New Girl

• the plot of the book

The narrator, whose name is Callie although we learn that in the last couple of pages of the novel, is enrolled in a boarding school she lost interest in years ago for her senior year. She temporarily fell in love with the idea of boarding school after reading Harry Potter but quickly got over it when her chosen school rejected her. What Callie didn't know was that her parents wanted her to be happy so much that they kept resubmitting her application year after year despite her desire had been long forgotten. But she enters the school, M-something, long from wanted and we quickly discover why.

The reason Callie has finally managed to gain a spot in this school is because last year another girl enrolled...and disappeared. This girl, Becca, left a large (Alison DiLaurentis like) presence on the school despite her disappearance. The day Becca got on campus she managed to start a tradition of weekend parties in the school boathouse without any of the students getting caught and sleeping with the most unattainable guy on campus. Anyway, Becca was definitely loved and Callie was definitely not. Everyone immediately despises her for taking Becca's place especially their roommate, Dana. There are the typical mean girls but they're divided in half. There's the ones who are loyal to Becca's memory who warn Callie that Becca's past boy-toys, her ex-boyfriend Max and (I'm unsure of why they did this since they didn't know Becca and he were hooking up) Johnny. So, of course Callie falls for one of them, the ex-boyfriend, which feels purposeful. If Becca comes back, then she can be with Johnny and Callie can be with Max.

Not that anyone, especially Dana wants that to happen. Everyone is convinced that Becca will come back and until then, her so-called wannabe, Callie needs to stay away from everything that belongs to her. Dana even goes so far as to steal Callie's Halloween costume in order to get her into Becca's old Marilyn Monrue costume from last year to make everyone at school agree with her that Callie is just a Becca wannabe. Also, unnoteably so, Callie and Max have a series of enteractions and eventually they start sleeping together-without a title-which goes against everything Callie is trying to do. She wants to be viewed as herself which no one does, they all call her "new girl" and only see her as Becca's replacement. Too bad she did exactly what Becca did, sleep with Max without a title.

Anyway, half of the book is devoted to Becca's beginning junior year, a year ago that keeps in time with Callie's current senior year. In it we learn that Becca was a little psychotic. Although Becca starts dating Max, it's kind of something that she shrives to do because she doesn't want to be rejected and she wants to be the envied golden couple. Who Becca really wants is Johnny, who happens to have a thing for a roommate than Becca ruined on her first day. Eventually she gets Max to commit but keeps Johnny around on the hush. Towards the end of the novel, we discover that one of the rumors about Becca (that she was kidnapped, that she ran away, that she was murdered...etc) is true; she was pregnant. Not that we get to know who the baby daddy is. Becca ends up so drugged up, but she tries to convince Johnny to be with her not knowing that Dana is eavesdropping. Johnny drugs her up more to try and calm her down but all the drugs in her system cause Becca to end up drowning. Dana saw her on the dock but was the person who believed the most that Becca was alive.

Then everyone graduates, Max and Callie end up together and presumably go to college in the same town or near each other (I don't know what towns Boston University and Harvard are in) and Becca's mom turns out to be pregnant. The End.

• my thoughts on the book

This book was properly named although I don't like the wisp of premise on the cover. What if no one knew your name? It completely misdirects the direction that the novel is actually going to go. New Girl doesn't explore the idea of someone who the people around her don't know the name of. Instead, it explores the idea of replacing someone else against your will so much so, that everyone refuses to acknowledge your name but rather the action of replacement. I felt or understood most of Callie's feelings about being thrust into Becca's shadow so much. And it's one thing to be always cast in Becca's shadow by her peers but by the guy she likes too...that must suck.

However, New Girl doesn't truly belong in the mystery category. Sure, there's a mystery but every clue that we should've gained by sleuthing, Callie's sleuthing, was told to us by Becca's third person sections of the book. It was so anti-climatic and un-interesting although informative. The most suspenseful part of the entire novel was when Becca showed up as a hallucination? (This part was unclear because Callie wasn't asleep  unlike the later times she runs into Becca). At that point in time it wasn't known of Becca was alive or not.

Anyway, everything that could've been done with this book was tossed aside. It was anti-climatic. The romance was soooo uninteresting. I was more invested in Johnny and Becca than Callie's romance with Max (in which neither of them learned anything about one another that didn't somehow relate to the Becca mess). And I started to believe that Dana had killed Becca and was succumbing to guilt or was going off the deep-end but that all turned out to be post-traumatic stress symptoms probably due to Dana seeing Becca on the dock as/or the results of her rape, which she confided in Becca about that made her so loyal  to her. But instead Becca just died, pregnant and drugged up. This book, now that I think about it was soooo disappointing.