Milestones - Samira Armin Hodges

Summary:

One day. Just one day. That's how long it took for fourteen year-old Faye Martin's ordinary life to take a dramatic and completely unexpected turn. First, she gets struck by lightning a strange and awful experience in itself, but then made worse because Benjamin Parker, the object of her obsession, witnessed her near-death experience. Then she comes home to find her parents are forcing her to leave her friends and hometown of Seattle to attend a summer camp, aptly named Camp Milestone. After several failed attempts to change her parents mind Faye finds herself on a plane headed across the country to a camp she has never heard of.

Only, Camp Milestone is no ordinary camp. There are no phones allowed, shabby cabins and only a handful of campers. The only good turn of events is Benji her longtime crush is among the sparsely populated camp. This highlight of her summer is overshadowed by the camps strange and harsh rules given out by the head of the camp Galiana Moore, who seems crazy most of the time, and who unfortunately has taken a liking to Faye. As if things were not bad enough she notices an odd rash that has consumed most of her back from the lighting strike that seems to not only be growing larger but glowing slightly. Before she knows it, Faye finds herself caught in a whirlwind of uncertainty, torture, calamine lotion and romance....All in the name of summer camp. But as the summer unfolds, she realizes there is much more to Camp Milestone than meets the eye. Will she be able to unravel the mystery that surrounds this unusual camp? And more importantly, will she be able to survive the madness long enough to put the pieces together?

Milestones is a delightful story about the true meaning of self-discovery, love and friendship, book one of the Milestones trilogy takes readers into an imaginative and amazing new world which gives a whole new meaning to summer vacation.

Milestones is the debut young adult novel for Samira Armin Hodges a fresh and exciting new voice in the literary world.

Review:

Characters

If there was one flaw with this book, it was a few of the characters. While Faye is at camp, some of the students there can get mixed with each other until you really get to know them. When I was reading the part after Faye first got to camp, I was like, "Niki? Hazel? What's the difference between them?" So, in that first part after Faye gets to camp, it's hard to distinguish between the camp members, but after you read more about them, and get further along in the book, it becomes easier to distinguish between the characters.

Plot

I LOVED THE PLOT! It's very original, and though it doesn't seem like it at first, it really is. There's this one major turn that I DID NOT see coming that makes this book really good.

Wow Factor

Honestly, I was very wowed. I didn't really know what to expect from this book, it's not too well publicized, it's a new author who's going through a not too well known publishing company, but it turned out to be amazing. Samira Armin Hodges did a wonderful job, and I can't wait for the second book in the series.

hope.