4. Pants on Fire

The title: Pants on Fire
The author: Meg Cabot
Publication: HarperTeen, 2007
Got it from: La Library

Confession time: I very rarely read light, fluffy books like this. But Meg Cabot - so awesome it hurts. Sure, the title and the cover make this book seem so stupid. (Again, I'm thinking there's some kind of blonde conspiracy because the heroine is actually a brunette, but that's another post for another time). So, yeah. Meg Cabot books are actually a lot smarter than you would think, often hysterically funny and an absolute treat to read. In fact, the social commentary and hilarious romantic misunderstandings often remind me of a modern-day Jane Austen. If Miss Austen were alive today, she'd be Meg Cabot.

Like Jane Austen heroines, and every Meg Cabot heroine, the star of this book (Katie Ellison) is a naive young woman who is in love with someone who isn't right for her, and can't see that the perfect man is actually her best guy friend (who is himself in love with her, although she won't realize it until the end). That's the basic gist of it. Katie lives in a small seaside town in Connecticut where she works as a waitress for a restaurant that specializes in quahogs (clams), which she can't stand. The plot is kind of complicated (really) and she has this thing with an actor guy while she's dating stupid-but-nice football player Seth, and meanwhile her old friend Tommy Sullivan is back in town - the one who used to be a geek, but is now super hot. But will Katie ever admit what happened the night "Tommy Sullivan is a freak" was written on the middle school gym wall? Will she become Quahog Princess despite her hatred of them? Will she stop telling lies to make everyone happy but herself?

Oh, those crazy teenage years. Meg Cabot books bring back so many memories. The fear of ostracism. Frienemies. Parents who just didn't understand. Being so in love with a guy you couldn't eat for three days. (Not that I did that...umm....) No wonder the only time I didn't read YA books was when I was in high school, because it was so much like real life.

A-