Saving Zoe, Alyson Noel

Noel, Alyson (2007).
Saving Zoe
New York: St. Martin’s Griffin9
780312355104
Genre: Realistic fiction

High school provides grief and isolation to Echo whose older sister Zoë died a year earlier, but insights gained from Zoë’s diary-a fifteenth birthday gift from Zoë’s boyfriend- about her sister’s life and death change Echo in ways she never expected.
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Fifteen-year-old Echo, is a typical teen trying to survive high school without being totally traumatized by boy trouble, friend drama, and school issues. As if she didn't have enough on her plate, Echo is also still dealing with the murder of her sister Zoë. Although it's been over a year, Echo is still reeling from tragedy that changed everything. Beautiful and full of life, Zoë was the glue that held her family together, and although the two sisters were as different as night and day, they still had a bond that Echo can't let go of. When Zoë's old boyfriend Marc shows up one day with Zoë's diary, Echo doesn't think there's anything in there she doesn't already know. But as she gives in to curiosity and starts reading, she learns that her sister led a secret life that no one could have guessed--not even Echo.
The author has created two very strong character in sisters Zoe and Echo. We meet Zoe through her diary entries, and the reader can totally understand Zoe’s desire to shake off the dust of her little hometown and become famous. Although she has done little to achieve this goal and has no plan in place to achieve this goal, it doesn’t make this dream seem any less real to Zoe or the reader. Unfortunately like many girls her age, she seems to think that just showing up in Hollywood will be enough to guarantee her stardom which makes her tragic end so painfully real. Echo who is the total opposite of her sister (academic straight arrow) who always and a strong sense of herself and never envied Zoe,, reveals her own turmoil as she tries to deal with her sister’s death and the macabre light it sheds on her. As Echo reads Zoe’s diary, she starts trying to be Zoe in the hope that this will ease some of the pain. Will Echo lose her own identity as she tries to become her sister?

Wherever Nina Lies, Lynn Weingarten

Weingarten, Lynn (2009).
Wherever Nina Lies
New York: Point
978-0545066310
Genre: Realistic Fiction, mystery

Two years after the disappearance of her older sister, sixteen-year-old Ellie goes on a quest to find her.
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Ellie has always longed for the day when she and her alternative, artsy sister Nina would be friends, not just sisters. But the novel opens with Ellie explaining how Nina snuck out of the house one night and never came back. Nina has spent 2 years trying to figure out where her sister could be. Ellie works as a barista and has a gay friend named Brad who seems to understand Ellie better than Ellie’s best friend, Amanda. Ellie and Amanda find a picture that was drawn by Nina in an old box of junk. The two girls begin to decipher the clues in an effort to find any info about Nina. After the two end up at a party where the house burns down, Amanda backs out of the search. At the party, Nina meets Sean who encourages and enables her to pursue her quest to find her sister. He claims to have suffered a similar loss, but Sean keeps the details to a minimum. As Ellie and Sean leave the state in search of more clues, traveling from Chicago, to Nebraska, to Denver and then San Francisco, astute readers will recognize that Sean may be a threat as he repeatedly states that meeting Ellie “is fate” and grows more and more possessive of her. Along the trip, Ellie’s flashbacks about her sister reinforce Ellie’s longing and determination to find her sister and detract from the unbelievability of the novel. At one point, Sean tells Ellie that he has hired a P.I. who has found that Nina is dead. A devastated Ellie thinks that they will return to their home state, but when Sean suggests they leave and live on their own, Ellie becomes suspicious. The tension increases page by page…apparently, Sean has been using Ellie to get to Nina, who he thinks he loves and wants to kill because she has never returned the feelings. In fact, Nina was Sean’s brother’s girlfriend, and Sean has killed his brother in an effort to be with Nina. Unbeknownst to Ellie, Nina left to protect her family from Sean. Will Ellie escape Sean's hold? Will Ellie find where Nina lies?
While unbelievable, Weingarten’s clipped dialog, present tense narration and fast past keep readers enthralled. There is some sex but not gratuitous; mentions of tattoos and piercings.