It Started With A Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech

Title/Author: It Started With A Dare by Lindsay Faith Rech
Publisher/Date published: September 13th by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
How I got this book: I got it from the publisher through NetGalley
Why I read this book: the summary sounded interesting.

Summary: Like probably every other teenager, CG Silverman is figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. She sees moving to a new town and going to a new school as her opportunity to reinvent herself and cuts all the ties to her old life, even telling the boy who was her best friend and almost boyfriend she's not interested anymore. The leader of a group of 3 popular girls takes to CG and at first things sail smoothly, sure CG has to lie and pretend she's something she's not, but all's fair in love and the war for popularity right?
Even messing around with the older brother of one of your new 'friends' and chatting up your English teacher on an online dating site. Everything is soon spiralling out of control, what will CG do when her lies start to catch up to her? How will she explain it all to the one true friend she's made since moving, who's not in the in-crowd, and let's not forget her parents?

At first Rech paints a realistic world of a high school were the social clique exists of the queen bee and her two minions, soon joined by CG. They're all 15-year old girls who each have their own set of issues. The Queen Bee, Alona, seems kinda clueless and is actually not that evil and nasty, she just likes things going her way. On the other hand, there's Grace, who is definitely the mean girl in this group. She not only gives her 'friends' crap, but is generally not a very nice person, she's actually the most intriguing character of this book, because she's got some real issues that aren't all that clear right from the start.

CG herself is a mess, she's all over the place trying to get Alona and her friends to like her and keeping it that way. She pretends to be some kind of rebel and after a slightly altered game of truth or dare, she's in. She develops a huge crush on Jordan, Alona's brother, who's in college and already has a girlfriend. She juggles him and the online flirting she has going on with her English teacher (pretending to be 25 instead of 15).

I must say I didn't really like CG, she said things just to be cool and I know that there are probably whole boatloads full of people who do that, but it's not very pretty. She was however believable in her teenage heartbreak over Jordan, but she seemed very fickle in her affection for her English teacher and even the boy she left behind in her old town. The only reason she seems to clean up her act is that of course she's found out in the end. I thought it was strange that she picked the most unpopular girl in school to form a real friendship with, as she was trying very hard to be popular herself and this doesn't seem to fit in. The only time I really believed she wasn't being selfish was when she seemed to snap out of it long enough to worry about a friend's health.

I remember being 15 and thinking everything that happened was a huge drama, when looking back, of course it wasn't such a big deal. However, I don't remember betraying my friends and messing with people's lives and generally being nasty. I like to believe that at 15, people have a moral compass. Sure they make mistakes, but especially the part with the English teacher went too far in my book and seemed like something that would never happen like that.

This wasn't really my kind of book, I couldn't relate to the main character and didn't really understand the way she acted.
My rating: 2.5 stars.