My Invented Life - Lauren Bjorkman

Summary:

With Roz and Eva everything becomes a contest—who can snag the best role in the school play, have the cutest boyfriend, pull off the craziest prank. Still, they’re as close as sisters can be. Until Eva deletes Roz from her life like so much junk e-mail for no reason that Roz understands. Now Eva hangs out with the annoyingly petite cheerleaders, and Roz fantasizes about slipping bovine growth hormone into their Gatorade.

Roz has a suspicion about Eva. In turn, Eva taunts Roz with a dare, which leads to an act of total insanity. Drama geeks clamor for attention, Shakespearean insults fly, and Roz steals the show in Lauren Bjorkman’s hilarious debut novel.

Info:
Pages: 240
Publisher: Henry Holt Books for Young Readers
Publish Date: September 29, 2009
Buy: Indiebound / Amazon / Book Depository

Grade:

Originality: 20/20
Characters: 10/15
Writing: 8/10
Voice: 9/10
Ending: 9/10
Entertainment: 8/10
Cover: 10/10
Recommendation: 7/10

Total: 81/100 = B-

Review:

So I didn't really think this book was as good as I was expecting it to be. I had really high hopes for it -- it looked really original and different, the characters looked really different, and it just looked FUN. However, by the end, I found myself disappointed.

It was very original, it just wasn't played out the best way possible, in my opinion. The characters were very original, too, but they were just very... odd. I felt like many of them had multiple personality disorder, because they would start by thinking or saying one thing, and then they would totally go against their personality in the end.

It was also hard to keep up with reality with this book. Roz has a tendency to fake things that she wanted to have happen to her, then start saying what REALLY happened. I don't know if it was just me, but it was hard to keep reality and made-up reality straight.

Now onto the positive! Roz was a very original character, as was many of the other characters in this book. The writing was also very good -- I loved all of the Shakespearean insults that Bjorkman wrote into the book.

I would say this is the book for you if you're looking for a fun read that might be a bit slow in the beginning. It's not horrible, so still give it a try if you think it sounds like something you'd like!

hope.

This book was reviewed for the One Arc Tours.