How Not to Spend Your Senior Year

Reader reviewed by Stella

"How not to spend your senior year" is a story of a girl who falls in love with a boy from school, then is forced into witness protection program with her father because her father saw a murder take place and now the thugs are after them. Sound familiar? This book was entirely predictable, girl meets boy, boy thinks girl is dead, girl is not dead, boy and girl live happily ever after. If you are looking for a book which you can just breeze through without having to trouble your brain whatsoever, this is a book for you.

Reader reviewed by Ella

What else is new? It seems like many of the new books coming out are all the same. 'How not to spend your senior year' had the same plot as many other new releases. The highschool girl who has to leave her boyfriend because of some parent related problem. The girl who becomes popular after trying to blend in so much at new schools. The girl who's friend gets the boy she thought liked her. Blah blah blah. In a sense, it was a bit different, the whole ghost thing, but overall it was too stereotype. I thouhgt the book needed somehting to really make it good and unique. My idea of a good, unique book is when the story characters are REALISTIC ( so few characters are realistic that doing this would make it one of a kind)! This book didn't really have realistic characters. Their pesonalities were what adults seem to think teenagers act like. I thought this book was blah and unrealistic.

Reader reviewed by Ria

In How Not to Spend Your Senior Year, Jo OConner has been living her whole life running after her mother died. She had not stayed in one place long enough to make friends, until she moved to Seattle, Washington. Finally, at Beacon High, she met the guy of her dreams, Alex Crawford, and her best friend, Elaine. Things were going along great, as much as you could expect for being a new student, until her father springs another change to her life.

Suddenly, under the circumstances, Jo has to pretend she has died in a fatal car crash, along with her father. At her new location, Jo has assumed the name Claire Calloway and begins a new life at Royer High. At Royer High, Claire is bombarded with statements telling her how much she resembles Jo. She joins the newspaper, where she is given a great opportunity for her writing career. She is sent to Beacon High as an exchange student to investigate how the students there are coping with Jos death.

Through her journey, she discovers many things. Especially how hard the students are taking Jos death. But everything is done for a reason. Slowly, during her interviews with Alex and other students, and her secret rendezvous with Elaine, she begins to realize that things werent as she thought they were. She takes the opportunity to make things right along with discovering what love really is.

I thought that How Not To Spend Your Senior Year was a cute book. It was not a mushy high school romance that I was expecting. The twists and turns kept the story interesting. It will make you laugh and surprise you. Though it may not be the best book, this book is definitely worth reading.

Reader reviewed by Julie

This book was absolutely cool. I love romantic comedies and this is exactly what this is. All I have to say is that this book is for any girl who would like to start over.....as herself.

Reader reviewed by Kristen

I liked this book, because I had never read a book that talked about a girl having to move from town to town, switching her identity. Also I like how understanding she was about her father's situation. It was a really good book. All senior girls should read this~!!!!!

Reader reviewed by snailshot

You know how they say "if something is too good to be true, than its not true". Well it applies to What Not to Do In Your Senior Year.

This book came along at a great time when I needed a light read. I'm not to big on contemporary mainstream books but this one was great. I'm not a big fan of the cheesy romantic comedy they throw at girls assuming thats what we love, either-but this book was great. This book was so good that I didn't even realize it was a romantic comedy until I re-read the label detailing the genre. But it was really a quirky sweet story with lots of human flavor, not the mushy stuff.

The language was very simple, as the narrator was an 18 year old girl. The story about a girl who hast to fake her own death, and all chaos breaks lose afterward (in a darling fashion), was sweet. I didn't like how the author threw around the word "love" so much or how she tried to start a manual and a plain account at the same time and left both unfinished. But the book is so worth reading, you will love it and hate when it ends. Its even a book I re-read, and could re-read for half a lifetime, and I hate re-reading books.

So you know its good.

Girls should read it everywhere, its refreshing to the formulaic books in mainstream.