RECOMMEND- Tap Tap Tap

Based on the amount of hype leading up to this book for the past year, I fully expected SECRET SOCIETY GIRL by Diana Peterfreund to grab me from the first page and hold me captive until the end. It didn't do that. The heroine, Amy Haskell, is smart, cool, witty and well-liked by almost every secondary character but I never felt like I connected with her. That is probably just personal bias since I'm not that smart or cool and never attended an Ivy League school. Or maybe it's because overall the story felt more like a young-adult novel, rather than a women's fiction or chick-lit novel. The whole thing could just as easily take place at an elite high school.

All of that aside, Secret Society Girl was a fun and well-written book that by the third chapter had me turning pages to find out what would happen next. The interesting and cleverly laid out plot if not the characters carried me through the story. Go buy a copy if you need something enjoyable for a lazy Sunday afternoon.

BACK COVER BLURB- Elite Eli University junior Amy Haskel never expected to be tapped into Rose & Grave, the country's most powerful- and notorious- secret society. She isn't rich, politically connected, or well, male. So when Amy receives the distinctive black-lined invitation with the Rose & Grave seal, she's blown away. Could they really mean her? Whisked off into an initiation rite that's a blend of Harry Potter and Alfred Hitchcock, Amy awakens the next day to a new reality and a whole new set of friends from the gorgeous son of a conservative governor to an Afrocentric lesbian activist whose society name is Thorndike. And that's when Amy starts to discover the truth about getting what you wish for. Because Rose & Grave is quickly taking her away from her familiar world of classes and keggers, fueling a feud, and undermining a very promising friendship with benefits. And that's before Amy finds out that her first duty as a member of Rose & Grave is to take on a conspiracy of money and power that could, quite possibly, ruin her whole life.


BOOK REVIEWS- "Chick lit heads off to the Ivy League in Diana Peterfreund's superfun, supercool debut novel, Secret Society Girl. Of course, I'd like to tell you all the reasons why I loved it, but then I'd have to kill you..."- Lauren Baratz-Logsted, author of The Thin Pink Line

"The action is undeniably juicy from steamy make-out sessions with campus hotties to cloak-and-dagger initiations and the book is a quick read."
- The Washington Post