One Night That Changes Everything

July 5, 2010
In Barnholdt's (Two-way Street) silly rom-com, set over the course of one wild night, high school junior Eliza loses her secret notebook, where for years she's collected lists of everything she's afraid of doing. A group of notorious mean boys finds it, and they send Eliza on a night out where she's forced to live out her fears—threatening to publish the journal online if she doesn't comply. While the fear journal makes an enticing (if not entirely believable) plot device, the dares themselves are generally so banal—asking a gorgeous jerk to dance at a club, singing karaoke, kissing another jerk at a party, posting a bikini picture online—that there's no real opportunity for Eliza to achieve any significant emotional growth. A lack of character development may further deflate readers' emotional investment in Eliza's drama, as well as the series of events that is supposed to shepherd her back into the arms of her ex-boyfriend, who both broke her heart and played a role in her notebook's going missing in the first place. Ages 14–up.

June 15, 2010

Eliza, 17, loses her possessions on a regular basis. None of them, however, matters as much as her purple notebook. Her notebook is where she lists the things she would love to do but is most afraid of doing, from asking a random guy to dance at a club to kissing a secret crush. Via text messages, she learns that her notebook is in the hands of her evil ex-boyfriend, Cooper. He and his friends, who are some of the most popular boys in school, threaten to make the contents of Eliza's notebook public unless she spends one night doing some of the things on her list. How Eliza goes about trying to overcome her fears is both hilarious and inspiring; readers will rejoice with her when she sees that she's survived and boosted her bravery. The frankly funny dialogue, related in Eliza's first-person voice, provides more laugh moments while ably delineating character. A satisfying look at what it means to face your fears. (Fiction. YA)

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October 1, 2010

Gr 9 Up-Eliza's parents are out of town for the weekend and the high school junior is looking forward to a Saturday night hanging out with her two best friends. Instead she discovers that her private notebook has been stolen; in it, she has written down all her fears since she was 12. Tyler, president of a secret society at school, is threatening to post it online, unless she does exactly as he says. He is exacting revenge for something she posted online about Cooper, a fellow society member and her ex-boyfriend. And what about Cooper? Whose side is he on? The evening turns out to be an all-night madcap adventure as the girls traipse all over the Boston area so that Eliza can kiss a hottie in a bar, pose in a bikini for an online posting, and more. In the end, she discovers that facing one's fears isn't so scary after all. This is a fun read in which parents are virtually nonexistent, high schoolers act a lot like college students, and readers waffle between rooting for the likable Eliza and thinking that she is so clueless that she half deserves what she gets. Like Reality Chick (2006) and Two-Way Street (2007, both S & S), Barnholdt has given readers another lighthearted window into contemporary teen life.-Ragan O'Malley, Saint Ann's School, Brooklyn, NY

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