Cruel Summer

Colby’s parents are divorcing, so they ship her to her "Crazy" Aunt Tally on a remote Greek island with no TV or wifi. Colby freaks, as she has just dumped her lifelong best friend to get in with the cool crowd, BFF’d the queen bee & lost her virginity to the hottest guy in school, and now she fears she will lose her new social position by being out of touch for the whole summer. But wait! Whats this? There’s a hot guy in Greece too! And an internet cafe! Life may be OK after all.
I just finished this book last night, and while it was not the worst book, I just could not get into it. The main character is shallow and whiny, which appears to be the point, so she can have an epiphany and be a better person by the end of the book. However, her big moment comes last, and weakly, and draws no real emotions from the reader. I found myself wondering why hot Greek guy was sooo into her, how Colby could be sooo stupid about sooo many things, and, on a personal note, I really hated reading whole pages in uber-abbreviated text-speak (the book is told through journal entries, e-mails, blog posts & comments, and letters & postcards). The ending is rushed, yet seemed to take forever- I kept checking how many pages were left! As you can probably assume, I do NOT recommend this book as a finalist.
-Lucia V, Wiggin Memorial Library lucia@wigginml.org