Life Unaware

February 15, 2015
The persecutor becomes the persecuted when personal texts and emails are leaked, outing Regan Flay as the scheming mean girl she really is.Life for Regan is about perfection at all costs. Following in her congresswoman mother's political ways, Regan selects friends based on their social value and activities by how they will look on her college application. She relies on caffeine to keep her going and Xanax to calm her down. When she is exposed, her friends disappear. Only Nolan, her best friend's irreverent brother, seems unperturbed by her social downfall. He suggests a way to salvage her reputation as well as do some good. Together, they film a documentary chronicling high school bullying and hatch a plan to build people up rather than tearing them down. By humanizing the mean girls, Gibsen complicates the familiar theme of bullying, revealing that everyone has something he or she would rather keep hidden. Secondary characters suffer from a too-heavy hand, however; Regan's mother might even give Cruella de Vil pause. While the dialogue is spot-on, the sheer volume of expletives will make this a hard sell for some. This well-intentioned story would have profited from a more delicate touch. (Fiction. 14-18)

July 1, 2015

Gr 10 Up-Popularity, Xanax, and the wrong friends turns Regan Flay's life completely upside down overnight. She is usually comfortable trying to "destroy" people who do not follow her lead-a trick she learns from her mother, a local congresswoman. Regan seemed to have her life together-student council, honor society-until one of her frenemies turns the tables on her and she succumbs to the same tricks she has used previously on other people. Not making the cheerleading team was only the beginning of Regan's downfall in this modern-day high school fairy tale. The teen finds an unlikely ally in her ex-best friend's outcast brother, Nolan, who has been burned by Regan's antics in the past. As he tries to help her see the fault in her old behavior, she becomes the lead in his school documentary aimed at helping Regan get her life back, completely unaware that she was originally cast as the production's villain. With plot twists and turns, this story showcases the aftereffects of bullying and the scars that are often left in its wake. Readers will find the expletive-heavy dialogue very realistic. Teens will appreciated the flawed, complex protagonist. VERDICT A definite purchase for most young adult collections.-Christina Pesiri, J. Fred Sparke Elementary School, Levittown, NY

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