REVIEW--The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a new week!  Our weekend flew by--we went to a friend's first-year-old son's birthday party, continued working on fixing the back door of our house, and caught up on household chores and errands.  Which totally makes for a sleepy Monday :)

But it's time for a new review!  Today's review is on The Best Night of Your (Pathetic) Life by Tara Altebrando.  And what sold me right away on reading this book was that it's about a SCAVENGER HUNT!  I love scavenger hunts, especially when there are prizes involved!  But I'm getting a little ahead of myself here.  

• Standalone novel
• Realistic fiction

The Gist:
Mary has had a pretty pathetic senior year of high school.  Prom did not go as she planned (she found out her best guy friend has a crush on her) and she didn't get into the college of her choice (while the class jerk did!).  So the unofficial senior scavenger hunt is her last chance at turning her year around.  She is determined--and I mean determined--to win it all.  But winning the scavenger hunt might mean putting her friendships at risk and losing all that she loves.

What I Loved:

• Like I said, I love scavenger hunts, and I loved the way this one was set up.  Although I have to admit, this hunt stressed me out a bit.  But it was so organized in terms of rules, points, etc that I couldn't help wishing that I could participate.
• I was more of a participant in this book than I expected.  For example, one of the items that Mary's team had to collect for the hunt was a ticket stub from one of the Twilight movies.  As soon as I read that, I thought to myself  "Ok, I went to all of those movies, but did I keep the stubs?  And where do I keep them?  Oh wait!  I'm not actually in this scavenger hunt so it doesn't matter!"  So I was totally involving myself without even realizing it.

What I Didn't Love:

• The dialogue was a little cheesy, and I found myself rolling my eyes a little at it.
• And I had a hard time keeping track of all the characters.  I couldn't place personality with person until about halfway through the book.
• Mary was just an annoying protagonist.  She was whiny, bossy, and dramatic.  If it weren't for her I would've loved the book a lot more.
• The hunt was so absolutely intense that there were thousands of points collected.  But the judging sessions seemed to take about 10 minutes.  Ten minutes to count thousands of points...really?!  It's the OCD side of me that wanted this to resemble real life.

My favorite quote:  "What kind of last summer would this last summer be if we weren't back to being thick as thieves?"

So an ok book--entertaining and full of fun, but not my favorite.  I give it three stars.

I'll be designing a scavenger hunt outfit tomorrow--so check back then!