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10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Courtesy of Teens Read Too, September 20, 2006
This review is from: Good Girls (Hardcover)
Audrey Porter is a good girl. The kind that works hard to keep up her grades, spends weekends working in her dad's store, manning the cash register, and basically just being a good daughter and a good friend. Things change, though, when she falls for Luke DeSalvio, a guy known around Willow Park High School as a player.
Audrey's best friends, Ash and Joelle, had warned her from the beginning not to lose her heart to Luke. But unlike her dedication to schoolwork and good grades, there's something about being with Luke that turns her brain to mush and her normal level-headedness to idiotic levels. After Audrey hears that Luke has been with another girl (as if all of his constant flirting wasn't bad enough), she decides to call off their friends-with-benefits, not-really-boyfriend-and-girlfriend relationship. Unfortunately, she decides to do this after one last hurrah with Luke, one last make-out session at a party that puts her in a very compromising situation. A situation that someone captures on their cell phone camera and proceeds to distribute among the student body.
She could have ignored the millions of instant messages on her computer calling her a [...] and a ho, she even could have ignored the leers and jeers of the guys in the halls at Willow Park. What she can't ignore, though, is the fact that someone has sent the picture to her father's work email address. Or that Mr. Swieback, the principal, found copies on the library computers. Or that even Ms. Godwin, the drama teacher, seems to think Audrey is some type of sex maniac.
Humiliation complete, Audrey must come to terms with her new social status, which has nothing to do with being a good girl. Along with Ash and Joelle, who have stood beside her, she forms a new, tenuous friendship with Pam and Cindy, two girls who had previously held the title as school [...]. But as Audrey realizes that she may have been wrong about the girls, especially Pam, she also realizes that being a good girl doesn't mean always being perfect.
I really enjoyed GOOD GIRLS. This is a book with heart and emotion, with true-to-life characters who don't preach or moralize, but who work hard at being the best type of people they can be. There are girls like Audrey, Ash, Joelle, Pam, and Cindy in every high school--just as there are boys like Luke and the insufferable Chilly. This is definitely a book for your keeper shelf.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The pressures of being a good girl, September 27, 2006
This review is from: Good Girls (Hardcover)
"If I didn't study as hard as I could for a test, I could fail. And if I failed one test, I could fail two. If I failed two, I could fail them all, then I wouldn't go to college, I couldn't study architecture or design or anything else, and my life would be ruined. Because of the one test I didn't study for, the one chapter I didn't read. That's all it takes. One mistake, and everything you've worked for is gone. It happens all the time. It happened to my parents. I came along and blasted everything to pieces. Instead of a graduate degree for my mom and a law degree for my dad, they did the right thing and had a wedding. And they didn't even get the baby brother to complete the family portrait."
Audrey is what is known as a good girl. She studies way too hard, she obeys her parents, she is seeing a perfect guy, and she is not a nuisance to anyone else. One night at a party she decides that she and her "boyfriend" Luke are over, but not before she gives him a parting gift in the form of oral sex...something that good girls do not do. Things seem ok, she has told him she doesn't want to see him again, and returns to school bright and bubbly the following Monday, until she realizes the awful truth... everyone knows about what she did thanks to a certain compromising photo circulating through school clearly showing her and unknown man doing what she did.
Audrey doesn't know how to react. She immediately suspects her spiteful ex, Chilly, of taking the photo of her and Luke, a fact he does not condone or deny. Her friends Ash and Joelle are devastated for her but are unable to do anything about the slander and the gossip flying. Suddenly, even the slutty girls are making fun of "prissy, know-it-all" Audrey, and there is nothing she can do about it. Things really hit the fan when the photo comes into the hand of her parents, who both react differently. Her mother acts with care and concern, scheduling an appointment with a gynecologist to make sure that she is ok; her father reacts with disdain and anger, researching all the possibilities of a lawsuit and barely talking to Audrey because of who and what he believes she now is.
Through it all, Audrey never sheds one tear, but remains a strong, confident, young woman destined for greatness. If the event has changed her, which everyone else clearly seems to think it has, she might as well be a different person, so she dyes her blond hair dark, starts hanging out with a new crowd, and throws herself into her studying, managing to change her rank from 4th in the class to 2nd by the end of the book. Audrey has changed, but is she really a good girl, or is everyone else's perception flawed?
This is an interesting novel for young girls about the strength of one's convictions, courage, perceptions, and, above all, double standards. Why is it that Audrey's reputation is completely altered while Luke's remains unscathed? Even had his face been exposed he would not have had nearly the same reaction about the incident as Audrey did, and would be pronounced a colossal stud because of it. This is a classic double standard for young people... a guy gets lucky he is the man, a stud, or at worse a "pimp or Player" as his terms of endearment are noted by Audrey in the book as nothing bad. A woman gets lucky and she's a whore, a slut, unworthy, even though it does take two to tango. Girls always have to be good, and if they are compromised in any way no matter how subtle, they are ruined, even if it is forced upon them by anyone they are still ruined in the eyes of those who love them... a guy, not so much.
This attitude of double standards extends to so much in this book. Even Luke and Audrey's relationship is a double standard, only reversed. While Audrey plays it off as if nothing big is going on, just making out at parties Luke is actually developing feelings for her which are ultimately crushed when she just waltzes off the night of the infamous photo, as if it meant nothing. Because of how she perceives Luke to be a huge flirt she thinks it will not harm him and takes the attitude of "he's a guy after all, he'll just move on to one of his other ladies", but Luke's feelings are actually quite hurt over this attitude of hers that she "act like a man about hook ups". Even at one point, before the famous incident, when Luke was going to perform oral sex on her she resisted, largely because of her own self conscience feelings about it... what if she smells... what if she tastes funny...what if she overreacts or under reacts... and the other between the lines reason is because women can't enjoy oral sex as much as a man does because we are taught, in our culture, that a man's pleasure is first and foremost... a man doesn't have these kind of thoughts when a woman is about to go down on him, he's just happy to be getting some of it.
So, ultimately, this book dissects a multitude of society's views on what girls should be or not be, good or not, empowered or not, enlightened or not. As a teen novel, this is a great book for young girls to read. My only real gripe about it is that it is very obvious in making these points, what with the girls discussing it non stop. This brings down the intensity of the message, that the girls sit around and discuss these very things at different intervals. I mean, really, give the audience a bit of credit that they will figure out what the message is without hitting them upside the head with it. Other than that, this is a good book for girls, and boys, to read about pressures of being a good girl.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Audrey is great, October 4, 2007
This review is from: Good Girls (Hardcover)
Audrey comes alive as a smart, funny, courageous person. After "the photograph," it is easy to imagine her reacting in all sorts of self-destructive ways. But almost without support, she mostly keeps it together and moves on with her life.
The book is very explicit. It is explicit about first intercourse being painful for Audrey. It is explicit about Audrey having to show Luke how to wash her blood out of the sheets instead of cuddling after they have intercourse. It is explicit about Audrey loosing the support and respect of nearly everyone, including her parents, after the photo incident. It is explicit about Audrey's first pelvic exam being painful and terribly embarrassing. Yes, it is a very explicit book.
Teens who have reached the point of being interested in the opposite sex should read this book. Especially "good" teens, even teens who are sure they will wait until they are married to have sex. Audrey didn't intend to do that, but she was a very good girl until her hormones overwhelmed her and she gave casual oral sex a a party.
In today's world, most teens will have at least oral sex by the time they finish high school. Many will give or receive oral sex in middle school. It is foolish to think they won't. This book could give teens a realistic understanding of the dangers of casual sex without lecturing them or passing judgment on them.
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