Almost perfect. Beautiful. I can really feel the character's feelings nad see the places and setting the author describes. ( )

Almost perfect. Beautiful. I can really feel the character's feelings nad see the places and setting the author describes. ( )

Almost perfect. Beautiful. I can really feel the character's feelings nad see the places and setting the author describes. ( )

I have found that I am really getting interested in reading YA lately. And that being said, I really hit the jackpot with this one. This book was such an emotional read that at times I felt like I was almost holding my breath. The main character went through so much in her mere seventeen years of living, and her struggle completely broke my heart.

A Room on Lorelei Street takes place in a town called Ruby, Texas. It is a tired, small town full of basically nothing, where Ruby is living with her alcoholic mother as the book begins. Zoe has never really had the chance to be a child. Her father died mysteriously - hinting at a possible suicide, her mother crawled inside a bottle, and her beloved brother is sent to live with her aunt and uncle who have no room for her. Her grandmother is overbearing and manipulative, and Zoe is thrown into a life of being a caretaker to her mother. The author, Mary E. Pearson unfolds this hauntingly beautiful story of Zoe's life with such raw emotion that I will definitely not forget for a long time.

Zoe's life is one that no teenager should have to endure. Trying to take care of her mother, while working at the local diner and attending school proves to be more than Zoe can handle one day when a teacher mispronounces her name and Zoe blows a major gasket. It is at this point that Zoe realizes she has to make some changes if she is ever going to survive this life. She comes upon a house on Lorelei Street where she sees a room for rent sign. She keeps stopping by every day just to dream about the room and what it would be like to have someplace to call her own. One day she talks to the owner, and elderly woman named Opal. Opal is quite a character and I found her fast-becoming my favorite. She talks Zoe into taking the room, and the rest of the story is about Zoe's new struggle of how to make it on her own.

I can't think of anyone who would not fall in love with this story. I was captivated every second until I closed the back cover. It is a beautiful coming-of-age tale of a teenager's struggle to overcome the hand that life has dealt to her. The book is very well-written, and I can definitely understand why the author won the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Golden Kite Award for fiction for this wonderful book. I highly recommend this book. ( )

It is an easy read. It really pulls you in and makes you want to figure out where Zoe’s story is going to go. You’ll have hope for Zoe the whole time. I read this book because it was recommended to me and it appealed to me.