Romance and Friendship Books for Valentine’s Day

Check out some good books about love and friendship

Fifteen by Beverly Cleary
Jane gets asked out by Stan, the most popular boy at school. Is she ready for all this? This book may have been written in 1956 but it is still a fun read today.

Just As Long As We're Together by Judy Blume
At first Stephanie loves seventh grade. She has a new cool friend from California and things seem better than ever. Then she finds out her parents are getting divorced and she has a huge fight with her old best friend. How will she handle this?

Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli
Leo’s world changes the day Stargirl Caraway comes into his life. Leo falls in love with this unconventional girl and she changes his life forever.

Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot
New Yorker Mia Thermopolis had no idea that she was a princess. With the help of her grand-mere she just might be prepared to take the throne one day.

Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly
Angie Morrow and Jack Duluth date the summer after they have finished high school. Angie is scheduled to go to college in the fall and Jack back to Oklahoma. This love story is a told very honestly and though it was written over 60 years ago, the story holds up today.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares
Four friends spend their first summer away from each other. They keep in touch through letters and by sending a pair of magical pants between the group of friends in the mail.

Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause
Vivian, the teenage werewolf, is not usually attracted to human boys, but with Aiden Teague things are different. She decides to reveal her werewolf identity to Aiden. He reacts in horror. She is also expected to date Gabriel the leader of her wolf pack. Vivian is much more confident and self assured than Bella but this novel might be loved by readers of Twilight.

Book Review-What My Mother Doesn’t Know by Sonya Sones

Sophie is almost 15 and, among other things, is having a hard time figuring out the difference between love and lust. She thinks about Dylan, her current boyfriend, and wonders how she really feels about him. She remembers the hurt she felt when her old boyfriend Lou broke up with her at the end of 8th grade. Then there is the masked boy at the school dance who Sophie dances with until the song ends and he disappears.

“It’s like my mind and my body and my heart just don’t seem to be able to agree on anything.”

Sophie has other things on her mind too, like why her father works so much and why her parents are so angry at each other. She fights with her parents sometimes, like the evening of the dance when her mother came to pick her up and Sophie was wearing the tight dress she went behind her mother’s back and purchased.

Be careful with this book, you just might want to read it in one sitting. It’s free verse poetry style make this book a quick read. But be sure you don’t judge a book by its cover.

The book cover on the left looks like the one I read, but the What My Mother Doesn’t Know also comes in a more reader friendly cover. They are both the same book.

Katie CCL