Book Review: Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done by Sarah Mlynowski

Title: Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done

Author: Sarah Mlynowski
Series: N/A
Pages: 329
Publisher: Orchard Books
Date of Publication: 4th August 2011
Source: Bought
Synopsis from Goodreads: I was about to live a sixteen-year-old's dream. House on the beach. No parents. Parties whenever we wanted. Boys wherever we wanted. April and her best friend, Vi, are living by themselves. Of course, April's parents don't know that. They think she's living with Vi and Vi's mum. But it's not April's fault that her dad decided to move away in the middle of high school. So who could blame her for a little white lie? Or the other nine things that April (probably) shouldn't have done that year...

Apologies for the rambley review... It hopefully makes sense though ;)

My Thoughts:
I was super excited to read this book - it sounded funny and silly and after reading a lot of paranormal books I decided that I wanted to read something light-hearted, and that's exactly what I got from Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done. I'd heard amazing things about it from other bloggers and readers, and I had really high expectations, and while it didn't quite live up to them, it was still an awesomely good read with some serious laugh out loud moments.

April's dad and stepmum want to move away, but April doesn't. Her mum had already moved to France, so really, she should have had no choice whether to go with her dad, or stay behind. That is, until she has the great idea to move in with her friend Vi, who is a year older. And her dad agrees to let her stay, but only because Vi's mother would be there too... Only, she wouldn't be, because she was touring with her theatre company as Mary Poppins. While she's gone, Vi and April get up to a lot of things, some of them things that they probably shouldn't have.

I liked April. She seemed like a normal, sensible high school student, though at times she could be very silly and didn't think things through properly, which I guess is understandable when you suddenly are living without a parent... I liked how even though living with Vi forced her to grow up and become responsible, she still managed to ring her parents/answer the phone first time when they rang, and she kept up with her schoolwork, and do things that a regular teenager would do, as well as the cooking and the cleaning, and the shopping and paying the bills, and all the scary grown up stuff like that. I just thought she was pretty awesome. ;)

I didn't like Vi though, there were a lot of times that she could be a bitch, or just really annoying and full of herself. At times I felt that she was treating April more like a little sister than a friend, and while she is a year older and it's kind of understandable, there were times when I think that April really needed a friend in Vi, and she just wasn't there for her, which I think was really sad. I don't know whether I was meant to feel this way about Vi, like, maybe I should feel that way because it made her a better friend in the end, but I don't know, there was something about her that I just didn't like.

The plot however, was great fun, I loved it! The ten things were awesome, and I found it was a really good way to set out the book. Each of the 'things' they did was a chapter, and then it was divided into little subheadings inside the chapters. It made it easy to follow, though occasionally one of these subheadings would be a flashback, and there'd be no warning and I'd get confused, but it quickly became easy to follow again once it got back to the present, which was good :L The actual plot was fast-paced and there was always something going on, and it was the perfect teenage read.

Overall though, I really enjoyed reading Ten Things We Shouldn't Have Done. I'd recommend it to everyone who is a fan of contemporary YA fiction, but I would say it's for older readers due to quite a lot of sex, swearing and drinking. Apart from that though, it was really good, so go buy it!

My Rating:

I give it 4 Feet!

Challenges:
2011 100+ Reading Challenge #78