Surviving High School

by Lele Pons and Melissa de la Cruz

 Lele sits alone at lunch until, overnight, her digital fame catapults her into popularity in high school. Suddenly, she goes from the bullied loser to the most popular kid in school. She now has to deal with the trials of the cliques, the drama, the boys, the girls -- all while keeping her grades up and making her parents proud. Can she graduate without making a mess of things?
  
   Vine superstar Lele Pons's debut novel, co-written with bestselling YA author Melissa de la Cruz, is the hilarious, heartfelt story of a girl navigating the wilds and wonders of high school in sunny Florida.
 

• ISBN10: 1471147754
• ISBN13: 9781471147753
• Publish Date: 5 April 2016
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 10 July 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Childrens Books
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 272
• Language: English

Reviews

[whisperingchapters]

This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.


I hadn't heard of Lele before, but her book caught my attention. This is one of the books where if I had read the book, I probably would have put it down immediately. Lele (in the story) seemed like a very shallow person who thought she was better than everyone—it was quite annoying.

The narrator was the one that stopped me from DNF'ing the book. She was so lively and energetic! I felt like she was telling me about her life over a cup of coffee. She made it feel very engaging and as if we had been friends forever. I would totally listen to more audios with this narrator because she totally made this book very enjoyable.

I received the audiobook from the publisher for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.This review was originally posted on Latte Nights Reviews.

[Leah]

DNFed at 20%.

Oh God. This book is actually horrific. It's been a while since a book offended me as much as this (look at whatever is on my DNF shelf). I genuinely thought this was going to be a cute, fun, quick, summer read. I mostly wanted to read it because of Melissa de la Cruz, because I've never actually heard of Lele Pons (and I REALLY hope Surviving High School IS just a fictionalised memoir, because Lele does not come across well).

The fictional Lele is one of the most big-headed, weird people I've ever met. She talks in nothing but pop culture (it's like the Breakfast Club/I'm so "pwning" this day/any kind of twenty-first century pop culture you can think of is thrown in, including The Weeknd's Can't Feel My Face (and she loves it)). If you did a shot for every pop culture reference you'd be drunk SUPER QUICK. I only read a fifth of the book and the pop culture was everywhere.

Lele just does not come across well. I stopped reading when she started going on about how Alexei (who she's known for about three days) hadn't asked her out, because she was "pretty but not pretty enough". I legitimately hate girls who say stuff like that. It's my biggest pet peeve, because all you need to do is google Lele to know she's absolutely gorgeous, and maybe you'll come back and say to me that she didn't always look like that, but I doubt in her first year of high school she was a hag. Braces do not suddenly make you ugly, OK? For me that was my breaking point. I was just like, "Nope I can't do this."

The voice was just all over the place. The need to input so much pop culture - which means that this book will age super fast. The fact that Lele is just wow so full of herself, then in the next breath she's not "pretty enough" is enough to give you whiplash. It was just so inconsistent. Her parents were super chill, super cool, hip and happening, etc, but then she was like screaming at them about a party? And she had a bad day and just started literally screaming in school. WHO DOES THAT? This was just so bad. I have no idea what input Melissa de la Cruz had because she's a far superior writer to the tiny bit I read here. It was like a five year old's stream of conscious was just let loose, with no filter.

Just nope.