If I'm Being Honest

February 15, 2019
Honesty is always the best policy...unless you're Cameron Bright.Cameron is a natural blonde, runs six miles a day (with the body to prove it), and is determined to attend Wharton as a way of connecting with her distant father, who is an alumnus. But if her Beaumont Prep classmates had to choose one word to describe her, it would be "bitch." Cameron has prided herself on speaking her mind to everyone, until one instance of brutal honesty causes Andrew Richmond, the boy she likes, to call her a bitch to her face. Bent on proving she can change, and inspired by the debatable transformation of Katherine from Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, Cameron plans to right the wrongs she's committed against various people, including Paige Rosenfeld, whom she verbally degraded in front of Andrew, and Paige's socially isolated brother, whom she's dubbed "Barfy Brendan," not realizing he has celiac disease. Her arduous journey toward transfiguration--while also dissecting her strained relationships with both parents--makes this a valuable addition to the contemporary realistic fiction genre. The message that being kinder does not mean compromising who you are, but rather unveiling the better and more authentic version of one's self, is admirable. Most characters are assumed white except for Andrew, who is black, and Cameron's friend Elle, who is Chinese-American.A refreshing mean-girl transformation story akin to 10 Things I Hate About You. (Fiction. 13-18)

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April 1, 2019

Gr 7 Up-All her classmates at her private high school in Los Angeles think queen bee Cameron Bright can be described in one phrase: driven, brutally honest bitch. Pretty, exceptionally hardworking, and secretly insecure, Cameron frequently lashes out cruelly when crossed and excuses it as simply "saying what's true" regardless of how badly it hurts the recipient. When her crush Andrew observes her verbally attacking another student, he dumps her immediately and she realizes that she needs to "tame" herself in order to win him over, just like Kate in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. She begins by trying to apologize to nerdy loner Brendan, whom she saddled with an unfortunate nickname that has haunted him since sixth grade. It's harder than she expected to get him to trust her, and Cameron begins to see his virtues-and those of others she's wounded with her nasty quips. Although she can't seem to help slipping up sometimes, she grows in empathy and in maturity and makes a lot of surprising discoveries about herself in the process. Cameron and her many friends (and frenemies) feel very genuine, and the juxtaposition of her relationship with her cold, absent father and spineless, quasi-alcoholic mother clarifies the reasons why she pushes herself beyond her limits to succeed. The dialogue is funny and effortless, and the other characters are quirky and believable. VERDICT The authors have also written a popular series called "The Last Oracle." Expect demand.-Susan Riley, Mamaroneck Public Library, NY

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March 15, 2019
Grades 9-12 Cameron Bright prides herself on her honesty?though what she calls honesty, her classmates call being a straight-up bitch. Alongside her film- and YouTube-star best friends, she's one of the hot, popular girls at her L.A. high school, and she tells it like it is to the people around her, even if that means doling out some hard truths. But when her crush, Andrew, is less than impressed by her particular style of tough love, Cameron begins to doubt. She's studying The Taming of the Shrew in class, and, unlike Shakespeare's Katherine, she doesn't need a guy to fix her. She can tame herself. First up, she plans to apologize to the people she's hurt?especially those like Brandon, a guy who became a social recluse after a cruel nickname Cameron gave him stuck. But as she gets to know Brandon, Cameron's surprised to discover that his strong personality meshes with hers. The Shakespeare-in-high-school story line is always popular, and Cameron's quest for redemption is given depth by her complicated family. A frothy drama with plenty of layers.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)