Pretty Amy is another one of those novels about the good girl trying to be bad to piss off her parents. I seem to be picking up a lot of these novels as well. And it's kind of annoying because despite smoking pot and drinking at parties, these girls are still managing to get straight A's. You'd think their grades would decline as well. Anyways, Amy is off to prom with her two best friends bad girls Lila and Cassie. But when they go to pick up their dates, Lila's boyfriend and his two friends they've set Cassie and Amy with, no one is home. Instead of driving off, Lila sneaks into the house, coming out with a nice hefty bag of weed. And then the girls get arrested for possession after failing to get into their own high school prom. Now Amy has to figure out what she is going to do with her life. Her father has hired a family friend as a lawyer, who makes many recommendations. Her mother can't seem to handle Amy and her situation, especially since she'd be disapproving of Amy's friends in the first place. It gets to the point where she sends Amy to live with her boss – her new boss thanks to a suggestion from her lawyer that she show responsibility – in the hopes that it will straighten Amy out. Because everyone thinks she's a druggie and Amy isn't about to steer anyone in the right direction, not that anyone will listen to her. It was very frustrating to watch Amy deal with her mother, but it was also very frustrating to watch her own decisions as well. She just pulled herself deeper and deeper into her own hole, thinking that she had friends who had her back. Mistake!I'm not exactly happy with the ending, mostly pertaining to Amy and her new “boyfriend”. He sends her a buttload of texts and she's supposed to be all gaga over him now? Really? Because he cared soooo much for her. That seemed a little rushed to me. We all want Amy to have her happy ending, and in order to do that you need to slap a guy at the end? Really? So you can make a sequel? I mean, I'd like to read the sequel at some point, but I probably won't seek it out....Okay, maybe I will. I mean, I'd like to see how Amy grows as a person after all. She only just got started here after all! This book broke my heart. Amy broke my heart. As I mentioned, I didn't know The Next Forever was a sequel and that I didn't feel that I needed to read Pretty Amy to understand the story. I stand by that statement.But...don't get me wrong...this story helped me understand Amy so much more. She broke my heart. I wept for her and I guess for me because I could've so easily have been Amy in real life. Shy, socially awkward with people and so uncertain of herself. Watching Amy struggle to find herself amidst so much was heart-wrenching. This is very much not just a coming-of-age story but a coming-of-self story. I kept watching her self-destruct more and more with the fear of what her bottom would be. How far will this poor girl fall to realize that she is not nothing?Lisa Burstein did such a beautiful job of taking all those insecurities teenage girls have and weaving them into one very lonely girl. Each time Amy hugged the cage of her bird AJ, something broke apart inside me.The shit has hit the fan with Amy and she doesn't know how to handle it. She doesn't see a safe harbor anywhere and really she self-destructs every time someone offers her one. She's scared, she's alone and she's ass deep in alligators. And it kept getting worse and worse and worse. I can only imagine the emotional angst the author felt at writing this story because as a reader I was gutted.
What do You think about Pretty Amy (2012)?
4 stars.This definitely wasn't what I was expecting.Full review to come later.
—Geo
Agh...un libro horriblemente deprimente...
—krisylol
