Name: Confessions of a Hater
ISBN: 9781250008466

Caprice Crane

Illustrated with black-and-white comic-strip panels, a first young adult novel by the author of With a Little Luck follows the efforts of Hailey to bolster her visibility and defeat bullies at a new high school in Hollywood by following the strategies to gain popularity outlined in her older sister's journal.

Confessions of a Hater

Hailey Harper has always felt invisible. Now her dad has a new job and the family is moving to Hollywood. Just what Hailey needs - - to start a new high school. She finds her older sister's journal and uses it to reinvent herself as part of the cool crowd.

Kourtney

** spoiler alert **
           I wanted to give this book 5 stars, and up until the last 15% of the book it was well on its way to 5-stardomhood (is that a word? It is now!) It had all the makings of books I love and I was so ready to let my teenage neice near it. But then...it just changed. What started out as "Mean Girls 2.0" with a healthy dose of quick wit, sarcasm and pop culture references that fit, quickly reversed. The first few chapters went along nicely with the Mean Girls movie. New girl moves to new town, wants to reinvent herself, meets "nice" people vs "mean" girls, hangs out with mean girls but quickly realizes nice girls are where it's at! Only problem was the "nice" girls? They weren't so nice themselves. 

In typical teenage fashion, the nice girls, dubbed The Invisibles, decide to take on the mean girls in a war of who can come out on top. But there's lying, there's cheating, there's drug use and a whole lot of in-fighting. And that was where the book lost me. At the end of the story, when the characters are "making up" I just kept thinking WHY? Why would these characters want to make up with each other when they are so mean to each other, even during the apology!! Cut your losses and find someone WORTHY. And the drug-use story? Were you just trying to fill pages? It was barely a storyline and felt like it wasn't necessary. If you aren't going to address and you're going to toss it away with 2 lines at the end of the book, then don't bother writing about it. If I related to that character, I would feel let down and feel even more that no one cares because even an author who brought it up can't talk about it. 

I'm torn on this one. I think I may just stick to her books for adults from here on out. And I will warn my neice away from this unless she is reading it as what not to do/be!