Like Carrie, this story begins with a young
girl’s harassment by her peers. It all begins when 14-year old Christina
experiences the worst day of her high school life. How traumatized must she
have been when the kids threw condoms at her? Why is it always the good girls?
It was all Billy Havenwood’s fault; he ruined her life.
16 years
later, Christina transformed into a hot babe. Of course, as her luck would have
it, she runs into her high school nightmare. Billy was still rich, handsome,
and still a jerk. At that point, Christina vowed for revenge, to ruin his life
like he ruined hers. You go, girl!
I liked
Christina! She was cute, sweet, clumsy, and crafty. I loved her bold gumption,
especially after realizing that Bill was so arrogant and smug. How dare he
flirt with her! And how dare she like
it! As her friend pointed out, “the opposite of love is indifference, not hate.
Love and hate are actually this close.” (39) No, but Christina claimed that “with
men, what you see is what you get, and she saw a bastard.” (230) She won’t give
up until she discovers his juicy secrets, and Bill was hiding something. Then
he threw a tailspin of a scheme of asking her to pretend to be his fiancé so
his rich daddy won’t cut him off.
The
attraction between Bill and Christina was mutual as they go pretending to be “in
love.” Seeing them play “house” was actually kind of nice. I would love to play
“wife” with Bill, who was a lean, muscular, take-charge kind of guy. His jealousy
over Christina’s “boyfriend” was so cute. They were both very good liars, which
made them perfect for each other.
Bill’s
father, William, was such a ball-buster with throwing all kinds of challenges at
the couple, making it harder and more awkward for them. It was definitely a
battle of father vs. son with Christina in the middle. After all, “it took a
scammer to scam a scammer.” (72) Each new twist threw you in for a loop.
Written in a
universal omniscient narrative, this book was a gripping read. This was all
about
revenge and blackmail…by ALL (everyone had a reason for it.) The schemes
were intricately crafted and weaved together perfectly for a real page-turner. It
was like watching a TV sitcom—sweet, romantic, and funny.
Of course,
this book was definitely a re-hash of the Carly Pope movie, This Time Around, which was about a girl
exacting revenge on her old nemesis but ends falling for him instead. Still, I
enjoyed the fun and quirks by both the novel and the movie.
Other novels
by Anna Mara: Why Romeo hates Juliet
My rating: 5 stars
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