Review: Cracked up to Be by Courtney Summers

Cracked up to Be by Courtney Summers

Published December 2008

Published by St. Martin's Griffin

Paperback, 214 pages

(Copy borrowed from fellow book blogger Harmony, of http://www.harmonybookreviews.blogspot.com/)

Summary from goodreads:

"What's the worst thing you've ever done?

When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her counselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth."

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault."

My review: ***** = 5 Stars

I can tell you that I read this book based on the cover alone. It just looked like something I would enjoy, and I started reading it without even knowing what it was actually about because I just didn't read the summary. This book surpassed my expectations of just being a book I hoped I would enjoy to being a book that I truly loved. Once I began reading, there was no stopping and I stayed up late last night just to finish it, knowing I would have to be up in less than 5 hours for work.

Sometimes it's hard to put into words why a certain book interests you. It can be one particular item that draws you in, or it can be a number of things. Everything in this novel worked extremely well together. The characters seemed to fit together like puzzle pieces even though some were ex-boyfriends/girlfriends and others former friends. One thing I really loved was even though the characters swore, had sex and drank, it wasn't forced. It didn't feel like the author was just adding in those actions for shock factor. The characters were so well written that what they were doing throughout the novel was 100% believeable.

The mystery behind the main characters actions stay hidden until the very end of the book. At first I was very anxious to know what occurred, but as I continued to read, the story filled up and there was enough other activity going on where I didn't have to pine over finding out what went down.

Overall, Cracked up to Be is a wonderful novel, with spectacular writing and chracters, and just enough mystery to keep things interesting but not too much to drive you crazy. I am completely amazed that this was Summers debut novel and I look forward to reading more work by her.

Recommend to all.



Sherry <3