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As a devoted, lifelong fan of musical theater, I was pretty sure I was going to enjoy this book. But one need not be a Broadway fan to get caught up in Spalding's debut novel. Narrator Devan's voice is engaging and funny right from the start; she's the type of YA heroine I like best. Someone with opinions and passions, but also someone who knows she doesn't know everything, and knows she's going to make mistakes and bad choices. There was never a moment that I wasn't rooting for her. I loved the dynamic between Devan and Reece, and especially between Devan and Reece's boyfriend Brad.

(By the way, can I say how hard it is to write a protagonist who's really really GOOD at something? Sometimes the result of a character like that is a hearty eye roll from the reader. But Devan totally owns her acting and singing talents, and I appreciated how well Spalding depicted Devan's complicated confidence.)

There were a few moments where the book felt long, particularly in some of the friendship and relationship complications within Devan's group of friends at her new school. Same with the descriptions of the run-up to the musical. But these didn't bother me too much, as I was fully invested in Devan's character. I thought the ending of the book was wonderful and well-earned. I'll definitely be reading more of Amy Spalding's novels.

Normally, I don't read multiple books by the same author back-to-back unless they're in a series, and even then, I don't do it often, mostly because so many of the series I'm reading are still in-progress. That said, earlier this month I spent just ten days reading all three of Amy Spalding's books back to back to back, and IT WAS THE BEST DECISION EVER. Here's why:

1. Each of Amy Spalding's heroines are so unique in personality that I never felt like they were blending together or making each other predictable. From Devan in THE REECE MALCOLM LIST to Kellie in INK IS THICKER THAN WATER to Riley in KISSING TED CALLAHAN (AND OTHER GUYS), they're all wonderfully distinct. Of course I have a favorite (looking at you, Kellie Brooks), but each of Spalding's girls are funny and smart and interesting and insecure in their own ways and worth reading about on their own terms, and that, more than anything, is why I was able to enjoy reading these books one after another.

2. I already mentioned that Spalding writes funny girl characters but y'all, they're really, really funny. They're self-deprecating and sarcastic and witty, and they make smart jokes and dumb jokes (though truly, if a joke is actually funny, can we really say that it's dumb?), they joke about life and themselves and sex and their family and school. Sometimes they joke because it's that or cry. A lot of the time they joke because they're funny and they know it. So great.

3. There are boys in these books, but while they're certainly well-developed characters, they're also there to showcase how empowering it is for a high school girl to decide what to do with a boy and when. There's kissing and undressing, and sometimes there's almost having sex, and sometimes there's having sex after really thinking about how this is what you want to do, and sometimes there's having sex because you realize right in the moment that yeah, this is what you want to do, and sometimes there's not having sex because nope, you're just not into this guy after all. And it's all good and confusing and revelatory and normal at the same time.

4. In each book, these girls have specific THINGS that they do outside of school — musical theatre, writing, working for the family business, playing in a band — and a lot of their stories revolve around how no matter what other drama is playing out, these are smart, passionate teenage girls who take pleasure in doing things, and doing them well. I especially loved how unapologetic Devan and Riley are about how seriously they take musical theatre and playing in a band, respectively. And, going back to point number one and how each of these girls is unique, I also loved that so much of Kellie's development was focused on the dawning realization that yeah, it's actually fun to do things and be passionate and involved and smart.

5. You should read these books because more than most contemporary YA authors I've read, Amy Spalding lets adults be present and realistic and meaningful in their children's lives. In THE REECE MALCOLM LIST, Devan's mother is a character right from the start — her name is right there in the title! And one of my absolute favorite aspects of INK IS THICKER THAN WATER is how complicated Kellie's family structure is — divorce, remarriage, adoption — while being written in such a way that readers will have empathy for all parties involved. If anything, the fact that Riley's family plays such a small role in KISSING TED CALLAHAN is probably one of the reasons I liked it just a little bit less, because by that point I had fallen head over heels for Spalding's families. However, at the same time, Riley's true to who her family is, and I totally laughed every time she referred to her parents as "the United Front."

And finally, you should drop everything to binge read everything Amy Spalding has ever written because she's a wonderful, lovely person (who I know only via the Internet because I couldn't get my act together to meet her for a drink the last time I was in LA, something I've regretted ever since), and the fact that she's a wonderful, lovely person shows in how she writes about teenagers and girls and families and life. These are good books that will make you feel good.

This was an excellent, page-turning YA novel, the kind where I almost didn't want it to end because I wanted to see what would happen next. As someone who's a little sick of reading about death in YA, I liked that even though Devan's dad has died recently at the start of the book, that's a plot point to propel the action, not something that leaves Devan devastated. Instead, it's about her new life, post-St. Louis, in Los Angeles, trying to fit in at school, make friends, something pretty new to her, and get to know her prickly mother, the writer Reece Malcolm. Their relationship is one of the most interesting mother/daughter dynamics I've seen, with Devan often coming off as more mature than her 32-year-old mother. Devan is wide-eyed and somewhat innocent, but a good observer of other people, even if she can't always figure them out. While there were two events surrounding her discovering some key facts about her mom that seemed outlandish and unlikely to me, that didn't stop me from being utterly charmed by Devan, her devotion to musical theater nerddom, and her navigating her love life and all the newness around her. An excellent debut novel; I'm already looking forward to Spalding's next book.

I really enjoyed this story. I loved the list, it was such a good way to describe Dev's feelings towards her mother, and a way to get to know bot Dev and Reece better. It was also interesting how this really WAS the important relationship and how Dev handled her crushes and other relations really was a reflection on her relation eith her mother and father. Again a story that could've been very predictable ( and in a way was just that) but the way it was written appealed very much to me. 4,5 stars this one!

Amy Spalding nails Devan's voice in this funny and poignant novel and about a smart, witty girl discovering herself and her mother for the first time. I totally related to her love for theater and show tunes. I laughed, I cried, and I wanted more!