Devilish by Maureen Johnson

“Devilish” by Maureen Johnson is a young adult novel about two high school girls named Jane Jarvis and Allison Concord. After a notably disastrous social faux-pas at the start of senior year, Ally, who has suffered consistent ridicule from her classmates, takes some drastic measures in order to become both smarter and more popular. Jane, Ally’s best friend and the senior class’ social deviant, is worried about her suddenly strange and distant friend. When she investigates this new Ally, Jane finds a lot more than she bargained for.

While I’m not a huge fan of Maureen Johnson’s books, I did have a bit of fun with this one. The plot wasn’t too heavy or forced, and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the more fantastic elements presented. I really didn’t expect any of the characters in the book to be devilish literally and I think Maureen did a great job of fitting those characters in to a seemingly normal reality.

Jane, who narrates the novel, is a wonderfully eccentric character with realistic character faults. Both girls attend an all girls Catholic high school, and Jane’s little rebellions (rolling up her sleeves, unbuttoning her blouse, etc.) and accidental trouble-making are charming; they quickly endear the reader to her. Her reactions and responses to the events in the novel really make the story.

Overall, I think this book was pretty good. It wasn’t complex enough to make it into my top favourites, and to be honest, I thought it was a bit too girly for my tastes, but it was a fun distraction for an afternoon.

The Bermudez Triangle

To be honest, I only really picked up Bermudez Triangle by Maureen Johnson because it had been banned from some schools for homosexual themes. Banning a book from school always makes me want to read it, and homosexual themes is just icing on the cake.

I didn’t really expect to like it, though. I had skimmed through the first couple of pages of Suite Scarlet and found I didn’t care for Maureen’s writing style, even though I regularly read her blog and watch her on BlogTV when I can. She doesn’t write like she talks, which is what I’m used to for young adult literature, but I did enjoy Bermudez Triangle.

Bermudez Triangle is about three girls, BFFs, and the experiences they have during their senior year. Nina Bermudez spends her first summer away from her two best friends at a student leadership program across the country, where she hones her Student Council skills and picks up a hippy boyfriend. Meanwhile, Mel and Avery start their summer jobs and fall desperately in summer teen lesbian love.

And then everything, of course, falls apart. They have to deal with secrets and betrayal and new friends coming into the triangle. Some days are good, some are awful, and many of them seem to be an odd mixture of those two states.

You know. Like regular high school.

There’s nothing spectacularly adventurous or out of the ordinary in this book, just high school drama, which doesn’t put it on any of my Top Ten lists, but it was really good. It was well written with great characters that all have believable dialogue, which is something that I look for in young adult books. I thought she handled Mel’s crushes and falling in love and coming out in a realistic way (it wasn’t melodramatic or over exaggerated) and I thought that, overall, it was a good story about friendship.

I would recommend this book mainly to teenage girls because I think that they can relate the most, but because I am neither a teenager nor a girl, it can definitely be a book for everyone.