Wednesday, September 30, 2009

REVIEW - It's All About Us

Title: It's All About Us
Author: Shelley Adina
Genre: Christian Young Adult
Grade: B-

From the back cover:
Lissa Mansfield is used to being in the "in crowd"--but being accepted by the popular girls at posh Spencer Academy boarding school in San Francisco is a lot harder than she thought.  And then there's her New York-loudmouth roommate, Gillian Chang, who's not happy just to b e a Christian herself--she's determined to out Lissa, too.  If Lissa can just keep her faith under wraps long enough to hook Callum McCloud, the hottest guy in school, she'll be golden.

But when Callum pressures her to go all the way with him, Lissa has to decide how far is too far.  How can she see that line when he's so gorgeous and popular and God seems so far away?  Between that and shopping for a knockout dress and booking the hottest celeb for the Benefactors' Day Ball . . . who knew finding a place at Spencer Academy would be so complicated.

My review:
This book was well written, but right off the bat I have to say I don't like the premise of the book.  The title is "it's all about us", and that seems to be the theme as well.  The characters even say "it's all about us, and God", as if God is an afterthought.  Maybe I'm being silly, but in my mind, it's all about God, not me, and that's the message I'd want my teen daughter to get.

Having got that out of the way, it was a well written book.  It kept my attention, for sure.  I found the main character highly unlikeable, but again, as mentioned in a previous review, it could be the first person narrative.  The other characters didn't really seem fleshed out, so it's hard to say much about them.  I will continue to read the series, and I'm hoping for a little bit of growth and change.  It looks like the following books are told from the point of view of different girls, so maybe that will help.  Honestly, I'm not sure if I would recommend this to young teens, but I guess I would recommend it to YA lovers.

No comments:

Post a Comment