Review: The Ruby Notebook by Laura Resau

  The Ruby Notebook by Laura Resau

Sixteen-year-old Zeeta and her flighty English-teaching mom, Layla, have traveled the world together, settling in a different country every year, making a whole new set of friends and adopting new customs. This year, they’ve chosen to live in Aix-en-Provence, France, an enchanting city full of fountains, creamy yellow light, and a fascinating group of scarlet-clad street performers.
Zeeta soon begins to receive mysterious notes and gifts from someone she calls her fantôme, or ghost, admirer. But she is expecting her boyfriend, Wendell—the love of her life, as her friends call him—to arrive in Aix for a summer program very soon. Zeeta brushes off her curiosity about her fantôme, and her simmering attraction to one of the street performers, Jean-Claude, until Wendell arrives and she begins to fear that her feelings for him have truly changed. Perhaps—like Layla—she’s simply not made for long-term romance.
As Zeeta tries to draw away from Wendell, however, circumstances seem to force them together. Zeeta’s friendship with a local antiques dealer and his reclusive artist friend leads to a dangerous adventure. When Zeeta and Wendell join forces to find a secret underground spring whose water is rumored to bring immortality, they are forced to reconsider their own desires, and their beliefs about true love. Yet as soon as Zeeta decides that her mind has cleared, she’s confronted with the biggest shock of her life: the incredible true identity of her fantôme.
Vibrant, warmhearted, and evocative, The Ruby Notebook is a remarkable novel about learning to accept love in all of its wondrous and imperfect forms.

Picture and link from The Book Depository and teaser from Goodreads
Published Sept 14 2010


**Review: 4/5**


*My review*


        The Ruby Notebook is a quick and light read. It has many themes- true love, fantome- secret admirer, and family.
       The characters are easy to like and I got engrossed in their story. We watch as the main character Z discovers her path to new love, finding friends and routine in a new country. She makes friends with some elderly folks and help them to realize that they are both quietly in love with the other.
        She journeys to find the father that she never knew, and goes on a quest to help the couple find the sacred waters- the fountain of youth.
       The plot is well paced, and the themes of the story are sufficiently explored. The ending gives good conclusion, but leaves a lot for the reader to think about and make their own endings.
       This is a little different from what I usually read, but I still liked it.


If you are interested, this is listed for trade on my page. 


I would love to hear what you think about this book and/or my review.