One Night That Changes Everything

by Lauren Barnholdt

Two years ago, when Eliza Sellman was in ninth grade, her dad found out he was being transfered and the family was going to move. Having always been shy and not so confident about her body, Eliza took that opportunity to start a list in her private notebook of all the things she planned on doing when she moved but had always been afraid to--like wearing a miniskirt and asking guys to dance; singing karaoke in front of strangers; posting a photo of herself on her Facebook wall in a bikini...you get the idea. New town, new Eliza, right? Well, she'll never know because the transfer fell through and they didn't move. But Eliza kept adding her goals and secret fears to the list in the notebook. Now it's two years later, and in that time Eliza has had and lost her first boyfriend. But this was more than your average breakup...turns out the sweet and cute Cooper was only dating her as a hazing stunt by a secret society. Eliza got her revenge by posting some pretty nasty (and only sort-of true) stuff about Cooper online. That posting has had major consequences and now Cooper and his buddies have stolen her private notebook and won't give it back until she performs all the things on her list in one night. It's torture...until Eliza steals something from the boys she knows they'll want to trade her notebook for. What starts out as a night of humiliation turns into a night of revelations as Eliza learns what Cooper was really thinking when they dated, the real reason he's stolen her notebook, and how freeing--and life-changing--it can be to do the things you fear the most.

• ISBN10: 1416994807
• ISBN13: 9781416994800
• Publish Date: 6 July 2010
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Imprint: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 256
• Language: English

Reviews

[Sam@WLABB]

Rating: 3.5 Stars

This was a fun, fast paced read. It all happens in one night and moves along at quite a clip. What got Eliza into this situation was pretty sordid, but those things do happen at high school. Regardless I empathized with her as she had to face those fears and the fallout of putting her truth out there. I liked the storyline involving Eliza and her ex, Cooper, the most, and the ending was sweet and satisfying. Probably a bit too angsty for my taste, but still enjoyable.

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[Joséphine]

I remember reading "Two-Way Street" and liking it, so I inadvertently went into reading "One Night That Changes Everything" with more expectations than I have when randomly picking up books. It's a light read, perfect for unwinding. I liked that it was set in one night and with that, basically written in real time.

The plot wasn't trying too hard and hit pretty close to home, I think, in that this could have happened to anyone. Eliza got hurt due to the initiation of Cooper into a high school fraternity. She found out that he had been dating her in order to gain points, so that he could be part of the club. She in turn dumped him, as any sensible girl would do. The hook of this novel is that the guys had gotten hold of her notebook in which she had penned down her fears and were blackmailing her into facing her fears. I thought this premise was a promising on and while nothing of this sort has happened to me, I could relate.

What disappointed me though was Eliza's voice. Surely self-pitying would be part and parcel of one's response to such a plight. But it felt forced at some points and fairly repetitive. There is this point where she says there was only one way to respond, and that was to cry. While this may annoy some readers who expect strong protagonists, I thought this stayed true to the vulnerability she felt, knowing that that others now knew what she was scared of. I did think however that it was unnecessary to play upon that so much.

Also, there was this talk about about some secrets not being her own. Yet, even though these "secrets" were about her two best friends and her sister, they still were ultimately about Eliza and what Eliza had done or what her opinions were. She didn't approve the way either of her friends dealt with boys, and while she kept her opinion about Clarice from Clarice, she didn't hide her disproval of Jeremy from Marissa. Given the whole obsession about having to keep others' secrets too then, I was disappointed and left wanting for more, and not in a good way.

Given that Lauren Barnholdt chose to write from Eliza's perspective when Eliza's voice fell through for me, I could only give 3 stars even though I read the book in one sitting, not wanting to put it down.