Miss Fortune Cookie Review

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Book Description

Release Date: November 13, 2012

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); First Edition edition (November 13, 2012)

Meet Erin. Smart student, great daughter, better friend. Secretly the mastermind behind the popular advice blog Miss Fortune Cookie. Totally unaware that her carefully constructed life is about to get crazy.
It all begins when her ex-best friend sends a letter to her blog—and then acts on her advice. Erin’s efforts to undo the mess will plunge her into adventure, minor felonies, and possibly her very first romance.
What’s a likely fortune for someone no longer completely in control of her fate? Hopefully nothing like: You will become a crispy noodle in the salad of life.

Synopsis:

Erin is a happy-go-lucky senior at Lowell, a high school for the gifted. Other than the mild stress of applying for colleges, her life is drama-free, so she delights in anonymously solving the more complicated problems of her classmates through her advice blog, Miss Fortune Cookie. As Miss Fortune Cookie, she offers her best friend some wisdom that might be a huge mistake. Erin goes on a zany adventure through China Town and Oakland, California, trying to undo the mess she's made.

My Review:

What a breath of fresh air Erin is! She's not the usual brooding, complicated protagonist we get in so many young adult contemporary novels. She seems to genuinely love her school, her friends, her mom. Life in general! Her friends aren't quite as bubbly and content. They are more caught up in typical teen issues of romance and identity so it seems natural that Erin should give her conflicted friends a little push in the right direction. When Erin feels her Miss Fortune Cookie advice might have caused her friend, Mei, to run away with a boy, she sets off on a whirlwind jaunt around The San Fran area with a cute college guy as her sidekick. This is when we really get to see Erin shine in all her quirky glory as she rescues a woman by acting as a get-away driver while getting an impromptu driving lesson from her passenger, befriends an overtly honest little boy who follows her around like a lost kitten, nervously shares a hotel room with her crush and inadvertently hooks her mom up with a homeless man named Cigarette Willie.

Erin also has to face down a hard choice about her future. Should she go to a more local college to be near her mom and the best friend she's relied on through high school? Or should she step out of her comfort zone and leave her beloved Chinatown? This novel very subtly deals with the issue young people are facing: Growing up! There comes a moment when we have to choose between keeping the good times, the status quo, going for as long as we can or leaving the nest. Ms. Bjorkman is able to present this idea slowly as it's weaved through all the head-spinning humor.

Miss Fortune Cookie is pure sweetness. It's fast-paced, dizzying and joyful, like youth itself. If you're sick of books with agonizing conflicts, characters who take themselves far too seriously and unbelievable protagonists, then Miss Fortune Cookie is your antidote. This book does what so many fail to do: Celebrate life!

Visit Amazon's Lauren Bjorkman Page

Biography
I grew up on a sailboat, sharing the tiny forecastle with my sister and the sail bags. Against all odds, we are still friends. We started sailing in California and ended in Argentina. My favorite stops along the way were Costa Rica, Panama, Isla Providencia, Key West, the Azores, the Canary Islands, and Brazil.
During our voyages, my sister drew beautiful paper dolls for the both of us. We sewed amazing wardrobes for our stuffed animals. We became excellent swimmers and beach combers. We made up new lyrics for old songs. Canned food dominated our meals on crossings, so we really appreciated fresh fruit when we came into port. I dreamed of ice cream on the open ocean. We kept up with school through a program called Calvert out of Maryland. My dad read to us at night by the light of a kerosene lamp. Since then, I've always loved stories and wanted to write my own. I live in Taos, New Mexico with my husband, and two sons. We often see coyotes outside our window.
For more, please visit my website at http://www.laurenbjorkman.com