay on the straight and narrow. Her parents are divorced and her mom is anal and uber-controlling, to put it mildly.

She’s a straight A student, top of her class, gunning for a major scholarship. The story of GOLDENis about a Parker Frost, a descendent of the poet, Robert Frost. So many blogger friends have read and raved about GOLDEN and I honestly couldn’t disagree with them even a teensy bit. Jessi Kirby‘s characters are well-rounded and awesome, too. There are two stories being told in GOLDEN and they were both memorable in their own ways, and they didn’t compete or clash. I’ve enjoyed each of her books quite a bit, but GOLDEN might be my favorite. Jessi Kirby is as solid a go-to for good contemporaries as any author around. And she soon finds that taking the road less traveled makes all the difference. The mystery ends up taking Parker places that she never could have imagined. 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. 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. 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. But Julianna’s journal tells a different story-one of doubts about Shane and a forbidden romance with an older, artistic guy. Julianna Farnetti and Shane Cruz are remembered as the golden couple of Summit Lakes High-perfect in every way, meant to be together forever.

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. Valedictorian and quintessential good girl, she’s about to graduate high school without ever having kissed her crush or broken the rules. Summary: Seventeen-year-old Parker Frost has never taken the road less traveled. Amazon | Goodreads | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository

Golden by Jessi Kirby