First impression: Oh brother.
Story: (From amazon.com )
This story set is in Washington, D.C. Feisty, red-haired Samantha, a self-described "urban rebel" who has dyed all of her clothes black, is a 15-year-old middle child, uncomfortably wedged between her popular, cheerleader older sister, Lucy, and her brainy 11-year-old sister, Rebecca. And she has a major crush on Jack, Lucy's nonconformistartist boyfriend, whom she feels is far better suited to her than to her rather vacuous sister. The entertainingly opinionated narrator's wry top-10 lists add considerably to the tale's charm and speedy pacing, among them, the "top ten reasons why I can't stand my sister Lucy" and the "top ten signs that Jack loves me and not my sister Lucy and just hasn't realized it yet." Sam's life suddenly changes dramatically when, while standing on the sidewalk one afternoon, she foils an attempt to assassinate the President. She becomes a national hero overnight, is named teen ambassador to the United Nations and eventually lands the president's son as her beau. Despite these rather unlikely plot twists (in a comic coincidence, the president's son also happens to be a fellow student in her art class whom she finds attractive), Sam's spunky and intermittently affecting narrative, as well as the true-to-life voices of the supporting cast of characters, make this a convincing and diverting tale. As Sam learns important truths about herself, Cabot interjects a worthy message into her comedic caper.
My thoughts: Not as bad as Stargirl, because there were a few parts I enjoyed. But the main character, in many points, almost drove me out of my mind. She was a mindless “non-conformoist a.k.a. rebel” wannabe, who’s biggest fear was turning out like parents. Which is usually what the generalization of 15 year olds is, and sadly, in many cases, is true. Even so, there was one or two characters worse than her (okay.. many. she annoyed me the most at the beginning, but the ending made everything not quite so bad), especially her sister’s boyfriend, and her crush, Jack. He’s a selfish jerk who is the epitome of a faux artiste, a supposedly “deep” individual who thinks he is better than everyone, when really his work sucks. SUCKS. Whenever he came into the plot, I wanted to rip out the pages and feed them to a rabid chimpanzee. Once I surpressed this urge, I had time to focus on the other points of this book. The whole story is incredibly unrealistic. She saved the Presidents life—that’s great. In real life, she might get a thank you or an award, but let’s be serious, wouldn’t we all be better off without Bush? Haha, just kidding there. Anyways, even the review from Amazon admitted that. And usually, in books, “unlikely plot twists” are bearable… but for some reason (maybe it’s just the authors style?), this book seemed especially annoying. However, as I mentioned before, there are some bits that I liked, and many points were pretty good, when the main character Sam finally got a brain and the other characters stopped being jacka--- donkeys. :D.
The verdict: Avoid if you can, but if you must read it, you won’t be trying to gouge your eyes out the whole time. ^^.