Review: Life of Bright Ideas by Sandra Kring

I read "Book of Bright Ideas" last year and was so excitied to see that the follow up, "A Life of Bright Ideas", was being released.  I pre-ordered it and was thrilled to be reading it on the release date.  I was not disappointed.  I love the characters in these two books.  I can relate so well with the story of Button and Winnalee.  Growing up in the 60's and 70's, I could relate to their feelings and emotions, and the situations of that time.  Sandra Kring will make you cry, laugh and smile.  Flower Power! 

SYNOPSIS by Barnes & Noble

A secret tore best friends Evelyn “Button” Peters and Winnalee Malone apart. Now, nearly a decade later, a secret brings them back together.
Nine years ago Button and Winnalee began recording observations in their Book of Bright Ideas, a tome they believed would solve the mystery of how to live a mistake-free life. Now it’s 1970, a time of peace, love, war, and personal heartbreak. Button’s mother is dead and her grieving father has all but abandoned his children. Quiet, thoughtful Button has traded college for a sewing job in her mother’s bridal shop to help her Aunt Verdella raise her whirlwind six-year-old brother. In Button’s free time, she writes letters to the boy she loved from afar through high school, hoping he will come to love her as more than a friend.

Then, like that magical Wisconsin summer of ’61, Button is greeted with the wild, gusty arrival of Winnalee. Now a beautiful flower child, Winnalee is everything Button is not. She’s been to Woodstock and enjoys “free love,” but their steadfast bond of friendship is tested as Button begins to notice the cracks in Winnalee’s carefree façade. And then Winnalee’s mother arrives with a surprise that Button never sees coming, and the fiery determination to put things right in both families once and for all.

 RATING 4 STARS