This is not a book as much as it is a collection of clichéd plot devices and character stereotypes that are more two-dimensional than those found in after-school specials.
It has everything which makes a teen book amount to nothing. A main character named "Maddy Starr" (an obvious author-insert for Mari Mancusi) who constantly bitches about how "nobody gets her, and nobody ever will," and how she's repulsed that no one at her new school is a "mop headed emo boy" or an "Edward Cullen worshiping goth-girl". Rather, they're all "AberZOMBIES" and "Haters." Please note the capital "H," as Maddy expresses such disgust for anyone who is different from herself that she needs to emphasize it with a proper noun. All in all, the result is a grotesque caricature of a gothic teenage girl. She constantly talks about Twilight and My Chemical Romance, at one point even going as far as to complain that the lead singer from My Chemical Romance does not attend her school, because if he did, they would sooo totally be soul-mates.
The reader quickly begins to wonder whether the author truly writes at a middle-school level, or whether this is a devious marketing ploy created to pump the teen demographic for every last one of their parents' dollars. Either way, there is no literary merit to this book. Despite failed attempts at profundity, there's no message deeper than "love is good, follow your dreams, cliques are bad." But even the intended anti-clique message is overshadowed by the fact that all the cliques in the book are so incredibly stereotyped. In the end, they're really more of a straw man to make the main character seem superior than anything more meaningful.
All teenage girls, especially those who self-identify with alternative subcultures, should be insulted at this patronizing blackface show, reducing them to Hot Topic-obsessed, whining cardboard cutouts. I know teenage girls are better than this. The teen market deserves better than what Mari Mancusi has to offer.
