Golden

Author:  Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Series: Golden, Book 1

Year: 2006

Publisher:  Brilliance Audio

Narrator: Jenna Lamia

Goodreads Synopsis:

When Lissy James moves from California to Oklahoma, she finds herself in the middle of a teenage nightmare: a social scene to rival a Hollywood movie. And if understanding the hierarchy of the Goldens vs. the Nons isn’t hard enough, Lissy’s ever growing Aura Vision is getting harder and harder to hide, and if she’s not careful, she’s going to become a Non faster than you can say “freak.”

But it’s becoming clear that Emory High has a few secrets of its own. Around the halls, the term “special powers” goes way beyond one’s ability to attract the opposite sex, and there may be something more evil than the A-crowd lurking in the classrooms. Lissy can see a lot more than the average girl, but she’s about to learn the hard way that things aren’t always as they appear and you can’t always judge a girl by her lip gloss.

This book started off slow and a bit juvenile but as it went on, I found that I was starting to like Lissy and really liked all her snarkiness. I thought she was hilarious. Then about halfway there was suddenly a story and a mystery to solve and I was really enjoying it. I read that Jennifer Lynn Barnes wrote this book when she was 19 and, if that's the case, that would definitely explain some of the juvenile-ishness (like my word there) of the book. One of the best parts of the story was that, although there was a romance, there wasn't really. It was more the promise of a romance to come and I like that. I wanted more from the characters and I'm a little sad to see that the second book switches over to Lilah's point of view. Maybe there'll be more about Lissy and Dylan in it  ;)

About the audiobook: The narrator, Jenna Lamia is wonderful. I've listened to her in other audiobooks and she does a terrific job. One thing that threw me off was this story had a lot of music thrown into the production and every time I thought it was my cell phone going off and started looking for my phone before I realized it was the audiobook. 

Overall, this is a fun, light listen.