Book Review- The List

I finished reading The List by Siobhan Vivian on Saturday.

From Goodreads:

An intense look at the rules of high school attraction -- and the price that's paid for them.

It happens every year. A list is posted, and one girl from each grade is chosen as the prettiest, and another is chosen as the ugliest. Nobody knows who makes the list. It almost doesn't matter. The damage is done the minute it goes up.

This is the story of eight girls, freshman to senior, "pretty" and "ugly." And it's also the story of how we see ourselves, and how other people see us, and the tangled connection of the two.

I feel like this book had an important theme---popularity in high school and the positive and negative effects of it. I liked the plot idea--of a popularity list.  But I'm not sure that I thought it was done the right way.  

I never really got attached to any of the characters because it was told from 8 different viewpoints.  I found myself not really caring about any of them and especially disliking one of them (probably the one that was supposed to be disliked but I think instead we should have seen some redeeming quality in her.)

There were some major teen issues in the book--including an eating disorder.  But nothing ever really gets done about it.  The character with the disorder knows its wrong but it's never really rectified.  Another character's mother is threatening to pull her out of the school but we never find out if that really happens. It's like nothing is ever resolved in the story.  Almost like the book was cut short.  Each character should have had at least one more chapter to wrap up their "story".

Overall, it was an okay book.  I just wish it had more follow-through at the end.

I gave this book a rating of 3/5.

*FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.