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You Have Seven Messages

3.39 of 5 stars 3.39 · rating details · 879 ratings · 182 reviews

It's been a year since Luna's mother, the fashion-model wife of a successful film director, was hit and killed by a taxi in New York's East Village. Luna, her father, and her little brother, Tile, are still struggling with grief.
When Luna goes to clean out her mother's old studio, she's stunned to find her mom's cell phone there—charged and holding seven unheard messages....more

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published September 13th 2011 by Delacorte Books for Young Readers

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Oct 25, 2012 Reut (reutreads) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Originally reviewed on reutreads, a young adult book blog.

While I originally wanted to read You Have Seven Messages so much I requested it from my local library for purchase, this book did not live up to the hype I gave it in my mind. Overly simplistic prose and a slightly obnoxious narrator just ruined it for me.

While I was reading this book, I was thinking about how little Luna sounded like a teenage girl. I mean, she's only just turned 15. I'm 14. There should be some similarities in the way...more

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Apr 30, 2013 Maximilian rated it 3 of 5 stars

WARNING: There may be typos in the folowing review.

I thought that You Have Seven Messages was a great read and I enjoyed it. It was a quick read and it certainitly passed the time I had in my hands.

So, Luna is a fifteen year old girl who lives in Manhattan who is motherless. In case there are a lot of people out there who don't have mothers maybe you can undrestand where Luna is coming from when she speaks about growing up with out her. She has a Movie making father, who is still distraught b...more

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Mar 08, 2013 Ryanne rated it 1 of 5 stars

At first, I was totally into it. Feeling Luna's pain, sympathizing with her family.

Then it just got...well...juvenile.

There were scores of misplaced exclamation marks, Luna really started to get on my nerves, and the believability took a nose dive. She's fifteen. In grade nine. And she thinks she's in love? And she goes unsupervised to Paris? What? That doesn't happen in the real world, daughter of a film maker or not.
I seriously disliked Oliver towards the end. Bleh. Then we started divulging i...more

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Feb 01, 2013 Sheli Ellsworth rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: my-reviews

What happens if you are a teenager and your mother dies? What if you find a cufflink in your mother’s stuff that doesn’t belong to your dad? What if the circumstances surrounding her death are somehow tied to her unheard cell phone voice messages?
Fourteen-year-old Luna is determined to answer some of these questions before she confronts her director father about the tragedy that claimed her fashion-model mother. //You Have Seven Messages// by Stewart Lewis delves into the life of a New York tee...more

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Nov 14, 2012 Jazmen rated it 3 of 5 stars

I picked up this book thinking it was going to be some kind of mystery and was disappointed to find that it wasn't what I expected it to be but I found that I enjoyed it despite my initial disappointment.

The book in itself wasn't all that thrilling although I did like it for what it was which is a book about a young girl and her kid brother dealing and grieving after the loss of their model mother. The real story surrounds the daughter and how she finds her mother's cellphone after her death wi...more

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Feb 14, 2012 Melanie Goodman added it

When I first heard about Stewart Lewis’ You Have Seven Messages, the first thing that came to mind was the movie One Missed Call. Now, I have not seen One Missed Call, but I think I can safely say that You Have Seven Messages is, in fact, nothing like it. For those of you whose minds play similar word association games, do not fear. Or maybe that’s just me.

You Have Seven Messages does deal with death, but not quite in that way. When the book begins, it has been a year since Luna’s mother was kil...more When I first heard about Stewart Lewis’ You Have Seven Messages, the first thing that came to mind was the movie One Missed Call. Now, I have not seen One Missed Call, but I think I can safely say that You Have Seven Messages is, in fact, nothing like it. For those of you whose minds play similar word association games, do not fear. Or maybe that’s just me.

You Have Seven Messages does deal with death, but not quite in that way. When the book begins, it has been a year since Luna’s mother was killed in an accident with a NYC taxi. Luna and her father and brother are still grieving, but they are mostly grieving silently and alone. Luna comes from money and talent: Her father is a filmmaker and her mother was a model and author. She has grown up around celebrities and drivers in a life of connections and privilege, but no amount of money will bring back her mom or help her to connect with her family. When Luna goes to her mom’s old studio, she finds a few diary entries on the computer as well as her mom’s cell phone, complete with seven messages.

With the help of the boy next door, a cello-playing wunderkind whom Luna secretly loves, she investigates the messages left on the phone in an attempt to better understand her mom. As Luna begins to piece together the events surrounding her mother’s death, she wonders if the accident may have been less accidental than it originally appeared, and whether the relationship her parents’ had was anything like the picture that had been painted for her.

You Have Seven Messages is part coming-of-age story, part romance, and part mystery. I was immediately drawn into the book by Luna’s voice, and sustained by the slow and steady suspense as well as the need to see Luna through her suffering. Luna is precocious; her voice is mature and she is often treated like an adult by those around her. Yet, at times, it is clear that she is still only 15 and has a lot to learn.

The relationships in You Have Seven Messages consistently illustrate that people can both hurt each other and love each other at the same time–a lesson that Luna has to keep learning over and over again as she comes to realize that the world is not all black and white, and that the adults she idolized are imperfect people who make mistakes. Luna’s brother Tile, burdened though he is with a celebrity-style name, is a charming budding filmmaker who is similarly struggling to move on in life without a mother. Through Luna and Tile’s conversations, one can better understand the temptation to shelter those who are younger from some of life’s more difficult truths.

Though Luna’s circumstances might be hard to believe or relate to for the average reader, the difficulty of navigating her family relationships and the grief she feels in the absence of her mother make her character human and sympathetic. Further, the characters’ interests and hobbies–music, photography, and film–make them increasingly realistic and relatable. One might not believe the relative ease with which Luna lands her first art show, but despite that, most teens will understand her desperate desire to succeed in life on her own merits, independent of her family name. Luna’s experiences may be incredibly specific to her lifestyle, but the emotional truths that resonate throughout the book are universal.

You Have Seven Messages is a beautiful exploration of life for a teen girl forced to confront the reality that wealth cannot protect her from the emotional impoverishment that follows the loss of her mother.(less)

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Dec 05, 2011 Amanda Evans rated it 5 of 5 stars

Where do I start? I loved this book! I read it too fast, I never wanted it to end. From the beginning to the end, there was something I wanted to know the answer to. When I first started reading this book I didn’t know what to expect. I decided to read this book because I thought the title was cool, and judged the book by its cover, but there is so much more. Mystery and romance and everything in between. My favorite part of the book was when the mystery began, I had so many questions and wanted...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Jennifer Crispin rated it 2 of 5 stars

If you pick up this book thinking it's going to be a mystery, or at the very least, have mysterious elements, you will be sadly mistaken and probably bored. Moon/Luna/Malia is the daughter of a famous film-maker and a famous model who died a year earlier. She has a little brother named Tile. Really. Named after a hardware store staple. Moon/Luna/Malia likes to take pictures and knows a lot of famous people. And now she wants to unravel the mystery around her mother's death. Except if you even ha...more

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Oct 25, 2011 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-fiction, read-in-2011

It was really hard to build sympathy for a character who just isn't sympathetic. Luna/Moon has everything in the world, and she's not afraid of it. She doesn't have her mom, who died tragically in a cab incident, but she seems less sad about that than she is about figuring out her mom might have been less-than-honest about her life. It was a lot of Luna getting her dreams when it comes to making a name for herself in photography because she had connections via her parents (who were big deal folk...more

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Oct 12, 2011 Amy Lignor rated it 3 of 5 stars

Luna is a teenager who lives in Manhattan. She has the world at her fingertips, and has some serious dislikes when it comes to snooty girls who, frankly, give her a headache. She’s not into the ‘tweenish’ stuff like make-up and boys, she is actually quite a loner. Luna loves her little brother and her big-time movie director father, but the one thing that is hurting her more than life is how much she misses her mom.

Luna’s mom was a stunning model turned writer, who was also a great friend. Unfor...more
Luna is a teenager who lives in Manhattan. She has the world at her fingertips, and has some serious dislikes when it comes to snooty girls who, frankly, give her a headache. She’s not into the ‘tweenish’ stuff like make-up and boys, she is actually quite a loner. Luna loves her little brother and her big-time movie director father, but the one thing that is hurting her more than life is how much she misses her mom.

Luna’s mom was a stunning model turned writer, who was also a great friend. Unfortunately, her mother stepped off a curb one evening and was hit by a car, and Luna can barely deal with the world. She loves her Dad, however, and wants him to be able to date and find a way to have a life, and doesn’t get mad when he begins a relationship with a quiet, unassuming teacher.

What Luna does do is she heads to her mother’s studio to clean the place up; spend some time in the location where her mother loved to be as she did her writing and spoke with all her ex-model friends. What Luna finds, however, is something she was definitely not searching for - her mother’s past. There is a cell phone that has seven messages that her mother never heard, and Luna begins to listen to these messages one by one.

In her own personal life, Luna is enchanted by the young man she sees across he street. There, in the window, is a handsome young man who is constantly playing his cello, and Luna can’t seem to take her eyes off him. When she gathers the courage and meets the cello player named, Oliver, Luna soon finds her heart racing at the speed of light. Oliver, thankfully, isn’t like all the other moronic boys; he is a strong, caring person that Luna really begins to care for. He is also the young man who hears all about the seven messages and helps Luna try to figure out her mother’s past, the secrets that were buried there, and what really happened the night she died.

There are a slew of characters in Luna’s life that readers will fall for, and they’ll like Luna as well, even though at times she can be a bit snooty herself. The writer has put together somewhat of a mystery, wrapped in a romance, embedded in a girl’s struggle to live her life in the aftermath of an accident - discovering secrets that she wished had remained secret.(less)

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Apr 26, 2013 Michelle Arrow rated it 4 of 5 stars

For this one, I definitely judged it by the cover. Look how attractive it is! Who cannot get captivated by "that?"

You Have Seven Messages was brilliant! The author really knew how to captivate readers into a fun mystery/romance, that will have them busy for a short while, which it did to me. It was very fast-paced, and I thought I knew what was going to happen, and then I didn't.

Luna was a great heroine. She's unique, mature, and wants to find the truth, and that's what I loved about her. I...more

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Jan 26, 2013 Jasmine Javier rated it 3 of 5 stars

When I first got this book, I thought I was in for a full fledged mystery. To my disappointment, it was just a simple story about a girl who lost her mother and wanted answers to explain her death. If you're looking at this book thinking it'll lead you in an epic mystery trail, think again.

Luna is a 15 year old girl whose mother was a beautiful model and father a movie director. Her mother died after being hit by a taxi, which raised questions for Luna nearly a year later. After going into her m...more

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Jun 21, 2012 EJ rated it 1 of 5 stars

About twenty pages into this book, I realized it wasn't what I thought it was. I rarely purchase books, especially hardcover, except for releases from authors that I follow (John Gren's TFioS, for example). My impulse decision to buy this book was completely wrong. As a fourteen year-old girl who loves mystery stories, I thought that a book focused around another fourteen year-old girl trying to solve the mystery of her mother's death was intriguing, and bought the book at Barnes and Noble witho...more About twenty pages into this book, I realized it wasn't what I thought it was. I rarely purchase books, especially hardcover, except for releases from authors that I follow (John Gren's TFioS, for example). My impulse decision to buy this book was completely wrong. As a fourteen year-old girl who loves mystery stories, I thought that a book focused around another fourteen year-old girl trying to solve the mystery of her mother's death was intriguing, and bought the book at Barnes and Noble without a second thought. The inside cover advertised secrets and mystery, all with the help of her "dreamy neighbor Oliver."
If you're looking at this book thinking that it's going to be just that - a book of secrets and mystery and a dreamy neighbor named Oliver, you're wrong.
First off, I had a lot of problems with the narrator's voice. If you took out the numbers for her age, I would have guessed she was twelve in the beginning, then turned thirteen after her birthday (which was pretty early on in the book). She was really fourteen, then turned fifteen. Her voice in general seemed a bit immature to me. She even says not to call her a "tween" although I think that the whole "tween" thing ends around age thirteen. The fact that she doesn't really have a lot of friends doesn't add to the realism at all. She has one friend, Janine, who has maybe four scenes in the entire book. Then there's Oliver, the boy across the street. Quickly, though, Luna becomes friends with a model named Daria, who's probably in her late twenties or so. How exactly does a fourteen year old girl become BFFs with a twenty year old? I know, I know, "suspension of disbelief" and all that. But there was no suspension. Just a lot of disbelief. Luna seemed incredibly whiny through her voice and the whole book seemed to be her own personal pity party. However, when she spoke (only to authority figures like her dad, though) she was rather sarcastic, which completely blew me away. It didn't fit with the voice she used to narrate at all. When she first said "damn" I was even shocked, because of the incompatibility with the immaturity of her voice.
I think some of these problems are linked to the fact that it's an adult male author writing from a teenage girl's POV, but some authors have pulled it off before. Mark Peter Hughes did it well in "I Am The Wallpaper." Even John Green could do it in "The Fault In Our Stars." I think that when an author tries to do this, it's either hit or miss, and this one was more on the miss side.
When she talks to Oliver, she says that her "skin feels like it's on fire." As I said, I'm fourteen, and I'm pretty socially awkward, but when I talk to boys I really don't feel like "my skin is on fire." I get being nervous and all, but I really just wanted to roll my eyes at that part. Within the same paragraph, she talks about Oliver's "violet lips" which threw me off a lot. Maybe she meant they had a violet hue, but I kept imagining him having these neon purple lips when she said that (which was unfortunately more than once.)
While on the topic of Oliver, I felt like he was an unbelievable character, and when I say "unbelievable" I mean I really couldn't believe him. He seemed kinda cheesy, and their relationship really lacked chemistry and he lacked personality in general. The few lines they exchanged weren't really that, you know "deep" or "personal" and Luna always feels nervous talking to him. I don't know, but that just seems like it's not a great relationship. For the whole "first love" story I guess the awkwardness works, but most first loves end pretty quickly, but instead, (view spoiler)
One more character that I had a problem with was Tile. In the beginning he seemed to have the maturity of a five year old rather than a ten year old, and towards the end he seemed to be about thirty. When he used the word "iridescent" I found it a bit hard to believe, especially since my twelve year old brother probably doesn't even know what that means.
In terms of PLOT, however, I felt like this book was all over the place. The "mystery" wasn't much of a mystery at all. Luna solved the big "what" thing about 95 pages into the book, and the rest is spent gathering small details. She hung out with Oliver, ate crepes, and kept relating everything, and seriously everything back to her mother. It got kind of old after a while, and I found it hard to be sympathetic for Luna for some reason that I can't quite place.
There's also the strange sub-plot about Luna's photography, which also was quite unbelievable (it could have been believable, but the suspension just wasn't there) especially when she gets an agent just by sending him three pictures. He replies five minutes later, ready to sign. As a published writer I assumed that Stewart Lewis would understand how hard it is to be published and think about that before giving Luna all this attention for her photography so easily. There was nothing in the plot that was keeping me turning pages. Luna suggested the solution to her big "mystery" on about page forty or so, and she ended up being right. Nothing came as a shock whatsoever.
While Luna sometimes came across as extremely immature, she sometimes seemed way TOO mature. Weird. She was allowed to go to Paris alone, was friends with that model, and at the end wrote an e-mail to her father explaining everything she had learned, which seemed like a way to amplify the very subtle theme there was throughout the book, that everything's not just black and white, there's also gray areas. I only know this because that's almost exactly what Luna wrote in the e-mail.
If you're looking at buying this book thinking that it's going to be a mystery, please don't. But if you're looking for a book for maybe a twelve or thirteen year old who hasn't read a lot of good books prior, then they may enjoy it. I happened to read an amazing book before this one and maybe it just seemed bad by comparison. But I think this book had a lot of flaws, and there wasn't much that I can say I really enjoyed. (less)

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May 17, 2012 Barbara rated it 2 of 5 stars

Luna’s fashion model mother has been dead a year having been hit by a cab after a dinner date with a friend. But when Luna finds her mother’s cell phone with seven messages, she begins to piece together what really happened by investigating the people who left messages with the help of her neighbor and competitive cello player, Oliver. A love interest develops only to be side-tracked by pressure from his domineering but absent father and, as Luna later finds out, by one of her former friends, Ra...more

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Mar 18, 2012 Vic Black rated it 5 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Oct 18, 2012 Kris rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-reviewed, contemporary, ya-books

Luna is a sweet girl, someone that tweens will be able to relate to. She's at that stage where she's turning into a girl and developing an interest in boys (well, one particular boy), but she's awkward and not very confident in herself. It takes searching for the truth of what happened the day her mom died and meeting people who crossed paths with her mom for Luna to come to terms with her identity and what she wants to do with her life. This was all I could glean of her character, however. I fe...more Luna is a sweet girl, someone that tweens will be able to relate to. She's at that stage where she's turning into a girl and developing an interest in boys (well, one particular boy), but she's awkward and not very confident in herself. It takes searching for the truth of what happened the day her mom died and meeting people who crossed paths with her mom for Luna to come to terms with her identity and what she wants to do with her life. This was all I could glean of her character, however. I feel as though I didn't really get to know Luna in relation to the other characters. Most of the story is filled with internal ruminations and Luna going from one place to another in search of the truth about her mother. There were some characters that I liked in particular: Daria and Tile. Daria is a super-cool model who helps Luna sort out her feelings and gives her the womanly support Luna lacks in her life right now. Tile is the sweetest little brother ever, wise for his years, though he often talks using the cheesiest movie lines ever. It adds to his charm.

Oftentimes, the dialogue felt forced and poorly written. I had trouble seeing people say some of the lines the way that they do. It didn't feel natural. I also found it odd that Luna would only listen to one of the messages at a time and then spend so much time trying to figure out what happened to her mom. This is a big deal to her, yet she's finding time to take photographs and move on with life at the same time that she's listening to these messages. I know that life goes on, but it's pretty strange to me that Luna is able to do all these things while there are messages waiting for her to listen to them.

While Luna gets the closure that she needs over her mother's death, she learns that her family wasn't the perfect unit she always thought it was. This is something that we all find out sooner or later--that our parents aren't invincible, that they're human too and make mistakes. I never had to deal with such a big blow as Luna has been dealt with, but it's still a part of life, finding out your parents' flaws and learning how to deal with it and respond to it. It did feel as though the cheating aspect was a bit overdone with what happens with Oliver later, and I found it hard to believe that Luna could forgive so quickly. While Oliver is the romantic interest and spends a lot of time helping Luna with the mystery behind the seven messages, I didn't feel as though I got to know him. What he does to Luna is really uncool, and his explanation seems more like an excuse and is really flaky.

It wasn't until I started thinking over all this that I rated this a 2 stars. I did enjoy reading this book while I was reading it. However, there are so many little pieces that don't add up at the end. I'd recommend this for pleasure reading if the plot intrigues you, but I wouldn't recommend it for keeps.

--
For more of my reviews, visit my blog Imaginary Reads.

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Jul 02, 2012 Chrissy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

Let me start by saying that I went back and forth a handful of times between three and four stars, absolutely indecisive of my final verdict on YOU HAVE SEVEN MESSAGES -- so I erred in favor of the author, going with four stars. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it was still a nice read.

But, let's back up a bit and start with plot. YOU HAVE SEVEN MESSAGES is the story of Luna, the daughter of a dad who is famous in film and a mom famous in modelling. Except, Luna's mom died a year ago and eve...more Let me start by saying that I went back and forth a handful of times between three and four stars, absolutely indecisive of my final verdict on YOU HAVE SEVEN MESSAGES -- so I erred in favor of the author, going with four stars. It wasn't quite what I expected, but it was still a nice read.

But, let's back up a bit and start with plot. YOU HAVE SEVEN MESSAGES is the story of Luna, the daughter of a dad who is famous in film and a mom famous in modelling. Except, Luna's mom died a year ago and everyone is being mysterious about her death. What really happened on that day a year ago? Luna's dad is being sketchy -- so what is he hiding? Luna may never know -- that is, until she discovers her mom's old cell phone. And in that cell phone are seven different messages which may hold the secret to everything that Luna has been missing for the last year.

Okay, I'll give a minor spoiler by telling you that the "mystery" here just isn't so mysterious -- hence my indecisiveness in rating this novel. I picked this one up expecting a mystery mixed with a good dose of teenage self-discovery. And, well, the *mystery* just didn't quite live up to my expectations.

However, the teenage journey of self-discovery was enjoyable, giving this book a little more depth and universality. Throughout the story, Luna (who is quite the little hipster) is given a camera and she explores herself and her surroundings through her photography. She learns life lessons about love, family, forgiveness, all while meeting a boy, traveling to a beautiful foreign country, and embarking on the task of presenting her first photography show.

My only other slight criticism would be the writing style. It was a bit overly melodramatic, which would have appealed to me more, I think, when I was 15 -- feeling ever so emo and so larger-than-life in my tangled world of teenage emotions. As an adult, though, it just felt like it was trying too hard at times -- which didn't distract from the voice of the story, but did seem a bit worthy of an eye-roll or two.(less)

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Apr 25, 2012 dontouchmychocolate rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was disappointing. Where I expected something awfully mysterious, from her mother's messages all I got from it was a really bland storyline.

I felt sorry for Luna that her mother was dead, but other than that, she was a hoity-toity girl who had things coming too easily - as much as she said she'd earned her fame in photography, I didn't buy it.

All the grandiose living with the limos and fancy homes and money was annoying rather than impressing, and I seriously hated how snotty she was...more

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Oct 31, 2011 Jen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: arc-s

"But how do you really know what's true? Is there some big book of truth?" "The book is here." She placed her hand where my heart is.

Imagine discovering what you thought was true about your family might be nothing more than a lie?

Fifteen year old Luna, who lives in Central Park West, is still grieving the death of her super model mother when she stumbles upon her cell phone a year later and finds it's still in working order with seven new messages on it. The rational thing to do would be to del...more "But how do you really know what's true? Is there some big book of truth?" "The book is here." She placed her hand where my heart is.

Imagine discovering what you thought was true about your family might be nothing more than a lie?

Fifteen year old Luna, who lives in Central Park West, is still grieving the death of her super model mother when she stumbles upon her cell phone a year later and finds it's still in working order with seven new messages on it. The rational thing to do would be to delete them but curiosity wins out and Luna decides to listen to each one in order. She still has questions surrounding her mother's death and thinks the messages will provide the answers she so desperately wants. All of the messages will have a lasting effect on Luna even the mundane ones but the rest will turn her world upside down and threaten to destroy her once happy family.

Stewart Lewis writes an endearing story about a young girl's journey to piece together the puzzle that has now become her life. What's truth and what's a lie? How can you tell the difference and is it really worth knowing?

When Luna makes the decision to listen to the messages, life as she knows it changes. She makes new friends, uncovers a talent she didn't know she had, falls in love for the first time and learns that hearts can be as fragile as glass. She also discovers no one is perfect, the truth isn't always black and white and love and forgiveness go hand in hand.

One of the first messages Luna listens to leads her to Daria, a model she meets through a mutual friend of her mother's. They quickly become friends and Daria takes on an older sister role in her life while also strongly encouraging Luna's photography. Daria arranges for Luna to meet with some pretty high power people in the photography business but this is New York and with the right connections, anything is possible. (Having a famous film director for a dad and a former super model for a mom doesn't hurt either.)

Another message leads Luna to the dry cleaners and it's there that she runs into her neighbor, Oliver, finally giving her a chance to speak to the only boy she's ever crushed on. (Well, besides Orlando Bloom but he WAS staying in her house at the time.) She's watched and listened from her window for years while Oliver practiced his cello and his music has often lulled her to sleep. They become friends and soon, he's helping her piece together some of the other clues from her mother's phone. Before too long, Luna realizes she's falling in love with Oliver and thinks he feels the same but an overbearing parent and a betrayal could destroy everything.

Her relationship with her father, becomes strained as the messages begin to reveal that her parent's marriage wasn't the fairytale Luna believed it to be and he won't answer her questions honestly. He tries to explain as best as he can without causing she and her brother Tile any more grief than they're already dealing with. His jump back into the dating pool only adds to Luna's conflict even though she's the one who encouraged him to date again.

Luna continues to listen to the messages but just as she's ready to hear the last one, her life takes another unexpected turn and she's left once again questioning the truth of those around her. She'll be forced to face the fact that there are no perfect people and that real love requires a willingness to forgive even after the person is gone.

The two primary themes in this story are love and forgiveness and it almost feels as if there are several different love stories (not all the romantic kind) all playing out at the same time. A couple of the stories are just beginning, some were coming to an end, others are going strong, and others still are merely struggling to maintain the status quo.

Parental love is a lot like that and Lewis does a beautiful job of letting the reader feel the love between Luna and her father so you understand his anguish over not wanting her to know the truth about the circumstances surrounding her mother's death. A parent's job is to protect their children and that's what both of hers were attempting to do in the weeks leading up to her mother's death.

The phrase, "You hurt me, but I love you." is repeated several times throughout the book and is worth remembering. Those we love are going to hurt us (some in small ways, some in big ways) but if we truly love them, we're willing to forgive because they will always be a part of us, even after they leave us.
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Nov 03, 2012 Rachel rated it 3 of 5 stars

Luna’s mother died a year ago, but she left something behind: her cell phone. And Luna finds it; it just happens to have seven messages on it. Luna feels that these messages will lead her to the answer to her mother’s death. She plans to follow the messages in order to put together what was going on in her mom’s life, leading up to her death; unfortunately, she may not like what she discovers.

This was a mystery, romance, coming-of-age novel. That’s quite a list, but that’s why it was an enjoyabl...more

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Nov 28, 2011 Jodi Papazian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-reads

I didn't mind You Have Seven Messages. In fact, I quite enjoyed it up til the last chunk of the story.
Luna's mother dies after being hit by a taxi cab in NYC. While cleaning her mother's workspace, she finds her cell phone with 7 unheard messages. Luna begins listening to the messages one day at a time and discovers that each one leaves a little mystery for her to solve. She hopes that by solving the small mysteries, she'll discover how her mother could have possibly been distracted enough to...more

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May 08, 2012 Nellie added it

Loss, discovery, and sense of self, are three related themes in the book "You Have Seven Messages". All three of these themes were relevant in this book because of the story line. In the book, Luna's mother was a fashion model that was hit and killed by a taxi in New York. People had to deal with the loss of their mother/wife/friend, that affected each one of there lives in a different way. Once Luna's mother passed she started to discover a whole different life her mother lived. All the clues l...more

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Feb 18, 2012 Chris Kervina rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: ya-books, fiction

I downloaded the sample chapter of You Have Seven Messages and I was hooked. I loved the premise of Luna finding her mother's cell phone and trying to uncover what actually happened the night she died. I loved Luna's mixture of worldliness and innocence. I loved the snappy dialog.

Why did I give it only 3 stars? I felt like some of the elements were over the top. Having Luna know both Orlando Bloom and Drew Barrymore did nothing to advance the plot and seemed to be little more than gratuitous cel...more

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May 29, 2012 Lori rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: yal

Luna is a 14 year old girl who turns 15 during the novel. Her mother dies the year before and she finds her mother's cell phone with 7 messages not played (duh). So, she listens to the messages 1 at a time over a period of time and finds out about her mother, her father, her mother's death and most importantly about herself. The story is cute. The characters in the story are kinda random. Luna puts herself in some very adult situations. The novel is like what a 14 year old girl would write if sh...more

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Oct 08, 2012 Kate rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012, fiction, library-book, youngadult

Stewart Lewis is not at all a bad writer, and I look forward to reading more of his y/a work. This one was a little overly long, but held my interest. High schooler (she turns 15 in the novel) Luna lost her model mother one year ago in an accident. She is tall and well-to-do, living in the Upper West Side with her acclaimed film director father Jules and her precocious 10-year-old brother, whom she tries to protect from the same information she is trying to get from the adults in her life about...more Stewart Lewis is not at all a bad writer, and I look forward to reading more of his y/a work. This one was a little overly long, but held my interest. High schooler (she turns 15 in the novel) Luna lost her model mother one year ago in an accident. She is tall and well-to-do, living in the Upper West Side with her acclaimed film director father Jules and her precocious 10-year-old brother, whom she tries to protect from the same information she is trying to get from the adults in her life about the true nature of her seemingly happily married parents' relationship and her mother's somewhat mysterious death. Lewis distracted me a bit by including real celebrities as characters in the novel, so that I was wondering if he got Drew Barrymore's permission to write her in, and if he knows her and Orlando Bloom personally, when it might have served him better to make people up. The only reason I could think for him to do this (though this explanation still doesn't necessitate it) was as part of the "can't judge a book by its cover" theme: Luna is surprised the Drew is nice and treats her as an equal (never mind that they kind of are, since both are daughters of Hollywood celebrities), just as she is surprised to learn of her mother's emotional affair roiling beneath the surface pretense of a happy marriage. She wants to get to the core of things, the truth, and this is reflected nicely in her "raw" talent for photography that lands her a rare gallery show.

The affair brings us to another theme Lewis is clearly interested in. Luna runs off to Italy toward the end of the book to stay with her uncle and his partner; they are monogamous, but have bisexual and polyamorous/open-marriage friends. Luna recognizes that though she wants to just have one boyfriend, the nature and fluidity of relationships differ depending on who is in them. (I hope no ultra social conservatives get ahold of this book, because I could imagine them reviling it as a textbook for indoctrinating teens into promiscuity blah blah blah). This, coupled with a hint that her father may have also dabbled in extramarital shenanagins, paves the way for her to accept and forgive both her parents.

Overall, I thought this book could have gone deeper, especially with the intrigue set up about her mother's death. The mystery isn't much of one, and the resolution isn't that satisfying. You could argue that that's part of an intertwined theme: that maybe the dramas we create about each other (especially celebrities) are situations that, at their core, are not such a big deal. But that makes for a bit of a fizzle of a plot.

Additionally, I kept noticing small mistakes. Oliver uses Luna's mom's phone to call the mysterious Clay -- but wouldn't Clay see that it was the mom's cell calling? Instead, he falls for a "package for delivery" scam Oliver concocts to get his address and a look at him. I was unconvinced; Oliver should have dialed from his own phone. We never get an answer for why Oliver suddenly dumps Luna. Jules keeps his dead wife's apartment, utilities and all, for over a year; fine, but when he finally decides to sell, would a realtor really show the unit the very next day, with all of the previous tenant's belongings inside? I guess it's possible. Minor missteps like these distracted me the same way the real celebrities did.

Overall, You Have Seven Messages was a decent read tackling a few important issues, though more superficially perhaps than Lewis meant. I think he has the potential to write one of the future big teen hits, though, if he can tighten up his sprawling themes, get an eagle-eyed editor, and ramp up his plots. I hope his next one will deal with an average high schooler rather than the rich and famous -- not that they don't have valid issues as well, but maybe not ones as hard-hitting to a general teen audience.(less)

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Mar 05, 2012 Lydia rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, let me start of by saying, this was in the tough stuff part of the Young Adult section of Barnes and Noble. My expectations were set that I was gonna cry and love this book.

The reality is, this book, was horrible. Malia (Luna) is 14/15 years old, and has the world at her fingertips. She has met Drew Barrymore, Orlando Bloom, and many more famous celebrities. Her father is a director, her mother is a supermodel. But one summer her mother is fatally hit by a cab. You would expect someone to...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Allie rated it 3 of 5 stars

I thought that this book was slow when I started reading it. I continued reading it even though I wasn't sure if it would grow on me, and it definitely caught my attention. It is only slow in the very beginning. My favorite part of this book is the ending because it has a lot of the same elements that were incorporated into the beginning. Luna had left New York in the middle of the book, but she was back there with her family in the end just like she had been in the beginning. I do not like how...more

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Jan 08, 2012 Kate rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: goodreads-yajuvenile

I loved this book. I know many peple disliked the ending and I can get that b/c the part in New Yprk and the part in Europe are almost like two entirely different novels. However the final bit was my favorite part; the first part of the book was good in the way that many YA novels are good but the final part truly shone for me. It greatly reminded me of a Madeleine L'Engle novel in tone b/c Luna is like so many of L'Engle's main characters super adult and incredibly young at the same time. Furth...more

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Mar 08, 2013 erica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, march-2013, mystery, young-adult

Luna's mom, a fashion model, was hit by a taxi and is struggling with her dad and brother, Tile. One day, Luna goes into her mom's studio and finds her mom's phone charged and has seven voice mails. Luna listens to the messages and tries to find out who her mother was with the day she died. After, Luna discovers a folder on her mom's computer marked as "Luna". Inside, she finds the diary her mom wrote months before the death.

I picked up this book because I am a texter, and I thought that this w...more

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May 20, 2012 A_B_B_Y rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 7th-grade-books

This book was very mysterious. I was always wondering what was going to happen next. You Have Seven Messages was about a girl who's mom was killed when she was hit by a taxi. Her dad had lied to her about what really happened that night and she discovered that her mom was not at all who she thought she was. This all started when Luna finds her mom's phone at her old studio with seven new messages. Each message leads to a new discovery about her mom's true identity. Along the way Luna meets some...more

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About Stewart Lewis

STEWART LEWIS is the author of the novels Rockstarlet and Relative Stranger. He is a singer-songwriter and radio journalist who lives in New York City and western Massachusetts.

More about Stewart Lewis...

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Quotes from You Have Seven Messages

“Losing someone is like when the sun comes through a window, moving across the room with each hour, until night falls and all you can do is try to remember the soothing shapes it made.” — 15 people liked it

“My mother told me that truth is like my skin, a beautiful, protective covering, and the things that people say or do can be easily changed or discarded. She told me truth comes from the heart.” — 7 people liked it

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