Lily Speaks! (Young Women of Faith: Lily Series, Book 10)

Rating:
Summary: Another Hard-Hitting read for preteens
Review: "Lily Speaks" is the tenth book in the Lily series. When Ms. Reinhold nominates Lily and her friend Suzy for the County speech contest, an all out war escalates in the Girlz Only Club. Suddenly, the club is split. Lily is once again sure that she will be victorious in the contest. But her parents end up teaching her about a servant's attitude and Lily learns about competition, friendship, and finding God in everything she does.
I highly recommend this book to the audience it was aimed for. Mrs. Rue has done an excellent job with Lily and her world. I find that Lily's experiences are realistic. Even at the age of 19, I can still learn from the adventures of 12-year-old Lily myself. Bravo to you, Nancy, Lily is a real winner! She is better than many other Christian series characters out there, and her books--both the fiction and non-fiction ones are fast-paced products desgined to help Christians and non-Christians alike.

Rating:
Summary: Another Hard-Hitting read for preteens
Review: "Lily Speaks" is the tenth book in the Lily series. When Ms. Reinhold nominates Lily and her friend Suzy for the County speech contest, an all out war escalates in the Girlz Only Club. Suddenly, the club is split. Lily is once again sure that she will be victorious in the contest. But her parents end up teaching her about a servant's attitude and Lily learns about competition, friendship, and finding God in everything she does.
I highly recommend this book to the audience it was aimed for. Mrs. Rue has done an excellent job with Lily and her world. I find that Lily's experiences are realistic. Even at the age of 19, I can still learn from the adventures of 12-year-old Lily myself. Bravo to you, Nancy, Lily is a real winner! She is better than many other Christian series characters out there, and her books--both the fiction and non-fiction ones are fast-paced products desgined to help Christians and non-Christians alike.

Rating:
Summary: A very pleasant surprise!
Review: I read this book in order to familiarize myself with the author's work before a convention. I had no expectations going into it, but I figured it was your typical teen series, yada yada. Instead I was blown away by how well Rue gets into the head of a teenage girl! The situation is a pretty normal one that any teen could find herself in--she and a friend inadvertently end up in the same competition, and their mutual friends become divided between them. Lily fights between her desire to win for winning's sake and her desire to keep her friendships together. The solution is very believable and the feelings are true. I can't think of higher praise for the story than to say it is accessible to any teen and would speak to the heart of any girl torn between her own success and her friendships.

There's a tightrope to walk with teenage girls, and some stories seem to discourage a young woman's successes if they come at the price of her relationships. Rue does not make this mistake at all. Lily's successes are encouraged by all those around her, but she also learns to put success into perspective, a skill every modern woman needs to have.

The only thing that I found irritating was a character whose name is Zoe but spells it "Zooey." I kept pronouncing it as it was spelled: Zoo-ee. **shudder** But this is a personal quibble and in no way affected the power of the story.

This was quite an enjoyable read. I demolished it in two sittings--and I have three children! :-) I surprised myself by wanting to read the rest of the series. Well done!