Book: Pretty Amy by Lisa Burstein

Published May 2012 by Entangled Publishing

Purchased for my Nook (304 pages)

Genre: YA: Contemporary

Find out more: Goodreads|Barnes And Noble|Amazon|Lisa Burstein

Goodreads.com Summary: Amy is fine living in the shadows of beautiful Lila and uber-cool Cassie, because at least she’s somewhat beautiful and uber-cool by association. But when the girls get stood up for prom and take matters into their own hands—earning them a night in jail outfitted in satin, stilettos, and Spanx — Amy discovers even a prom spent in handcuffs might be better than the humiliating “rehabilitation techniques” now filling up her summer. Even worse, with Lila and Cassie parentally banned, Amy feels like she has nothing — like she is nothing.

Navigating unlikely alliances with her new coworker, two very different boys, and possibly even her parents, Amy struggles to decide if it’s worth being a best friend when it makes you a public enemy. Bringing readers along on an often hilarious and heartwarming journey, Amy finds that maybe getting a life only happens once you think your life is over.

I have mixed feelings about Pretty Amy.  We did get a novel about a girl dealing with the consequences of being arrested, but it wasn’t what I was expecting.  I think I was expecting something a little more light-hearted.

It was very hard to care about Amy and what happened to her.  She whined (a lot) and made a lot of stupid decisions.  Which does happen, but if she doesn’t care if she ends up in jail, why should I?  I think that’s my main issue with the book- she’d rather go to jail than explain what happened, and do what she needs to do to stay out of jail.  It really felt like Amy was just going through the motions and got a job and did community service just so people would leave her alone.

I can relate to Amy in some ways- mainly, how insecure and lonely she is.  And even though I could relate to her in some ways, more often than not, I really couldn’t care.  As for her relationship with her parents, I didn’t get why she didn’t like them.  It was never clear why they don’t have a good relationship, so it was hard to believe that they were as bad as Amy thought.  If there was something that led them to having the kind of relationship they did, then it’s a shame we didn’t get to see it.

At the same time, I thought it was an interesting choice that Amy didn’t want to help herself for a lot of the book.  I was expecting her to be all, “I really screwed things up, maybe I need to get my act together.”  But she didn’t, and I kind of liked that getting arrested didn’t seem to be a life-changing event for her.  I liked seeing her thought process and why she did what she did.  And I did like Amy’s sarcasm.

By the end, though, she did want to change, but it also seemed a little out of place.  I think it’s because she resisted it for so long, but at least we see that she’s starting to realize that she needs to change.

I have to say that I loved AJ, her pet parrot.  AJ is easily my favorite character in the book.  At least Amy had AJ.  Her boss wasn’t too bad, but all in all, I didn’t care for a lot of the characters.  It’s definitely realistic, and I feel like all of the characters were pretty realistic, even if I didn’t like any of them.

Final Thoughts: I thought Pretty Amy was okay.  I could relate to Amy a little, and I really liked that there wasn’t a happy ending.  Things don’t go the way we want them to, and sometimes we have to deal with the consequences of our stupidity.  Pretty Amy gets a 2 out of 5.  It’s not for me, but I’m sure there are a lot of people who will love Amy’s story.