Review - Like Mandarin by Kirsten Hubbard

Title: Like Mandarin
Author: Kirsten Hubbard
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publish Date: March 8, 2011
Hardcover, 320 pages

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This was a real interesting read. I liked it and yet, I kind of didn't like it. I kept waiting for something to happen and yet it was just a book about two girls and their time together. How they grow and how they learn from each other. How they hurt each other and how they learn to appreciate each others differences.

I really thought the journey Grace and Mandarin take together. I found it inspiring that Grace wanted to be like Mandarin and didn't really know how it was to really be Mandarin. It was really interesting to see Grace develop as she grew to learn what Mandarin actual had to deal with on a personal, private level.

Again, not necessarily a book I recommend for a younger teen. Talks a lot about sex, especially sex with older, strange men. Mandarin drinks, smokes, works in her father's bar, cheats, doesn't do her school work, etc., etc,. Not a great role model for the younger crowd.

Summary -
It's hard finding beauty in the badlands of Washokey, Wyoming, but 14-year-old Grace Carpenter knows it's not her mother's pageant obsessions, or the cowboy dances adored by her small-town classmates. True beauty is wild-girl Mandarin Ramey: 17, shameless and utterly carefree. Grace would give anything to be like Mandarin. When they're united for a project, they form an unlikely, explosive friendship, packed with nights spent skinny-dipping in the canal, liberating the town's animal-head trophies, and searching for someplace magic. Grace plays along when Mandarin suggests they run away together. Blame it on the crazy-making wildwinds plaguing their Badlands town. Because all too soon, Grace discovers Mandarin's unique beauty hides a girl who's troubled, broken, and even dangerous. And no matter how hard Grace fights to keep the magic, no friendship can withstand betrayal.