The anti-"Ya-ya Sisterhood." What it's really like being female in the South, speaking as someone who grew up in New Orleans. ( )

If you appreciate a darker sense of humor, this is a book for you. If not, you might only end up wanting to throttle the cast.

Sarina Summers is perfect in every way. Except for her pinky fingers. Their slight crookedness mars her style, and so when she is 16, she gets drunk and has her mother break them.

Nicole Hicks lives across the street, and has idolized Sarina her whole life. Her mother is nicer, her life is better. As long as you keep her happy, she'll return the favor. And all Nicole wants is to keep this balance. So much so that she intentionally fails 10th grade, thinking it will better her chances for a friendship, when in fact it proves to be her undoing.

Bitty Jack Carlson grew up in a small town, on a Summer Camp. Summers, she attends. The rest of the year, she's home-schooled. The year Sarina attends, life changes forever.

Caught using a hairdryer in an unusual fashion by Bitty Jack's father while he's changing a light bulb, Sarina cries abuse. Camp maintenance workers are no longer allowed into cabins without staff invitation, and her father is not allowed to work in them at all during summer, but otherwise, things mostly blow over. Until years down the line when Bitty Jack is dating Sarina's first boyfriend, and Sarina's life is coming apart at the seems.

Sarina hatches a plan to get Stewart back. The plan? Out herself as an abuse survivor at a Take Back the Night rally, where both Stewart and Bitty Jack will be there to hear. The back-lash causes the Camp to come under siege by the Press and thus ends the Carlson's have always known. So when Nicole Hicks climbs through Bitty Jack's window late one night with her own plan, rather than being afraid, Bitty Jack is mesmerized.

She has few details. They need to hijack the mascot uniform from Stewart. That's all she knows. From the President's Box she looks on, and as we wait for Nicole's plan to hash out, we come to find Bitty Jack had one of her own. ( )

i've actually read this book a number of times. i find it amusing each time to the next. lets put it this way: it really has a twist at the end. i tend to value the endings of books. if a book has a boring or typical ending, i won't like it as much. this one really didn't disappoint me. ( )