REVIEW and EXCERPT
How to be Cool
by Annie Carr
How to be Cool by Annie Carr is currently on tour with YA Bound Book Tours. The tour stops here today for my review and an excerpt. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Ethan will never be as cool as his twin brother Alex. Alex is a star football player and president of the senior class, while Ethan was born with cerebral palsy and needs crutches to walk.
Laura will never be as cool as her perfect older sister Nikki. Nikki is everything Laura isn't - confident and gorgeous ... until one night when Nikki is brutally raped and hospitalized, and Laura finds comfort in her new friend Ethan.
Together, Ethan and Laura realize maybe you don't need to be cool to be happy. Or to fall in love.
And then a revelation about the attack shatters everything ...
Excerpt
I see her out of the corner of my eye. Elsie Kahn. Elsie of Mr. Watson’s chemistry class fame, the girl who (accidentally?) set her homework on fire with the flame from her Bunsen burner. She got about as red as I’d ever seen a person get as Mr. Watson chewed her out in front of the whole class.
It seems like Elsie isn’t having a better day today. She’s running for the last of the school buses, but the driver doesn’t see her, and it’s obvious this is going to be a major fail. Her hair is whipping behind her head and her cheeks are all pink with exertion. She’s screaming, “Wait! Wait!”
It probably needs to be said about Elsie: she isn’t pretty. I’m not saying that in a mean way like my brother would, just in a factual way. She’s not. Her body is pretty nice, or at least it was the day of the chemistry fire, when she was wearing a maroon skirt that fell just above her knees and a clingy black shirt. And she’s got nice hair too—strawberry blond and silky. But it’s obvious even from where I’m standing that Elsie had been born with a cleft lip, and it didn’t get repaired right. You can see where the pieces of her upper lip don’t quite come together evenly.
So Elsie isn’t pretty. Big deal. The fact is, she’s something even better than pretty.
She’s attainable.
Owen comes out of the school at that moment, and I can see the pit stains on his shirt under his open jacket. He apparently worked up quite the sweat running to five different classrooms. But the good news is, he’s holding his Spanish book triumphantly above his head. “It was in the bathroom!” he declares.
The bathroom? Are you kidding me? And now this book is going to be in my car? Lucky for him, I’ve got other things on my mind.
“Hey…” I nudge Owen. “Elsie missed her bus. Maybe we should offer her a ride home.”
Owen looks up in Elsie’s direction. He makes a face like he’s not thrilled about the idea, but then shrugs and sprints for the car. “I guess so. But she has to sit in the back.” Did I mention Owen has already claimed eternal shotgun?
I look over at Elsie, and all of a sudden, I’m really nervous. If Elsie says yes, she will be the first girl to ride in my car, with the exception of my mom. I try not to drive myself crazy with the possibilities. I run my tongue over my teeth, because I don’t want there to be any spinach stuck in them (or whatever that green stuff was at lunch). Then I tighten my grip on the handles of my forearm crutches, and start limping awkwardly in Elsie’s direction.
Elsie’s got her phone in her hand and she looks like she’s seconds away from bursting into tears. “Elsie?” I say. And of course, my voice cracks, like I’m freaking thirteen years old. I clear my throat, hoping she didn’t notice.
Elsie looks up in surprise. “Yes?”
“Uh…” I can feel the heat in my face—I’m sure Elsie can see it too. I focus on getting the words out and not on how silky Elsie’s hair looks. “I’ve got a car, so, um, if you need a ride or something…”
Elsie is staring at me, which if you ask me, is kind of bad manners. First she stares at my face, but I’m okay with that. There’s nothing wrong with my face. All right, I’m not, like, Mr. Handsome or anything like my brother, but I’m not a guy who walked into a wall either.
Then her eyes drop and she’s looking down at my crutches and my legs. That part I’m not thrilled about. I’ve got braces going up to the knee on the right and up to the hip on the left. Even with the braces, my left leg always seems to rotate inward so that my left foot points about forty-five degrees toward the right one. Elsie keeps on staring for what feels like five hours, but if I’m being honest, it’s probably more like fifteen seconds. Not that it makes much difference. It’s long enough, anyway.
Elsie glances over at a group of girls standing nearby, watching us curiously. “No, thanks,” Elsie says, then she turns back to her phone.
Rejected. Ouch.
Elsie turns away from me, letting me know that there’s zero point in trying to persuade her. Yeah, as if I would. If Elsie doesn’t want to be in a car with me, then I’m not going to beg. Let her find her own goddamn ride home at this hour. Good luck with that, Elsie.
I make my way over to my car, where Owen is waiting. He’s leaning against the hood, probably making a huge dent in it. “So is she coming?”
I dig my keys out of my pocket and shrug like I couldn’t care less. “She found another ride,” I say.
Praise for the Book
"I liked the ending. It helped to make the whole story less fairy tale & more like an honest high school experience." ~ E L-G
"I particularly liked the way the selfish judgmental characters finally showed some redeeming qualities. As I neared the end I didn't want the book to finish, although the conclusion was realistic and satisfying." ~ Jay
"Reading How to be Cool by Annie Carr was a great read and it was refreshing to read a story based on the underdogs finding love rather than always the Hot girl or the Hot Guy or the Plain Jane/Bob falls in love with Popular Guy/Girl." ~ Paula L. Phillips
"This book was so much fun to read! I liked how both Ethan and Laura had their insecurities and self-doubts about themselves." ~ danielle pitter
"I hadn't anticipated the many twists of this book, and that was so refreshing." ~ V. Rundell of V's Reads
"Great characters, good story. Not quite the happy ending you might be hoping for, but it leaves you feeling satisfied that things are headed in a positive direction for the major characters." ~ lesley
"Great characters, so well written. Interesting and complex yet right on with the high school trials and tribulations that are so urgent and full of drama at that age." ~ Jeanie G. Richmond
My Review
By Lynda Dickson
Eighteen-year-old Ethan has cerebral palsy, he wears braces on both legs, uses crutches, has poor eyesight, and wears thick glasses. His friend Owen is obese, sweats profusely, and smells. Laura is fat and her friend Hadley is super-thin. One thing they all have in common: they're not cool. In contrast, Ethan's twin brother Alex is perfect: the most popular guy in Westwood High, class president, a football player, good-looking, and he has a pretty girlfriend. Laura also has a perfect sibling, her older sister, Nikki, who is a freshman in college. One night, Nikki is raped and beaten and ends up in a coma. This event will change all of their lives.
This story is a scathing indictment on what teens will do to be cool. Told from the alternating points-of-view of Ethan and Laura, it gets a bit repetitive and monotonous, as we see how they each perceive the same situations. While Ethan and Laura are both very likable and sympathetic characters, Owen, Hadley, Alex, and Nikki are just cardboard cut-out caricatures and extremely unlikable. Towards the end of the book, some parts are told from Alex's point-of-view. We find out that having a brother with cerebral palsy has been hard on him and that he, too, is busy trying to be cool. But, just when we start feeling sorry for him, he shows us again what a jerk he really is. The narrative contains a lot of misused pronouns; it's almost as if it was initially written in the third person and was later changed to the first person. While the story itself is predictable, it's still an enjoyable journey, especially the developing relationship between two of the characters.
Warnings: sexual references, mild sex scenes.
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