Dear Cassie

      Dear Cassie by lisa Burnstein

Book Synopsis

What if the last place you should fall in love is the first place that you do?

You’d think getting sent to Turning Pines Wilderness Camp for a month-long rehabilitation “retreat” and being forced to re-live it in this journal would be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me.

You’d be wrong.

There’s the reason I was sent to Turning Pines in the first place: I got arrested. On prom night. With my two best friends, who I haven’t talked to since and probably never will again. And then there’s the real reason I was sent here. The thing I can’t talk about with the guy I can’t even think about.

What if the moment you’ve closed yourself off is the moment you start to break open?

But there’s this guy here. Ben. And the more I swear he won’t—he can’t—the deeper under my skin he’s getting. After the thing that happened, I promised I’d never fall for another boy’s lies.

And yet I can’t help but wonder…what if?

My Review - 4 out 5 stars

One of the reasons I wanted to read this book was because the synopsis alone drew me in. It sounded like a book that was real, and it was. Real, and gritty. Cassie is sent to a rehabilitation retreat, which unlike the clean, spa type image we are usually given off a rehab centre, Turning Pines is the total opposite. Based in the middle of nowhere, and stripped of the smallest of luxuries, Cassie has nothing but her Assessment Diary and some other teens with issues to get her through.

Throughout the first half of the book, we get hints that there is more to Cassie's reason to being in Turning Pines, and even when we find out what her secret is, we are then left wanting to find out of Cassie will finally share that secret with anybody else.

When I was about halfway through Dear Cassie, I found out that it is actually a follow on book to Pretty Amy. Not once did I feel like I was missing a part of the story, Lisa Burstein has managed to write this book as good as if it were a standalone book, which can be read without needing to read Pretty Amy (although now, I want to read that, too!)

I really enjoyed the gritty story of Cassie's, I liked that it was real and not 'fluffy', giving the story an edge. As well as Cassie, we are introduced to a whole group of teens with their own problems, and we see that being a teen is not always a bed of roses and there is a darker side to real life. After finishing Dear Cassie, I will be on the lookout for more books by Lisa Burstein.