Just Listen by Sarah Dessen

Synopsis: Annabel Greene is a teen model who seems to have everything, if you believe the tv commercials. In reality, she is shunned at school because of an incident that happened the summer prior to the narrative, which is only alluded to in the first part of the book. Her family is occupied with her older sister’s eating disorder, and Annabel’s only solace is her budding relationship with school outcast Owen Armstrong.

Rating: Very good.

Opinion: Unfortunately, it has been so long since I read this book (I finished it probably over a month ago), that I don’t feel I remember it adequately enough to give an informed opinion. Even so, I did want to mention it because I do remember really enjoying the book. The writing is very introspective and there is just enough mystery in the book to keep the reader interested. Why does everyone in the school seem to fear Owen? What happened last summer that people actively hate Annabel? This isn’t just a typical story of teen-aged angst – it’s a story of truth and courage.

How to be Popular by Meg Cabot

(There are plot spoilers below. Just giving you fair warning.)

Meg Cabot is one of my favorite young adult authors, so I expected a good book when I started this one. I was a little bit disappointed, as it wasn’t quite as good as her Princess Diaries series. Mia (Princess Diaries) is a much more engaging central character than Steph (How to be Popular). I wasn’t really convinced of Steph’s reason for wanting to be popular, which is that she is tired of being a social outcast and hated by everyone except her two friends. As one of her friends points out, why would she want to be friends with people who have been so cruel to her? She does succeed in being popular for a week, but it all comes crashing down when she refuses to let the popular crowd have a big party in her grandfather’s observatory. After that, of course, everyone hates her for being a killjoy. In the end, they all end up hanging out together at a coffee house, which seems highly unlikely given that they all hated her not moments before. It is a very pat ending to an otherwise fairly realistic book about high school politics. I think the reason that the ending doesn’t work for me is that the popular characters were not as round as Steph. They were more flat, and therefore their sudden about-face seemed strange. I think that if the secondary characters had had more development, their reconciliation would have appeared more realistic.

Apart from the ending, I enjoyed the book. It was a good, light, and entertaining read. I think I’ll go reread the Princess Diaries now.

Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld

The thing that attracted me to this book, frankly, was the cover. Isn’t it nice? From its appearance, I thought that it would be a chick lit-type book, which I enjoy, but it really wasn’t. It’s a portrait of a girl’s experience in high school, told from her point of view. She spends all of her boarding school experience on the perimeter of things, afraid to get too close to her classmates. Although Lee was outgoing and loud and pretty much totally different back home in Indiana, she becomes very self-contained and closed off at boarding school. One of the main threads is her obsession with a boy named Cross, which does not come to fruition until their senior year. He becomes something more than a crush, but isn’t quite a boyfriend. This relationship is the most poignant part of the book, because, underneath the facade, Lee wants a full, open relationship with Cross, but doesn’t ask because she tells herself that Cross would reject her. We don’t know if he would, but if that were the case, he would not be good enough for her. Lee can’t see her own worth enough to stand up for herself in the relationship.

Reading this book felt like eating a rich, satisfying stew. With plenty of helpings. It reminded me of my own inner voice in high school. Prep could have been a depressing view of her high school years, but the author merely reflected Lee’s experiences, good and bad. The result is a compelling reason to read the author’s second novel, The Man of My Dreams. I hope that it lives up to Prep.