Scarlet Fever by Maureen Johnson

As summer-time leaves New York, Scarlett Martin is saying goodbye to Hamlet, the play her brother and company staged at the Martins' worn down hotel. Without Hamlet, Scarlet won't be able to see her crush Eric - an actor in the play who turned out not to be such a good guy during Suite Scarlett - every day, even though she knows it's high time she stopped crushing on him.

Not that she's not plenty busy, with school starting and her boss Mrs. Amberson driving her insane.

Mrs. Amberson is trying to get more clients to represent - currently, her only client is Spencer, who hasn't managed to get a job even with the good buzz from Hamlet - which means Scarlett has to tag along as Mrs. Amberson tries to woo teenage Broadway star-in-the-making Chelsea to sign with them. With Chelsea comes Max, her older brother who's now attending Scarlett's school and driving her even more crazy.

To add to it all, Scarlett's younger sister Marlene is acting suspiciously nice - which is downright creepy - and her older sister Lola seems to be going back to her former boyfriend, the dull but rich Chip. And then Spencer lands a role that turns him into the most hated villain on TV.

Financial woes, hotel life and everything else are threatening to drive Scarlett crazy, or at least give her a fever, I guess.

I know that it sounds like there is a lot going on during Scarlet Fever but it isn't really the case, the first part of the book is slow, it picks up when Spencer and Lola start to have their own troubles but the go around in circles quite a lot and by the end - which was no end at all - I was only liking Spencer out of the huge cast of characters we have going on.

The ending, above all, made me feel just like I felt when I first saw The Fellowship of The Ring - you know, the ending that it's no ending at all - I felt cheated out of the ending.

Sure, maybe I was expecting more because I actually quite liked Scarlett and the Martins - except Marlene, I can't like her and it makes me feel like crap because she's a cancer survivor kid and I DON'T like her at all - during the first book, but I don't know.

This book was just not for me.

PS -Wish they had stayed with the original cover concept, this cover isn't bad but I liked to original concept better than the keys.