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Title: I hated the main character, and not in a good way.
Review: There are definitely moments of cleverness and rich evocation: the names of Lee's fellow students, for one, are funny and spot-on. And the main character's best (only) friendship does effectively evoke the nuances of young female friendships. BUT: a well-drawn character who is troubled and awkward should make you want to hug them, not smack them. Lee messes up and self-sabotages so consistently -- and not in an endearing teen-angst way -- that she just gets more and more painfully irritating, willfully un-self-aware, and, frankly, pathetic, and therefore, less and less worth rooting for. In a really good book, she'd Grow and Learn From Her Experiences in subtle and unpredictable ways. In a mediocre (and way too long) book, however, she just gets buffeted about by a series of moderately skillful descriptions. I was drawn along by a few compelling plot turns (Assassin, the math test) but ultimately disappointed -- and frustrated by the excessive hype.
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