EvilEva reviews ...... Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook. Dissecting The Cover:
I kinda like this cover. It's cheery yet disturbing. Creepy yet cute. It's very Pretty Little Liars-esque. Which is probably why I like it.
Let's Review:
Helen Worthington and Lauren Wood were best friends. There was nothing Helen wouldn't do for Lauren.
The Lauren totally betrayed her.
A rumor spread. And Helen's life was ruined. She had to move and change schools.
But now Helen's parents are moving to some hippie camp in Maine and sending Helen to live with her grandma in Michigan. Not that there's anything wrong with Michigan. I mean, other than the fact that Helen's grandma lives in Terrace, Michigan. The very city a shamed Helen fled three years ago. The very city that's still home to Lauren Wood!
At first Helen is totally against moving back to Terrace, especially since it means she'll be sharing a high school with Lauren.
But then Helen has an idea. A wickedly vengeful idea. She won't get mad. She'll get even!
Helen combines her middle name, Claire, with her mother's maiden name, Dantes, and creates a whole new identity for herself. Then she puts her plan into action.
Claire's gonna take everything that ever mattered to Lauren. Her boyfriend, her spot in the school play, her friends, her popularity.
It's time to DESTROY Lauren Wood!
Here's What I Think:
Another revenge book, much like the previous Eileen Cook book I read, except this time around it's for the YA set. It reminded me of Mean Girls actually.
Claire is a pretty funny, if single-minded, protagonist. And as a nerd who was also a nerd in high school, I get her lust for vengeance. I think everyone has that someone in their life that they would like to take down, exact revenge on, and completely humiliate. The difference is most of us just do it in our heads. Plot what we would say, how we would say it and how big of an audience should be around for maximum embarrassment. But unlike us, Claire wants the total destruction of Lauren Wood out of her mind and out in the open. She wants to make Lauren's life as miserable as Lauren made hers.
Although one problem I had with the book was the whole reason Claire wants to get revenge on Lauren Wood. Which is, uh, kinda the while premise of the book. I mean, I understand that most teenagers are, by nature, assholes but I find it hard to believe that the whole school would have cared about "the incident" enough to make Claire into a complete social pariah. I mean, it's not like she pushed Regina George in front of a bus or something. ;)
After the first few diabolical plans succeed, Claire should have cashed in her chips, considered her revenge gotten and then concentrated on being true to herself, befriending the awesomely geeky Brenda for realsies, and making out with Christopher while "watching" Vertigo at the old theater.
Because really the best revenge is being so over the bullshizz that you don't even need to get revenge anymore.
Swoony Times:
Christopher is a fairly swoony guy. He's a documentary filmmaker without being douchey about it. He's nice and teasingly flirty but he could have been, I don't know, more. It felt like his character wasn't completely fleshed out, like the book had to be more than just "getting revenge on Lauren Wood," so here's a love interest, sort of. So that was a little disappointing because I think Christopher had the potential to be swoonarific.
Bonus Shizz:
Revenge!
I love revenge! I mean, HELLO!, I'm Evil. So I often like books that deal with people going batshizz crazy in an effort to dole out just desserts. But I'm really more of a pranks girl, not a full-on life-ruiner.
If You Liked That, Try This:
Unpredictable by Eileen Cook.
The Scale Of Judgment Says:
...... 3.
Could have been a little more fetch.
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