Getting Revenge on Lauren Wood (review)

Helen and Lauren were friends from their births (only a day apart) until the moment Lauren devised a reputation-killing lie that ruined Helen's chances at a reasonable high-school existence. Helen's family moves away before she has to face the consequences, but she never forgives Lauren, and when she finds out that she has to return for her senior year, she plots a campaign to ruin her former friend. Her plans depend on her anonymity, but since she has lost thirty pounds and gotten a new nose after a face-plant on a flight of stairs, she is able to craft a persona that is unrecognizable to her former classmates. Despite the well-meaning advice of her family, she proceeds to take Lauren down peg by peg, until she finally realizes that Lauren really doesn't matter to her anymore. Although Helen's character arc is predictable, it's also well managed and believable, especially when vestiges of her better self start to niggle at her conscience. She remains single-minded until it's almost too late, and no amount of good advice influences her until she sorts it out for herself. Her management of the popularity game deftly reveals how brittle it can be, particularly when being popular isn't coupled with actually being liked. In the end, Helen is a basically good, basically ordinary girl of the kind that fills the B-list, and her position there after actually succeeding at being something she's not shows what a cozy place the second rung can be.