Synopsis: "When a mandatory marriage education course forces Fiona to “try the knot” with super-jock Todd Harding, she’s convinced life could not possibly get any worse. Until moments later, when her long-time crush is paired with her arch-enemy (otherwise known as Todd’s obscenely hot, slightly sadistic girlfriend). But that’s nothing compared to her best friend’s fate – a year with the very shy, very goofy, very big Johnny Mercer.
A series of hilarious pranks and misunderstandings leave Fiona wondering: is there something her supposed “best friend” hasn’t told her? Could there be more to Johnny Mercer than a deep voice and an awesome music collection? And perhaps most intriguing of all, is it possible that Todd Harding could actually have a heart – and a brain – beneath his pretty-boy exterior?"
Review: When I read the review of this book I had high expectations. I didn't think this would be a revolutionary plot or something of the sort, but I had heard that this book was very funny. And it certainly lived up to that expectation. The pranks and the interactions between Fiona and Todd were genuinely hilarious and didn't seem at all forced.
The rest of the book luckily, lived up to the humor. There was a lot about this book I hadn't expected. the way relationships formed between characters wasn't what I expected when I read the back cover of the book, but in a very good way. And I loved that the story which deals in large part with the fake marriage between Fiona and Todd wasn't just a mechanism to make them fall in love, as would have been the case if this book had been written by almost any other teen author. It was a device to make them fall into friendship and I think that it worked great. The grudging respect and admiration they gain for one another as they go along seemed very real to me, and I absolutely loved reading it.
Very funny novel with lots of great character interactions. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys light-hearted stories about teens in high school.
Rating: A-
Other books I'd recommend:
Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles
Any other book by Simone Elkeles
Any book by Sarah Dessen
Dash and Lily's Book of Dares- Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
lol, do you read any books that *don't* have to do w/ romance/relationships??
ReplyDeletei LOVE stuff that goes deeper into the relationships between the characters, like Avatar (speaking of, curse you 10-month wait for Legend of Korra)! plus it's hilarious?? win-win!!
Books that don't have to do with romance/relationships...
ReplyDeleteOccasionally, lol. I mean most of the books I read aren't centered around romance so in that aspect yes, although most of them do have some form of romance within them.
Although I do read a small amount of books, primarily just realistic fiction about teens in high school that has a larger focus on the romance, such as all of the books recommended by me at the end of this post, lol.
like Looking for Alibrand, too?? :) and Little Brother!! and The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud. great book, if you haven't read that, which i doubt if my guess of you seeing the movie being advertised got you wanting to read the book
ReplyDeleteLike Looking for Alibrandi, yes, sort of, except there is more of a focus on family and other issues than just romance in Melina Marchetta's books. This book has a much bigger focus on the romance aspect.
ReplyDeleteAnd I did read The Death and Life of Charlie St. Cloud before I saw that movie. I think I liked the movie better actually, but only because I felt like the book was sort of rushed and didn't have too much substance to it, and that sort of pacing seemed to work better in a movie format than in a novel, in my opinion anyways.
oh, no doubt. your review's and synopses make that perfectly clear.
ReplyDeleteand REALLY!? (gotta love it when someone surprises you like that) i thought the pacing, the fact that you could breeze right through it was great. a page-turner that i read in just a few hours. poe may have been referring to short stories when he said they must be read in a single sitting, but that doesn't have to exclude novellas.
I did enjoy the book I just thought that it made a better movie, which is strange since there are very few books that have good movie adaptations. The most accurate story-movie adaptation I've ever seen (other than those 6+ hour BBC productions of things) was Brokeback Mountain. But that's probably only because the original story is a short story so they didn't have to cut anything out.
ReplyDeletehmmm! yes, movie adaptatoins don't have exactly the best reputation, do they? i wonder if my plan of when someone comes to me wanting to adapt one of my books for something or other, i will have a big part in the production. still figuring out if i should go for writer (a la ms. marchetta), producer, or director.
ReplyDeletehow, if i may ask, did it make such a better movie, if it was anything besides pace?? i've always seen the liberty one has in protraying characters in one's mind as a huge advantage books have over movies