Book Review: "The Code for Love and Heartbreak" by Jillian Cantor

In Jillian Cantor's new YA novel, The Code for Love and Heartbreak, math is one thing. Love is another.

It’s senior year of high school for overachiever Emma Woodhouse. She’s at the top of her class, she’s co-president of the Coding Club, and with her perfect SATs, she hopes to go to Stanford next year.

But while she has the academics down pat, she’s not particularly social. She doesn’t really have many (or any) friends save George, her co-president, and she has no desire to find a boyfriend.

In an effort to win a national coding competition, she comes up with a great idea: an app which will match her fellow students up based on mutual interests, using an algorithm. George and some other club members think she’s lost her mind—love isn’t something you can code.

But “The Love Code” seems to be working, and all of her classmates are interested in getting matches. What does it mean, though, when the matches don’t work?

The more focused on the app and the competition Emma becomes, the more blind she is to what’s going on around her. Why are people breaking up if the algorithm predicts matches? And how can an algorithm consider the intangible qualities that make people fall in love?

This was a cute and enjoyable retelling of Jane Austen’s Emma. (It’s been a while since I read that one, so while I know the names of the characters are the same, I don't remember how much of the plot of this book resembles that one.) Sure, it’s predictable, but that didn’t really matter to me.

I love a good rom-com, even when math is involved!

Book Review: "Screen Queens" by Lori Goldstein

So just to clear up any confusion if you're the type of person who occasionally picks up a book without reading what it's about and simply assumes what it will be about based on the title, Lori Goldstein's new novel, Screen Queens, isn't about a bunch of actresses. (Hangs head sheepishly.)

Lucy Katz, Maddie Li, and Delia Meyer are three of only four young women accepted into ValleyStart, one of the most exclusive high school technology incubator competitions in the country. Only two percent of more than three thousand applicants are accepted, and the winning team is guaranteed a dream internship.

Although they share some kick-ass technical and design skills, Lucy, Delia, and Maddie couldn't be more different. Lucy is the daughter of one of the most famous (and few) female leaders in the technology industry, although she'll be the first to say she's nothing like her mother. She's hoping that she'll be able to ride her team's victory into an acceptance at Stanford, and she'll flirt with whomever she needs to in order to make her dreams happen.

Delia is shy and socially awkward, but she can code like nobody's business. Having grown up in a small Midwestern town, she taught herself to code on an out-of-date computer. She doesn't feel like she belongs among the children of privilege at ValleyStart, but she is determined to succeed, if for no other reason than to take the burden of supporting her off her parents.

Maddie arrives from Boston with a chip on her shoulder. She doesn't care much about winning the competition, or making friends. She is only interested in how her participation in ValleyStart might have an impact on the growth of her graphic design business. She also has to deal with her parents' marriage imploding, and its effect on her and her younger brother.

Screen Queens is a fun, heartfelt book about fighting for what you believe in and learning to stand up for yourself when all of the odds are stacked against you. It's the story of recognizing your strengths and your talents and not letting anyone tell you you're not worthy of success because you're a woman or a minority or because you don't come from a wealthy background. It's also a story about how sometimes you have to fight hard to make the truth known, and you can't be cowed into keeping quiet.

While this book is fairly predictable in terms of plot, I really enjoyed reading it. It has a great message and would be a terrific read for young women or those who could use a bit of a confidence boost. It also was a fascinating (although unsurprising) look at the challenges faced by women in the tech world, and a salute to the early female pioneers in that field.

I read the majority of this book on a plane (I seem to be doing that a lot lately) and thought Goldstein told a fun story. Sometimes when you're totally wrong about a book it still pays off in the end!