Posts

Showing posts from April, 2014

Review of Popular by Maya Van Wagenen

Format: Paperback (for review)
Genres: Non-Fiction, High School, Humour,
Pages: 259
Publisher: Penguin
Release Date: 15/04/2014
Find The Author: Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


Stuck at the bottom of the social ladder at pretty much the lowest level of people at school who aren’t paid to be here,” Maya Van Wagenen decided to begin a unique social experiment: spend the school year following a 1950s popularity guide, written by former teen model Betty Cornell. Can curlers, girdles, Vaseline, and a strand of pearls help Maya on her quest to be popular?

The real-life results are painful, funny, and include a wonderful and unexpected surprise—meeting and befriending Betty Cornell herself. Told with humor and grace, Maya’s journey offers readers of all ages a thoroughly contemporary example of kindness and self-confidence.


I received a request for review from Penguin for this book and after being shocked and honoured at being contacted at all, I initially wasn't sure if to accept this book for review. This is a non-fiction book after all and there is no reviews for non-fiction on my blog as far as I was aware. However, this experiment intrigued me so I happily accepted. I'm so, so glad I did.

Popular doesn't read like a non-fiction book. In fact in a few places I had to remind myself that it wasn't fiction. Maya is the most amazing writer. She's funny, frank and even as a 22 year old living in England, I felt that I could relate to her. There were some popularity tips from her in the book that had me crying with laughter! I'm very aware of the popularity ladder in high schools, however we didn't actually have one in our school, or at least I was never aware of one. There were groups of friends sure but no set tables and everyone just talked to everyone else. I still strongly understood Maya's attempts to fit in however.

I have been trying out one of the Popularity tips, which is good posture. All I've discovered is that my normal posture (hunched over like a cat over a food bowl) is so bad that sitting properly is physically painful. I'm sticking at it though in the hopes that the searing pain might wear off soon. I must look ridiculous hunched over like that.


Review of Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel and David

Format: Paperback
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Christmas
Pages: 260
Publisher: Mira Ink
Release Date: 05/12/12
Find The Author: (Rachel) Website ¦ Twitter

Find The Author: (David) Hunt down his address and stalk him.
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


I've left some clues for you.
If you want them, turn the page.
If you don't, put the book back on the shelf, please.

Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept its dares. But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York? Could their in-person selves possibly connect as well as their notebook versions? Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions? Rachel Cohn and David Levithan have written a love story that will have readers perusing bookstore shelves, looking and longing for a love (and a red notebook) of their own.


I fell in love with the idea of this story. I mean, who wouldn't? Perusing the bookshelves one day you find a notebook and inside, a treasure hunt across the city with the promise of romance in the air. Christmas is coming, your parents are away, what could possibly go wrong?

Well, if Dash wasn't such a pretentious ass it would be lovely. But then, as soon as I started reading about Dash I knew it was Levithan speaking. I knew this because I've read one of his books before and I hated it so much I almost drop kicked it off of the nearest highest building. That story was a rehash of Christmas Carol and it was just all kinds of ergh.

Lily on the other hand was just lovely. I fell in love with her pretty quickly and I knew this must be Rachel writing. Lily is a very complex, naive character whose been sheltered her whole life by her overbearing relatives and it's only when her parent's leave on holiday that she finally gets to stretch her wings a little bit. Her stories of Shrilly were hilarious and just made me love her more.

The story was pretty good. I really like the way the notebook passed back and forth and once I got used to Dash, he was okay. Still an ass, but okay. It was quite big on family and family relationships which was quite funny considering both Dash and Lily's parents were temporarily out of the picture.

I would call this a hipster book. Simply because it's Leviathan writing half of it and I swear he's trying to keep up with John Green (stop trying. Please.) and also because in a modern world, these two teenagers seem to read nothing written in the last 40 years and even list Salinger as a favourite book as a child. The most modern thing we encountered was a Madame Tussaud's, which I didn't even know they had in America, admittedly.

Although they were two different characters, somehow when Dash and Lily got together, they worked as a couple and I could see them together easily, which surprised me. Hence the high rating! It's a fun read, especially near Christmas.


Many Covers Monday - Shatter Me


Today we're looking at the many different covers of 's Shatter Me. Some are rejackets and others are foreign language covers.
Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.
The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.
The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.
Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.




(UK/US) Left is used for both UK and US covers now I believe and right was the original US cover. Although it is an iconic cover, there are far too many girls in dresses on covers I've found...

Left is stunning and the covers that come after are so beautiful, I want them all as prints on my wall. *grabby hands*


(Australian/Czech) Ehhhh..... I don't like either of them. Left is just a girl with her hair in her face and right looks like a doll bride wrapped in cellophane... what.


(French/German) I'll skip right to German. Yes, that cover is on the book by that author that I cannot remember the name of. It's a very, very odd choice. If I didn't know that this cover on another book was basically iconic, it would win this.

French is just what. It looks like a fluffy fairy book and advertises Twilight on it which is no way to advertise a book. I stuck the text into Google translate and was told it means: ''The new revelation from that discovered Twilight''

Whatever that means.


(Hungarian/Indonesian) Left is nice. I like the background and it is eye catching! More dresses though because pretty girls don't wear jeans. Right is obviously heavily inspired by the original book cover and Anne Hathaway's Oscars dress...


(Italian/Polish) Now THESE are covers I can get excited about. FEATHERS. I love feathers! And girls in freaky positions like This Is Not A Test and Hourglass, I'm all for it. Yes. Yes Yes.


(Spanish) Oh gosh that right cover. It looks like a 60's movie poster for a film about a girl who drinks something weird and stamps all over buildings.

Is this book about Alice in Wonderland?


Winner


It was never going to be anything else really! This cover is just perfect in it's simplicity. 

And it's very eye catching... *snort*

Next week: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Review of Hold On by Alan Gibbons

Format: Paperback
Genres: Suicide, Bullying,
Pages: 176
Publisher: Orion Children's Books
Release Date: 01/10/2006
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads

When Annie returns from an extended stay in Canada, she discovers that her friend John has killed himself. Annie is devastated by his death and is determined to confront those she believes responsible—a group of boys from her school, who bullied John mercilessly in the months before he died. But Annie's parents and friends don't share her wish to bring the boys to justice. She finds herself treading a lonely path—and soon discovers that nothing is straightforward. She is helplessly attracted to one of the boys, and when she reads John's diary, it's clear they weren't the only ones to cause him so much unhappiness. The novel tells John's story as a tragic waste of a young life in an unsentimental and compassionate way, but also tells Annie's story about moving on and looking towards the future.

"Everywhere you look there are thousands of people making do, getting by. Then, every once in a while, there is somebody like John, somebody who can't do it any longer. You hear them break, like a precious vase dropped during an auction. People look away, embarrassed." - Page 107 

I spotted this little book in an Oxfam shop while I was on holiday in Somerset. I've read one or two of Alan Gibbon's books before and loved them, but these were more Middle Grade, so I knew I had to have this one. I read the whole book in two sittings on the coach (yes, I paused for a nap. It was a 6 hour journey and no windows to open. Sue me.). Hold On is the tale of Annie and John, and the aftermath of John's suicide. It's told from both of their perspectives, Annie's from the present and John's from the past, in his diary entries. Annie's side is very sad and angry, she wants revenge for the death of her friend and naturally she blames his tormentors for his death. John is also sad, but more poetic and full of hope for this new friendship he has with Annie.

I really hated John's parents. I felt that they were as much to blame for John's death as the group of boys that bullied him, if not more so. John is overweight and his father uses every opportunity to make sure he knows it. Meanwhile, his mother just does nothing, which is possibly even more frustrating. Annie's friend, Bryony, really is a true friend. She sticks by her no matter what Annie does and does her best to help her. In most books, Annie would be left to her own devices.

One of the most interesting characters for me was Matthew, one of the bullies. He knows he's done some pretty horrible things in the past but his character really shows how easily it is to get caught up in a gang and follow along with what they're doing in high school, even if you don't want to. I think he had some of the best character development in the book.

There's is a small romance aspect in this and although I did see it coming I was hoping I was wrong. When it did happen, it felt very forced and I felt that it really didn't need to be there. Apart from anything, it made no sense. I do highly recommend this book to anyone interested in difficult subjects such as bullying and suicide, it's a seriously good book. Plus, there's some really nice poems from John too.


Un-Stacking The Shelves (3)

Please read!
Un-Stacking The Shelves is my version of Stacking the Shelves, which is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It's dedicated to removing the books from my shelves, not adding to them and so the books mentioned below are the ones I read this week. Hopefully I'll get some of my book hoard read this way!

(Any comments telling me to enjoy my new books will be deleted as spam. This may seem odd but I had a comment telling me to enjoy my new none-existent books on this very post. It's very frustrating.)
Read This Week


I'm really proud of myself because I technically brought no books into the house this week. I did buy one but it was for a signing and I don't even have it yet so it doesn't count right.

It was Easter this week! Did you eat all the chocolate? I got a solitary chocolate egg which was delicious. My Dad usually buys me an egg with a Doctor Who mug but I think he must be avoiding me this year. Bah.

But who cares when I was bought A BOOK TOKEN FOR EASTER. And it has an illustration from my favourite illustrator on it, Chris Riddell!

So pretty. Ignore the crap in the background.
Don't forget to leave your STS link! I'll drop by later.

Vickie x

Review of Fall For Anything by Courtney Summers

Format: Paperback
Genres: Contemporary, Suicide, Loss,
Pages: 230
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 21/12/2010
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


When Eddie Reeves’s father commits suicide her life is consumed by the nagging question of why? Why when he was a legendary photographer and a brilliant teacher? Why when he seemed to find inspiration in everything he saw? And, most important, why when he had a daughter who loved him more than anyone else in the world? When she meets Culler Evans, a former student of her father’s and a photographer himself, an instant and dangerous attraction begins. Culler seems to know more about her father than she does and could possibly hold the key to the mystery surrounding his death. But Eddie’s vulnerability has weakened her and Culler Evans is getting too close. Her need for the truth keeps her hanging on… but are some questions better left unanswered?

Okay, so since I've read This Is Not A Test I'm basically addicted to Courtney Summer's books. I love them all. I love how she can take any subject and create a gripping story and a wide variety of characters that all have different feelings, emotions and reactions without any of the characters feeling the same of the situations feeling similar. Yet at the same time, I know it's Courtney's writing. I also admire the way she injects humour into stories that should make me feel depressed, yet weirdly I leave the story happy and content that my characters that I've become attached to are going to be okay.

In this story, 17 year old Eddie's father has just committed suicide, leaving her to try and work out why he even considered doing that in the first place. Her mom isn't all there, walking around in her Dad's house coat all day and she can't stand her mom's friend, Beth, who thinks that cure to loss is sunshine and vitamin pills.

There's a really varied cast of characters in this book but other than Eddie, I think the two that stuck out for me that most were Milo and Culler. As soon as I met Culler I was never quite sure of him and I was quite wary of him throughout the book. With Milo, I found him a bit too over-protective a lot of the time but he was sweet too and I admired the way he looked after Eddie, despite going through the pain of loss himself.

I was happy with the way the story ended and it felt finished but I still wouldn't say no if ever happened to be a sequel. However I feel the same way about all of Courtney's books! I only have Some Girls Are left to read now, until her next book is released. Which I hear is 2015... it's early April 2014 as I type this. 

Review of Daughter Of Smoke And Bone by Laini Taylor

Format: Paperback
Genres: Paranormal, Romance,
Pages: 418
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Release Date: 27/09/2011
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark and dusty shop, a devil’s supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands", she speaks many languages - not all of them human - and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.
When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?


This review might be closer to a... 3.5? However I don't do half ratings so a four it is. Because I'm nice like that. I've been told to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone a lot since it's been released and I've seen a lot of reviews talking about how it's the best thing ever etc etc, however I didn't go into this book thinking that I would feel the same way and approached it the same way I do with every book - a blank slate.

I did love it for the most part, particularly at the beginning. It's so refreshing to read a book that isn't set solely in the USA and I've started looking out for those because surprisingly, the USA isn't the only country in the world. Yes, the beginning was awesome. I loved Karou as soon as she made her exes crack itch in a life drawing class and I knew there would be a lot of anger between the two. I loved the vivid descriptions of the city and I really felt like I was there and I really, really loved Karou's backstory and how she grew up.

I would be lying if I said I didn't find any faults, however. Kazimir, the jealous ex boyfriend, was used more as a plot device than an actual character. Karou thinks about him often but he only appears in maybe four scenes and doesn't say very much when he's there. I never got a feel for his character or understood why Karou dated him in the first place.

The second one almost made me rate this down to 2 stars because I was so irritated. Insta-love. She fights with Akiva when she first meets him, granted, but she falls in love with the guy who's injured her (mild term) and who is supposed to be her enemy so quickly and so passionately that I threw up in my mouth a little. On top of that we get the bs explanation about why they fell in love so quickly that I really didn't appreciate. And then there's being told about how hot Akiva is on pretty much every page in every scene he's in. In one scene her friend goes on and on and on about how much she wants to f*ck him which set my jaw on edge.

However, the romance between Madrigal and Akiva really worked for me, even if the Romeo and Juliet tale was obvious. I understood why they were attracted to each other and I was really invested in their story. I would have happily read a longer section about them and their world but I guess that's for another book.

 The world building was excellent, the characters varied and memorable and Laini's writing flows beautifully. As long as it isn't too heavy on the romance I am looking forward to reading the sequels very much. There's lots of things that I'm hoping will happen in the next book!


Review of Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers

Format: Paperback
Genres: Contemporary, Mystery,
Pages: 214
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
Release Date: 12/03/2008
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?
Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her counselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.
Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.
Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.


Cracked Up To Be is one of those stories that makes you want to keep reading, even after the story has ended. It's a fairly short book, being a contemporary read, but it manages to pack a lot in it without anything feeling rushed or any characters left under-developed.

Parker has become one of my favourite characters in a book and she's certainly one of the most memorable! I like girls that don't act cute and pretty, the girl next door types. There's far too many of them. Parker is a complete bitch to everyone and gets away with it every time, because her friends know how she used to be and want that Parker back - the popular girl, the captain of the cheerleading team. I laughed on more than one occasion at people's reactions to her. I found it quite interesting just how much they didn't like this 'new' Parker, considering they never stopped getting at the old Parker either. The only person that seems to accept her for who she is is the new guy, Jake. 

I pretty much hated Chris though. He's a whole suitcase of douchebag. It did show that if a girl does or says certain things, they're basically ostracized from society but Chris gets away with far, far worse than Parker did in my opinion and he was never given more than a slap on the wrist for his actions. There was nothing at all remotely likeable about him, no matter how hard he tried to pretend that he cared about Parker.

Every so often, Parker has a panic attack or remembers scene from before the major event that caused her PTSD happened, and we slowly get a picture of what it was that happened. I really enjoyed this, books are usually spoiled quickly for me because I guess the plot twist in minutes but I didn't guess this one at all! I was really surprised. It's a good twist too, I think my jaw dropped open when I got the final piece of the puzzle.

I recommend this book if you love good high school dramas, snarky main characters and a lot of mystery that will keep you guessing right to the very end of the book!

Review of Adaptation by Malinda Lo

Format: eCopy (for review)
Genres: Sci-Fi, Romance, LGBT,
Pages: 432
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Release Date: 03/04/2013
Find The Author: Website ¦ Twitter
Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


Across North America, flocks of birds hurl themselves into airplanes, causing at least a dozen to crash. Thousands of people die. Fearing terrorism, the United States government grounds all flights, and millions of travelers are stranded.

Reese and her debate team partner and longtime crush David are in Arizona when it happens. Everyone knows the world will never be the same. On their drive home to San Francisco, along a stretch of empty highway at night in the middle of Nevada, a bird flies into their headlights. The car flips over. When they wake up in a military hospital, the doctor won’t tell them what happened, where they are - or how they’ve been miraculously healed.


Things become even stranger when Reese returns home. San Francisco feels like a different place with police enforcing curfew, hazmat teams collecting dead birds, and a strange presence that seems to be following her. When Reese unexpectedly collides with the beautiful Amber Gray, her search for the truth is forced in an entirely new direction - and threatens to expose a vast global conspiracy that the government has worked for decades to keep secret.


Weighing in at 400 pages. I was expecting Adaptation to feel pretty slow. However, I started it before I went to bed and before I knew it I'd already read 30%. I finished the rest when I woke up. Adaptation is... amazing. I have all the praise for a bisexual main character, finally! I feel represented and stuff. The story itself made for compulsive reading, I never once felt bored and that's probably why I read the whole thing so quickly, or at least it felt like I did.

The book was really well paced. It never felt too slow or had too much going on. The accident doesn't happen for a few chapters, which meant that we got to know and care about the main character. After she's released home it feels a little more contemporary as she met and fell in love with Amber and then became suffocatingly scary during the second half of the book and major events happened.

I loved the relationships between Reese and all the other characters. Her Dad sucks but who needs him when her mother loves her so much? They have an easy, almost sibling like relationship that came across beautifully. The romance between Reese and Amber was perfect. They fell in love quickly but it never came across as forced, just a normal teenage relationship without any of the unusual insta-love words. Her relationship and crush on David was very different as David had a different personality to Amber and Reese had known him a lot longer. I think this makes for a very unique, unusual love triangle and I'm curious to find out what will happen in the next book with that.

The science fiction elements were really interesting throughout, from Government cover ups to alien conspiracy theories from Reese's best friend, Julian. Who's gay, by the way. Important. Reese doesn't wake up and find she has a robot leg or anything, it's not that heavy. But she is having weird dreams and her scars from the accident are rapidly healing, which the US Government are very interested in. The story does end on a cliff hanger but not as bad as Catching Fire or anything. I'm really excited to continue the story though!



Many Covers Monday: Code Name Verity


Many Covers Monday is a weekly feature over here at Under The Mountain. It's where I look at the many different covers of books. Usually I pick a title and showcase all it's different covers, including original covers, rejackets and foreign language covers. You can see more covers here! Today we're looking at Elizabeth Wein's Code Name Verity.

I have two weeks. You’ll shoot me at the end no matter what I do.
That’s what you do to enemy agents. It’s what we do to enemy agents. But I look at all the dark and twisted roads ahead and cooperation is the easy way out. Possibly the only way out for a girl caught red-handed doing dirty work like mine — and I will do anything, anything, to avoid SS-Hauptsturmführer von Linden interrogating me again.
He has said that I can have as much paper as I need. All I have to do is cough up everything I can remember about the British War Effort. And I’m going to. But the story of how I came to be here starts with my friend Maddie. She is the pilot who flew me into France — an Allied Invasion of Two.
We are a sensational team.

Book Depository ¦ Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads




(UK) Love love love the cover on the left. It's just perfect and I can't even explain why. The left cover is strange and I think it's harder to understand what the book is about. It's my copy and I want to try and get the left one to replace it. 


(US) Eh, these are nice but I just don't care about them. Left is nice, I like the bikes but this happy scene doesn't fit with the dark story. Right is kind of weird and not very eye catching.


(Canada/Dutch) Left is okay. The model reminds me of the actress Audrey Tatou. Right looks like a school textbook to me, I don't like it. But I guess the writing is nice?


(Spanish/Swedish) Much cover love for the Spanish cover, it's very eye catching. Not much love at all for the Swedish, glancing at it I would expect it to be about two American ladies whose boyfriends go off to war.


Winner
 


Agree or disagree? Let me know in the comments!
Next week:
Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Review of Love Letters To The Dead by Ava Dellaira

Format: eBook
Genres: Contemporary, Abuse, LGBT,
Pages: 336
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date: 1st April 2014
Find The Author:
Website ¦ Twitter
Amazon UK/US ¦ Goodreads


It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more; though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her sister as the person she was; lovely and amazing and deeply flawed; can she begin to discover her own path.

Like many readers, Love Letters To The Dead's cover really drew me in. It's absolutely gorgeous. I've been reading a lot more contemporary YA lately and the unique idea of having the story set out in a series of letters to dead celebrities really appealed to the weirder side of me, so I made sure I read it as soon as possible. The opening 20% or so was really good with poetic writing and an interesting storyline.

Laurel's sister has died and her mother has moved to California, leaving Laurel and her Dad to pick up the pieces. Laurel chooses to attend a school further away from her sister's old school, to avoid being 'that girl'. However, this doesn't work as Sky, a boy she spots the first day in the cafeteria, knew May and knew that Laurel was her sister. The she finds out that a teacher of hers knew May too. This book mostly focuses on Laurel trying to fit in with girls her age while dealing with a huge loss in her life and she uses the letters to cope and reflect on the events of the day.

However, about 30% in it started getting quite dull and I started asking more questions. With a contemporary like this, certainly of the ones I've read, you only need about 200 - 250 pages. However this is dragged out to over 330 and it really dulled the story for me. I literally nearly fell asleep in a couple of places. The writing is poetic, sure, but that got old fast for me and felt forced, not the author's natural style. I'm not the author though so perhaps that is her style. I also was confused as to why so many different characters would all speak in this weird poetic style all time.

The lovely unique aspect we have, the letter writing to celebrities that have died, actually started to downright piss me off. It's one thing writing to celebrities but the book really showed the celebrity culture and how we immerse ourselves in lives that are not ours. The main character makes lots of presumptions about the celebrities and how their lives must have been and it just felt... wrong to me. At one point, the most shocking part of the story for me, was the main character wondering if River Phoenix had been raped as a child. There's no proof of this and if I was his family I would be horrified (and would probably file a lawsuit or something). It just felt far too invasive. These were real people, not objects to pick and poke at like that.

The more interesting storyline for me, that isn't mentioned in the description, is the lesbian (ish?) subplot. Hannah and Natalie, Laurel's friends, are clearly in love and they really struggle with that and trying to hide it from the school and relatives. I do wish this book had been from Natalie's point of view, I think it would have been a far more interesting read.

I wasn't a fan of the ending either. I'm glad I read that far for the revelations and big reveals and such but that was also dragged out so that nearly every small storyline could be wrapped up with a pretty bow. If you like that sort of thing, great but it didn't feel right to be, to have everything happy and wonderful.