Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty

Reviewed by Spencer (age 13) for Reader Views (6/08) "Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty" is a story about three girls: Geena, her best friend Amber, and her favorite cousin Hero. Geena wants to hang out with both Amber and Hero during the summer vacation. But when Amber and Hero meet, they hate each other at first sight! Amber hates Hero because she thinks that Hero is a rich spoiled daddy's girl, and Hero thinks that Amber is stuck up! All Geena wants to do is hang out with Amber and Hero, at the coffee shop, but how can she when her two best friends keep fighting! Also during the summer, the high school hottie, John, starts to like Hero, but she keeps on ignoring him. Then John sets out to publicly humiliate Hero since she doesn't like him. After he succeeds, Amber, Geena, Hero, and all of the other girls John has humiliated, start to get revenge! The ways they think of are hilarious! Quite true-to-life, though, because I can think of friends of mine who would try to do similar things! Later in the book, Geena gets tricked by her friends by them trying together to go out with her arch-nemesis, Ben Bettaglia. Her friends and Ben's are trying to tell Geena that Ben really likes her, while Ben's friends are trying to tell him that Geena likes him also. In the middle of the book while Geena and her friends are at a pool party, Geena goes to the bathroom and overhears her friends and Ben's friends talking about the trick so Geena gets sad and mad and confronts her friends. Then she starts running away and finds out that Ben is following her. When he catches up with her she finds out that she really does like him and that he likes her also. I liked this book a lot. The first chapter or so started out a little slowly, but after that, the writing style seemed to flow smoother and it captured my interest. It is a sassy romance, and the personalities of the three main characters, Hero, Geena and Amber, are very well described. I laughed a lot as the girls went from bitter enemies to good friends. The best part of the book is when Geena finds out she is tricked, runs away from the pool where her friends were, gets chased by Ben, and finds out that she really does like him! This book is perfect for teen girls. I hope you enjoy reading "Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty" as much as I did.

Geena Sloane, despite her skater girl stereotype, entertains fantasies of her cousin Hero and best friend Amber becoming lifelong pals this summer while bonding over their shared job at the shoe box sized coffee shop, Triple Shot Betty and painting their toenails at late night slumber parties. But nothing can be further from the truth when Hero arrives in town, and Amber decides to hate her right on the spot, for seemingly no particular reason. The situation isn't helped any when John Jamieson, Amber's ex, falls for Hero. But Hero isn't interested in anyone but Claudio, the hot Italian guy who is interning at her father's winery. One thing's for certain: Geena, Amber, and Hero's sixteenth summer will be special all right, just not in the way that they imagined. Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty is laugh out loud funny and a fully engaging read. Geena is one rocking character that nearly every teen girl can relate to...amusing, smart, intensely loyal, and just trying to make her way through the summer with minimal bloodshed between her two best friends. Though a spin off of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, this read never becomes predictable or boring. While funny, romantic, and breezy, it also has some serious tones as it deals with absentee fathers and the consequences of partying too hard. But overall, this is a kick butt read about a group of smart, confident girls who are a force to be reckoned with.

Geena's plan for the summer is to have some girl time with her best female buddies, her friend Amber and her cousin Hero. But when the two meet, it seems that they're polar opposites. This rivalry makes it difficult for the three girls to work together at the Triple Shot Betty coffee shack. Enter three hot guys, and they're if for a very interesting summer. Geena is determined to somehow make Amber and Hero get along, but it's not as easy as it sounds. And a complicated love tangle involving the two enemies and two boys only makes it worse. But along with them, there's skater girl Geena, helping her friends sort things out and even falling for her biggest competition in school, a cute guy names Ben. Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty was a very fun and enjoyable read, as one could predict from the awesome title. I love how Geena is the snarky smart girl, a lot like Maya from She's So Money by Cherry Cheva; Geena's funny comments kept me laughing aloud throughout the whole book. and all the other characters are also lovable (minus the villain of course). Another exciting aspect of this novel was the partially unpredictable plot. I was able to foresee the romance between Geena and Ben, bit I was very surprised by the events at the ending of the novel. This was definitely a good thing, and I really felt like yelling out "Girl power!" when I finished reading the book. Confessions of a Triple Shot Betty was a highly entertaining read that I recommend to everyone. There's definitely a little bit of something for everyone. It's recently published, so I suggest you all go out and buy a copy (it's scented!) along with a couple of other novels by Jody Gehrman such as Notes from the Backseat.

Most novels I read require an adjustment period, a small frame of time in which I get used to the writing, the characters, and the setting. This one didn't--I was grabbed by the neck in a choke-hold from page 1, easing straight into its rhythm. Geena's plotting for perfection when she lines her cousin, Hero, up a job at Triple Shot Betty, a coffee shop her best friend, Amber, and her work at. But Hero and Amber clash at first sight, and the great summer Geena was envision begins to fall apart. Figure in a case of mistaken identities and a group of boys who are not exactly what they seem, and trouble starts shaking up in paradise. It's up to the Triple Shot Bettys, armed and armored with a legion of wronged girls, to set things straight once and for all. There are many, many reasons I loved this novel. Behold: I've probably said this in every review I've ever written, but I'm such a character-driven person, it's not even funny. I loved the characters Jody Gehrman created here: they all had a certain depth, and even the bad-guy, which usually comes out archetypal in most novels, had substantial development. I'm also a sucker for feel-good feminist stories. This one's it. It's very subtle, without an overload of women-vs-men superiority, and it gets a clean message across. The voice. This is very good chick lit. I caught some passages which reminded me faintly of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings. This goes to say something, because I'm one of those people who worships Megan McCafferty and think of Sloppy Firsts and Second Helpings as the best teen chick-lit books ever. The plot. Most novels I've read recently are beautiful coming-of-age pieces with great characters but just very little actual plot. Not here. Do we have the coming-of-age aspect to it? Yup. But it's paired with a strong, compelling plot as well. Summin' it up: I loved this novel. Loved it. Recommendation? YES, absolutely! Get it, get it, get it. Rating: 9/10 If anyone's interested in seeing and interview with Jody or a Q & A session of this book, go to my blog :)

Geena's summer plans are slowing evaporating. She's caught between her best friend, Amber, and her cousin, who just returned from boarding school. She's been looking forward to summer and hanging out with her two best friends and having a blast. But when Amber and Hero meet for the first time, it's clear that mixing her two friends together is exactly like mixing baking soda and vinegar. When John makes it clear that he's interested in Hero, who Amber is clearly not over, relations are not likely to improve. Can the summer be salvaged with all the drama and the crushes, as well as the Triple Shot Betty, the coffee shop that ties everyone together? CONFESSIONS OF A TRIPLE SHOT BETTY sums up a fun summer romance mixed with something a little edgy: think Peaches mixed with A Bad Boy Can Be Good for a Girl. Once you're done with this one, pass it on to your friends. Reviewed by: Jennifer Rummel