Review: The List by Siobhan Vivan

An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

***

I must admit I have every mixed feelings about this book. For most of it I must admit I wasn't all that impressed but I did think the last part was much better and it changed my mind about the book as a whole.

The List is the story of eight girls who appeared on The List at their school. Every year a list appears at their school naming the prettiest and ugliest girl in each grade and follows their story on the lead up to the prom. I really liked the idea of this book in theory but in reality I found the story quite cluttered with too many characters to follow meaning that you never really got to know any of them in any depth. I also thought that the girls themselves were quite stereotypical and didn't have enough depth to their characters to keep me interested.

The end of the book was better as you found out more about the list and why the person responsible for the list wrote it out and picked the people they did.

All in all not the book I hoped it would be and certainly didn't meet my expectations.