Every Girl’s Guide to Flings by Marla Miniano
In her high heels, short skirts, and purple eyeliner, Rickie is known as the wayward friend of good girls Anna and Chrissy. Her string of meaningless flings, happening parties, and more boys lining up to ask her out make her the envy of every teenage girl—till she sets her sights on a very bad idea: Anna’s ex. Is Rickie headed for disaster? Or will she finally fall in love and get her very own happy ending?
In a group of friends, there are always roles. There’s the witty one, there’s the nice one, and there’s the popular one, the one who likes to party, drink and gets into relationships flings all the time.
That is Rickie.
Rickie is the “bad girl” friend of Anna and Chrissy, from the Every Girl’s Guide series by Marla Miniano. Rickie is surrounded by good girls — from Anna and Chrissy to her older sister, Lexi, who she thinks is perfect. Rickie fits into her role pretty well, doing exactly what other people expect of her: to party, drink and hook up with cute boys she meets in these parties.
Then Rickie meets Jaime again, who, incidentally, is Anna’s ex. Thinking he’s already a free-zone, especially after she learns he’s broken up with his girlfriend, Olivia, she goes after him, using his friend Diego to make him jealous, who also incidentally, falls in love with Rickie.
I knew from the moment when the guy who Rickie ends up with shows up that she will end up with him, but it was actually quite nice to see how she grows from the party girl to learning to accept the things that other people think of her to be. As I mentioned, Rickie lives up to the expectations of her — people expect her to be the party girl, the one who always goes out, the one who has flings and never falls in love. But her friends and her sister think more of her, and at first she couldn’t live up to it. When things fall apart, Rickie takes a step back, and tries to see herself for what her friends and her sister and a new found friend see in her.
I found this book a lot interesting, and quite a satisfying end to the Girl’s Guide series. It was nice to get into Rickie’s perspective, and I sympathized with her when she said that she was just included in Anna and Chrissy’s group, even if she felt that Anna didn’t like her too much. While I couldn’t relate to Rickie’s life, I could somehow relate to her figuring out that relationships need work, and that she doesn’t need to be afraid when people fall in love with her.
I liked it, and if I had teenage sister/niece/cousin/friend, I’d recommend this series to her. :)
Rating: [rating=3]
2010 Challenge Status:
* Book # 21 out of 100 for 2010
* Book # 4 out of 20 for Project 20:10