The Fruit of My Lipstick (All about Us Series #2) by Shelley Adina

There is never a reason to change who you are to please a guyby Novel_Teen_Book_Reviews

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10/15/2009: Gillian Chang is an awesome person. She is brilliant in schoolwork, gifted in music, and totally in love with God. People love her for her outgoing and tell-it-like-it-is personality. When Lucas Hayes, the smartest guy in the school, takes an interest in her, Gillian is love struck. But the more time she spends with Lucas, the more she realizes that she doesn't measure up. Determined to be everything Lucas needs in a girlfriend, Gillian starts to make changes. When her friends call her on it, she is livid. Why can't they see that Lucas is right? He only wants what's best for her, and there is a lot to improve.

This is the second book in the All About Us series about girls who are attending an expensive boarding school. So far, these girls have everything money can buy and wear clothing that I could never afford for myself, like, ever. The books are still a lot of fun. I like how Shelley Adina wrote the character of Lucas Hayes. I was enamored with him myself at first. But when he started putting Gillian down in these slight ways-ways that she wasn't quite certain he meant derogatorily, but hurt her feelings-I got really worried. It was so hard for Gillian to see Lucas without bias. She wanted him to be the guy of her dreams. She wanted the relationship to be a fairy tale. But when three of her friends took her aside and told her they thought something was wrong, Gillian freaked, even to the point of accusing her friends of being wrong. Shelley Adina shows us that there is never a reason to change who you are to please a guy. The right guy will love you for who you are. But will Gillian realize that or end up in a world of hurt?

I Also Recommend: It's All about Us (All about Us Series #1), Be Strong and Curvaceous (All about Us Series #3), Who Made You a Princess? (All about Us Series #4), Tidings of Great Boys (All about Us Series #5).

Enthusiasm and insecuritiesby LeAnneH

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05/26/2009: The titles in this series are great! The story is told in a lively voice full of the enthusiasms and insecurities of a modern teen. Only the first couple pages fall into the explaining trap of first-person fiction when the narrator tells us who everyone is instead of showing the relationships in dialog and action as she does so well in the rest of the book. Instant messaging effectively carries the mystery of who is selling exam answers. Gillian herself is American-born Chinese and her friends present a nice racial and cultural mix despite the posh, boarding school setting. The plot centers around the abuse of a jerk-of-a-boyfriend, who makes sly racial and gender comments as well as being obviously threatened by Gillian's brains. Gillian's response exposes some of the excuses women use to put up with such behavior. At one point I thought the story was going in the direction of an eating disorder, but that thread was not developed as it could have been given the low self-image Gillian was moving toward under the boyfriend's influence. Gillian's Christian life and prayers are integral to who she is and how she handles her problems. Only occasionally do the prayers fall into churchy language, e.g. page 112. The discussion with Shani about where she is spiritually in the last chapter had little to do with the story and felt tacked on for the benefit of the reader (or to appeal to a Christian publisher.) I did not find it credible that the whole junior class could be given straight Fs on their transcript if the cheater was not exposed. I can't imagine that would be legal. My low rating really reflects my lack of enthusiasm for high school fiction as a genre more than the quality of the writing. The book definitely deserves the notice it should get as a finalist for the YA Christy Award.