Your teen is aching for a good mystery, but she has already read all of your old Nancy Drew books.
Then Kimberly Reid’s “Sweet 16 to Life,” which follows 16-year-old amateur detective Chanti Evans — a modern-day Nancy Drew — might be right up her alley.
Chanti didn’t looked for crimes to solve, they found her. Case in point, the night her friend MJ’s house caught fire. Thankfully, nobody was home and the blaze was easily extinguished, but Chanti was suspicious: MJ was more worried about the contents of the basement than the rest of the house. Add in the creepy hoodie-wearing dude who stood smiling as he watched the house burn, and something wasn’t right.
Neither was the fact that MJ seemed to be awfully close to Hoodie Dude. She said it was nothing, that she was just creeping on her boyfriend, but Chanti thought it was more than that. And if there was trouble, it could jeopardize MJ’s parole.
But watching her friend’s back wasn’t the only drama in Chanti’s life. It seemed, for instance, that her ex-boyfriend Marcus was always nearby, and he was too tempting. Plus, there was the stress of keeping her mother’s job under wraps. It wouldn’t do for everybody to know that Lana was an undercover cop.
Reid’s main character, Chanti, is like Nancy Drew in the ’hood: same savvy sleuthing, but with the bite of modern realism and a good amount of humor. There’s keen danger depicted here, but no profanity. Teen gumshoes will find a fun, not-so-easily-solved, mystery without the hard-core violence. That makes this a perfect whodunit for readers ages 12 to 17.
This book is part of a series, so you’ll probably be happier if you get up-to-speed by grabbing one of the earlier installments first. Once you do, then “Sweet 16 to Life” is a great book to have your nose in.
“Sweet 16 to Life” by Kimberly Reid [256 pages, 2013, $9.95].
Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was 3 years old, and she never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill with two dogs and 12,000 books.
