Review: She's So Dead to Us by Kieran Scott

genre: young adult
source: publisher

Ally's life was perfect: a tight group of friends, a house in the posh part of town and virtually everything she wanted - until her Dad made a bad investment that tanked the savings of all her friend's parents. Not good, so not good that they had to leave their house until they got on their feet again - without Ally's dad. And now, she's moved back to Orchard Hill - but not to the posh part of town she'd always known. Suddenly an outsider in the place she new best, Ally has a lot to learn about life and what true friendships are really made of. Oh, and love, too, of course. That new boy Jake is perfect for her - except that he's friends with her OLD friends, and how can THAT possibly work?

It's an interesting premise and I think played out well, especially if you like a "Little Princess" type plot. Ally is sympathetic but not perfect and Jake is the same. I think it's probably the perfect book for this modern high school genre - all kinds of backstabbing, cussing, hooking up and relationship salvaging. I found some of the circumstances in the book to be right on par with the horrors that I remember from my own high school experience, dances where you go with one person and really want to be with someone else, that sort of thing. My problem is that I did not know that it's the first in a trilogy, so when it just ended, my "what the?" was not just in my head. I wish the publisher had written somewhere on my advance readers copy that this was the beginning of a series so I would have seen it coming. If you enjoy these kinds of books, you'll probably enjoy this one too, just be aware that more is coming.