Title: Girl Wonder
Author: Alexa Martin [website] [facebook]
Genre: Dystopian
Publisher: Hyperion Books
Format: eBook
Source: Publisher (via NetGalley)
Parental Advisory: sex, drugs, alcohol. criminal activity, language
Teachable Moments: promiscuity, peer pressure, popularity (social climbing), learning disabilities, bullying, sibling rivalry

“I shot her a look of gratitude.  She knew exactly how to cheer me up.  Our new friendship was far and away the best thing that had ever happened to me.  Walking down the halls of Shady Grove with Amanda, entering the Maze at her side and knowing that everyone was staring at us was exhilarating.  Her strength radiated outward to include me. I was part of a force.”

Summary (from the publisher):
As if transferring senior year weren’t hard enough, Charlotte Locke has been bumped to lower level classes at her new school.  With no friends, a terrible math SAT score, and looming college application deadlines, the future is starting to seem like an oncoming train for which she has no ticket.

Then Amanda enters her orbit like a hot-pink meteor, offering Charlotte a ticket to something else:  popularity.  Amanda is fearless, beautiful, brilliant, and rich. As her new side kick, Charlotte is brought into the elite clique of the debate team — and closer to Neal, Amanda’s equally brilliant friend and the most perfect boy Charlotte has ever seen.

But just when senior year is looking up, Charlotte’s life starts to crumble.  The more things heat up between Charlotte and Neal, the more Neal wants to hide their relationship.  Is he ashamed?  Meanwhile, Amanda is starting to act strangely competitive, and she’s keeping a secret Charlotte doesn’t want to know.

Opinion:
Girl Wonder started off so promising and then ended with quite a whimper.  Mainly because it began by focusing on a single strong issue — Charlotte’s learning disability.  Unfortunately, several chapters in the story shifted to highlight her struggles with boys and popularity.  As a result, I found it ended up being far more shallow than I was anticipating.

This is not to say that there weren’t moments of value that a reader can walk away from the story feeling as though they learned something.  Charlotte certainly grows as a person but I would have preferred to have seen her face her learning disability and struggle through the strain it put on familial relationships than witnessing her throw herself into a caustic relationships with the popular kids at school.  I think I get why the author chose to include the latter — perhaps to further demonstrate Charlotte’s self-loathing, perhaps to provide her with a feeling of acceptance she wasn’t getting at home, or perhaps it was to show bigger more drastic changes for the positive.  No matter what the reason it wasn’t tied in well.  Ultimately the popularity/ fitting in at school portion of the story overtook the book in a way I didn’t enjoy

Girl Wonder felt like three very separate and distinct stories there was just so much going on in the book.  Charlottes disability, the strained relationships with her family, the popularity issue, bullying at school, and eventually a true romantic attachment.  I felt like I was getting a bit of whiplash from it all.   What I thought was the biggest opportunity missed was the cohesion of the learning disability and popularity stories.  There was the ability to show a real cause and effect here but much of that part was so peripheral that it is easily missed.

And the romance?  I wouldn’t say that sex on the down low with the popular boy is really up there on the scales.  Further, I didn’t find the alternative all that appealing either.  Mainly because there was so little focus on Milton as a character that wasn’t circumstantial to other events and relationships that it was difficult to see how a their connection was built.  At least with Neal (Mr. Popular) I could see the payoff from her pursuit since she wanted to have some sort of status and comfort at school.  Milton, he just happened to be there and was nice and that apparently was enough.

Charlotte, was at times endearing but those times were rare.  She was often so self-loathing and desperate that it was hard to really find anything about her that was appealing.  This is realistic, I suppose, given her struggles but a few more softer moments would have made her more rootable.  I, didn’t want her to fail — I wanted her to find love and happiness — but really, I lost interest in caring about halfway through the book because, again, the story was so disjointed.

I do think Martin has some good ideas here and as I mentioned had this book focused solely on the family dynamics and learning disability issue I would have enjoyed it far more than I did.