Customer Reviews

Birthday Vicious (Ashleys)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

WARNING SPOILERS AHOY: IF YOU ARE A KID THIS REVIEW WILL PROBABLY RUIN THE WHOLE BOOK FOR YOU, IF YOU ARE A PARENT YOU SHOULD PROBABLY READ THE BOOK FIRST BEFORE LETTING YOUR KID READ IT

Let me preface this by saying i have never read any book by Melissa De La Cruz nor have I read the first two books of the series. However I have read the 1st 8 books of The Clique 9-Book Set (the clique) (i would give the books 4-5 stars, I liked them very much, also I've read several other teen series in high school settings) Before I cracked open this book though I came on Amazon.com and read the summaries/reviews of the other two to catch me up on the plot. Oh wait... it turns out there isn't one.

It's literally like Melissa's publisher came up to her and was like "Hey, that series, The Clique by Lisi Harrison is doing really well, you think you could make something exactly like that for the preteen market for us?" and Melissa was like "Umm... okay!" The one difference is that instead of Upstate New York the setting is San Francisco and the token minority is Asian instead of Latina.

The story seems to borrow heavily from Mean Girls (Special Collector's Edition). The 'new girl in town' character Lauren, actually a poor girl (who magically goes super rich overnight and gets a head to toe makeover thanks to her dad making it big on some internet scheme) who was bullied by the Plastics, no wait i mean the Pretty Committee, no wait, I mean Heathers, No wait... oh yeah, that's it, The Ashleys! is now out for revenge Lindsay Lohan style by infiltrating the Ashleys and trying to destroy them from the inside...sigh...

Anyway, so in this episode the main Ashley, the white, blonde one is having a birthday party and of course it has to be a total ripoff of My Super Sweet 16. She spends the entire book freaking out and being selfish. For example her mom is very sick and pukes all over the the party planner's office (and dog) and all Ashley can think about is "OMG! MY PARTY NOO!" i don't really understand how Melissa De La Cruz expects her readers to sympathize or relate to or care about this creep of a girl?

Thee there is Ashley Li, called Lili, even her parents call her Lili for some reason. Her storyline is that her boyfriend and his clique want to go camping in the middle of nowhere and apparently their parents let them WITH NO ADULT SUPERVISION, a bunch of 12 year olds, 3 boys 3 girls... RIGHT. Not even on planet Mars will that ever happen, i don't care what kind of artsyfart drugged out hippie parents you have. Apparently Lili's parents are OMG SOOO MEEEN! for not letting her go so she has to go purchase camping gear from... Nordstroms and sneak out and go anyway... like Nordstroms seriously sells camping gear... WHAT? One more thing about lili's story, Melissa brings in two girls and they are both just absolute creeps with no personality. it's really disappointing when the only reason an author creates a character is to have them be a 1-dimensional bad guy.
* PARENTS - in case you are wondering, the entire night is very chaste, the girls sleep in one tent and the boys in another and there's absolutely no hanky-panky whatsoever.

So then we have A.A. Ashley Alioto. She is the tall brunette and her mom is a jet setting supermodel. A.A. was the nicest character in the book and I don't really have much to say about her. her storyline was basically that she had had a fight with her male best friend//designated love interest Tri in the previous book and was so mad at him that she didn't want to really speak to him, so every few chapters there would be a confrontation in which Tri cornered her and said "A.A. there's something i have to tell you." and then magically something would happen at the last second in which he wold get thwarted and have to try again later. I suppose it was meant to build up anticipation to the point where he finally gets to confess his undying love for her but it was just so lame and stale I was just like come on just get on with it already!

The final character is a new girl, Sadie who just came back into town. Once upon a time when Lauren was a lame-o loser, Sadie was her BFF, now Sadie is still lame and Lauren is torn. In the end Lauren transforms her into "A cool girl" which apparently involves DYING A 12 YEAR OLD GIRL'S HAIR BLONDE AND MAKING HER PUT ON BLUE CONTACT LENSES OVER HER BROWN EYES. WHAT??? Blue contact lenses. i never thought I'd be offended by a children's book but i am!

I feel bad when i have to give bad reviews so if a book sucks i usually don't even bother. I also feel bad like the author might come on here and read it and her feelings might get hurt. I would have never bothered even reviewing this book but I'm kinda required to because I got it from the Amazon Vine program. I will not be reading the rest of the series. I think Melissa De la Cruz would be better off writing about high school or college aged girls or better yet, just chick-lit for grown women. She keeps throwing in luxury brand names into the darn book as if those designers even make child-sized clothing. PLEASE! Don't even get me started on the fact that her Ashleys all have matching $3000 YSL shoulder bags that they use as schoolbags, seriously, if we're going to go that far off the deep end, why not Hermes Birkins?? why don't they just get their butlers to carry their books around for them? come on now this is beyond ridiculous!

Also she had a teenage chauffeur for the main Ashley named Dex who is a complete ripoff of the teenage chauffeur Django for Anna in The The A-List Collection (The National Bestselling).

I'm just really disappointed. i suppose i naively believe that authors should be required to come up with original material rather than regurgitate crap that's already out there that wasn't even really that good to begin with...

If you can get past the completely selfish, spoiled, sappy protagonists, you may enjoy this book. The ending had a high amount of redeeming value to me... heck, I even almost liked the little brats.

The beginning was a struggle for me b/c I cringe at the whole "like" overuse prevalent in childhood speech patterns. Yes, I know that is a slightly unfair generalization, but the stereotype definitely holds true in the book.

Guess it would be nice to be that fabulously rich though. The Ashleys are 7th graders with ginormous egos and attitude problems that make you want to smack them, but in the end, they're actually likable kids.

The writing style was easy enough to swallow. If you like kid friendly books, this one's safe enough and fairly interesting. Go for it.

Ashley Spencer is every young girls' nightmare and dream of being. Rich, pretty, and powerful this is one young lady that will not take no for an answer in any situation.
Ashley is about to have a birthday and of course Ashley will have the most expensive and top-notch party her school has ever seen, or will she?
It appears things are not running as smoothly for Ashley as they have in the past. After all, how could she ever tell her friends that her boyfriend dumped her, her mom just revealed some terrible news (at least for Ashley it is), and her party may be canceled? Horrors upon horrors.
To top it off someone had started a terrible blog trying to pit her best friend against her? Surely no one could take Ashley's place as the most popular, prettiest girl in town, could they?
You get the picture I'm sure.
In this work young readers will see, hopefully how life doesn't always play out the way we want it to. The author weaves in problems, even in this have it all young girl's life. Perhaps Ashley has learned some important life lessons, but I'm not totally sure of that. We will have to see.
This was a good book that young girls will enjoy. It is written on their level and gives some insight into situations they may well have to handle. It also shows how some people are not able to handle popularity and how it actually brings out the worse in them instead of making them better.
All in all this was a very enjoyable read.

While this book wasn't all bad, it wasn't all that great either and trust me, I really wanted to like it. After all, I remember fondly (ok, not always fondly) being a preteen who wanted some of the same things these characters do (a "cute" boyfriend), or simply wanted to fit in. I think everyone can attest to how difficult growing up is. So, when I selected this from my Vine Newsletter, I thought it would be the perfect thing to allow me to return to my younger years, for at least 200 pages.

Melissa de la Cruz has the perfect formula for a great series: young girls who are confused and facing puberty, love sick, struggling to understand why they feel certain things and why, dealing with various friendships, dealing with parents who are madly in love or contemplating divorce. Cruz basically has a vehicle that could really address some fundamental issues faced by young girls and offer some solutions. However, what was a little too over the top for me was the constant use of designer brands that these young girls "must" have. I mean several of the Ashley's (those elite "in" girls) are walking around with YSL bags and some other very trendy, very expensive accessories (Blackberries, IPODs, IPHONE) that I would never in a million years pay for, especially for my young teenager. Because so many others have reviewed this book, including a detailed breakdown of the story, I will spare you. What I will say is that I would have probably had more to say had I invested in the characters. Not only did I not really like any of them (they were a little too superficial) but also I did not find one redeeming quality in any of them. AND I kept getting them confused (their names were too similar and they all acted alike. I know that I am probably the only one who could not distinguish A.A. (who has a boyfriend but really likes some one else), from Lili (who sneaks off on a camping trip because she wants to spend time with her boyfriend), from Lauren (who is juggling two boyfriends and secretly wants to bring the Ashley's down by transforming her friend into a trend setter) from Ashley (whose only desire is to have the best 13 year old party ever...and of course it is going to cost a fortune....more than a small wedding!). And the fact that her mother is pregnant is a mere annoyance.

My concern, as a mother (although I have two boys and this book is directed towards girl), is that this book glamorized girls being mean spirited/cruel solely for the purpose of being labeled "cool" or joining the "popular group". And while I think most will feel that this is a light view of teen life, what about offering something to bring those kids on the fringes together. [Don't get me wrong, there was some attempt to do this. Just not enough.] Cruz could have accentuated the positive things about being a teen or middle schooler besides $600 purses and expensive/exclusive parties that require the girl to change clothes several times to keep up appearances. Perhaps having the characters finally realize how meaningless some of this stuff is, would be smarter than glamorizing the negative.

I ordered this book for my 12 year old daughter. She wasn't too interested in it to begin with and once she actually started reading, it only took a short while before she had had enough. Not her cup of tea, I suppose.
I took it upon myself to read through a bit of it. I know I'm not the target audience for this material. None the less I forged ahead. To be honest, I just couldn't journey too far into the story. Perhaps it was the superficial, self-indulgent, mean-girl attitude portrayed by the characters, or perhaps it was the middle aged author trying to write like a tween that just grossed me out, I don't know. Maybe both.
Anyway, I will pass on reading the rest of this story.

Bottom Line:
If you are a tween girl living in Beverly Hills, this story might just be right up your alley. Otherwise, that is to say, if you live in the real world, you will probably have a hard time relating. The characters, their lifestyles, and materialistic thinking definitely evoked my gagging reflex. The author obviously lives in the diamond bubble of the rich and famous and has lost touch with the lives of the rest of her tween audience.

Review by my 13 year old daughter: "The characters in this book act as if they are adults when they really are only thirteen year olds. They talk about wearing six inch heals (I didn't realize Christian Louboutin came in children's sizes. Regardless, I have never seen a 13 year old wearing such expensive shoes), carrying expensive bags, and wearing super short mini dresses (that apparently stop way above the thigh), push up bras, and etc....

The authors sad attempt to describe the Goth and Emo scene was even more disappointing, calling them the "Evanescense twins".... Okay...? Thanks for the random band reference. She apparently didn't do her research going from calling these girls grunge, alterno, goth, and emo - which are all different styles. That really annoyed me. Comin from someone who goes to middle school everyday, there are differences in each of those cliques. It really rubbed me the wong way. I mean having a girl wear eye liner and "act like a bitch" doesn't make them any of those styles/cliques.

There were so many things wrong in thi book. For example, who buys camping gear at a Nordstroms? And Lili's parents seem to be the only ones who are itelligent. I mean, who lets their kids walk around San Francisco all alone when they are in middle school? Not my mom!

Another thing that bothered me was there were absolutly no morals in this story, I am not even an adult and I can see that Ashley acts like a spoiled brat and still gets a party and all she cares about is her stupid party and not her mother's health?

So basically the author promoted young girls acting like tramps (a character in the book went out, however you do that in middle school, with multiple boys and had to go to the dentist to fix a filling because she was kissing too many boys), not listening to your parents and leaving home without telling them, being a spoiled brat, etc.

I also had a problem with the eighteen year old driver, Slash Butler, calling his thirteen years old client "hot, a hot tamale" I am sorry but that creeped me out. Pedophelia? Hello!

Overall, if the author was going to created "emo" characters she should have done some research and went all out (maybe supplied us with real emo bands and emo clothing labels I can help lol). I think next book she should work on morals and tone down on the adult vibes since she is writing for pre-teens. She could make a decent book if she would set it for adults or even just older teens.

I've been working with preteens and teens for the past 12 years, so I try to keep up with the books they read. As a published author, I also try to sample books in other genres than the one I write, simply to keep myself well rounded.

What I liked about this book:

The author nailed the preteen angst and concerns of the girls. A lot of the issues are those I've heard from numerous junior highers over the years. The author obviously did her homework and understands the junior high mindset, the kinds of things they care about and worry over, the kinds of things that would appeal to a girl from a lower or middle class family who dreams of the lifestyles of the rich and famous.

What I didn't like about this book:

The characters themselves just weren't likable to me. That might be different for some other reader, so take this with a grain of salt.

While I like the voyeurism into their rich lifestyles, their attitudes and the way they reacted to stresses in their lives showed personalities I didn't like. When I read fiction, I want the characters to have at least some quality I like in them, even if I don't like the entire package. These girls had nothing I liked.

I don't mind characters making bad decisions--it's what makes fiction interesting, after all--but these characters psychologically didn't match. They each did things that contradicted other actions they did and mindsets she had, which made each one seem like she was Frankenstein'd together from different traits, and the whole person didn't make sense to me psychologically. I'm not saying the author needs to study psychology, but the characters were too disjointed for me to understand well.

The characters are shallow and selfish, but I don't want to comment on that because some readers might enjoy reading about characters like that. I have nothing against that.

But the characters themselves didn't appeal to me because they (a) weren't likable to me (which is totally subjective) and (b) seemed disjointed.

I wouldn't give this book to my junior highers, but if they did read it, I'd watch and see what they thought.

Having not read any of the other books in the series, I was worried that I would be completely lost when starting this book. I have read the author's other series, The Au Pairs, and I figured I knew the style of writing that was going to take place. Also I have read several other teen fiction series dealing with the same type of characters. Well, after starting the book I was totally confused at keeping track of who was who. The clique is named The Ashleys due to 3 of the members sharing the same name. Two of them end up with nicknames so not to confuse each other, but to this reader I had trouble keeping track of which was which Ashley. After a while I got it, but it probably would have helped to read the past two books as several events from the past kept getting mentioned. The biggest is probably the entire of reason of why Lauren is in the clique to begin with. Also the way these parents let their kids rule their lives is despicable. I mean, your mother is deadly sick and you're angry at her because she doesn't want you to ride in on a Vespa at a circus party?

However, I actually favored this book as compared to other popular tween offering that is out there, The Clique series. While once again, these girls are living over-extravagant lifestyles with constant label dropping, it's not as annoying. They don't speak in the coded, annoying "Eh my gawd!!!" slang that is on every page in The Clique. What is also refreshing about having younger teens, is that there is no talk about sex. Yes, girls like guys but since they are only 12-13, no one's having sex. Heck, you can't even tell if these girls have even hit puberty yet. Also of noted interest is the diversity of the main characters. The presence of minorities in the main cast is dutifully noted, yet it is cliched that the leader of the pack is blond and blue eyed. This is pretty much like a Mean Girls scenario with a younger set.

If you have a tween, and you want them to stay away from Gossip Girl or the It Girl for the time being, these books are recommended for them. I, myself, might have to go back and find the other two books to catch up on what has happened before.

Lime green vomit. Looking "unbelievably hot" at age 13. Strip Hall Queens. Ho's. Kids being spiteful and, yes, vicious to one another. OK, I'll just come out and say it. Social messages or not, this book has no redeeming qualities that I could find. Any "lessons" that kids are supposed to absorb here are too deeply buried in the trash. With all the good young adult literature out there, Birthday Vicious is a waste of money and time that could be spent on something worth while.

My daughter reads almost anything but for some reason couldn't stand reading this book. I must say that I applaud her for trying because I even started reading it so I could review it and couldn't finish it either. It's really not worth my time to finish. Very superficial girls with no real substance. If you're into that then this is the book for you.