Everything Sucks: Losing My Mind and Finding Myself in a High School Quest for Cool by Hannah Friedman
Release Date: August 3, 2009
Publisher: HCI Teens
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 200
From: TLC Tours
Interest: story
"By my senior year [in high school] I am the chair of the student body and disciplinary committee, coordinator of 3 community service programs, I have a 4.0 GPA, a millionaire boyfriend with a BMW, and finally, for the first time in my entire life, I am considered 'cool.' But when an article of mine about the college admissions process is published in Newsweek, everything I've worked so hard to achieve is pulled out from under me...and I resolve once and for all to stop allowing other people to define me." Welcome inside the head of 21-year-old Hannah Friedman--a fresh new author whose biting wit and captivating writing style is a cross between bestselling YA author Anne Brashares (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants) and the hysterically honest Amy Sedaris (I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence). Everything Sucks details the teenage years in all of their cringe-worthy absurdity--from getting home schooled in a tour bus with hippie musicians to attending one of New York's most prestigious private schools on full scholarship to developing a drug addiction and eating disorder to nearly getting kicked out of Yale University before she even gets to attend. In the end, it's Friedman's spirit that keeps her afloat.
Wow. And I thought my high school experience sucked. Hannah is insane, and I mean that is the most endearing way possible. I loved her voice in this story. There were moments where, I found myself screaming “yes” in agreement. Like the irrational fear of that stupid spider story from Scary Stories, that one still bothers me to this day!
Hannah's honest, brutally honest at times, but it only adds to the overall appeal of the novel. She doesn't bs around the issues, she addresses them head on, despite how very embarrassing they may be. If other memoirs I've read had been like this I may have actually enjoyed them. I hate when they try to cast their lives in the perfectly fake image, I think it's demeaning to your readers. Luckily Hannah doesn't do that. She tells you like it is, or like it was. She highlights the good times, she highlights the bad times.
She doesn't shy away from mentioning her drug use, she doesn't shy away from her eating disorder, she lays it out there, allowing you to judge her. Even though you won't be able to do anything but love and appreciate her in the end.
Hoping that Hannah continues to share her journey.