Spain or Shine - Michelle Jellen
S.A.S.S. Series (Students Across the Seven Seas)
214 pages

Elena is a shy, reserved girl who would rather be behind the camera than in front of it. But when she gets the chance to fly overseas and study play production for a semester, she decides to come out of her shell. When she first arrives, she is confused, and hates the thought of speaking Spanish to others, in fear of saying the wrong thing. But after she befriends a surfer-dude Alex, and flirty-but-true Jenna, she sees that she can be anybody she wants to be, and that there's no reason to be shy. She quickly excells in her classes, especially play production, and meets a cute Spaniard named Miguel who keeps her slightly confused the whole time she's in San Sebastian.

But the real reason for her success is in meeting her Great-Aunt Elena, who teaches her the value of her friendships, and to seize every opportunity that comes her way. It is this relative who helps Elena with a great achievement that occurs near the end of the book, althought i won't ruin the surprise!!!

The S.A.S.S. series is great because it teaches you a bit about the country where the student is studying (the series includes books about England, Spain, Germany, Italy, and France) and even helps you learn a bit about the languages. This particular book was fairly interesting, but another book in the series, The Sound of Munich (Germany), which i posted about on the Teen Summer Reading Blog, had more substance. They are cute reads, which i think are marketed more towards girls.

Rating: * * *.5/5

- Jenn :-)

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