All About Us Series Books 1&2 by Shelley Adina

I recently finished the All About Us series by Shelley Adina and decided to review them on here! But since there are six books I'm going to do three posts each with short reviews of two of the books. It'll pretty much just be a what I liked, what I didn't like kinda thing!

About the Series
Spencer Academy is a fancy boarding school in San Francisco who's attendees are almost all relations of famous and rich people. This series is about the lives of 5 female students during their junior and senior years at Spencer Academy. They share triumphs and failures, sorrows and joys, while learning more about God,  friendship, romance, family, and themselves.

Book 1: It's All About Us
About the Book
Lissa Mansfield is used to being popular but as she arrives at Spencer, it seems it's going to be harder to get in with the "in" crowd than she thought. If she can just get the most popular guy in school, Callum McCloud, to like her than she'll be set. But when Callum starts pushing for more, Lissa has to decided how far is too far.

What I Liked
The writing was great and I loved the characters. I also absolutely loved all of the Firefly references, that was epic!

What I Didn't Like
All of the sex talk. There was nothing that was inappropriate it was just talked about too much for my liking. I do however see the purpose of it since that is something a lot of girls wonder about-how far IS too far? So I saw the need but didn't personally like reading about it. I actually almost stopped reading the series but I liked the characters and writing enough to go on (and it got better!).

Book 2: The Fruit of My Lipstick
About the Book
Gillian Chang is practically a genius when it comes to music and science but love is one thing she's unfamiliar with. She is falling for Lucas Hayes who is even smarter than her, but she can never seem to measure up to his standards. And on top of that stress, someone has been selling exam answers and the smartest kids in school are under suspicion-including Gillian.

What I Liked
I really liked watching the relationship between the girls grow and reading their interactions. I also found the message of the book-don't change yourself to please a guy-to be extremely relevant for girls today. I think Shelley Adina did a great job of portraying that.

What I Didn't Like
Lucas Hayes. That guy was the worst kind of jerk, the sneaky subtle type, but I wasn't supposed to like him anyway! I also didn't like how Gillian went from being so sensible in book one to being taken in so easily, but it does happen and is something to watch out for!

About the Author
Award-winning author Shelley Adina wrote her first teen novel when she was 13. It was rejected by the literary publisher to whom she sent it, but he did say she knew how to tell a story. That was enough to keep her going through the rest of her adolescence, a career, a move to another country, a B.A. in Literature, an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and countless manuscript pages. Between books, Shelley loves traveling, playing the piano and Celtic harp, watching movies, and making period costumes.