Book Review - Pack Your Bags, Maggie Diaz by Nina Moreno

 

Pack Your Bags, Maggie Diaz by Nina Moreno is about a young girl who is excited to spend Spring Break with her two best friends. Maggie has been working hard in school and loves running as an extracurricular activity. As a seventh grader, Maggie is able to take her first overnight trip with her school friends, Julian and Zoey. She is looking forward to their first trip together to St. Augustine.  Maggie wants to spend time with her friends because she also needs a break from her family. Her parents are overprotective, her sister is lovesick and excited about prom, and her abuela is overly involved in her life. Maggie feels that she has everything worked out and nothing will be able to stop her plans from happening.

Even though Maggie has it all planned out, things start to fall apart. Maggie’s friends are excited about prom and who they are going to take, instead of focusing on the group trip. Julian has a crush on the new girl at school and starts inviting her to hang out with the group. Maggie is thrown by the new addition and feels that the dynamic is thrown off and she might lose her friends to the new girl. Her other friend, Zoey, is stressed about maintaining her straight A streak. She is so stressed that she can’t focus on anything else.  Maggie also thinks that Zoey is interested in Julian, as she sees jealousy peeking through from Zoey with the attention Julian shows his new friend.

When Maggie feels like everyone is ensnared by the love bug, she can’t stop thinking about Eerie Eddie, who is a classmate of Maggie’s. She isn’t sure about how she feels about him or why she can’t stop thinking about him. She feels that she, Julian, and Zoey have been three best friends for years and now everything is changing. Will Maggie be able to keep her friends when everyone is interested in being romantically paired off with someone else?

The book was a fun and quick read. Readers are taken on a journey as Maggie tries to navigate her new friendship dynamics and her own growing feelings for a classmate. I enjoyed reading how she tries to understand and process her feelings. Maggie is fond of creating plans and following them. When things do not go exactly to plan, it was exciting seeing her work through different situations.

I like that they included tidbits from their trips and modern cultural references. I didn’t like that the book had a few Spanish phrases that weren’t translated. I felt like it took away from my enjoyment of the story as I would need to stop reading to look up what was said. The book was filled with black and white illustrations that were funny. I think the novel would be perfect for young readers who are trying to navigate friendships and their budding romantic feelings for other people as they come of age.

Book Review - A Name Unknown (Shadows Over England #1) by Roseanna M. White

Photo Credit - Amazon

Rosemary Gresham was an orphaned at a young age when her family became sick. She was taken in by a bar owner along with a band of other orphans. Together, they rob from wealthy to survive in the streets. However, a wealthy gentleman approaches Rosemary to spy on a British citizen to determine if his loyalties lie with Britain or Germany. The mysterious gentleman knows more about Rosemary and is offering her a great deal of money that her family desperately needs.  

Peter Holstein has dual citizenship with Germany and Britain which causes people to mistrust him. His neighbors think he sympathizes with Germany and terrorize him whenever he goes. Peter is quite elegantly with the written word and is an established writer but writes under a pen name because of his German name.  When Rosemary arrives at his door and willing to help him look through his files to prove his loyalty to England; Peter believes his prayers has been answered. Will Rosemary be able to prove where Peter's true loyalty lie? Will Peter be able to fight for his happiness?

The novel had an interesting premise but I felt the book was about 100 pages to long. I felt that it dragged on and it had a lot of unnecessary fluff pieces. The ending had a bit of a twist but it wasn't enough to warrant me to ever want to read this book again. I wasn't very fond of Rosemary either, that she thinks that because the wealthy has so much that she is entitled to steal from them. They wanted the wealthy to treat them with respect and they found several people from the gentle class who treated her with respect but yet they continue to act that everyone who is wealthy deserves to be stolen from. If they don't want to be disrespected they shouldn't treat other people that way.

**Disclosure - I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest opinion**