First impressions, how wrong can you get? When Rain Mackenzie is expelled from her British boarding school, she can't believe her bad luck. Not only is she forced to move to New England, USA, she's also sent to the local high school, as a punishment. Rain makes it her mission to dislike everything about Northbrooke High, but what she doesn't bank on is meeting Jesse Devlin - Jesse is the hottest guy Rain's ever seen and he plays guitar in an awesome rock band! There's just one small problem - Jesse already has a girlfriend, little miss perfect Amber Lawrence, who looks set to cause trouble as Rain and Jesse grow closer. But, what does it matter? New England sucks anyway, and Rain doesn't plan on sticking around - Does she?

New England Rocks by Christina Courtenay is a well-written teen novel which will entice girls in early teens. It seems clean and wholesome and deals with real problems that many teen girls face: moving to a totally different area, falling in love, finding the object of your love unavailable, a jealous other girl, being snubbed by some at school, being accepted by others, wanting to move away, and many other teen issues. The love story develops in a realistic way and has as a theme throughout the novel the teens obsession with music and bands. The story reads well and would be a good gift for any teen girl.
Rain....I have no words for her except to say that she IS AWESOME. I mean come on, not only is she from England but she has the accent to confirm it, she does archery, plays soccer, drives big fancy killing machine cars-without a license, knows about three languages and her parents are cool and have titles. Jesse was funny and cute. He was attracted to Rain from the start which really confused him because he had a girlfriend named Amber. According to Jesse, Rain had an accent like James Bond, which I found really funny. Throughout the book they get close and learn about things in the others lives that no one else does. Jesse winds up meeting Rain's parents and has dinner with them and realizes that it's very different from when he had dinner at Amber's house. Towards the end of the book she realizes how selfish and conceited Amber is and finds the courage to be with Rain.