Preble, Joy. Finding Paris. New York: Balzer & Bray, 2015.

Who doesn’t love a good road trip book? I sure do, and this creative take on one surely drew me in - intrigued and entertained. Leo Hollings and her sister Paris are as close as two sisters can possibly be, that is, right up until Paris disappears. Paris leaves Leo a series of cryptic notes that send her all over Las Vegas and beyond. She is helped along by Max, a boy with kind eyes and a love for physics with whom she has previously only shared a piece of pie. The two embark on a kind of crazy journey that becomes accelerated when Leo realizes that Paris has the entirety of her life savings, money that she has been saving for years, the money that is her ticket out of her crazy house and into an education and a future. Both Max and Leo are hiding secrets, and as the intensity of the journey increases, and their feelings grow, these secrets are revealed bit by bit. I tried to guess a little of what was going on, but Preble kept her fair share of surprises until the end. I surely appreciate that.

I will enjoy selling this book to my students in the fall. I am thinking the title has echoes of John Green’s Paper Towns and Adi Alsaid’s Let's Get Lost. Certainly the movie release of Paper Towns will create a renewed interest in the road trip genre. The students will be interested in the mystery of Leo and Paris. They will be drawn to Leo’s ambition and relate to her struggles, with her mom and her stepdad, with her desire to strike out and create a new life for herself. Her voice is realistic and well conceived. Readers will be immediately drawn into her world Certainly, the budding relationship between Leo and Max will engage the romantic hearts. My less romantic readers will appreciate that the romance doesn’t bury the rest of the story. Its development is organic and does not define who Paris is. aa And the love between sisters - a powerful thing - Elsa and Anna style. The ending was perhaps a bit contrived for me, a more cynical adult, but as noted earlier, there are surprise twists and unexpected developments that will delight my readers. I am always happy to talk a strong girl, a smart one with ambition and goals. Two girls here overcome some tough odds and come through it together.