About My Book

     The book that I have just finished reading was called Cracked Up To Be by Courtney Summers.

    In this book, a teen named Parker Fadley, was a girl of perfection who always wanted to have A's on her tests, perfect choreography for her cheers, who was the most popular girl in school and even the girl who had to most popular guy. But after one mistake, and too many drinks, she was at the bottom of the social scale at school. She had to talk to the school counselor once a week, she lost the guy, the position on the cheer team, and all of her old friends. Everyone was wanting to know what had happened to her that awful night at what would've seemed like a regular party at the the most popular guy's house, Chris. After the incident, Parker goes to school, wanting nothing but for everyone to just leave her alone. Parker's old friend, Becky, was now on the cheer captain, and trying to rub it into Parker's face. Parker has been falling behind in her classes, and had her teacher's push back the due date for all of her work. Chris and Becky start dating, despite the fact that Chris is still in love with Parker, and let's it be shown to Parker and even Becky. But half way through the year, someone new comes to the school that forces Parker to come out of her shell. His name is, Jake. At first she keeps up her act, but Jake then tells her how much and why he likes her, and even though she doesn't want to she starts to like him too. The secret that Parker has kept with her for about a year now, just needs to come out. When Jess's old boyfriend comes back, the things that happened that night at the party, all come rushing back into her head. The falling on the ground, the drinking, having Becky yell at her about the cheer squad. And the thing that sticks out the most. Parker walking into the forest, and finding her friend Jess, who had just broken up with her boyfriend, being raped by some college guy that crashed the party. Once he's back at the school, everything's going wrong. Parker's dog gets killed, she finds out that Jess was found dead, and her parents are now sending her off to a shrink after they'd just started to trust her again. Parker tells everyone what she saw, Chris starts getting over her and moving on to becky, and Jake, the guy she fell for, is going off to live with his mom, now parker has time for herself and to heal herself.     

   The thought of reading a book about a teen girl that went to wild parties, was the cheerleading captain, and ends up having something so terrible happen to them, that they have ot go see a shrink, doesn't seem like a book that I would want to be reading. Even though the beginning of the book took a while to get started, and into the exciting parts of the story, I thought that the book was very well written, and had a great set up. This set up was to leave you hanging at a really good part of hte story in the present, and then have a flash back to the past in Parker's life and then end the chapter, and leave you wondering what would've happened if the author hadn't put the flash back in that spot. The great story line, of the life of Parker Fadley was very interesting, it had great endings to chapters to keep you reading the book. I wish that the author would write a second part to the story, because the ending of the story, was jsut Jake, Chris, and Becky leaving Parker at the school, to do their own things. That is the only critisism that I have of the story.