Sass & Serendipity [Hardcover]

Sass & Serendipity possess a cute and eye-catching cover, but what is inside is where the gold lies. It contains family as well as sister drama, unpredictable romantic subplots, and best of all two realistic main characters you cannot help but adore and root for.

Sass & Serendipity begins the story of two sisters- Daphne and Gabby- who could not be any more different. Gabby has always been the girl most likely to succeed, the girl that makes her decisions with her head not her heart. She does not let love get in the way, because the last time she did it ended horribly. Daphne, on the other hand, remains a romantic to the bone. She believes in true love, and most often than not, she lets herself be caught up in it all, though everything changes when Cole enters the scene. He seems to be the perfect match for her. However, after a surprising development in their home life, the girls and their mother are left homeless. Left to salvage what remains, Daphne and Gabby are left to rely on each, switching everything up once again. They will find love, heartbreak, and will begin to see what it truly means to have and be a sister in this new fantastic addition to contemporary YA.

Daphne and Gabby are my favorite type of characters. Not only because of the way they are flawed and realistic but also in the way they evolve as the novel progress. I especially loved the way in which Sass & Serendipity allows the reader to get a view into each of their heads through switching third person narratives.

My favorite aspect of this novel would have to be the bound between Daphne and Gabby, though. I always love reading stories about sisters, especially ones in which the girls are incredibly different, and this one was no different. At the start of the book, the relationship between Daphne and Gabby is tense and full of hate in some ways, but as the novel progress and the characters evolve, the more the two begin to see eye-to-eye on situations they couldn't have before. Secondly, this novel is one about family as a whole as well. Gabby and Daphne come from a broken family so it was also interesting to see how the girls come to understand why it is the way it is and begin to come to terms with it as well.

I also enjoyed the romantic subplots in this as well. They never went exactly as I thought they would- in a good way of course. I really enjoyed reading about Mule, Gabby's best friend, as well as Prentiss, the boy Gabby loved to hate, because not only where both boys sweet and adorable, but they ended up surprising me in more ways than one.

Ziegler's writing was also fantastic. She seamlessly switched between Gabby and Daphne point of views, and she doled out plenty of sad moments as well as heartwarming and funny ones. She truly wrote a novel that shows sisters at their best, and more importantly a kind of family that is often found in today's world.

Romantic, sweet, and witty, Jennifer Ziegler's Sass & Serendipity is the perfect summer read to say the least. Moreover, I have to say that while this was my first book by Ziegler, it's certainly not going to be my last. I have How to be Popular, her previous YA, in my TBR pile, and I cannot wait to get started on it.

Grade: A+

A modern day retelling of Jane Austen's masterpiece Sense and Sensibility.

Sisters Gabby and Daphne are nothing alike.

Daphne's the younger sister - she's romantic, believes the best in people, social, and out going.

Gabby's the older more responsible sister. She helps run the household, studies constantly to win a scholarship for college, and has one best friend.

They fight all the time as neither sister can put herself in the other's shoes. Each sister wishes her sister would be more like her. When their mother goes out of town for job training, the two sisters must learn to live together to survive their mother's absence. Will they ever be able to see eye to eye???

My Thoughts: I can't stop thinking about this book - and wondering how much I liked it. As a sister, I can see both sister's view perfectly. On one hand, it was hard to connect with the sisters as they were so dramatic with each other - everything was in black or white. On the other hand - the story was compelling and I needed to see it ended. I really liked Mule and Prentiss. I loved how closely it related to Sense and Sensibility.

I received this book to review and had I not been fully expected to review it, I would not have finished it.

Daphne and Gabby are both awful, and I could find no redeeming qualities in either of them. Daphne is very very selfish, thinking only of herself for the entire 384 pages. Gabby is the opposite - extremely bossy and mean. The girls never get along with each other, and hardly get along with anyone else besides Gabby's friend Mule - and I'm not sure why he sticks around to listen to Gabby complain and be mean all the time, honestly.

I have not read Sense and Sensibility, which this book is loosely based on. I did read a short summary of the book so that I could comment on the similarities, but I don't think it was close enough for me to do that. When I read Prom and Prejudice by Elizabeth Eulberg I could draw direct parallels between the stories, but I am not able to do so in this case.

Since I detested both of the characters, I did not care at all what happened to them throughout. They constantly made selfish or mean decisions about everything; the only change in this behavior was literally in the last few pages, which is much too late for me.

I realize that the relationship between the girls and their general attitude could be very realistic, but reading a story about them holds no appeal if the negative qualities never improve. If even one sister had been bearable over the other it may have fared better, but as is both Daphne and Gabby irritated me so much that I could not enjoy myself at all.