Last night I finished reading The Extraordinary Secrets of April, May & June, by Robin Benway. It's a story of three sisters forced/learning to cope with their parents' divorce, a new school & the magical powers that are suddenly thrust upon them. The oldest and responsible" sister, April, gains the ability to see the future, "middle-child-syndromed" and angsty May inherits invisibility, and lighthearted, future-socialite June, becomes a mind reader.
April, being the "sensible one," practically begs her sisters to use their powers for good things and not evil. But June can't resist the easily manipulation of the thoughts of her peers, and complicates things by reading the minds of the kids at school, in order to dress, say and act in the ways that will increase her popularity. She hangs with the more reckless students and starts ditching, which already concerns over-serious April , but worries her beyond control after she has a brief vision that gets her to convince May to spy on June at her first "real, life-changing high school party." As if their lives hadn't changed enough.

Extraordinary Secrets... was good, I liked it. It was fairly short in length, so it was a simple read. It was interesting to read because it is told in 3 different POV's, so you get a different emotion, perspective & response to each scene of the book. Sometimes, it was hard to remember whose perspective I was reading, but it was always easy to figure out because the story itself is easy to follow. I liked that I always felt like I knew what was going to happen next but as it unfolded, there was always some slight difference between my prediction & what actually happened. It was a "light" book, compared to what I've been reading lately (darker books like The Hunger Games, Fallen & Torment, The Mortal Instruments series, etc.). It's a great book to pass around to friends and maybe even share with teenage cousins, sisters & the like. The one thing I can say I wasn't a fan of was the swearing. There wasn't a ton, but man was it really unnecessary in some parts. The f-bomb does get dropped once or twice towards the end, but the overall story is good, so I think the swearing can easily be overlooked.

My favorite thing about this book is how the sisters learn that when things are hard and even more complicated, you've really gotta stick by the people that love you, the people that are a PART of you. I think that their learning comes full circle in the book and I love that the loose ends get wrapped up. Benway does a great job of moving the story along, your not waiting to get to the "good part," you become genuinely concerned about what's going to happen in the girls lives. Kudos to Robin Benway!

Even though I really liked it, it was something that I could have easily borrowed from the library or a friend and never concerned about having in my collection. I don't have the feeling that I want to reread it either, which is a big deal. If I want to read a book again, I have to add it to my personal library. I don't have that with this book, even though it was a cute story and I liked it.