Perfect Chemistry Book review

Author-Simone Elkeles

Series-Perfect Chemistry

Genre- Young Adult

Publisher-Walker Books for Young Readers

Publication date- 23 December,2008

Pages-368

Simone Elkeles is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of teen novels.  Her books have won many awards including being YALSA Top Ten Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers, YALSA Popular Paperbacks and Teens Top Ten lists, and added to the Illinois “Read for a Lifetime” Reading List. She also won the coveted RITA award from the Romance Writers of America for one of the books I have read,Perfect Chemistry.

As I said in the first paragraph, Simone Elkeles has a lot of book that are aimed for her teenage audience. For example, Perfect Chemistry, Rules of Attraction, Chain Reaction, Leaving Paradise, Return to Paradise, How to Ruin a Summer Vacation, How to Ruin my Teenage Life, and How to Ruin Your Boyfriend’s Reputation. These books have all won her an award. Most of her books have a recurring theme of interracial interactions and relationships.

In the perfect Chemistry series, it focuses on a particular mexican family living in chicago. Each book focuses on one of the three brothers and their connection to a gang, the latino blood. Each book shows how each brother has to deal with the consequences of their brother’s mistakes while also having to deal with problems of their own. The book I read was the first book in the series Perfect Chemistry.

This book is about a school named Fairfield High where the north and south sides of Chicago really don’t mix in the school’s environment. Each side keeps to themselves and never wants to make the cross to the other side. The main characters of the story Brittany Ellis, a white uptown teenager, and Alejandro "Alex" Fuentes, a lower class Mexican teenager,must overcome Brittany's troubled home life and Alex's gang ties to have a their own happily ever after. Brittany Ellis is known throughout school as a perfect teenage girl who has worked to keep up appearances of her picture perfect image and Alex Fuentes's Spanish heritage and how his gang ties throughout the book cause his family chaos.

Each chapter of the book alternates from Brittany to Alex. Most times the chapters starts off by a reaction to what the last character said, then for the rest of the chapter, it focuses on the one character’s life.