Description: Cyd Charisse, who readers first came to know and love in "Gingerbread", is back from her trip to New York and is out to win back her true love, Shrimp, with her new and improved outlook on life. She and her mother have a truce, and she's even managed to acquire some female friends, a first for boy-crazy C.C. Cyd Charisse will have to work extra hard this year, what with school, an internship at her father's new restaurant where she's working with her arch-enemy, and dealing with relationships. As C.C. and Shrimp hover near the line between "just friends" and "an item", she'll have to work out what she really wants out of their relationship. And when her brother Danny invites her out for a week in NYC, she may discover that her path lies away from Shrimp. In the end, C.C. will have to make some tough decisions about her future.
Review: Fans of "Gingerbread" will love this sequel, which retains all the spunk and in-your-face reality of the first book. However, I would not recommend this book to anyone who hasn't read "Gingerbread", because it would be difficult for new readers to catch on to the plot, and some things (Sugar Pie and Fernando, for instance) would just be confusing. However, Rachel Cohn does wonderful things with characterization, and I loved meeting the new characters that were introduced in "Shrimp". I also love how this book deals with things like sex, sexuality, and drugs. In almost every teen book that has these elements, they are a Big Thing that the main character has to Deal With, but this novel handles them as just another part of being a teenager, which they are. C.C. encounters all of these issues, and while they aren't dismissed as insignificant, they are handled without all the dramatics that other books give them. Overall, I feel the same way after reading "Shrimp" as I did after reading "Gingerbread": glad I read the book because of the character development, but left wishing there was a little bit of something more.