Unfortunately I didn't finish this book, as I couldn't get into it - nothing against the author or book, just not to my personal taste. Thank you for the opportunity to read it.

Jeana, Wade and Billy Joe have been best friends their whole life, they live on the same street and everything is all fun and adventures until the summer after fourth grade, when the boys start to notice Jeana in a different light. A new boy, Mickey moves to town and puts a strain on their friendship.
	As far as coming-of-age stories go, this wouldn’t even make my top 10. The pace was far too slow, there were huge chunks where it felt like nothing at all was happening, the plot seemed underdeveloped. I kept waiting for something, anything at all to grab my interest. I honestly don’t know how or why it’s a trilogy, it definitely wasn't action packed enough to warrant more than one story.
	The characters were fine, their friendship at the beginning was super cute and fun to read them interacting with one another. Then they got a bit whingey and annoying.
	The writing style was very simplistic, it’s a cheesy and predictable story about childhood and friendship that has some sweet moments but inevitably comes up short.
	I think for readers a lot younger than myself, it might take on a whole new level that they can connect to a lot more than I did. It just didn’t fascinate me.

This is a middle grade book set in 1972 Alabama. The book centers around a group of children named Jeana, Billy Joe, and Wade. These three have been best friends their entire lives but everything starts to change this summer. I found the setting to be pleasing. The setting struck me as a more modern day To Kill a Mockingbird. I use the word “modern” very loosely. The premise of the books is whether or not the three kids can remain friends after the boys start developing feelings for the same friend.

There was no real plot to this for me. It was all very boring and I loathe saying that about a book. I just really don’t enjoy a book when there is no crisis or twists. There was nothing really interesting about this that sparked my attention and the entire time reading it I was just counting down the pages until it was over. Unfortunately I have this book one star and I won’t be continuing on with the rest of the books. I do appreciate being sent this novel from netgalley and the publisher but this novel just wasn’t for my taste. This book would be good for someone who is interesting in reading a coming of age story but the pacing was extremely slow and there was very little, if any, action to speak of. If this book were a stand alone I wouldn’t judge it so harshly but as the plot went nowhere fast, I can’t imagine where the next books in the series are going to go.

I would say that I give this book around a 3.25/3.5 stars. I really enjoyed the friendship aspect of this book. In the years where Wade, Jenna and Billy Joe were younger, I found myself smiling and laughing at their little group and the secret codes and clubhouse. All of those things really reminded me of my childhood friendships.
I also can appreciate how you see how friendships change as you get older and sometimes your old friends get new friends and you feel left out. I did think that it was a little random when Mickey's point of view was thrown into the story, but once I got further into it, I understood it more. 
I would have to say my favorite character in this is Jenna. Jenna is spunky and smart and self assured, but also beautiful without showing it off. Billy Joe is such a funny guy and he was the one character who was always making me laugh. And I hurt for Wade and what he was going through at home, and you kind of see why he starts acting the way he does. 
I always like books that have multiple points of view, but I did feel like I did not get enough of all of the characters because their time was shared with other's points of view. 
The ending however, I was not a huge fan of. It felt very anticlimactic. Nothing huge had happened, and it kind of left you in a spot where you are not quite sure where everything is going to go. I know that there are three more books in this series, but I was hoping to get a little something more from the ending.
Overall, I enjoyed reading this and the book had a really fun friendship aspect to it.

This was a sweet, if a little naïve, book. I was surprised to read that this was the first of a trilogy, given that the story doesn't have a huge amount of depth and there really is only a couple of directions it can go in. 

True Blue is a coming-of-age tale from indie author, Joyce Scarbrough. Set in Chickasaw, Alabama, where the author was born, our book opens in 1972. It's an innocent time, when kids found their fun in treehouses and local pools, playing outside in the summer sun until the streetlights come on. The story follows the friendship of three ten-year-old friends, Jeana, Wade, and Billy Joe, who have lived on the same street all their lives. Puberty has started to kick in which means that these three are starting to look at each other in different ways, ways that I felt weren't wholly convincing of young children their age. Some of their thoughts, for example, were really advanced, I felt; a little too self-reflective and complex. Or was I just a really innocent ten-year-old?!

This book is quite slow-moving. There is no action really at all, and very little plot development. It is very sentimental and, because of this, quite predictable. We've read this story before: two boys, one girl. Boys love girl, girl loves one of the boys. Said boy upsets girl, girl seeks comfort from other boy. You get the rest. 

If you like sentimental and somewhat cheesy tales of childhood friendships and simpler times before computer games and social media, this is the book for you. If you liked watching The Wonder Years on TV or enjoyed the movie Now & Then, this could be a read you will very much enjoy. The friendship dynamic and the description of our young female protagonist reminded me a little of the relationship between Hermione, Harry and Ron from the Harry Potter series (like I need to even associate a book with their names!), but much less developed and engaging. 

As an adult, I wouldn't by any means say that this is a riveting read, but for younger readers it may just be appealing. It is a sweet story of adolescent love, of first feelings and kisses, and finding out who your true friends are. There are minor discussions of family life, sporting and school pressures referred to here, but nothing at all that deters from the core of the story, which is just plain early-teenage infatuation.

I’m really torn here because I have a few quibbles with this book but at the same time I really enjoyed it so I’m balancing it out at three stars.

Firstly - it’s a trilogy! Somehow I didn’t notice this before I started reading and I was like ‘wow, this plot is going nowhere fast’.

And even knowing that it’s only the first book of three, the plot is still super slow. And it’s about 90% romance. I see a lot of reviewers bemoaning the romance focus in YA, and cheering whenever they find a book that minimises romance - if you’re one of those people, this is not the book for you!

It’s all about three kids (Jeana*, Billy-Joe and Wade) growing up in small town Alabama in the ‘70s and reaching puberty and starting to notice each other as more than friends and also struggling with family and school and sports. It’s nothing new, and the story chugs along slowly, but it’s cosy and has a strong sense of time and place and I was quite happy to sink into their world and wallow in the small details of their lives. (Plus there’s a fourth boy, Mickey, who is clearly going to turn this love triangle into a love quadrilateral in the later books, but he has a pretty minor part in this book.)

(*how do I pronounce this? Gina? Jenna? Gee-anna?)

Having said that: I really think the romance part would work better if you aged these kids up a couple of years. It kicks off when the kids are in fourth grade, which makes them 9. Maybe my friends and I were late bloomers, or American kids/’70s kids are more precocious, but we really weren’t doing the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing until about grade 6/11 years old. And given that it’s a trilogy, there’s no need to cram the plot into the limited space of one novel.

Plus I wasn’t totally convinced by Wade’s character progression, particularly in the preview for the next book.

Conclusion: I would totally read the rest of this series - probably not pay money for them, but I’ll definitely keep an eye out in the library. BUT I can also see that these will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and that’s fine!

I had to DNF this book. I found I could not engage with the story or the characters.

this was a pretty decent short book about that awkward time between 10 and teen.  the story is about 3 preteens in Alabama in the 70s, 2 boys and 1 girl, and how their changing minds and bodies cause fractures in their relationship.

the book moves fast.  one chapter it is august, the next it is may.  that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  this book was written for young teens after all.

the kids also "move fast".  they are ten and are talking about how they want to date each other and even love each other. sure that is possible but I don't remember "loving" anyone like these kids claim to.

the author does a good job of showing how things change when you get to middle school.  while I went to a k to 8 school, there was a definite, noticeable transition that occured when you entered middle school which is portrayed fairly well.  friendships can changed, people can change.  that is life and sometimes, it hurts.

another character is mickey who was about to make the triangle into a square but he quickly moves away which made him seem like an odd character to have if not for the fact that this book is part of a series so it's obvious he'll be part of everything in later installments.

I'll probably read the sequels at some point but won't be rushing out to find them.  

this was a fun book though and I ate it up very qiuckly.