Tell me, what do you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Parker Frost doesn't quite know how to answer that question. She's lived her entire life following the carefully thought out plan her mother has for her: study hard, get good grades, get into Stanford, study some more.

It's when she's doing her TA job and helping her English teacher with a school project that she finds something that's going to change her life forever, something that's going to make her question everything she thought she wanted in life and for herself.

A moment was all it took to change everything.

We don't get just Parker's story while we're reading Golden. It's kind of a two-for-one type of deal: we read about Parker and how she struggles with taking charge of her life, and then we get little snippets of Julianna and Shane's relationship and the mysterious Orion who changed everything.

Jessi Kirby does a great job with combining those two aspects together, what happened with what's happening now and then trying to figure out what happens next. It was really satisfying to me as a reader to put all of the pieces of the puzzle together just as Parker did, and seeing how her figuring out what went by all those years ago made her start changing things in her own life.

Taking a chance can be worth a lot more than you know.

It's taking a chance that puts Parker in this mess, and it's taking a lot of other chances along the way that help her learn the kind of person that she is and the kind of person she strives to be. That's what I loved most about the book. Parker finding herself and going after what she believes in, getting back up on her feet after she fails and trying again.

Golden turned out to be just as great as I thought it would, and it's not really a surprise it made its way to my list of favorites books ever. I definitely recommend it to anyone who likes an amazing story with a rich plot and well-developed characters. You won't regret it.

[...] sometimes life gives us those rare moments where we do see a chance as it's happening. And in those moments, we have a choice. And sometimes we have to take a risk. And it's scary. It makes us vulnerable. But I know now that it's worth it.

More reviews @ Crossroad Books.