Review: The List - Siobhan Vivian

Title: The List

Author: Siobhan Vivian

Release Date: April 1st 2012

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Publisher: Push

Pages: 332

Source: Netgalley

An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

When I first heard of this book earlier this year, I knew I had to read it. I could totally imagine my school having one of these pathetic and ridiculous lists every year. The summary alone was just so interesting and different. I don't think I've ever read anything like this before. While it fell short of my expectations, I don't regret reading this.

The first problem with this is that I didn't like any of the characters. With such a whole lot of narrators, you would think that I'd like at least one of them. Nuh uh. I feel like the writer was trying to make us sympathize with some of them (especially the ones where they'd been voted as the ugliest in their year) but nope. Sorry. Just didn't do it for me. And the ones who were voted the prettiest needs some major shit growing up to do. Argh. I kinda wanted to slap some of them during certain parts of the book.

Since this alternated chapters between the 8 girls, you would think I would have some trouble keeping track. Yes, you are so right. I always have to check at the start of the book (with the girl's name and their year no. next to them) to remember the girl's situation. This is one of the reasons why I didn't like this, because there was so many lead characters and it's hard to keep track of them.  

But one good thing that I did like about this was that I kept reading. I couldn't stop. I think it was because I wanted to find out who writes the controversial list, or maybe because I want to find out what happens at the end. 

Overall, I do think every teenage girl should read THE LIST since it imposes some really great topics, and some of it is really relevant to the society today.