A review by zoe_
The Revenge Playbook by Rachael Allen

3.0

She rehashes a story that makes me want to hunt down every Varsity football player, especially Chad. I can just picture him tearing down Liv with that smug smile of his. His grin is the reason why Germany invented the word backpfeifengesicht – a face that desperately needs to get punched.

I can't tell whether it's my fault for being surprised by this book or not. I like going into books knowing as little as possible so it could totally be on me that it really didn't play out like I expected it to but all the information I had about this story was on the lines of "funny story about revenge and friendship" one vital word of this line is not true. Because this isn't a funny book, it is heartfelt and it cuts deep and, while there are some fun bits, it really isn't a "funny" story at all.

"What you're telling me is you and Chad were drinking and dancing and then you went upstairs with him. You said no, but you didn't do a whole lot to try to stop him, and you don't actually know that anything happened."

Case in point.
Though, having my expectations warped really wasn't a bad thing. As I said before, I like not knowing a whole lot about the books I plan on reading beforehand so it's more of a pleasant surprise when I stand corrected by a book.
What this book actually is: A story about four girls who've been wronged (in multiple ways by multiple people) and thus take revenge on the holy football team that get's away with everything, no matter how cruel and illegal and immoral. Also, taking revenge is a perfect activity to bond over and become awesome best friends.

Now that that's out of the way, I have to say that I'm not totally convinced. Sure, this book was enjoyable and I really liked some aspects of it but it felt like it lacked depth. The characters often seemed pretty shallow, the story felt a little jumbled because it didn't quite have enough time to "ripen" properly, and the problems sometimes seemed to be addressed too superficially and felt like they were less plot and more "personal opinion the author has and would like you to know" tell-and-not-show style. Somehow, The Revenge Playbook and I never quite clicked. The thing is, I can't really pinpoint why that is, exactly (apart from the lack of depth). Objectively, this was a great book, subjectively, I couldn't enjoy it as much as I hoped it would.

What I did like was the diversity of aspects this story portrayed. The angles weren't just "revenge" or "friendship" but also falling in and out of love, communication, relationship with parents, et cetera. The side effect of this, sadly, is superficiality (in such a short book) but I really did enjoy the amount of different topics discussed.

Overall, while I do really think this was a good read, I don't have much else to say because it didn't stick out in any particular way. Oh, also, the Scavenger hunt wasn't as exciting as I would have liked and that did kind of bummed me out.

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