The Story is About   +  young adult

Cracked Up to Be

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Release Date:Decmber 23, 2008
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 224

Perfect Parker Fadley isn’t so perfect anymore. She’s quit the cheerleading squad, she’s dumped her perfect boyfriend, and she’s failing school. Her parents are on a constant suicide watch and her counselors think she’s playing games…but what they don’t know, the real reason for this whole mess, isn’t something she can say out loud. It isn’t even something she can say to herself. A horrible thing has happened and it just might be her fault. If she can just remove herself from everybody--be totally alone--then everything will be okay...The problem is, nobody will let her.

This book was everything that I hoped it was going to be and then some. And I wish that I was a good writer so that I could write a review worthy of this book. Why can’t I just say that I loved it and that it was one of the most compelling books I’ve ever read and that just be enough? Because really I don’t know why I like any book, I just do. But if I must, I guess I will.

The writing. If I hadn’t known that this was Summers’ debut novel, I wouldn’t have believed it. One of my most favorite books of all time is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, and this book parallels it’s greatness, it may even surpass it. Yeah it’s that good. I hope to be reading Summers in the future, she is an author to watch.

I don’t want to get into the plot so much, because I want everyone to go in without any predispositions, well at least I don’t personally want to give anything away, I’m sure if you do some digging you can find some things out, but believe me, you don’t want to. I will say this much, I thought I had it figured out and I was wrong wrong wrong, and that is usually not the case. I found this somewhere and I don’t remember where, but it totally sums this book up: “A frightening and sobering look at the cruelty and viciousness that pervade much of contemporary high school life, as real as today's headlines.” Yeah I really wish I had written that myself. This book does not have a sugary coating. Which only makes me like it even more.

And the characters, particularly perfect Parker Fadley, make this book an UNFORGETTABLE read.

Would I recommend it, absolutely. Have I already been recommending it, you better believe it.

Who knew it was so hard to be perfect.