Tag: Elisa Ludwig

Review: Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig

Posted March 13, 2012 by Rowena in Reviews | 1 Comment


Rowena’s review of Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig.

Main Character: Willa
Love Interest: Aidan
Series: None
Author: Facebook|Twitter|Goodreads

Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.

Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.

The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.

But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?

I’ll be honest and say that I’ve never really been into the whole Robin Hood thing but there have been spins on this storyline that I’ve read in the past and have enjoyed immensely and thought that I would probably enjoy this story as well and while for the most part, I did enjoy it- there were times a plenty that I wanted to smack some dang sense into the books protagonist, Willa.

You see, Willa has never really been filthy rich but when her Mom strikes it big, Willa moves to a preppy new private school and gets in with the Glitterati. The Mean Girls are usually named something unique in every book, sometimes they’re the Plastics and sometimes they’re the Lipstick Squad or the Populazzi but in this book, they’re the Glitterati. When Willa first starts at this new school, I understood why she let herself be dragged into their Mean Girls antics but when they start bullying others and Willa didn’t stand up for those people then my interest in her began to waver. I’m glad to say that when Willa wakes up and smells the coffee, she started getting more interesting to me. I mean, the whole “steal from the rich and give to the poor” thing is cute and in this book, is a bit corny but I still enjoyed it anyway.

Willa’s character is smart and she had a way about her that I thought was great (when she wasn’t getting on my nerves with the Glitterati) and I’m glad that I stuck with this book because it turned out to be a cute and funny read, one that I was glad to have read. This book is was a great weekend read. It had a cute love interest that I didn’t get nearly enough of but still enjoyed anyway. The way that Willa came into her own by the end of the book was a great way to spend a few hours of the weekend, out in the bright sunshiny outdoors.

Overall, this book was good and I’m glad that I went ahead and read this book because it was interesting and it was fun and it was just what I was in the mood for over the weekend. I thought Ludwig did a pretty bang up job of keeping me interested in continuing the story even when I wanted to wring Willa’s neck so kudos to her on a job well done with this book. I recommend this book to lovers of contemporary YA and to fans of the Robin Hood children’s tale. It’s a good read.

..and that’s your scoop!

This book is available from Harper Teen.
Buy the book: B&N|Amazon
Book cover and blurb credit: http://barnesandnoble.com


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