Review: Perfect You by Elizabeth Scott
Sophomore year is not going particularly well for sixteen year old Kate Brown. Her father quit his job to sell infomercial vitamins at the mall, and has turned it into a family business (and not a successful one). Her best friend Anna quit talking to her at the beginning of the school year after undergoing a transformation, and she now pretends that Kate doesn't exist- unless she is laughing at her. And she can't quite figure out why Will Miller, player and jackass, is so interested in talking to her... and why she can't seem to stop thinking about him. Over the course of the novel, Kate is forced to come to some realizations about herself and the people in her life, from her family, to Anna and Will.
There are many points throughout the novel where Kate comes across as being quite selfish, but she's sixteen, and it's easy to see where she gets it from, as her father and older brother are quite selfish as well. She's also a bit of a doormat; no matter how poorly Anna and her new friends treat her, she still wants nothing more than to be friends with Anna again. And sometimes, she is just plain mean, particularly in the way she treats Will. But all of her behavior points to one thing: she is a teenage girl whose life is rapidly changing, and she's struggling to deal with these changes. And there lies Scott's talent: she has accurately depicted the very real emotions teenagers experience, without trapping them in material objects and concerns. Overall, I thought this was a great read, and would recommend it to anyone interested in reading realistic young adult novels.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Pages: 321
Publisher, ISBN: Simon Pulse, 9781416953555
888 Category: Young Adult Novels
Review Cross-Posted To: Library Thing