Faking 19 by Alyson Noel

by:  Alyson Noel
published by:  St. Martin's Griffin
publish date:  March 1, 2005

On the surface, 17-year-old Alex has it made; she is beautiful and smart. Plus, she's best friends with M., the absolute most popular girl in school. Feeling bored with their fancy Orange County suburban town, Alex and M. decide to check out L.A.'s glitzy nightlife scene.

This is Alyson Noel's first published book.  I haven't read all of her other books, but I can safely say it's not her best.  I really didn't care for Faking 19 and that's ok, because it was just the the characters I didn't care for.  Alyson Noel has gone on to do great things so I can't say this one book has done her any harm.

Faking 19 is about Alex who spent the beginning of her high school career being an overachieving A-Lister.   Now she's at the end of her senior year and she's in danger of not graduating due to slacking off and spending her days and nights partying in Los Angeles.   Over time she starts to realize that maybe her best friend M isn't really her friend at all and maybe she needs to get her act together and try to graduate high school.

Alex was spoiled and selfish and self centered.  It was really frustrating to read about her downward spiral.  Her faith in her friends was misplaced and it was equally annoying seeing how she let them dictate her actions.  She does redeem herself somewhat in the end.

This was one of those YA books that I don't know if it was appropriate for younger YAs.   There was a lot of partying in Los Angeles with older people so there was sex and drugs prevalent in this book.  So this one should probably be restricted to the older YAs.