Kacey is back and her whiny, self-involved voice is as shrill as ever. Even though she’s turned over a new leaf from being overly critical to cautiously optimistic, she’s still rather self-involved. Of course, that’s nothing compared to her friend Molly who acts so aggressively threatening, self-important and illogical, you wonder how Kacey or anybody can stand to be in her company. Molly is also a stern advocate of the Girl Code, which is such an awful bit of double standard you don’t know whether to laugh or groan.
Zander comes off as such a saint to the fretful Kacey; it’s baffling that he would want her as a girlfriend. Time and again, she blows him off, misleads him, lies to him or behaves with thoughtless selfishness.
To be fair, Kacey is a teenager and teenagers are supposed to be self-indulgent—to a point. Also, her ghastly mistakes eventually catch up to her and she deals with them with a surprising amount of humility and the determination to make amends.
The author remains true to the various voices of her characters and the situations ring true with the brittleness of awkward conversations, the cluelessness of boys who just don’t get girls (or even know when a situation has reached the boiling point) or the unbridgeable gap between children and their (old) parents. This is a good follow-up to the original novel but is definitely made to appeal to the youth crowd.