How to Break a Boy

by Laurie DeVore

What makes a mean girl mean? Find out in this compelling and compulsively readable debut novel filled with revenge and romance in a small southern town. Since the death of her brother, mean girl Olivia's life is unravelling. When she catches her boyfriend sleeping with her BFF, Olivia realises she needs to work on an escape plan to get out of this town. She strikes a bargain with the school's "good guy," Whit DuRant: he will tutor her for the SAT and help her take down her former best friend, while they pretend to date as a cover. But no matter how hard she tries to be good, Olivia just can't help being bad. Her choices unleash a tidal wave of drama that affects those closest to her, forcing her to question if she is any better than her sworn frenemy.

• ISBN10: 1250082862
• ISBN13: 9781250082862
• Publish Date: 31 January 2017
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 27 May 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: St Martin's Press
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 352
• Language: English

Reviews

[readingwithwrin]

"The way things were. I try not to think about it too much. I know what's right and what's wrong, who's good and bad, and I know if you sin against enough people, ultimately the universe will find you. I always knew better. That's probably way worse. I should've known even before he died."

I had a lot of mixed feelings about this book. On one hand I did like the majority of it and the fast pace of the store. On the other hand though I really disliked Olivia and her friends as characters and how they were constantly manipulating those around them.
So while this book was fast to read it is full of characters that are problematic when it comes to how to we treat other people around us.
As for the LGBT character in the story she was constantly having to hide behind a fake boyfriend in order to make life bearable in the smallish town they lived in. Also her "best friends" treated her horribly about it and at times it seemed they used it as something to hold against her with them telling the world if she didn't follow along.
As for the main character Olivia she hide behind her brothers death and constantly used that as a excuse for her being a mean girl. While her "best friend" did know things that she thought would make people hate her, in all actuality if she just would have given it more thought she would have seen differently.

"I never should have let her control me. I should've been a better person"

I also can see that while she was traumatized by her brothers death and other events that happened when she was a child, it still wasn't a good excuse in my opinion for how she treated others and ultimately was making her own life self destruct as well.


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