Monday, January 17, 2011

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales

Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales
Simon Pulse, October 2010
read for A-Z Challenge


Summary from Goodreads:
The higher you aim, the farther you fall….
It’s Violet’s junior year at the Westfield School. She thought she’d be focusing on getting straight As, editing the lit mag, and figuring out how to talk to boys without choking on her own saliva. Instead, she’s just trying to hold it together in the face of cutthroat academics, her crush’s new girlfriend, and the sense that things are going irreversibly wrong with her best friend, Katie.
When Katie starts making choices that Violet can’t even begin to fathom, Violet has no idea how to set things right between them. Westfield girls are trained for success—but how can Violet keep her junior year from being one huge, epic failure?
This was such a fun, fun novel! I loved that the chapters were kept relatively short--the book almost read as a series of very short stories instead of a novel. Sales did a wonderful job of creating exquisite voices for her characters. Both Violet has a wicked sense of humor, as does her best friend, Kate, and for me the highlight of this story was reading how the two play off of each other. Together they are certainly a force to be reckoned with.


Violet is a strong young woman who sets impossibly high goals for herself, but is quite realistic in how she expects to achieve said goals. I mean, this isn't a girl who just says she wants straight A's, but one who devotes all of winter break studying to get those straight A's. But Violet  is far from perfect, and these imperfections make the reader love her all the more. She makes mistakes and she screws up, just like the rest of us.


I thoroughly enjoyed this debut novel. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys contemporary fiction, and I'm looking forward to reading more by Leila Sales!


(I won this book in a contest)


Enjoy your reading!
Christi

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the great review. I've got this sitting at home, waiting for me to get around to it. I'll definitely have to, it sounds like a fun read.

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  2. It was definitely a fun read, hope you like it!

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  3. I already have this book here to read. I'm not usually a fan of contemp fic. Well, I shouldn't say not a fan, I guess I wouldn't actively seek it out. BUT your review makes the book sound fun and impossible not to read. Wow. I think I've confused myself! Anywho, I'm moving this up on my tbr pile, thanks!

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  4. i really want to read this book--i LOVE contemp YA (my fave genre by far). it sounds so fun. great review :)

    -michelle

    p.s. thanks for stopping by our IMM post.

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  5. I loved this novel as well! It was so cute and I loved the way the story was told; like you said, it was told in short snippets- one of my favorite things about it!

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