Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott

Published: June 1, 2008 by Harper Teen
Received: bought from Barnes & Noble (highly recommended by AnnaReads)

My name is Danielle. I'm eighteen. I've been stealing things for as long as I can remember.

Dani has been trained as a thief by the best there is—her mother. They never stay in one place long enough for Dani to have real connections, real friends—a real life.

But in the town of Heaven, everything changes. Suddenly, Dani must question where her loyalties lie: with the life she's always known—or the one she's always wanted. {taken from goodreads.com}

When my good friend Anna tells me that I have to read a book, I know that I HAVE TO READ said book.  The two of us were discussing the "good boy" in YA lit & how it sometimes gets looked over.  We tend to swoon over the bad boys & it's the good boys who don't get as much attention.  So when she told me about a little known character by the name of Greg in Elizabeth Scott's Stealing Heaven, I knew this good boy was someone I just had to meet.  I trust this woman's judgment & she has not let me down... yet ;-)

Stealing Heaven is about a teenage girl named Danielle who's world is anything but ordinary.  All she's ever known to do is how to break in to a house, steal their precious valuables, & retreat without leaving behind any evidence that it was her who trespassed.  She learned all of this from her mother, the real culprit behind these schemes.  The two of them have been on the run ever since Danielle can remember.  Their next stop: Heaven, a small beach side town filled with big houses & big opportunities for Danielle & her mother to take what their heart's desire.

The relationship between Danielle and her mother is portrayed as very tragic & broken.  All her mother has ever known is that there's always something better waiting for them, they just have to break in & get it before it's theirs.  She has taught Danielle to never become attached to anyone; that relationships with people are pointless.  The most important things in life are what she can hold in her hands.  Danielle loves her mother & trusts her misguided advice, but a small piece of her wonders what it would be like to live in a town for longer than a few weeks.  To build relationships with people; have a best friend, & perhaps have a boyfriend some day.  Danielle realizes she's not meant for that life though, so when she unexpectedly bumps in to Greg everything is questioned again.

Greg is the epitome of what a good boy should be like.  He is cute, charismatic, wholesome, honest, & interested in knowing who the real Danielle is.  The only problem: he happens to be a police officer.  Danielle tries to reason with herself... one lunch won't hurt anything, one day trip to the beach isn't so bad, enjoying his company can't be that awful.  Little does she know, Danielle is slowly building a relationship with Greg, setting down roots in a town she was never meant to stay in.  Living a life her mother taught her was never good for her.  So when Danielle's mom gives her the task of pulling off their latest job she feels torn.  Does she follow through with her mother's request to rob the house, which occupies people she has met?  Or does she finally tell her mother the truth, which is she doesn't want this kind of life anymore?

It's hard to imagine the struggles that Danielle faces.  Torn between her mother's form of loving her, but also knowing that it is the wrong way to receive love.  Greg is the one person to tell her she has the power to choose who she wants to be.  No one picks that destiny for her.  Watching Danielle's character struggle with this reality was tough at times.  It was obvious she wanted to remain loyal to her mother, yet deep down she knew stealing was wrong.  The relationship she found in Greg was a beautiful irony.  The one person her mother taught her to never trust, has now become the one person she can't stop thinking about.  Though the ending felt a bit rushed, over all I enjoyed the story.  I found myself anticipating what would come next & what decisions Danielle had to make.  The "good boy" definitely shines through in this novel!