Review: Witty, funny dialogues that tell you how well they know each other and how much they care
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 10 5, 2011
I didn't like the cover much. But then I didn't really pay any attention to it till long after I finished the book. I thank Amazon book samples. The story's first few pages got me so involved in it that I never even glanced at the cover, simply ordered it.What struck me first was the dialogue. The protagonists speak as if they are in that 1940s Cary Grant movie about two reporters in a news paper. These are eighteen year old students in a modern day high school but you wont think that to listen to them.They are witty of course, and very funny. But the wit is the clever stuff that spouts from the mouths of people obsessed with words, with writing. In their fictional personas as two dedicated editors of their school paper - which unfortunately now exists only on the virtual sphere (the school having refused to keep paying for the printing) - they pull off the slightly heavy exchanges very well. It suits them and it highlights all that they have in common.Layney Logan and Jimmy Foster (I love the guy's name, again very 1940s) have been best friends for a long time, then a couple for a short while and finally enemies for the last few years. Now they are stuck as co-Senior Editors of their nearly non-existent school paper that they are determined to revive and keep running.They hatch an advertising idea. Well, Jimmy hatches it and Layney doesn't like it. And she is sure that he suggested it to their enthusiastic team with the sole purpose of tormenting her because the idea involves the reclusive Layney Logan dating twelve guys in twelve weeks - sight unseen. And who chooses these dates for Layney? Why, Jimmy, of course!She's not sure what he's up to but she's sure it's no good.You can't help but like these two. They have always loved each other and they still do, though their feelings have nearly been buried until a large pile of unspoken apologies and unheard explanations.Something happened to Layney in middle school. Something after which she couldn't face Jimmy. She needed only an excuse to push him away and he provided that unwittingly at some other girl's birthday party. Furious with Layney and hurting at her injustice Jimmy decided he didn't need her when Layney needed him the most. But neither brought it up again.  They competed against each other and parried words when they were in the same room - but neither said what they needed to and too much time passed by.And now Jimmy and Layney were about to be given a second chance. Read to know how they go about grasping it.A final comment on the story. Layney's voice was always dry and only some times bordering on wistful. The narrative didn't really delve too deeply into what happened all those years ago and it felt like Layney never really wanted to go into it. You learn most of the details near the end when she bursts out and confesses everything to a startled Jimmy. This was both a relief to me - too many authors linger on descriptions of the girl's feelings when she recalls the incidence and go on and on about it - and a surprise (for the same reason). I had expected the author to go more into the cathartic effects of finally talking about what was eating her up inside. But she didn't and it worked for me, because by the end of the book I knew Layney well enough to guess how she would deal with it.