Review: The List

An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

 Following the lives of eight different characters is never easy. Making it into good writing is even harder, yet somehow Siobhan Vivian managed to do just that. The List is about eight girls at Mount Washington High School. They've got one thing in common, and that's that their names all appeared on the List. The List is a tradition. Every year, the ugliest and prettiest girl from each grade are typed on a list that is posted all around the school. If this is sounding like a really bad book to you... hold on a minute.

I wasn't expecting to like this book. In fact, I was expecting to downright hate it. I don't like Gossip Girl (which is what the summary vaguely reminded me of.) But for whatever reason, I bought it anyway. It exceeded my (low) expectations despite its unpromising potential.

The characters are so realistic that it's easily imaginable. For example, Abby. What Abby cares about is limited between makeup, fashion, gossip etc. But she's not a shallow character. She wants to establish a relationship with her sister, Fern, who wants nothing more than to keep away from her. Bridget, Abby's best friend's sister, is chosen as the prettiest junior. Secretly, she is struggling with anorexia and trying to refocus and recognize the fine line between unhealthily skinny and healthily thin. Then there's Sarah, one of the ugliest girls. She comes up with a plan to not shower or change clothes for an entire week and show up at Homecoming. And Jennifer? This is Jennifer's fourth year on the List...but as ugliest. Of course, she has some secrets too. Some of them are about her middle-school friendship with the prettiest senior girl, Margo; some of them pertaining to the List in general.

The only real problem I had with the character building was Dana. And Rachel. Margo's best friends, who are unexpectedly nice and campaign for Jennifer as Homecoming Queen. It's like there's two of them and one personality, which I didn't appreciate. I understand the need of having two but it was too hard to tell them apart; they need to have distinguishing characteristics.

The way these girls deal with their new labels are very realistic. I hated some of them and I loved some of them: I'm sure this was Vivian's intention. There were a surprising amount of plot twists that I didn't see coming. The writing, while not necessarily in a style that I liked, did not negatively impact my feelings toward this book. In fact I think that it was a necessity so that I could keep track of the eight different girls. There was something markedly relatable in each character; I could understand where many of their actions were coming from.

The ending. I simultaneously loved it and hated it. While I wish it had detailed what actually happened and had a better resolution and whatnot, I loved the metaphor in those final sentences. But still... bad endings are a pet peeve, and if I had to rate this one, I would give it a 3/5. It was almost as if I needed an epilogue. It wasn't too abrupt, but it definitely was not as conclusive as I would have liked. 

This is not really my kind of book. However, I (surprisingly) liked it. I've reread it a couple of times so I can get all my details straight, and each time I have found another thing to mark down as a like but another to mark down as a dislike. Vivian's book deals with several issues: it digs deeper, I think, than Gossip Girl. Recommended for a lazy weekend/not-too-intense reading.

Four stars!