Sophie
and Gareth used to be best friends, but things went a bit sour after Gareth’s other
best friend Avril pushed Sophie into the brambles and Gareth refused to believe
it wasn’t an accident. Now, Gareth thinks it’s hilarious to play practical
jokes on Sophie, while Sophie probably does get some secret enjoyment out of
genuine accidents involving her locker door and Gareth’s head.
It’s their their final year of school and Sophie and Gareth need each other’s help – all they need to do is stop their prejudices from getting in the way. This is easier said than done, especially as Avril would love to see Sophie topple off her cheerleading pyramid and smash her wavy brown head on Aaron’s tuba. Aaron, meanwhile, thinks his hair is the key to Emma’s heart (and considering the Emma I named her after studied hairdressing, he might have a point).
I’m not a teenager anymore, but I still
really enjoy teen books. I missed out on a lot of teenage experiences like
going to the prom (I don’t think we had one) and dating my classmates (they
thought I was a freak), so it’s lovely to be able to have those experiences in
novels. And unlike most novels, this one really is about me!
I’m not really that much like Sophie,
really. We didn’t have prom queens or cheerleaders, but even if we had, they
wouldn’t have been me. I wasn’t vice-president of the school council. And I
wouldn’t have let Emma wear that pink mini dress to the prom because I’d have
wanted it for myself.
But none of that really matters.
Considering the book has to suit potentially every girl in the world, Andrea Smith has created a great heroine. I’m just happy to be sharing a name and a
life (and a hot boyfriend) with such a nice person. And I’ve always wanted to be cool, though Sophie
has her geeky side as well.
It’s really clever the way Sophie has so
many different sides to her personality, which means just about everyone will
be able to identify with her, but it doesn’t ever seem as though she has
dissociative identity disorder. (Not that I have anything against people with
DID, my friends with DID are lovely.)
The hero, Gareth, is very nicely written.
He’s gorgeous and everyone loves him, but he also has enough patheticness for
me to find him attractive (I find incompetence really sexy, I like guys I can
look after a bit). Gareth can be very stupid and a bit too trusting, but that’s
just sweet. He’s also caring and romantic. He’s really not unlike the guy he
was named after (obviously, I have no control over the characters' personalities, so it's always extra enjoyable when they turn out to be exactly right. The blatant handballs in the ‘football’ match shocked me a
bit, but as he’s actually playing American football and not soccer, I think
I’ll let him off this time.
Avril is a great character. She isn’t
a personalised character, though, so it will be very confusing if Avril Lavigne ever
decides to buy her own personalised copy. In some ways, I wish Avril was personalised, so I could call her
after someone I really hate, but most people I know are too nice to be a villain
or too horrible to appear in my lovely personalised books. It might also be
confusing if you call one of the personalised characters Candy or Farley, but
presumably, not many people will. I’ve only
ever known one Candy, and he was a guy.
It wasn’t the most original story, but I
like them like that. Personalised books, for me, are about making your dreams
come true, and who doesn’t love a romantic cliché? Actually, there are probably
people who really hate romantic clichés, but don’t let that put you off. I
don’t really like clichés in real life, but I still love Prom & Prejudice.
The book is also very amusing. The jokes
the characters play on each other really immature and unimaginative, but that’s
why it’s funny - it’s exactly what practical jokes at school are like (and I should know, I played enough of them). There
are also some great one-liners. I usually only LOL over dirty jokes, but parts
of Prom & Prejudice made me mentally
wet myself.
