Identity Discovery

This is a young adult book about a high school freshman. It is written in diary format, and I times feels a little like you are invading someone's privacy. However, I have always had that issue with reading books that are diaries. Due to the format, everything has been written after the fact and there is very little dialogue taking place. My biggest complaint is that there are no dates. I know that is silly especially since when Melissa writes the entries she does try to tell you how much time has passed. I just think that dates would have helped me to follow along a little better.

With that said, the story is all about Melissa and the hardships she faces in the first couple months of her freshman year. Her body has gone through a lot of changes during the summer between middle school and high school, and in typical girl fashion, she is ready to show it off. She is finally feeling confident in her own skin and is eager to enter the world of dating. In particular, she wants to date Brian, a football player and swimmer. She is rather preppy even though she isn't a cheerleader and loves to make herself look good via cute clothes and makeup. What she is not prepared for is for her best friend from forever to decide that she doesn't want to be friends with her, an ok friend to decide to be her best friend, and the boy she likes to actually really like her.

The actual climax comes when her newest friend tries to steal her boyfriend as well as Brian trying to move their relationship to a much more adult level than she's willing to accept. Her ex-best friend from forever returns to her to rekindle their friendship and essentially life returns to the way it was in middle school. It is like reading a high school soap opera. Bethany Lopez captured the essence of a freshman girl perfectly.

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