Book Review: Peaches

Today I'll be reviewing Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. This book has been described as a Ya-Ya Sisterhood for teens as well as a cross between The Breakfast Club and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

Title: Peaches
Author: Jodi Lynn Anderson

Series: Peaches #1

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: May 9, 2006

Genre: YA Contemporary

Purchase: Amazon

Official description from the back of the book:

Three Georgia peaches are in for one juicy summer . . .

. . . but Birdie would rather eat Thin Mints and sulk in the AC.

Leeda would prefer to sneak off with her boyfriend, Rex.

And Murphy just wants to cause a little mischief.

Together these three very different girls will discover the secret to finding the right boy, making the truest friends, and picking the perfect Georgia peach.

I'm not sure how this ended up on my to-read list, but I'm guessing it has something to do with the references. The Divine Secrets of Ya-Ya Sisterhood? Read it and liked it. The Breakfast Club? Great movie. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants? Love it. The book even has a blurb on the cover from Ann Brashares, "PEACHES is a sweet and delicious read." So, I picked up the book and started reading hoping for another wonderful coming of age story. What I ended up with was something meh. The book was okay, but nothing in it blew me away. 

In the book you follow three teen girls. Birdie is the daughter of peach farmer Walter. She has mostly been home-schooled by her mother, Cynthia, who up and left one day. Poopie is the other woman figure in Birdie's life. She cooks and cleans for the family and is basically the second in charge on the peach farm. The farm is not doing well and the summer could very well be the last peach harvest. 

Leeda is Birdie's cousin. Leeda's family is very well off. Leeda is always trying to get the attention of her mother, who only ever seems to have eyes for her perfect older sister, Danay. It's even worse now that Danay is about to get married, so it's all about the upcoming wedding. Leeda even attempts to get attention by dating wrong side of the tracks Rex. Rex is her crutch for dealing with her family.

The final girl of this trio, is Murphy. Murphy is the daughter of Jodee. Jodee had Murphy very young and is always going from guy to guy getting her heartbroken. They live in the local trailer park. Murphy tends to get teased about her mother. She is known to be a little looser with the boys in the town as well as a little bit of a troublemaker. She tends to pull pranks that get her into trouble. Murphy is also very smart, like 4.0 GPA smart. 

Even though the book mentions the girls' summer, it starts out with them all working on the farm over spring break. How did they end up there? Well Birdie lives there and is trying to help her dad keep the farm going. Leeda is sent there to be a comfort to her cousin since Cynthia left. Murphy, well Murphy got into trouble and instead of getting another mark on her record, she is sent to the farm to work over spring break. At the end of spring break everyone goes there separate ways and basically pretends they don't know one another.

As summer approaches, Murphy realizes she doesn't want to spend time in the trailer with her mom and her latest boyfriend. She goes and gets herself in trouble again and is once again sentenced to work it off at the farm over the summer. Leeda makes some offhanded comment to her mom about spending the summer with Birdie, but doesn't really mean it. When her mom takes her up on her statement, she goes along with it. And of course, Birdie live on the farm, so where else would she be. 

From there we follow the girls on their journey to friendship with a little bit of mischief and boys involved along the way. Your standard coming of age set up.

Even though I liked each of the girls just fine, it still took me awhile to believe in the friendship between the girls. I understood where the author was coming from, but had a hard time believing it myself until closer to the end of the book. In fact, even though the book was fairly easy reading, I found the majority of it to be just okay. If you keep reading, you will find the story picks up a little towards the end and at that point I finally found their friendship believable or at least more realistic. If the rest of the book would have been more like the end, I rate this book higher. Even so, the ending did raise up my original rating by half a star. 

Overall, it's an okay read, but I have definitely read better coming of age and friendship stories, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Ann Brashares being one of them. Some other good ones being: 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson, Saving CeeCee Honeycutt by Beth Hoffman, and The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd.

I do not see myself continuing with this series.

My Rating: