Guyaholic

Carolyn Mackler is a fantastic author. Though the books are very targeted to "young adults" (i myself, am not one!) i am still very much in love with all her work! For psychology students, this book is a great insight to a troubled teen with a broken heart and family problems. It will teach you how to better handle certain things with your own children and even patients (if you are going into counseling of any kind). For people who wanna get a good reading book, this is perfect! It's never boring, always fun and it makes you laugh! Which, particularly, i feel is a great asset to a book. I absolutely recommend all of her other work!

Carolyn Mackler gives us another heartfelt story of growing up girl, and although this book is short, it's packed with emotion, tension and drama. V could have easily been that girl at school you hated, and even called a slut behind her back, but there are good reasons for her actions. Mackler doesn't excuse V's past behavior, and takes her on a wonderful road trip to find out who she is and what she's going to do about it now. Another must-read from Mackler.

Carolyn Mackler introduced us to V in Vegan Virgin Valentine, but there, she was the villain, the evil niece sent in to destroy her aunt's life. Sure, you felt bad for her because her young mom, Aimee, pretty much never saw her and sent her to live with her grandparents, but she was also easy to hate. Here, not so much, and in showing us a character she's already presented as fatally flawed, Mackler now has room to show us what makes V who she is. Her profound disappointment at her mother's constant non-appearances manifests itself in hopping between the sheets with any boy she fancies. Until Sam. Sam is the one who gets her to realize that she is lovable, and beautiful, and that she can have more than a hookup. When she winds up cheating on him and gets caught, she has to deal with the consequences and do a lot of soul searching to figure out what it is that she wants. Mackler reveals V to us slowly, in ways that don't let her off the hook for how she's treated people in her life, including friends and family, but that show why she's acted the way she has and just how big of a heart she really possesses. It's almost uncomfortable to realize that in many ways, she's more mature than her mom, who is the true child in this story. V's slow path to accepting love in her life is a fabulous read, and one I'd recommend to any teenage girl (or adult), whatever side of the good girl/bad girl spectrum she falls on. V is, ultimately, human; she makes mistakes and gradually learns not how to undo them, but to start again.

V is the girl that I would have probably been intimidated by, in awe of, and kind of angry at in high school. She may swoop in and steal your boyfriend, but it sure is fascinating to get inside her head. And guess what? Understanding where she's coming from makes you want to hug her and tell her everything will be okay. Because her flaws and her insecurities make her just like the rest of us. And this is one story that sweeps you away with the joy and pain of V's journey to find herself.

This page-turner follows V on her tumultuous journey into young adulthood: She loses the one she loves, but finds herself along the way. V is far from perfect, but her flaws are what make her such a fascinating--and identifiable--character. As always, the writing is funny, touching, and totally authentic. Congratulations to Carolyn Mackler for creating yet another indelible portrait of a complicated teenage girl.