Release Date: March 7, 2017Publisher: Entangled Teen
320 Pages
At Beverly Hills High, you have to be ruthless to survive…
Adrianna Bottom always wanted to be liked. But this wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. Now, she’s in the spotlight…and out of her geeky comfort zone. She’ll do whatever it takes to turn the rumor mill in her favor—even if it means keeping secrets. So far, it’s working.
Wear the right clothes. Say the right things. Be seen with the right people.
Kevin, the adorable sketch artist who shares her love of all things nerd, isn’t exactly the right people. But that doesn’t stop Adrianna from crushing on him. The only way she can spend time with him is in disguise, as Princess Andy, the masked girl he’s been LARPing with. If he found out who she really was, though, he’d hate her.
The rules have been set. The teams have their players. Game on.
We couldn't be rich from something cool, like discovering a new fuel source or curing cancer. Nope. It's a luminescent pee target.
Meet Adrianna (Andy) Bottom. Her father's toilet products have recently taken off landing their entire family on new reality show, Bathroom Barons. With a last name like Bottom what other area would you go into? Anyway. With the launch of the new reality show, the family uproots from Seattle to Beverly Hills. Back in Seattle, Andy was teased relentlessly for her father's inventions, and for her nerdiness. She's hoping for a brand new start in Beverly Hills, despite the fact that her family will be on TV. But it's Beverly Hills. And Andy soon finds herself 'little miss popular' even while losing herself in the process.
This book had a cute premise and even had some cutesy parts. I really liked the attention to detail when it came to events like the LARPing tournaments. I adored Kevin and his sister. And I ended up really liking Harper after being extremely wary of her in the beginning.
But there were also things that I didn't like or that rubbed me the wrong way. First were Andy's parents. Andy was constantly taken advantage of by the director of Bathroom Barons, (think indecent exposure of a minor, staged dates/kisses that bordered on sexual assualt) and they were too busy worrying about their business or social status. I'm sorry, but if I was a parent and saw my child harassed this way, I would do more than make a call to the network. And it wasn't like they couldn't see her unhappiness or her side of the story. Just horrible parenting.
Then there was the whole 'being a nerd/geek is grounds for torment' trope. We live in an age where Marvel and DC rule cinema and television. Shows like Big Bang Theory are rated number one. I find it hard to believe that teens are so black and white here. It's cool to like superheroes people! Let's move on.
My main issue, however, was with Andy herself. She was not a strong character, instead she blended into the background a lot and I found myself more interested in what was going on around her than with her herself. But it was her treatment of the so-called "nerds" that rubbed me the wrong way. Here's a girl who knows what the teasing and ridicule feels like, yet she just sits there and sometimes even partakes in this attitude. But yet the author wants us to know that it's ok for her to act this way because deep down inside she feels differently. Or that because she's nice to them in secret, it's ok. NO. You're a weak minded girl who cares more about what people think of you than other people's feelings. There were so many places where she could have easily spoken up but instead she just let it go.
Despite the fact that I didn't like Andy herself, the wrap up of the story was just so 'teen movie cheese' that it was enjoyable. Maybe this book was just a little too young for me to enjoy fully.
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