Pretty Amy - by Lisa Burstein

Any book that can provoke feeling and emotion is a book that you know has you hooked because you have already taken the time to care...this is that kind of book. Pretty Amy, annoying mother. I have to tell you all that throughout the entire book I wanted to punch Amy's mom in the face. She simply annoyed the crap out of me and I often found myself thinking that had she been my mother I would have run far away. 

I think everyone popular or not, in some ways want to be different or at the very least understand the feeling. So what if you could make your life different and everything about you? Well thats what Amy did, she went from being the generally good kid to the one who hung out with the "slutty" girls hanging out under the bleachers smoking or off somewhere drinking. The acquaintance she had previously had with her mother was now reduced to yelling matches and she rarely spent time with her father.

With the arrest after prom and the resulting charges her mother was all but insane and her father just didnt have the stones to stand up to her mom and be the father that Amy truly needed. The truth was that neither one of them was there for Amy and in Amy's mind neither was anyone of the people they tried to shove into her life and force her to deal with. But even though all she wished for was her friends the truth was she was dealing with everything in her own way on her own time. The real question was who were her friends and who could she really count on?

I have to say that as much as the mom annoyed me I really loved this book. I mean finally someone writing a story like this from the perspective of the teen and they actually get it!!! I think a lot of the  time there is either adult or parental inflection that influences the writing and character of the teen in a book like this. In this case I think it was addressed as though an actual teen going through this particular problem would be. I dont know if what drove me crazy about the mom is that I knew parents like that or the fact that she acted all woe is me when she shouldve stopped her daughter on that path earlier. It was like it wasn't about her daughter but more about her. I guess again it was written wonderfully because really if the intent was that she seem overbearing and possibly a root of the entire problem it was perfect! I think it will be fun to see if anyone takes the mom side or thinks the way I do. It isnt like I think Amy was being intelligent but just....well you have to read it to know what Im talking about. While Amy isnt right, the mom is just wrong!