Review: Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook

Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood by Eileen Cook


My rating: 4.25/5.0


Publisher: Simon Pulse
Publish Date: January 5, 2010
Hardcover, 224 pages

FTC Disclosure: ***I received this book through Around the World Tours.***  I also do not receive money through the links provided to Amazon.com.  The Amazon Associates program does not pay out to residents of NC.

My Review:

If you are a young adult or you like young adult fiction that takes an outsider who moves to a new school and becomes a new person then I believe you will like this book.

I was never in the in-crowd in high school, althought I wasn't completely on the outs like Helen. However I think all girls at one time or another have been betrayed by a friend. If you haven't consider yourself blessed. Helen is seriously betrayed by her best friend, Lauren Wood in Lauren's attempt to become popular when she starts high school. Thankfully Helen moves away and gets to start a new life, but she never forgets or forgives Helen. Then a few years later, Helen gets the chance to return to her home town and face off with Lauren. At first she doesn't want to go, but then she realizes she will finally get her chance to get revenge on Lauren. So what does she do? She completely reinvents herself, and becomes the popular new girl at her old school. Using a new name and living with her grandmother she becomes someone new and starts on her trek for revenge.

Along the way she learns lessons and in the end she has to decide whether getting revenge is worth it. Full of meaning and a lot of fun, this book was a quick read for me. So much of it I could relate to, and that made it easy to get in to. I think Helen grows a lot during this book and so do other characters in the book.

I thought it was all very well done, from the plot to the characters to all of the situations they go through. This felt like a true-to-life young adult novel and I can easily see it being made into a movie as well.

About the Book:

Popularity is the best revenge.

In the final weeks of eighth grade, Lauren Wood made a choice. She betrayed her best friend, Helen, in a manner so publicly humiliating that Helen had to move to a new town just to save face. Ditching Helen was worth it, though, because Lauren started high school as one of the It Girls--and now, at the start of her senior year, she's the cheerleading captain, the quarterback's girlfriend, and the undisputed queen bee. Lauren has everything she's ever wanted, and she has forgotten all about her ex-best friend.

But Helen could never forget Lauren. After three years of obsessing, she's moving back to her old town. She has a new name and a new look, but she hasn't dropped her old grudges. She has a detailed plan to bring down her former BFF by taking away everything that's ever been important to Lauren—starting with her boyfriend.

Watch out, Lauren Wood. Things are about to get bitchy.