Plot:
Senior Year.
Middle of nowhere.
What’s the new girl to do?
For Piper Marks, the answer is simple. She’s determined to have her photography rock the cover of National Geographic someday, and moving to Clarkton, Iowa for her last year of high school is not going to stop her. Even if her usual subjects have changed from bright lights and skyscrapers to fields, cows…and more fields.
But when photographer at the local paper quits in a huff, she steps into his spot. Her new job keeps Piper busy capturing tackles, and zooming in on first downs and end zone dances, not to mention putting her directly in the path of varsity football star Les Williams IV. Her new friends warn her off, but she can’t resist the pull she feels toward this mysterious country boy. But this small town is keeping a secret, and it’s one that could destroy any chance they have to be together.
It’s up to Piper to decide what to do with the distorted truth. Can she risk exposing her heart? It might be worth it, ’cause Les is about to change her world from black and white to fully saturated color.
Review:
For me, Pixelated is one of those books that just caught my attention from the beginning and kept me all the way until the end, to the point where I stayed up until 2 a.m. to finish it. And yes, while I found a lot of the story to be predictable, I still wanted to keep reading on to see if I was right, which doesn’t always happen in those situations.
The main character, Piper, is less than pleased when she has to relocate from St. Louis, MO to a small town in Iowa for her senior year of high school, leaving everything she loves behind. Not too long after moving to Iowa, Piper blows a tire on her way home, about halfway down the barren 10 mile stretch of road between her home and the main part of town.
Miraculously enough, someone comes along and is able to help Piper change her tire, and as luck would have it, her savior, Les, is incredibly handsome. Piper immediately falls for this guy, who she later learns has a girlfriend—sort of. The only problem is, no one really knows the truth, so everyone starts to label Piper as a home-wrecker and a slut.
One thing that I particularly loved about the book was the amount of detail that was given to the things that Piper enjoys as hobbies. For example, Piper loves photography, so whenever it is brought up that Piper is taking photos, the descriptions that are given are very similar to the actual thoughts that might be running through a photographer’s mind while they are working. Another example would be that Piper knows absolutely nothing about football when the book begins, but is required to learn about it by her mother for work, so after Piper has had some assistance (from Les!) with learning about football, her descriptions of the game become more vivid and actually use football terminology to describe plays.
The ending of the book was definitely a little bit of a surprise to me, but I won’t spoil it. At first things seemed to be pointing to one conclusion, but then everything was shaken up and I didn’t know what to expect anymore, which I really enjoyed. I give Pixelated 4/5 stars.
Pixelated goes on sale June 30. You can click the image above to order it.