Title: Lexie
Author: Audrey Couloumbis
Illustrator: Julia Denos
Release Date: May 24, 2011 (hardcover)
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pages: 208
Source: Copy received from publisher

Overall: 3 Stars

Summary:

Ten-year-old Lexie used to love going to the shore. For as long as she can remember, she's spent every summer there with her parents, eating hamburgers, swimming in the ocean, and combing the beach for treasure. This summer is going to be different though. Lexie's Mom and Daddy are divorced, and for the first time Mom won't be there. To make matters worse, Daddy has a surprise—his new girlfriend, Vicky, and her two sons are coming to stay with them for a week! Now Lexie has to share her house with perky Vicky, Vicky's moody teenage son Ben, and messy three-year-old Harris. The little beach house just doesn't seem big enough for so many people. Is there still room for Lexie?

In a voice that's sharp, funny, and sincere, Newbery Honor-winning author Audrey Couloumbis tells the story of a girl discovering that if you pay attention, sometimes you can find treasure in the most unlikely places.  

My Thoughts:
I don't usually read too many middle grade novels anymore, but when I found myself with a copy of Lexie in my hands, I jumped on the chance to read a story about a young girl who's summer plans with her father lead to unexpected surprises.

Lexie was a great, young protagonist who immediately grew on me right away. Her parents have recently divorced and it's her first summer vacation away from her mother at her father's beach house. She's an avid reader (yay!), so she's already planned her summer books to bring along and hopes to have some fun combing the beach with her Dad. And when you learn that she's not going to get some alone time after all, and that her Dad has decided to invite his girlfriend and her own two children along without saying a word to her... your heart does a little flip and plummet like Lexie's.

You can quickly understand her point of view and why she's less than thrilled to be sharing her Dad with people that are practically strangers to her. Her hurt feelings and her Dad's clueless behaviour to the situation will have your heart reaching out to her. And perhaps because she's only ten, she does lack the bitterness that might have been expected from a character in a YA novel and is willing to at least make the best of the situation. This is a week for Lexie where she'll find more hidden treasures than the ones simply found on a beach... just maybe, she'll come to form new friendships and learn that family can be found in different forms.  

It was a quick read for me but I enjoyed reading every single page of this story nonetheless! It's a cute, summer novel that I think younger readers will find most delightful but there's also some important messages you can take away after reading the novel as well!

Thanks so much to Random House Canada for sending me this copy!