Happy Monday Everyone :)
Thanks so much for joining me for another week here on the Preppy Book Princess.
I honestly can't believe tomorrow is already Halloween! Honestly, fall is almost over :(, and I'm so sad to see my favorite season come to an end.
However, November brings with it the start of the excitement of the Christmas season, and that definitely makes up for fall leaving us for another year.
I'm so excited to welcome the season of the birth of our Lord and Savior once again, and I can't wait to start Christmas themed posts on my blog.
I will be doing Blogmas again this year, as I really enjoyed it last year, and already have some fun posts planned for it. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the time commitment again this year.
As well, for the second year in a row, I will be participating in the #TBTBSanta exchange that's organized by Jamie from the Broke and the Bookish, and I encourage any of you guys who are interested to take part as well:
TBTBSecretSanta
With all of my announcements out of the way, let's jump right into another book review.
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers:
Source: Bought for myself
Publication Date: January 5th, 2010
Publisher: St.Martin's Griffin
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Synopsis:
Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard—falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her—and her best friend's boyfriend—start going around. Now Regina's been frozen out, and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina were guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth, and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past whom she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend...if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.
Tensions grow and the abuse worsens, as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.
*******synopsis taken from goodreads*******
My Review:
I was initially attracted to this story by Courtney Summers when I learned it was about bullying, and the "mean girls" scenario so often found nowadays in public high schools. I'm always interested in reading books that talk about this deep issue, and so I decided to grab this one from Book Outlet, and go ahead and give it a chance. I'd barely heard anything negative about it, it seemed to be one of those books that everyone just loooooved, and so I anxiously jumped into it last week, only to be drastically disappointed in the outcome.
First of all, let's talk about what I did like about this story overall, although there wasn't much to be honest. Even though I wasn't that interested in the story or the characters, Courtney Summers possesses that amazing skill to still have you glued to the page. She's got a beautiful writing style that really makes the story she's telling come alive to the reader, and for that, I found myself still somewhat glad I'd picked this book up. I also did really like the fact that she attacked the concept of bullying, without holding back anything, and I really enjoy authors who are willing to write about deeper issues in YA fiction, like Katie McGarry or Sarah Dessen.
However, these two positive points were not enough to save this book for me, and overall, I completely could not stand it. To start with, Regina is probably the protagonist I've disliked the most from any book I've ever read, and that's saying a lot considering the thousands of titles I've been through. She's suffering from stress and its effects due to the horrific way her and her group of "friends" have treated their peers for the past few years, and yet she does nothing to change the situation until she herself becomes a victim. The opening chapters describe the situation where her best friend Anna's loser boyfriend tries to rape her, and yet her biggest concern with the whole situation is that Anna's going to turn on her if she speaks the truth. The reader is then treated to two hundred pages of her hating her new social status, and fighting back by letting her anger get the best of her and slamming girls heads into lockers, destroying personal property, chipping a girl's tooth with a dodge ball, etcetra etcetra.
Regina, in my opinion, was no better than any of the girls she's supposed to be standing up against, and I couldn't find even a remote sliver of sympathy for her over everything. Even when she seems to be on her way to finding a decent friend in Michael, she still ruins everything, primarily because she's thinking only of herself. And the whole romance between them seemed to be way too cliche in my eyes and was the whole "popular girl is outcast from her friends, falls for loser emo boy she used to make fun of, but can they really survive when they're so different" type of trope, and it just didn't work for me here.
On the other side of the spectrum, Anna and her circle, especially Kara, were way beyond typical mean girls, and the bullying they get away with throughout the entirety of this novel was sick beyond means, and I could barely stand reading the way that all the adults at the school were so oblivious to what was going on. Likewise, when for whatever reason Regina decides to turn to Kara for help at the start of the book, even though the two of them have never been able to stand each other, Kara decides to use Regina's situation to help herself gain social status. What kind of sick, twisted individual uses someone else's attempted rape as a popularity contest?
Throw teenage partying, drug dealing, more language than I've ever seen in a YA novel before, absent parents, and an ending that doesn't even remotely resolve anything into the mix, and you have a novel that I'm very sorry to say got a rare one star rating from me. As you guys know, I hate giving out one star ratings. I almost always try and find at least a few redeeming qualities to bump a book's rating up to two stars, but I just couldn't do it this time. This book was definitely not for me, and as this is the second Courtney Summers' book that I haven't really cared for, I'm not sure if I'll be picking up any books from her in the future or not.
I feel like I need to apologize for just how negative my review of this book was, but I've also always stated on my blog that my reviews are always honest, and this time, my honest opinion of this book was that it deserved its one star rating from me.
I hope you guys are all having a great week so far, and I'll see you all again on Wednesday for more bookish content.
Thanks so much for reading!
This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.
Thanks so much for joining me for another week here on the Preppy Book Princess.
I honestly can't believe tomorrow is already Halloween! Honestly, fall is almost over :(, and I'm so sad to see my favorite season come to an end.
However, November brings with it the start of the excitement of the Christmas season, and that definitely makes up for fall leaving us for another year.
I'm so excited to welcome the season of the birth of our Lord and Savior once again, and I can't wait to start Christmas themed posts on my blog.
I will be doing Blogmas again this year, as I really enjoyed it last year, and already have some fun posts planned for it. Hopefully I'll be able to keep up with the time commitment again this year.
As well, for the second year in a row, I will be participating in the #TBTBSanta exchange that's organized by Jamie from the Broke and the Bookish, and I encourage any of you guys who are interested to take part as well:
TBTBSecretSanta
With all of my announcements out of the way, let's jump right into another book review.
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers:
Source: Bought for myself
Publication Date: January 5th, 2010
Publisher: St.Martin's Griffin
Genre: Young Adult Fiction
Synopsis:
Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard—falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her—and her best friend's boyfriend—start going around. Now Regina's been frozen out, and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina were guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth, and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past whom she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend...if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.
Tensions grow and the abuse worsens, as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.
*******synopsis taken from goodreads*******
My Review:
I was initially attracted to this story by Courtney Summers when I learned it was about bullying, and the "mean girls" scenario so often found nowadays in public high schools. I'm always interested in reading books that talk about this deep issue, and so I decided to grab this one from Book Outlet, and go ahead and give it a chance. I'd barely heard anything negative about it, it seemed to be one of those books that everyone just loooooved, and so I anxiously jumped into it last week, only to be drastically disappointed in the outcome.
First of all, let's talk about what I did like about this story overall, although there wasn't much to be honest. Even though I wasn't that interested in the story or the characters, Courtney Summers possesses that amazing skill to still have you glued to the page. She's got a beautiful writing style that really makes the story she's telling come alive to the reader, and for that, I found myself still somewhat glad I'd picked this book up. I also did really like the fact that she attacked the concept of bullying, without holding back anything, and I really enjoy authors who are willing to write about deeper issues in YA fiction, like Katie McGarry or Sarah Dessen.
However, these two positive points were not enough to save this book for me, and overall, I completely could not stand it. To start with, Regina is probably the protagonist I've disliked the most from any book I've ever read, and that's saying a lot considering the thousands of titles I've been through. She's suffering from stress and its effects due to the horrific way her and her group of "friends" have treated their peers for the past few years, and yet she does nothing to change the situation until she herself becomes a victim. The opening chapters describe the situation where her best friend Anna's loser boyfriend tries to rape her, and yet her biggest concern with the whole situation is that Anna's going to turn on her if she speaks the truth. The reader is then treated to two hundred pages of her hating her new social status, and fighting back by letting her anger get the best of her and slamming girls heads into lockers, destroying personal property, chipping a girl's tooth with a dodge ball, etcetra etcetra.
Regina, in my opinion, was no better than any of the girls she's supposed to be standing up against, and I couldn't find even a remote sliver of sympathy for her over everything. Even when she seems to be on her way to finding a decent friend in Michael, she still ruins everything, primarily because she's thinking only of herself. And the whole romance between them seemed to be way too cliche in my eyes and was the whole "popular girl is outcast from her friends, falls for loser emo boy she used to make fun of, but can they really survive when they're so different" type of trope, and it just didn't work for me here.
On the other side of the spectrum, Anna and her circle, especially Kara, were way beyond typical mean girls, and the bullying they get away with throughout the entirety of this novel was sick beyond means, and I could barely stand reading the way that all the adults at the school were so oblivious to what was going on. Likewise, when for whatever reason Regina decides to turn to Kara for help at the start of the book, even though the two of them have never been able to stand each other, Kara decides to use Regina's situation to help herself gain social status. What kind of sick, twisted individual uses someone else's attempted rape as a popularity contest?
Throw teenage partying, drug dealing, more language than I've ever seen in a YA novel before, absent parents, and an ending that doesn't even remotely resolve anything into the mix, and you have a novel that I'm very sorry to say got a rare one star rating from me. As you guys know, I hate giving out one star ratings. I almost always try and find at least a few redeeming qualities to bump a book's rating up to two stars, but I just couldn't do it this time. This book was definitely not for me, and as this is the second Courtney Summers' book that I haven't really cared for, I'm not sure if I'll be picking up any books from her in the future or not.
I feel like I need to apologize for just how negative my review of this book was, but I've also always stated on my blog that my reviews are always honest, and this time, my honest opinion of this book was that it deserved its one star rating from me.
I hope you guys are all having a great week so far, and I'll see you all again on Wednesday for more bookish content.
Thanks so much for reading!
This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.
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