Labor Of Love Review

Labor Of Love By Rachel Hawthorne

Dawn Delaney and her friends: Amber and Jenna lives in Katy, Texas, but are in New Orleans for the summer because they are going to help rebuild house´s after the hurricanes. The reason they did it was because their math teacher Ms. Wynder needed volunteers for the summer to a building group she is the leader of: Helping Hands Helping Humans, for 6 weeks. Dawn is here because she just discovered her boyfriend Drew cheating on her prom night and she just wants to get away. The first day they have a little free time so they go see a psychic named Saraphina. She tells Dawn that she will meet a guy with a basebase ball cap with Kansas City Chiefs logo on it. For Jenna: Fire that doesn´t burn, and for Amber: a new boyfriend when she hit college. And she is really stressed about that because she has a boyfriend: Chad who she loves. After the reading they go to a bakery and as they sit and eat 3 guys come in together, and on of them is wearing The baseball cap. They smill at the girls and one of them approch Jenna, when he sees how tall she are and he is tall too. They talk a minute but nothing really comes of it. The girls go to a resturant and is situated upstairs where they are the only one. Before they even order the 3 guys they saw in the bakery shows up and sits at another table, but as the waiter disappears the guys approch them and ask them if they can sit together, since they have met twice and it is like faith. The cap guy is Brady, the tall guy Tank and the last one Sean. They tell them they go to Rice University and are architecture majors, in Houston, which is 30 minutes from Katy. Brady tells Dawn that they are here to build a house too, and when they are done eating the guys pay and ask them if they want to come with them to Bourbon Street. Bourbon Street is full with people and Tank and Jenna is walking hand in hand, while Amber and Sean quickly disappears going into a bar. Brady is a guy who likes to have fun at least at that moment and he even takes his shirt on as part of a tradition to the people on the balconies and in exchange he get beads. He also kiss her, but she freaks out and tells him she has to go find the others because their teacher are picking them up at 11.

They have just gotten home when Tank calls Jenna and they make a date for the next day. The next morning Jenna posts picture on her myspace - also one with Dawn and Brady - and Jenna is sure that Drew will see and get jealous. After they ho to the house they are suppose to help to build. The get starting and Dawn notice that Tank, Brady and Sean aren´t working on this site. Also the women Saraphina is there to help out on this site too, as a normal person not psychic. But a little while after while Dawn is moving a big piece of wood Brady comes out behind here and helps her with it. At lunch Jenna tells them that she called Tank in the morning to tell them where they were. And they then came and got to work here, since they aren´t a part of a normal organization. They also tell the boys that they went to Saraphina yesterday to get a psychic reading, and Jenna tells the boys that she said Dawn would meet somebody with a baseball cap with Kansas City Chiefs logo on it. For Dawn it is hard because she is so not over Drew and she doesn´t trust boys anymore, so from time to time she is really dismissive toward Brady. They get of early and a trip by Sara (the psychic) to Honey Island Swamp, has been planned for those who want to go. Dawn doesn´t really want, but when Tank ask Jenna if they are coming she says yes for all of them - something she is beginning to do a lot for them. Dawn doesn´t want to be alone so she says okay. Turns out that the swamp tour is really good and she gets too see a lot of animals, but gets scared when the guide makes sounds that makes the alligators swim to the boat. The next day at the site when they are almost finished the 3 boys takes their shirt of and the girls see that Tank has a tatoo on his back: Of a dragon. Breathing fiery flames. = Fire that doesn´t burn, for Jenna. Amber freaks totally out, after the whole baseball cap and tatoo. So she calls her mom and tells her she is taking a plane home tonight. And she tells Ms. Wynder that her Grandmother has dies. Amber tells Jenna and Dawn that she need to get home for herself. That she really likes Sean. That she havn´t told him that she has a boyfriend, and she really don´t think abou Chad when she is with him. She says that Sean is like that extra scoop of ice cream that you aren´t suppose to have, but can´t resist, and that she just needs to get home.

Amber goes to the airport and by night Jenna tells Dawn that Brady is on the phone wanting to talk to her. There is a lot of silents going on in the conversation, but Brady ask her if she has a boyfriend, because sean got a call fron Amber at the airport telling him she had a boyfriend. Dawn tells him no and ask if he has a girlfriend and he says no. Before she goes to sleep Jenna ask her if she wants to go to Café Du Monde tommorow for breakfast, with her, Tank and Brady. And Dawn says yes. When Dawn ask Brady where Sean is, he tells her he hocked up with Sara, because he was upset about Amber, they went on bars last night and he went into Sara. At the Site Sara tells Dawn that Amber will be back and that she is organizing a ghost tour Saturday night, and ask if she wants to come, Dawn says yes and she gets told that Jenna, Brady and Tank are also going. That night at dinner Dawn tells Brady that she is having a dateless summer, because she just got out of a bad relationship. Brady says that he doesn´t want to date eighter and they decide just to have a summer fling with occasional kissing. Later Amber calls and tells them that all is fine with her and Chad and that she is coming back she just doesn´t know when, and that Chad might be coming with her. The next night jenna and Dawn are at the guys hotel and in the hottub, and when Jenna and Tank walks inside to have some alone time, Brady ask her just to go out with him tonight. And e´venthough they have agreed no dating, Dawn says yes. They go on the date and have a good time.

That saturday is the days for the ghost tour at night, and Brady and Dawn spends the day together and Brady even tells her that he also went to a psychic the day he met her and that she say: For you life is good. And he didn´t understand it until he saw Dawn wearing the cap she always does, with "Life is good" written on it. They go to the ghost tour with Jenna and Tank and Jenna and dawn is definently beginning to believe in ghosts. After they split up and Brady and dawn go on a horse carriage ride. That monday at the site Brady gives her a temporary tattoo, because they have talked about it before and he puts it on her just above her waist. A week later Amber comes back when they are at the site, but Drew is with her. Dawn storms into the house where she is painting a room, and Jenna and Amber comes in. Amber tells her that her and Chad broke up, because they wanted different things this summer and he wasn´t interested in what she was doing. Dawn storms up to Brady and Drew is standing right in the room and she kisses Brady. Brady takes her outside and tell her that he knows she was trying to make Drew jealous and that they are over. Jenna then tells her, that Tank told her that Brady had a girlfriend named Melanie and that she broke up with himin a text-message, saying she was back together with her old boyfriend. And dawn comes up with that Her and Brady are both doesn´t trust the opposite sex. Later that night when Jenna and Amber are out with Sean and Tank, Dawn calls Drew they go out the MCdonalds and Dawn tells him that they are absolutly over. The next couple of days Dawn do dammage control and bring Brady water every hour like he used to do with her. And everytime he ask about Drew she tells him they are over. There is a vampire tour at the end of the week and Dawn is going, because she knows that Brady will come because she asked Sara to pair them together. When the tour starts they ask each other if they want to do the tor and they don´t so they go down to the river and make up. A week before the girls are suppose to go back they are done with the house and the family comes home. Drew left only after a week and things are going really good with Dawn and Brady. The next week they spends on starting rebuilding on another house. On their last night in the city Sara and the project leader, her brother John, has arrange a party on a riverboat, for all of the many volunteers that has worked on the house.

I liked this book but i didn´t like it as much as the others. I think is was becase of the whole theme and the New Orleans and all that i really didn´t like. It was not a summer or winter book like the others, where you enjoy it the same way. But it was a fast and okay book anyway. Okay Dawn is a really cool name. I would totally love that being my name.


Grade: 7