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mlcarl 's review for:
Ready or Not
by Meg Cabot
I adored All-American Girl the first time I read it, when I was 13 or 14. Once I realized there was a sequel I'd never known about, I knew I had to read that too. At 22 years old, I still love the first book. It's funny and unique (something that I think is nearly impossible to find in most YA novels anymore) and I love all the list making. And then I read the second book which isn't nearly as funny or interesting or unique. Samantha became yet another fictional teenage girl who thought about nothing except whether or not she should have sex with her First Son boyfriend. Despite me not really enjoying the plot and the over abundance of name dropping pop culture references, I do appreciate that Ready or Not has a relatively uncommon, but more realistic take on sex. I feel like YA novels tend to have one of two extreme view points on this matter. Either "sex is bad and you should only have it if you're married" or "sex doesn't matter and never has consequences" and it was nice to read something that fit somewhere between the two. So many of the reviews seem to think that this book is pushing an agenda and sending a terrible message to teenage girls, but I don't agree with that at all. It's not promoting casual sex or promiscuity, if anything it's making sure that girls know that they are allowed to make decisions regarding sex and that it's important that they are just as proactive about protection. In my opinion, good things for teenage girls to hear from a source they trust, especially with the push for abstinence only education. All in all, I think I like what Cabot was going for, but in execution, Ready or Not just fell flat for me. It's a less than stellar sequel to a book that needed no sequel.