I have read many of Laurie Halse Anderson’s books and enjoyed them, until this one. This one is not up to her usual standards of writing.

There were way too many characters in the book. Forty characters in a short book, only about 200 pages, is too many. That is a new character every five pages on average. Some appear once, never to show up again. Some of the named characters are so incidental to the story, they need not even be named.

The story is told in the first person POV of Ashley. The prom is coming up and Ashley has zero interest in the prom. Then suddenly, she has an unexplained change of heart and not only wants to go to the prom, but spearheads the efforts to revive it when they learn the prom was canceled when a math teacher stole the money being saved to finance the prom. Why the sudden change of heart? It is not explained.

Ashley is a marginalized teen. She has a loser boyfriend, does not hang with the cool kids, and in fact is pretty much a loner with the exception of a few friends. This explains her lack of interest in the prom. But then suddenly she goes out of character and is the biggest promoter of the prom.

I also found one mistake in the book. On page 15, the narrator is referencing Nat, but refers to her as “TJ,” who is her boyfriend, not her female friend Nat.

The story was rather boring and bears some resemblance to a retelling of Cinderella. Fortunately, it is a short book, just over 200 pages, so it can be read quickly. But it was not engaging and the characters were poorly drawn and not developed at all. Ashley tells the story, but by the end of the book, I still did not feel like I knew her well. The book is full of teenage angst and high school female drama. Unless that is your thing, I doubt you will enjoy the book.

As previously stated, I am a fan of Ms. Anderson’s books, but this one missed the mark. Skip it. ( )

Light entertainment. Forgettable but fine for YAs. ( )

did not like ( )

Not my favorite Laurie Halse Anderson book but it was a quick easy read. The main character is deeply flawed but not a horrible person. I could identify with her in more than one way. Nice read though not up there with Speak or Catalyst.

Possible spoilers.

This was a semi-engaging read, but nothing spectacular as I didn't feel connected to any of the characters. I couldn't connect with Ashley and I didn't understand her relationship with TJ nor her break-up with him. There were hints as to why he might be a bad guy, but I felt that these were negated by his helping her father finish the kitchen. Even now, I don't know why everyone was so against TJ. I wonder if the writer wasn't misguided in having TJ help to reconstruct the kitchen. She obviously felt like he should be a bad guy, a fall guy, but he did something miraculous and never received the accolades. Instead, he showed up in a suit to take Ashley on a grand date that he was semi-paying for and yet again he was not the good guy. The scenes before the "prom" seemed forced, to make him a bad guy,.

My take is that if I were writing this story, somehow TJ would have worked out and have been something great for Ashley. The fact that other characters were denigrating his persona is just not enough. He did more to aid his character, except for the scenes immediately before the prom in which I think the author was diligently trying to prove a weird case, trying to prove that he was just a jerk, which I didn't buy. He did a lot for Ashley. He wanted her. He wanted her enough in his life that he was doing all kinds of things to bring her into it.

The author doesn't seem to understand that people who do things like this don't easily substitute. Her world is easy. My world, after many years of experiencing it, doesn't work that way. In my world, people acknowledge that what they do have consequences.

I am willing to admit that I missed something, something extremely important. But, I doubt it. The prose was not that good. The thought was just not that good. The characterizations were forced.

I did, however, like the idea of a grandmother who would devise a dreamy pink creation that would make a girl feel and look spectacular. I wish I had had a grandmother like that. ( )