Beauty Shop For Rent-- Fully Equipped, Inquire Within

This is actually the title of the book. Pretty interesting, huh? That's what made me check it out from the library.
This book is about Abbey, who lives with her great-grandma Po in their house/beauty parlor. The beauty parlor is old and has seen better days, but it's the cherished meeting place of Granny Po's friends, called the Gray Widows because all of them have gray hair and dead husbands. The thing is, Granny Po needs money, so they have to rent out the beauty parlor. This is when Gena enters the picture. She loves the beauty parlor and promises to keep it mostly the same with some minor renovations. She also gives most of the Widows jobs that help them discover their passions in life again, which wins over Granny Po. Slowly Gena helps these grumpy old ladies become enthusiastic individuals again.
But that's just the major overview; Abbey's got tons more in this book. You see, Abbey's plan is to be a millionaire by age 35, and she's got an investment plan and everything. Already she has over 7 grand, and she's barely fifteen. But why is she doing this? Because every other woman in her family (her grumpy granny, her suicidal grandmother, and her deadbeat, clinically depressed mother) were failures, and she wants to be the one to break the cycle. But her will is tested when her mother comes around, with promises of a beach house they could own if they had the money (which Abbey has...) and a new life together where everything would be perfect, just the two of them. So Abbey gives her mother her money, and poof! her mother disappears. This starts a whole chain of sad events in this book, the least of which is when Abbey's best friend/crush, Mitch, and she have a fallout.
This book was really good and entertaining, with a unique storyline. I've read stories where teens work hard for something they really want and have to learn to chill a little, but none where the main character works in a beauty shop and has such high hopes for 20 years down the lines.
I especially love stories like this where a main character like Abbey is a really serious teenager and acts totally adult through the whole book, because it seems so backwards but also reminds us all that we all have a little bit of that solemn, responsible person inside of us no matter what age we are. But when Abbey finds that she can chill and have fun, it reminds us we have a bit of that, too. ♠♠♠♠