Review: The List

                                                             From Amazon:
An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.


This book made my heart hurt. THE LIST, very simply, shows the good, bad, and ugly of what being labeled can do to a person.  The story follows the eight girls that were selected to be on The List, and you may be thinking 8 POV's, too much for me.  I assure you that it isn't.  Each girl's perspective is so intricately woven into the story that the transitions are seamless.

So why did this make my heart hurt? These poor girls on this list, that's why.  The moment this list goes public their lives change.  One girl now believes she is on top of the world and it throws another girl back into her tailspin of fighting an eating disorder.  Another girl believes that even if it is short-lived, she finally has friends.  There is an inner struggle with all the girls as they try to figure out their place in the complex world of high school.  Friendships and relationships are tested all over the place and some things the girls thought were real turn out to be just a result of the list and go away as quickly as they came.

I couldn't stop reading this book last night because I was so worried for these girls I had to know what happened to them.  This book is a highly emotional book about how being labeled can affect a person.  High School is a tricky place to navigate through anyway, and while something like The List may be the extreme, people being labeled happens all over the place.  The List makes you realize that no matter what you are labeled: "pretty" or "ugly" or "smart" or "athletic" there are feelings, and consequences that everyone deals with on a daily basis.  If you don't read this book and think about your own high school and your own high school experiences, I'll be surprised.