Same Girl, Different Story

As I was reading Evermore by Alyson Nöel (incidentally, one of the YALSA Teens’ Top Ten nominations for 2009), I kept stopping and looking at the cover of the book.  There was something about it.  Today, it hit me: the girl on the cover of Evermore is the same as the girl on the cover of North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley.  See here:

Weird, huh?

At any rate, both books are fast reads.  They have a lot in common — themes include learning to accept yourself for who you are, living with your own imperfections, trying to create and maintain (and sometimes repair) relationships.  However, that’s where the similarities end.

Evermore is a fantasy read about a girl who can hear other people’s thoughts after the car wreck that kills her entire family.  When she relocates from Oregon to Laguna Beach, California, to live with her aunt, she has a hard time adjusting.  Not only is she in a new place, but all of a sudden, she has crazy psychic powers that she can’t turn off!  When she meets Damen, a hot transfer student, her mind-reading abilities and all of the psychic “noise” they create around her are stilled.  There’s something about Damen, but she can’t figure out quite what it is…  Evermore is the first book in The Immortals series by Alyson Nöel.  If you’ve finished reading the Twilight books by Stephenie Meyer, and are looking for another fantasy series about beautiful people who can live forever, you will definitely want to check this series out!

In North of Beautiful, Terra Cooper seems to have it all — a great boyfriend, a perfect body and amazing artistic abilities.  She also has a port wine stain that covers half of her face from forehead to chin.  She manages to hide the stain pretty well with makeup, but she still feels somehow defective — probably thanks to a verbally abusive father who criticizes her at every opportunity.  A chance meeting with a family visiting the small resort town where she lives, and a good-looking Goth guy who has a cleft palate scar on his upper lip, leads Terra into uncharted territory.  Jacob and Terra become close during his family’s vacation, and when Terra and her mother accept an invitation to travel with them to China over spring break, it seems her father’s wrath will destroy her friendship and her family forever.  North of Beautiful is a powerful story about friendship, family, and finding strength and beauty within — perfect for fans of Sarah Dessen’s Just Listen and Kelly Bingham’s Shark Girl.