Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: May 2010
ISBN: 9781416999522
Source: ARC sent by publisher
When Ally Ryan returns to her old town and her old school, she wants to come back to her old friends. But things will never be the same between them, thanks to what her father did. She faces the snobbish and nasty things those she was once friends with do to her, while trying to find a place for herself. It doesn't help that the hot boy now living in her house is being so nice, but also not wanting to step on his friends' toes. Things are so much more complicated than she ever expected.
Things I Liked:
This felt like a guilty pleasure book to me. It was so full of back-biting and gossip and nasty things said about other people that I couldn't fully "like" it. That being said, I became caught up in the story and wanted to know what horrible things they would do to one another next. It was a like an awful soap opera that I simply couldn't look away from. Horribly, dreadfully addicting. And with this painful cliffhanger ending that will require you to read the next book.
Things I Didn't Like:
Honestly, pretty much all the things above. I really hated the guy Ally fell for, because he seemed like a big jerk most of the time. Acting one way around her and another way around his friends. Her friends made me want to kick them in the heads, but that is expected. It was filled with swearing and trash and all that, but I still was not to be able to stop reading it.
Read-alikes:
The Real Real by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Ten Things We Did (and Probably Shouldn't Have) by Sarah Mlynowski
Populazzi by Elise Allen
BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !@#$%
with lots of f-words
mrg-factor: XX
most of it implied or just talked about
v-factor: none
Overall rating: ***
And yet I still read them. Why?
If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage
Posts
Sometimes these guilty pleasure ones are so much fun! That's how I feel about Revenge the TV show on ABC. Total soap opera-y but I love it.
ReplyDeleteThe way you describe this book makes me think of my feelings for the Pretty Little Liars series. Horribly cruel characters I can't respect, but totally addicting and with painful cliffhangers. The ultimate guilty pleasure reads.
ReplyDeleteHm, the swearing makes me wonder, do you think this book would be appropriate for MG girls? I have a few who love Pretty Little Liars (which I think is kinda racy for MG, but I'm not their mothers) and I'm thinking they might like this series too.
Jenny, that's how I feel about most TV shows :)
ReplyDeleteSmall, it would depend on the girl, but I would definitely not generally recommend it to MG folks. There was a LOT of swearing, particularly the f-word. I haven't read Pretty Little Liars, though, so I can't make a good comparison.