Review: Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik

Epic Fail
by Claire LaZebnik
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication date: Aug. 2, 2011
Genre: Young Adult Romance
Rating:

At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point:

– As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school–not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects.
– As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn’t exactly on everyone’s must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list.

When Elise’s beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince’s best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long.

 

 

Epic Fail is the story between an ordinary girl who’s mom becomes principal at the elite Hollywood high school. With this move means that Elise and her family are now surrounded my the children of producers, singers, models, and movie stars. For a girl that likes to wear jeans and sneakers, it’s easy to say that Elise doesn’t really fit in. However, when her sister starts dating a boy at school, Elise finds herself getting dragged along to various events.

I’m going to be honest with you guys, this was an okay read. Nothing spectacularly interesting goes on. Girl meets boy. Boy turns out to be the son of a famous actress. Boy is distant and doesn’t like people prying into his business. Girl is immediately intrigued but acts like she’s not. Then boy and girl find common ground and fall in love. I mean, that’s pretty much the book in a nutshell. There was a lot of opportunity to discuss the fact that one of the students was drugging and getting photos/videos of girls in compromising situations. Or the fact that Elise’s sister seemed to have little to zero common sense and would do anything to become popular. Instead, all of that is just pushed to the side to talk about the cute couple. I just felt like it was a missed opportunity to bring some more depth to the book.

It wasn’t that this was a bad story, it just didn’t really have a lot of substance to it. There was a lot of potential for the author to bring some things to light, but instead they chose not to. It was almost as if they brought up these points only to cause drama and then forgot about them. I was a little disappointed in this story to be honest. In the end, I suppose it lived up to the title.

 

 

3 Thoughts on “Review: Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik

  1. Oh, no! I was excited to see you were featuring this book, because I was eyeing it on my eLibrary, but 2 stars makes me sad. Though, I have to be hones, I am ok with a fluffy, low/no substance story. Especially right now, where everything just seems so heavy.

  2. oh I am sorry to hear that this book was such a fail for you….its really hard to enjoy a story that has no substance to it. Will skip this one.

    Great review.

  3. I feel like I’ve read this?? Have it on my Kindle?? I don’t remember lol

    Karen @ For What It’s Worth

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