Book #51: By Your Side by Kasie West

Okay, folks. My last Kasie West novel for a while. (Because I've read all of them now, ha!) This book is about Autumn, who accidentally gets locked in the library over a holiday weekend with Dax, the school mystery kid who is known for having gone to juvie for something. They can't get out and end up getting to know each other and, eventually... fall for each other, even after they get out and things somewhat go back to normal.

I liked the premise of the book--I think it goes back to "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler," but the idea of spending the night somewhere different like that sounds so exciting and not that scary (although I'm sure it would actually be scary in real life). I really liked how it was based off the Provo Library (I could tell it was even before I read her acknowledgements at the end) and set in Utah Valley, although there was just no mention of Mormonism. Most of West's books are set in California, since she lives there, so this was a little different. However, this book wasn't as good as P.S. I Like You and the romance seemed a little weird, especially once they escaped the library and Autumn was trying to decide who she liked best, Dax or Jeff (her original love interest). She seemed like she was using Dax shamelessly, and he didn't seem to notice. But this was a cute, really short book.

I love having really easy books like this to balance out the more heavy ones I'm reading too. But I really want to get to a heavy classic I've been meaning to read for ages, and I don't want to be someone who just reads these light YA novels. This is a fun way to offset that.