Changes

Audrey is a good girl. A nice, well brought up, beautifully mannered girl. A star student who enjoys learning, she is a dream daughter for her parents, and in their eyes this high school senior can do no wrong. Until now. Audrey attends a class mate's party and is photographed doing something good girls like her just don't do. Within hours, the incriminating photo has been circulated to virtually everyone in her school, her family and her community. Over night, her perfect world splinters as she goes from class swot to class slut in the blink of an eye. As the raging double standards come into play (Just why ''is'' it that, as the girl, she is now a whore, whereas the guy in question is now a hero?) Audrey has to come to terms with a whole town's reaction to what should have been a private moment. Life, however, must go on, and as much as she would like to bunk off school for the rest of time, the straight -A student in her forces her back into the classroom, back to face the music. As the school year progresses, Audrey learns a lot about who her friends are, the power of gossip and why it's always a good idea to lock the door before you take off your pants, or someone else's.

From the moment I picked up this book, I was hooked in a way I haven't been for some time. One of the blurbs on this book says it's essential reading for teenage girls, and for women who remember what it was like to be young and talked about. I fall in to into the latter category, but I still wonder whether, hindsight being the thing that it is, I can't appreciate this book more than those who read it at the same as Audrey is in the book (16-going-on-17). Either way, Audrey is a very likable likeable character. This girl's not some wimpy, pathetic little thing, nor is she absorbed in a superficial world of all things pink and glittery. She's spunky and spirited, a devoted friend, and a rather nice, well-rounded individual to boot. Even at her lowest moments, she doesn't cry out for you to pity her, but instead demands and deserves respect for the courage she shows.

The similarities to ''Forever'' and also to shows such as Dawson's Creek are huge, not so much in the story, but in the way , the difficult issues are addressed. Both books struck a cord when I read them, the first as a young teen, this new one as a young 20-something. They seem very personal books, and I wonder how much of the story in each is lifted directly from the authors' personal experiences. They say you should write what you know, but so many people seem not to do this, or to have conveniently forgotten how things really happened, and now look back on those events through a Hollywood lens, or rose-tinted glasses.