LOVED IT! Read it in one night because I couldn't stop reading it!! There's no one reason why I liked it so much, it was just really well written and I just fell into it. I love books that instantly get me hooked and make me feel sad when I finish them just because I didn't want them to end. This is definitely one of those :) ( )

A quick and dramatic read about a girl who falls out of favor with the popular group, and becomes the subject of relational bullying. She finds some solace with the kids she used to help bully until she has to decide whether to betray them in order to be cool again. ( )

Can "people suck" be my review??

I just finished a review of Summers' All the Rage. That, and this book, were really not my thing. But I have to say that they did leave me ... ugh! Just ugh. ARGH. Ugh.

So, I guess Summers has done her job, because I am mighty disturbed. I guess reading this book, through my lense of the mother of an 8 year old girl, has really influenced my perception of it - or I guess what parts I identified with, or which parts stood out. I wanted to shake the mothers in both books. I wanted to think, and continue to think, that if my daughter was acting like Regina or Romy, I would get my head out of the sand, tie her down and make her talk to me. Or make sure we continue our good talking at night while we colour habits. Or something. Because what these girls went through, or inflicted on others, was - is this the norm now? Jesus. Homeschooling, yup.

Sorry, I have digressed - if you are a fan of YA, and can handle some frank and difficult subject matter, read this. Then read All the Rage. ( )

(4.5 stars)

From www.pingwings.ca:

I’ve had this in e-book format forever but hadn’t read it. Then Ciara announced her Courtney Summers read along and I was so excited because it meant I would finally be reading this book!

From the Goodreads summary:

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard—falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High… until vicious rumors about her and her best friend’s boyfriend start going around. Now Regina’s been “frozen out” and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn’t come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend… if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don’t break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.

Right off the bat, the characters in this story felt authentic to me. Regina’s boredom at the party, sober as the designated driver while watching everyone else get drunk off their faces, and even dislike of her friends, was refreshingly realistic.

This book was a brutal look at high school and Regina’s fall from the top of the food chain to the bottom. The characters are nasty and mean and relentless, and the adults (teachers, parents) are oblivious. As Regina tries to first ignore her ex-friends and their behaviour, and then fights back in an attempt to put a stop to it all, I found myself feeling more and more anxious, happy that I’d never gone through any of that in real life. It was all so mean and painful and public! Courtney Summers really knows how to write mean girls. Honestly, the things that characters in this book do to each other are vile but the story sucked me in and I couldn’t put the (e)book down.

To complicate things, Regina finds herself maybe, possibly falling for Michael, a boy that she and her former friends picked on mercilessly. Watching Regina try to change, to seek forgiveness for her past behaviour, was compelling. She wasn’t the sort of main character that, as the reader, you like right away, because you know she’s been awful to people. But there is something about a character trying to change that makes me root for him or her, and that ended up being the case here with Regina.

This was a really fast read, probably because I couldn’t put down. I couldn’t wait to see how it all ended. After reading three of her books, I am solidly a Courtney Summers fan and I can’t wait to read her newest book, All the Rage, out in 2015. I definitely recommend this book! ( )

Like reading a twisted, amped-up Mean Girls while someone continually punches you in the gut. It's that good. I'd like to believe that no one bullies to this extent or operates with no remorse, but one character gets to the heart of it: "Some girls are just f'ed up." Only he says it, of course. Because there's nothing lame about this well-written, tense book. It stressed me out. (Thanks, Vivian, for the recommendation!) ( )