Young Adult Review: 13 Little Blue Envelopes & #OUReadathon Update

Once Upon a Read-a-Thon Updat:.  Don't forget that Rainy Day Ramblings & Dizneeee's World of Books

are hosting the mini challenges today if you are participating in the readathon. 
I meant to do an update post a bit sooner, but I was busy reading!  My parents were here visiting and they left Tuesday afternoon so I started reading like mad then.  I read Avery by Charlotte McConaghy (it was great!) and got almost through Babe in Boyland (at the time of this, which is 10 PM Tuesday evening).  I have a sick child and I'm playing catch up with emails so I really haven't had a lot of time to read but I was lucky enough to get a couple hours of uninterrupted reading and that helped immensely!  You can find my goals post HERE which gives you an idea of what I'm hoping to accomplish.  Now, onto today's review!

13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

ebook, 368 pages

Published: Oct. 6th, 2009 by HarperTeen

Source: Purchased

When Ginny receives thirteen little blue envelopes and instructions to buy a plane ticket to London, she knows something exciting is going to happen. What Ginny doesn't know is that she will have the adventure of her life and it will change her in more ways than one. Life and love are waiting for her across the Atlantic, and the thirteen little blue envelopes are the key to finding them in this funny, romantic, heartbreaking novel.

I read this book when on vacation and traveling on the train.  It was a quick read and perfect for the occasion since I was just leaving for my own vacation (unfortunately I was not traveling out of the country though).   Now it's been a few weeks since I read the book so this will be a very short review.

I loved the traveling and the different settings in the book.  I loved that we got to see so many different places, London, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and more.  I loved that she went to these places without much plan, just these bare instructions and this led her on a journey she wouldn't have otherwise had.  She saw sites she wouldn't have seen as a normal artist.  She also got to see these places that were important to her aunt and maybe helped her know her aunt a little differently, to learn more about her.

I liked Ginny well enough, but she's very shy and quiet.  For this reason I have some mixed feelings about her.  I think in some ways I understood her better because I'm shy too.  I have a hard time talking to strangers and to do these news things that 'make' you have to be more brave.  But it also made me feel more distant from her, to feel like we never really get to know her.  She starts to open up more toward the end though and I felt like she was starting to open up more.  

The romance was vague, barely anything there at all.  But this is something that looks like it'll be more developed in the next book.  I like the love interest fairly well but never felt like we got to know him well enough to really LOVE him.  Still, he has potential to be great if their relationship develops a bit more.

Overall I enjoyed this book.  The travel aspect was definitely my favorite part of the book but I'm curious to see where things go for Ginny and with the romance.

I would give this one 3.5 stars but I'm rounding it up to 4 since I don't do halves anymore.