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!

An Abundance of Katherines (John Green)

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. He's also a washed-up child prodigy with ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a passion for anagrams, and an overweight, Judge Judy-obsessed best friend. Colin's on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which will predict the future of all relationships, transform him from a fading prodigy into a true genius, and finally win him the girl. Letting expectations go and allowing love in are at the heart of Colin's hilarious quest to find his missing piece and avenge dumpees everywhere.

First of all, I am a certified nerd. Well not really certified, but you get my point. Colin is also a certified nerd (aka a master of anagrams/child prodigy.) However, he is a kind of foolish nerd, because as the story opens, he has just broken up with his nineteenth girlfriend. It doesn't really matter what her name is, because as it turns out, Colin's type in girls is simply girls named Katherine.

Hassan, Colin's best friend, is not a nerd. In fact, he's put off college for a year, which is soon to become two years since he hasn't filled out anything yet. But he's a good friend. And he decides that he has the perfect cure for Colin's broken heart-- a road trip. Duh. 

One of the things I loved most about this book was Hassan's and Colin's friendship. First of all, there's lots of witty banter, as per usual in John Green writing. Somehow, despite their numerous differences, the two have remained friends after an incident with a pupillary sphincter (more on that later) in high school. The witticisms aren't the best part--it's just 'watching' them work together. 

Anyways, Colin, noted child prodigy, has a theory: there are dumpers and dumpees. You cannot be both a dumper and dumpee. Also, he is a dumpee. If you don't figure this out in the beginning of the book, there is also a quick description of each beginning/middle/end of his relationships. I'll admit that it sounds, well, kind of boring. Surprise! I actually loved hearing about the Katherines.

So Colin and Hassan decide to stay in Gutshot, Tennessee. (I know. Gut. Shot. Violence, people, violence!) This is because of Lindsey Lee Wells, who finds Hassan and Colin when Colin falls on the back of his head. And that's when Colin has his Eureka moment: a graph of when x=time and y=happiness and lots of other domain restrictions and yay math!  

Thus begins Colin and Hassan's stay in Gutshot, Tennessee, filled with many graphs, x and y equations, Calculus, a tape recorder, and also Lindsey Lee Wells. At some point, the math for the dumpers/dumpees curve became complicated to the extent that I kind of skimmed the equations, because there was no way I was ever going to be able to understand that. 

On the other hand: I've read some of John Green's other books, and I felt like it wasn't just quite up to par with The Fault in Our Stars, which I actually think is the best out of all that I've read. However, I loved the characters, who were original and spunky. The plot-- who doesn't love road trips? And also anagrams and child prodigies? Not to mention a really bad taste in girls? And, finally, the writing style. I fell in love with John Green from the first book I read by him. It is strong, peppered with humor, serious in a few places, cynical and sarcastic in others, and full of life. 

Excerpt: “And the moral of the story is that you don't remember what happened. What you remember becomes what happened. And the second moral of the story, if a story can have multiple morals, is that Dumpers are not inherently worse than Dumpees - breaking up isn't something that gets done to you; it's something that happens with you.” 

4/5