This was a light fun read. The main character grows up over the course of her summer spent in Canada, and I am happy with the way the book ended. ( )

This was a light fun read. The main character grows up over the course of her summer spent in Canada, and I am happy with the way the book ended. ( )

Well-written, appealing chick-lit. ( )

Boys, Bears and a Serious Pair of Hiking Boots by Abby McDonald was basically an average YA novel. A teenaged girl named Jenna seeks refuge with her godmother in British Columbia for one summer to avoid the impending domestic disaster of her parents' divorce. Life in the small Canadian town of Stillwater is much different from Jenna's New Jersey home, and not exactly what she expected.

There are two major things I enjoyed about Jenna's story, which makes my rating 3/5 stars. First, I enjoyed reading Jenna's priorities shift as her worldview is opened to a new perspective. Getting away from the stress of everyday life and getting into nature can do that, and I feel the author portrayed her transformation pretty realistically.

Second, I enjoyed how the author left the conclusion kind of open-ended. Yes, I had questions at the end - like, what's going to happen to Olivia? Was she on drugs? And will Jenna's parents really get divorced? But McDonald took a chance leaving the story hanging with loose strings, and I really felt like it worked in this instance. It captures the uncertainty of teenage life pretty well. ( )

I have to say, I started this book three different times, and I just couldn't get into it. Perhaps it was just the wrong time for me and this book. It's done well at my library.