Book Review: It Started With a Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech

It Started with a Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin (Graphia)
Publication date: September 2010
ISBN: 9780547235585

Source: e-book provided by NetGalley

It Started with a Dare 

When CG Silverman moves to a new town and a new school, she's determined to be a new person.  When she manages to worm her way into the good graces of the most popular cliche at the school, she must maintain her new persona of rebel and dare devil.  But, she finds lying about her past, her present, and just about everything else is required to maintain all those intricate and complicated relationships she has.  Will she be able to keep all her secrets?

Things I Liked:
The book showed a complicated look at popularity and the kinds of things people will do to be popular.  It was also quite interesting in its depictions of the carelessness we feel toward other peoples' feelings.  CG was not a person I liked or related to at all, especially in the way she treated others, but I did see that I can become just as cavalier with the feelings of other people.  It played kind of a cautionary story for me.


Things I Didn't Like:
I actually really didn't like the characters or story much.  CG is a sarcastic, crass, potty-mouthed jerk, to pretty much everyone throughout.  She toys with people over and over and doesn't even seem to care, until she loses friends.  I really got tired of her.  The story was fairly interesting, but held nothing original or terribly entertaining to me.  When CG does "figure it out," the message is pounded into our heads so obviously that it lacks any kind of subtlety.  In short, I just wasn't impressed.  


Read-alikes:

The Real Real by Emma Mclaughlin and Nicola Kraus
Snap by Carol Snow

BOOK CONTENT RATINGS:
s-factor: !@#$
plenty throughout, some strong


mrg-factor: XX
lots of discussion of it, not much actual descriptions


v-factor: none

Overall rating: **

I really liked the cover of this one, but it seems a bit deceptive. It looks light-hearted and even sweet, but totally isn't on the inside. What covers have you seen that seem deceptive?

If you buy through my Amazon linkage, I will get a very small percentage
 
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