Written by: Lena Horowitz
Number of pages: 235
Average Rating: 3.2/5 stars
My Rating: 2/5 stars
Published: June 2, 2015
Read in September 2017
Summary According to Goodreads
Before, I was never the life of the party. I was the reliable one. The one no one had to worry about. The one no one had to think about. I was the one that everyone could ignore.
Until that night, when everything changed and I finally became someone.
Someone special. Someone noticeable. Someone Carson might actually care about, as much as I cared about him.
But the cost of being someone is more than anyone can imagine. For every moment, there's a price to pay. For every party. For every choice made. For every kiss.
Ultimately, living a life of pure ecstasy might be no different from not living at all.
My Thoughts
As many of you know, I am a huge fan of realistic fiction stories that centre around drugs and/or alcohol. They are so relatable and usually provide and encourage messages to young readers, but I enjoy the psychology behind addiction so they are interesting reads for me. Not this one though.
This novel is presented in a diary format, and I don’t believe we even know the characters first name. It is a very character based novel, however none of them were outstanding. Realistic, yes, but likeable, no. Let’s start with our main character, Miss Nameless Drama Queen. Even before she started using drugs, I didn’t like her personality. She is constantly talking about people’s looks, how she couldn’t see herself with a guy she’s known for like TEN YEARS, because he looks gross, and even refers to her friend as “a bigger girl” quite often. She is very self-centred but spent the novel complaining that her younger sister was all high and mighty. Reality check, girl: she probably learned it from you. My favourite character of all of them was probably Carson, and only because he wasn’t a complete drug-fueled asshole. I feel like he genuinely cared about our character and wanted to help her, but she was convinced she didn’t have a problem. And don’t even get me started on her parents. Someone needs to sit down and talk to them about what being “grounded” means.
The plot was generic and typical, and didn’t have any twists or anything that I couldn’t call from a mile away. It obviously wasn’t written by a teenager, and instead seemed to try and hit every cliche to try and give it that idea. I think it is relatable and would be beneficial to a younger audience, just as an exposure to drug use and its effects.
The ONLY reason that I couldn’t give this novel one star, is I didn't hate it. I understand it, it was a quick read, and I never considered giving up on it. So there must be something underlying there, but I don’t hate it. I won’t be reading it again or keeping it on my shelf, but I don’t regret picking it up. I found the ending to be rushed and would have preferred losing 50 pages in the middle for more emotion in the ending.
I went into this novel with expectations that I would enjoy it, so I am quite disappointed. Overall, I would recommend this story to anyone looking for a teen-angsty story and is ready to sit though 200 pages of a main character believing she isn’t in the wrong. This isn’t a novel I had heard anything about before seeing it on the bargain shelf at Chapters, and I understand why.
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