Book Review: Now You See Her by Jacquelyn Mitchard

ISBN: 0061116831

Published: March 1st, 2011

Publisher: HarperTeen

Read from December 5th to 14th, 2011

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Hope has it all: brains, beauty, and acceptance at Starwood, a prestigious arts prep school. A mere sophomore, she has won the lead in Romeo and Juliet, beating out seniors for the role—seniors who have been in movies and on Broadway! And with handsome Logan as her Romeo onstage and off, her life couldn't be more perfect.

So why would this talented teen throw everything away? Why would she fake her own abduction? Hope wants to explain what really happened, and gradually the truth comes out: Maybe her life wasn't that perfect after all.


In her first novel for young adults, national bestselling author Jacquelyn Mitchard takes us into a world where appearance is everything, and nothing is exactly as it seems.

Review:

My initial reaction upon finishing this book was that it was insane.  I started off really hating the main character Hope.  She's an actress and basically thinks she is the greatest person to ever live.  For the first few chapters all I could think about was how much I didn't like her.  I was slightly tempted to stop reading, but I saw that other people seemed to have liked the book, so I kept reading.

A few chapters in I started getting into it.  It's one of those books where you realize you're not getting the entire story.  Throughout the entire book I was trying to figure out what exactly was going on.  I'd say by about halfway through I had a general idea of what was happening, but I could figure out any specifics.  I won't give anything away because I think it's important to read the book and figure out things for yourself.

I still wasn't a huge fan of Hope at the end.  I was more tolerant of her because I understood why she was like that more, but she still isn't very pleasant.  I felt bad for her, but she definitely isn't someone I would want to be friends with.

I enjoyed this book but I didn't love it.  It's really short and easy to read.  I'd recommend reading it if you just happen to find it and have nothing else to read, but it's probably not a book I would seek out to read if I knew more about it beforehand.  The most interesting part of me was trying to figure out what was happening.  I feel like the subject matter the book deals with could have had such a larger emotional impact, but it just wasn't there for me.

Also, I think the synopsis about the book is kind of misleading.  It's true..kind of, but it doesn't really tell you much about the book.  There are reasons for that as I'm assuming the publisher wanted the plot of kind of be a surprise, but it doesn't really help you understand what the book is about.