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Title: Worth Avoiding
Review: In the past couple of years, the world of young adult literature has been able to move past the desperate cliches of boy/girl dating and into a place where characters' thoughts, feelings, and comments about the opposite sex are realistic, albeit awkward and somewhat comical. This book, however, throws us back a few decades. Yes, I realize that it's intended to be easy-going and fun, but it decends to the point of being surface and stereotypical. The characters talk like two highschoolers out of the eighties, more Valley Girl than today's teens would ever be. And their stereotypical eccentric shop-owner friend reminds us of so many other characters--see any John Hughes teen movie. Admittedly, there are some funny moments as the girls set out to get dates by transforming pet rats into real boys. But the whole theme of "the unpopular girl against the popular girl" ends up making the characters seem ridiculous and shallow.
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