Even When You Lie To Me

The Bookworm says... No. Even When You Lie To Me by Jessica Alcott was not good. Entering senior year of high school, Charlie and her best friend Lila end up in an English class together with the hot new teacher. Charlie is sick of living in Lila's shadow, and starts to expand her horizons. She also starts to develop a crush on Mr. Drummond, knowing she is one of many. Charlie tries to escape from Lila's shadow while trying to do well in a class where the main distraction is the teacher. 

Frankly, this book wasn't good. It was a cliche from beginning to end. Unattractive girl has a popular best friend and a beautiful mother. Brand new, mysterious teacher suddenly attracts her attention, and he connects with her like no one else. Teacher/student relationships are wrong and obviously illegal, and reading an entire novel about one in the making was boring. All of the characters in this book could've benefited from a little more development; the only characters who I felt changed significantly, aside from a relationship perspective, were Lila and Charlie's mom.

“It’s like…it’s like a catch-22. Like how women are told not to care about male attention but also that they’re not worthwhile if they don’t get it. Or how they’re expected to wear makeup, but they have to look like they aren’t. Or how they’re allowed to have power as long as it’s sexual, but then if they use it, they get called sluts. And if they don’t have sexual power, then they’re worthless. It creates a situation where the person in the double bind can’t win.”