S.A.S.S. 10 & 11

I got the urge to finally finish the S.A.S.S. series!

I left off with book #10, which is about a skier in Finland. I got a few chapters in and was so bored, I didn't finish it...for several months.

Seriously, my review for book #9 was in April.

This one was just plain disappointing. The main character isn't that interesting. She's from a family of competitive skiers and suffers from the need to not be compared to them all the time. When she struggles with her jumps in Finland, she gets help from a guy and that blossoms into romance, but is then complicated by the bitchy daughter of her host family.

This is another of those books that pretty much focuses on one thing, the skiing, and forgets the most important things to S.A.S.S.: the scholarship and the culture.

The daughter's actions also go mostly unresolved. She was a bitch because she wanted to get her family's attention, but this isn't dealt with at all. She makes things right with the main character, but nothing happens with her family.

There's also a dull side plot with the main's friend liking a male friend and that just wasn't handled well either.

Definitely one of the worst of the series.

Thankfully, it's followed by one of the best of the series.

Delk is a Tennessee society girl off to Ireland to escape her father and his child bride pregnant new wife and her "presentation" into Nashville society. Delk's big issue is that her mom died two years ago and she doesn't want to talk about it or how she's still not over it or how her stepmother changing everything in their house is hurting her.

So she heads to Ireland for a semester to escape.

This one ticks all the right boxes. Delk has family drama and it pervades the book, but it's done well and indicates how she heals and comes to terms with her problems over the course of the semester.

The supporting cast is good: a sporty girl, a sophisticated wannabe model who's obsessed with Paris, a scholarly girl and her wild brothers who have ADHD.

The romance is also good, because they actually delve into it pretty quickly and the pair are quite suited to each other. They're cute.

And we actually get to learn a lot about Ireland, visit several places and watch Delk do hard work for her classes.

The next one heads back to France to check in with Nicole again, then the final regular book is the first one I reviewed about China. The last book in the series is a super special. So only two more reviews to go and this series is done!

S.A.S.S. 7

Sigh. This one's another mixed feelings book. I want to like Nori, the lead character, because she has moments of amusing sass, but she spends almost the entire book trying to be something she's not. She's spent her whole life trying to be what her parents wanted, only to feel abandoned by them both because they're separating. (And not communicating it to her very well.) She's been forced by them to be more American, so she has no connection to her Japanese side, despite her parents being directly from Japan. It's something that's been othered for her. She feels different because of it, instead of being encouraged by her parents to celebrate it, which is something I think she should have addressed with them in the book, but never does.

So she's in for some culture shock when she's off to Japan for study abroad. Then she meets a hot German guy and when he thinks she's one of the school's Japanese students, she lets him, even getting help from one of the actual Japanese students, another attractive boy who she doesn't think actually likes her and sees her more as a rescue project.

There's also a bitchy, boy-crazy, Japanese girl, a blonde roommate that turns out to be a lot more deep than Nori thought, and an amusing redheaded Australian girl that I liked a lot.

The highlight of the book is Nori's stay-with-an-actual-Japanese-family week. She's off to Kyoto to live with her great aunt and uncle for the week, and it's got the best sightseeing scenes and characterization, despite the Mr. Miyagi-esque moments with her great uncle.

She comes back ready to apologize to those that need apologies and come clean with the German guy, who does not take things well, because he's been an asshole all along. I was amused when he won the scholarship prize at the end, only to have it taken away because he plagiarized. Nori's not-so-simple-after-all blonde roommate wins it.

It's a decent book, but I wish there was more to it than another post-divorce angst fest and more boy drama. They could have fleshed out the other parts better. Nori's parents were practically invisible and the friend characters all fell short of ones in previous books.

Next stop: Sweden.