Sometimes beauty is only skin-deep...Avery has always suffered at the hands of bullies, so when she's given a seemingly-miraculous opportunity to join her school's 'A-list', she grabs at it with both hands.
But appearances can be deceiving, and soon Avery's not so sure she likes this new verison of herself.
And it's only by overcoming her fears that she can learn the true meaning of being comfortable in your own skin.
I hate Avery. She is literally the worst and I don't think she learns a damn thing. The thing she probably meant to learn is self-awareness. Avery has a major acne problem, the painfully kind that you should seek professional medical help about (she has), she thinks this means she would be in a "freakshow", while standing next to her best friend who has what would be classified as deformity "a funny little arm". Its ablelism like this that makes me think Avery is just jerk, from the very start.
The big problem is that I think Avery is a terrible person, she might be realistic, but even when I was her age (Also she seems more 15, than 17 years old) she would never I have been someone I was friends with or want anything to do with her. She obsessed with people she doesn't like. I will admit this is something I cannot related to and just find utterly baffling. Wanting to be popular and have friends I get, but why with the people who were horrible to you. Also Pizzaface is such a lame insult. She and the antagonist of Scarlett never seem that much better than the other. Even with the pain and annoyance acne can cause, I end up having no sympathy for her due her whole attitude and personality.
Miracle cure and she popular suddenly and still a terrible person. Does the usual tropes, abandons friends, hook up with a hot boy, goes up against the evil popular girl for prom queen...I mean Head Girl. Avery abandons friends in favour of the people who bullied her, until its convenient to go back to the old ones.
This book also has some real dumb lines. During the discussion about whether Avery should take the new, experimental drug, this little exchange "No side effects; what have we got to lose?' She squeezes my hand tight. 'You, Avery! I have you to lose.' LOL. This is probably not funny to most people but I live in a house full of prescribed medication and with chronic ill people. There's like a billion steps before a drug goes to the public and no drug has no side effects.
I think the big problem is there is that the 85 pages doesn't give much room for a arch or character development.The ends comes off as having ran out of room, then wrap up for a happy ending with half arse lesson learned.
Overall, I give this 2/5 stars for jerkarses. I know Juno Dawson is capable writer and has wrote things with real depth. But I don't know what with this or the ableist mess of "All of the Above". Though, this is too an ableist mess. But hey at least I wasn't personally attacked for no reason. If I hadn't came across Dawson's short stories, I might be calling it quits on her. That being said, neither of the solo works that I have read by her are what she praised for. I will read another work by her. I probably won't buy any more of her books till then (which would be the responsible thing for the majority of authors on my shelves). Probably one of her horror effects.
On a random note, I saw the film 'Wish Upon' (2017) on Monday, and it reminds me a lot of this book. The way some characters are written and weird wants they have.
