Amazing Grace

Amazing Grace I am sitting on the floor of the boiler room at the USTA center. My heart is beating like a humming bird. My head is over heating, my brain is swirling. I feel like I might puke. Do you want to find out what happens next or why she is feeling this way? If yes you will learn about a girl named Grace that is a pro tennis player and a cover girl, decides to quit and moves in with her aunt Ava in Alaska. While she is there she meets mystery boy Teague and his cousin Fisher. This book is 247 pages with short chapters. Amazing Grace is full of humor, romance, and description so good it is like watching a TV. Grace and Teague's feelings for each other are growing stronger by the second. These teens hang out all the time together. Grace could not stop thinking about how Teague scraped his knee against hers. The characters in this book are easy to connect with. Grace is 15 along with Teague. Grace quits her job as a pro tennis player and cover girl, changes the look so no one will recognize her. What will she change her look into? You will have to read to find out. Ava's house is a log cabin in Alaska. Grace's bedroom is the up stairs. Grace has to climb a ladder just to get into her bedroom because there are no stairs. Grace has to cut lumber for the fire place to heat up the house. If you liked all the things I told you about, then I know you will like all the rest of the book, with all the adventures, humor, surprises, and more. I loved it and thought it was a great book. You don't know what you are missing unless you read it.

Grace "Ace" Kincaid is a worldwide tennis sensation-- and a national teen icon. But the pressure gets to be too much for Grace, who decides that she needs to quietly slip out of the limelight. And where better to do that than Medicine Hat, Alaska, population 813 (after she moves in, that is)? With her nose ring and alias "Emily O'Brien," no one in Medicine Hat recognizes her, and Grace is finally allowed to lead the life of a normal teenage girl, despite the fact that she's living with a retired FBI agent instead of her mother. And in spite of the freezing cold showers, cabin, and outhouse, Grace is having more fun than she's ever had. She finally goes to "real" school, has friends who she knows like her for her and not her status, goes to parties, has a crush on a very cute boy, and is even going to see a therapist in town, who is suprisingly helpful. This "make-under" story will, as the dust jacket promises, "grab you from the very first paragraph," and not let go until you've finally read the (very satisfying) end.

Amazing Grace is an absolutely sweet story about a tennis pro who takes a much-needed break from it all. It has so much heart and it made me smile. Readers can't help but root for Grace to find her way. I feel that Amazing Grace is the one of the best attempts at the "de-celebrity" or "makeunder" storyline, something which many teen books have tackled in recent years. Amazing Grace is plausible and realistic without ever relying on modern-day tidbits and namedropping to make it more hip and marketable. This is the story of a girl who wanted and needed to get out of the spotlight and lead a normal life. I really enjoyed Shull's previous two novels, Yours Truly, Skye O'Shea and Skye's the Limit!, both of which revolved around a hopeful, energetic, and athletic sixth grade girl. I recommend those to middle schoolers all of the time. If I've said it once, I've said it a million times: I absolutely love Amazing Grace.

My friend was reading this and just by looking at the cover I, for some reason, was immediately interesting. I asked her if I could look at it and I read the first chapter then couldn't put it down! After she was done with the book she let me borrow it and I read it all in a matter of 2-3 days. I was so into it! It keeps you hooked. I reccomend it for ages 10+. I'm a really big reader and I'll read anything. But, I usually I have only a few favorites and Amazing Grace is definitely one of them!

Grace Kincaid has her own line of cosmetics and a successful modeling career thanks to her top billing on the pro-tennis circuit. She also has her own agent, coach, nutritionist, makeup artist, assistant, lawyer, and even her own bodyguard. What she doesn't have --- and what she desperately wants --- is a chance to have a normal life: to live at home with her mother, to attend school regularly, to hang out with friends, and to date. Grace tells her mother she wants out --- of it all. Very quickly she resigns from the world of professional tennis and from her many lucrative endorsements. She undergoes a drastic makeunder. Her long, blond, carefully-coiffed hair gives way to a dyed-red cropped hairdo. She sheds her designer wardrobe and all the accessories, and tosses out her pink, rhinestone-studded cell phone. Now she sports a tiny ruby on the side of her nose, thanks to the skill of her mom, the surgeon. She resurfaces on a tiny Alaskan island with her new look and a new name --- Emily O'Brien. The plan is for Grace to disappear from sight for three months, so the news of her retirement from professional tennis would die down. Now she lives with Ava, a retired FBI agent, in a tiny, rustic cabin with no hot water and an outhouse. For Grace "Ace" Kincaid, who is used to traveling on private jets and living in five-star hotels, this is a drastic change. During her first trip into town, on Ava's rusty old bike, Emily has a close encounter of the scary kind with a moose and catapults over the bike's handlebars. A young man named Teague rescues her and soon becomes her first boyfriend. Emily enrolls in the local school where she tries to blend in. None of the locals has any clue about Grace's true identity. Emily learns to split wood with an ax named Beverly, heat dishwater, dress in many layers, and drive a snowmobile. She experiences alcohol for the first time with very unpleasant results. And later on she experiences her very first kiss. Emily attends counseling sessions with the town health care specialist/therapist to help her deal with the many drastic changes in her life. While reading a celebrity magazine in the therapist's waiting room, Grace/Emily is startled to learn that a huge reward is being offered for the first photo of Grace in hiding. This is ominous news since it means the press will eventually, if not sooner, swarm the remote island and expose her. Once again everything abruptly changes in her life. How author Megan Shull ties up all the loose ends in this interesting and fairly believable story will please the reader. --- Reviewed by Carole Turner