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277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2012
Like a scene in Tink's TV soap opera Gramercy Park--(Tink had played a DVD of an episode for her girlfriends once, from a long-ago time when, in the story line of the saga, Tink had played a little girl of nine and her mother, Veronica, had played a neurotic rich man's wife, unrelated to Tink--the girls had laughed at the hokey melodrama, underscored by mood music, such sad, silly women whose lives were a tangle of disappointed marriages and love affairs)--except this was Merissa's real life.
"How Nadia could bear to look at herself in the mirror, Merissa couldn't imagine. Nadia's features were pretty--especially her warm brown eyes--but her face was round as a plate and she had, if you looked at her sideways, an actual belly."
The first half of the book alone would have gotten two stars. It's melodramatic and extremely sentimental, but Merissa's story was the more realistic. Her's is the typical straight A, perfect blond that everyone loves but who is secretly unhappy. Blah blah. Despite her being somewhat unlikeable, I was actually moved by her story.
Nadia is SO FAT. She's--gasp--119 pounds at her heaviest and 5'4"! I know the point is for the reader to realize she isn't fat and pity her, but everyone in the book comments on how chubby she is, they're so used to private-school-in-New-Jersey girls, so it might give off the wrong impression, especially when the author comments on her chubby cheeks often. She also has an extremely unrealistic crush on her teacher that gets her into trouble later, and is labeled as a slut because she gave a guy a blowjob. Her whole storyline was just so incredibly unrealistic and melodramatic, though I suppose it might show younger girls reading (those who haven't been exposed to sexual issues) that slut shaming is hurtful and wrong.
These girls are connected and allegedly protected by their dead friend Tink, who is really a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She came to the private school full of preps as a sort of low key punk, shocking all the students. Tink had committed suicide, and visits her friends as a sort of half ghost. Sentimental much? Tink prevents the suicides of both friends. I prefer to think the friends thought of Tink and stopped themselves from killing themselves, but I don't think this is what the author intended. These girls go around talking aloud to dead Tink.
Overall, the book was exemplary of a teen novel, and just the reason I normally don't read them. It was insanely sentimental in trying to get its point across, unrealistic, melodramatic, and just packed with over exaggeration. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who isn't in love with teen lit set in high school. Also, my copy says "Ages: 14 and up." I think that's a bit too old for this book; I'd say it would suit a twelve year old better.
**I received an ARC copy of this book from the Goodreads First Reads program**