Book Review: Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson

Book Title: Prom
Author: Laurie Halse Anderson
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Publication Date: March 3rd 2005
Genres: Chick Lit, Contemporary, Humor, Realistic Fiction, Romance, YA
Age Range: 12-17 years old
My Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

High school senior Ashley Hannigan doesn’t care about prom, but she’s the exception. It’s pretty much the only good thing at her urban Philadelphia high school, and everyone plans to make the most of it-especially Ash’s best friend, Natalia, who’s the head of the committee. Then the faculty advisor is busted for taking the prom money, and Ash suddenly finds herself roped into putting together a gala dance out of absolutely nada. But she has help-from her large and loving (if exasperating!) family, from Nat’s eccentric grandmother, from her fellow classmates. And in putting the prom together, Ash learns that she has choices about her life after high school. Prom has everything that award-winning author Laurie Halse Anderson is known for-humor, poignancy, teen readers’ tough issues dealt with head-on, and a voice teen readers will recognize as their own.

MY THOUGHTS

I should have finished this sooner considering that the book is only 215 pages long and I might have done a bit—okay, a lot of skimming. But I read this in more or less 5 days because I just kept putting it off. And most of the time, I felt like giving up and I wanted to stop reading the book altogether. However, I don’t think books deserve to be unfinished and forgotten so, like the masochist I am, I kept reading and it was so painful (and such a waste of time.)

Let me tell you something that I don’t normally feel when reading: I actually think everyone is decent EXCEPT for the main character. Ashley Hannigan is a whiny little bitch. All she does is whine, whine, and guess what, whine some more! She acts like the prom will ruin her life. Grow up, Ashley! Although she did have a bit of character development towards the end. By “character development” I mean she becomes less obnoxious and actually takes a bit of responsibility.

Another thing about Ashley is how blunt she is. SPOILER ALERT! Don’t read the little quote below if you’re interested in reading the book.

I laid down my head on my books. I was thinking I should ask my aunt Linny to light a candle at St. Luke’s for the prom. She should light one for me, too, because I was sure I had a brain tumor. A tumor would explain why I agreed to help Nat. It might actually make life easier.

There were only a couple of things that kept me from rating this as a 1-star read. First is their preparations for prom, there’s that. I like to see if they can pull off their prom with such a short amount of time available. Also, I love the little (kind of) adrenaline feeling I get when reading their hustle and tussle just to make their prom decent with such limited resources. The other thing is Grandma Shulmensky. Oh that wonderful woman! She has got to be my favorite character. Grandma Shulmensky just cracks me up every time; she is so fun!