On My Bookshelf : Tess, Terrorists, and the Tiaria by Terry Baldwin

Tess, Terrorists and The Tiara by Terry Baldwin

Source: Publisher

Format: ARC

Pagecount: 120

Publication Date: March 24, 2012

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary: Tess has never been able to compete with her “perfect” older sister, but now she must—if she wants to inherit her grandmother’s priceless tiara. The two girls have been invited to their grandparent’s lake house for the summer to help take care of Grandma who’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The sister who earns the most “helpful points” wins the former beauty queen’s crown.
It’s not easy for Tess, who seems to always get things wrong despite best intentions. But when a secretive family of Muslims moves in nearby and Grandma disappears, Tess learns a lesson about prejudice, fear, and the real value of doing good—a lesson that may be worth even more than the tiara.

My Review: This book deserves 5 stars, except for one little part that realllllyyyy got on my nerves. My brother is autistic, heck, I’m autistic, and in the book, a character is autistic, and everytime the main character tells someone this, their first question:

“They’re artistic?”

I mean, I know some people don’t know about autism. But goddarn, five people have NEVER heard of autism? I find that hard to believe.

That’s my only complaint with this book, the rest of the book is great, a nice, short little read that has a pretty good plot line, and I love the main character, because too many MC’s in YA lit are perfect, lovely people with absolutely no real flaws(skinny, graceful, beautiful, flawless) but Tess is clumsy, gets stuff wrong, and some stuff she does is cringe worthy.

Overall, a great read!