Review: It Started With A Dare

Author: Lindsay Faith Rech
Publisher: Graphia
Genre: Young Adult
Summary: Self-proclaimed nobody CG Silverman sees her move to an upscale new school as her chance to be somebody different. Her devil-may-care attitude attracts the in-clique, and before CG realizes it, a routine game of truth or dare launches her to iconic status.While this rebel image helps secure CG’s newfound popularity, it also propels her through a maze of unprecedented chaos, with each new lie and every dare opening doors that, in most cases, were better off left shut. CG is on a collision course with disaster. Will she be able to keep up the façade? Or will the whole world find out she’s a fraud?
Cover: I absolutely love the cover. It fits the main character perfectly



I think there is always a problem when you come start reading a book with expectations. The reviews for It Started With A Dare were pretty good, and when I recieved this book I was expecting a funny and poignant coming of age story. But CG's (main character) personal growth was marred by her constant pathological lying and an often callous disregard for other. Yes, CG was funny and she did make me smile every now and again, but in the end I didn't really like her as a character. Personally, its important that I 'connect' with the main character, if I don't then I don't care what happens to her and that's how I felt by the end of the book.

When everything blows up in her face, I don't think CG is truely remorseful. Eventhough she had hurt a lot of people.

The pacing in the novel was great and the climax was...climaxtic. But my real problem with the novel was the characterisation. This was a character-driven novel, but I didn't feel like any of the characters were fleshed out. I think the majority of the characters were just too sterotypical. The rich kids were all mean, snobby and a bitch. The poor kids were all humble, sweet and generally good people. The novel were ridden with stock characters and it brought the book down.

The voice was the best part of the book. It, credit to the author, sounded like a 15 year old girl.

There was a lot of 'tell' and not enough 'show' in the novel. We are told CG thinks she is invinsible and a 'nobody' but we don't really ever see where these feelings stem from. She also ditches her best friend (who is romantically interested in her) because she no longer wants to be a nobody. But I felt it was a douchy thing to do.

There was a lot of potential in this book, and a lot of themes that the author could play around with. However, I again felt like it was all underdeveloped and the author mainly scratched the surface and didn't really dive into things.

At times the plot was hard to believe and quite unrealistic and coincidence played to big of a role. And CG's lies were a bit out of control and over the top and I didn't understand how anybody would believe them.

The dialogue was snappy and at times funny. It was a quick read and some younger teens may find it enjoyable.

However for me it was somewhat of a disapointing read.