The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Alright, so I must say I started this book and actually started laughing.  Not because the material was funny.  Her Dad disappears one day, reminding me of "A Wrinkle in Time".  She has a best- friend/mythical-creature-guardian just like in the Percy Jackson books.  I'm trying to remember exactly what it was- but parts of the first few chapters reminded me of Alice in Wonderland (maybe it was the talking cat that showed her the way).  You enter the other lands first by a door in a closet- like "The Chronicles of Narnia".  Other paths to that world are similar to windows mentioned in The Golden Compass Series (starting in the second book).  There are characters from "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by Shakespeare in it.  Within the first few chapters they take a picture of her with the popular boy and photoshop it where she's nude and make fun of her, making me picture Mandy Moore in "A Walk to Remember" when they photoshop her picture and make fun of her.  And then the part that made me laugh the most- she has a fun-loving best friend, one who is warm and has a sense of humor, and who seems to like her as more than a friend and she doesn't notice.  Then she meets a prince from the Winter Court (she's from Summer) and they're practically enemies.  Who does she fall in love with?  The mythical cold creature- who because of a past history- hates her 'warm' friend.  If that doesn't 'scream' Twilight- I don't know what does (oh wait, except the book Hush, Hush). 

I kept reading, thinking to myself, at least she was original in the way she combined all the aspects of the other books into one.  And before I got halfway through, I stopped noticing the similarities.  She actually did make something of her own, using tidbits of ideas from other stories, true, but combining them into a new story.  I got into the book and really enjoyed it.  Of course, I haven't read "A Midsummer Night's Dream" before, so now I'm reading that book, and then I plan on continuing with this series- she has written 5, I think.  I look forward to the others. :)