The Summer of Jodi Perez (and the Best Burger in Los Angeles) by Amy Spalding

Fashion-obsessed teen Abby Ives is excited to start her summer internship at a trendy vintage-inspired boutique. Even though things are a little rocky at home right now, it's going to be a great summer.

And it will be ... but not in any of the ways she may have expected.

I absolutely LOVED this book! It's funny and realistic, and I had a hard time putting it down - I just wanted to spend more time with Abby and the gang.

Abby gets wrapped up in a friend-of-a-friend's quest to load a new app with the "best burger" info for Los Angeles - and ends up with a new buddy, along with a great way to avoid her mom's weird food. She also finds her first girlfriend, worries too much about how the world sees her, and learns a lot about fashion.

Highly, highly recommended. My favorite book of recent history.

In the Shadow of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

It's not often I give up, but this is one of the big FAILS.

Perhaps I could have liked the book if it weren't for the horrible inflection and rhythm of the audiobook reader, Angela Goethals. It annoyed me from the start - her faux dramatic, hokey, hitching delivery - but I thought I could get used to it or get past it. But after 2 discs (somewhere about 2 hours of listening), I decided this was an aggravation I could do without and quit.

The book's about fake mysticism in turn-of-the-century America and a teenager's struggle to survive in a country turned upside-down by war and rampant racism. I kept waiting for the story to really grab me and ultimately I failed to find a hook.

The Year of Fog by Michelle Richmond

One day on the beach in San Francisco, a six-year-old child disappears. Her watcher, the father's fiance and our narrator, looks away from Emma for a moment, and the girl simply vanishes.

Abby spends every moment of the next months trying to remember, trying to find a clue, and trying to find Emma. When hope is lost, Abby soldiers on. When Jake gives up and holds a funeral, Abby attends but then continues looking. But in constantly searching for Emma is Abby losing herself?

This book is agonizing at times - Abby really does lose it for a while. Her continual looping of the city, the count of days missing, the fliers and the questions all wear you down as a reader until it's easy to see the claustrophobic emotions of losing a child.

I listened to the audiobook version read by Carrington MacDuffie, and I sometimes found it hard to listen to - it's a heartbreaking scenario. But I also understand that dragging you through Abby's hell (and every parent's nightmare) makes the emotional journey more real to us as readers.

In the end, I enjoyed the book, which was recommended to me by members of our book discussion. They each raved about the writing and the story. And you do certainly learn a bit about memory, photography, and surfing through Abby's quest!

Born Confused by Tanuja Desai Hidier

Photographer and American teenage girl Dimple Lala is most at home when she's shooting the world around her - especially her glamorous best friend Gwyn. But for all the focus Dimple has through the lens, she's hilariously unaware of her surroundings: her Indian family, her self-absorbed friend, the boys she has dated.

It isn't until Gwyn becomes obsessed with Indian culture (and an Indian boy) that Dimple realizes her cultural heritage is much more interesting than she'd believed - and maybe, it's also a bigger part of her identity than she'd realized.

This book takes a slightly unusual twist to an identity story: more about a first-generation American rediscovering her Indian culture, rather than the more-common story of trying to fit into white America. Teens will recognize Dimple's struggle to find herself, even if they don't identify with her race.

I don't know much about India and I was sometimes a bit lost in the descriptions, but also intrigued enough to research my lackings. It's a book full of colorful, busy descriptions of food, fabrics, sounds, and sights.

Who Shot Rock & Roll by Gail Buckland

When you think about John Lennon, what image do you see in your mind: The New York t-shirt? Or lying in bed with Yoko? The black leather coat, just before they got famous?

Do you know who took any of those photo? Probably not - most of the best images of rock have been hijacked over the years and used without credit to their creator. But how many of us look for the photographer's name, even if it IS present?

This new book contains some of the most iconic photos taken of rock stars from 1955 to the present day, and info about the photographers. The collection of images is amazing. I spent probably an hour and a half just looking and admiring the compilation.

But I didn't think the bio information on the photographers was great: it's inconsistent, and hard to follow. Some people are scattered in multiple places, while others have barely one paragraph. And when there's too much text for the page, it jumps to the back of the book instead of the next page. Yuk.

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand

Ex-punk and current waste-case Cassandra Neary had her time in the spotlight as an art-photographer: That time has passed. Cass may have been really talented, and she may have pissed it all away - but an unusual job request is bringing her closer to real inspiration than she's been in a long time.

This one's dark, moody and gritty. There's an element of mystery, but this is certainly NOT a mystery book. It's a bit disjointed in style, but that plays well with the way Cass thinks and views the world.

How close can an artist come to the edge - looking over the side, studying the shadows - before the darkness sucks them in? Cass is about to find out.

Fuck You: Rock and Roll Portraits by Neil Zlozower

Were you an 80's or 90's metal rock maniac? Then this book will be a trip down memory lane.

Zloz has been one of rock's premiere photographers for almost 40 years. He took many of the photos you ripped out of fan magazines and plastered all over your bedroom walls. When he considered publishing a retrospective of his work, well, this is what happened. Every picture shows some rocker giving the finger. There's almost no text - only photo subject IDs and the year.

After the first 25 pictures or so, you really don't even notice the bird anymore: too much shock value leads to no shock at all. Instead, you start remembering bands you'd forgotten, comparing now-and-then pictures of fallen rock gods, and laughing at wardrobe and hair choices from the early days.

I wouldn't recommend buying the book, but I did truly enjoy looking through it.

At Work by Annie Leibovitz

I have been a huge fan of Leibovitz since college. Her 90's portraits for Rolling Stone made the magazine worth the price of subscription. She's published several books of photography over the years, but this volume combines her own words about how she works with choice photos from across her career's trajectory.

It was interesting to hear her own nostalgia, or regret, concerning some of the most famous images she's captured. I've always loved her portrait of Keith Haring, and her reminiscence here makes it all worth while.

But the small scale bothered me. I wanted bigger pictures. I want to re-appreciate them in glorious color and grand scale. Instead, the book is easier to handle at a scant 7.5" x 9.75" and pictures are reproduced in snapshot size.

I'm afraid that if you're not already a fan, this book won't make you one. Which seems a shame.