Review: The Book of Luke

Title: The Book of Luke
Author: Jenny O’Connell
Publisher: MTVBooks
Date published: 2007
Type of book: teen fiction

I received this book from/at: bookcloseouts.com
My interest in this book is: plot

Ideas expressed/message/plot: From back cover: “Emily Abbott has always been considered the Girl Most Likely to Be Nice – but lately being ice hasn’t done her any good. Her parents have decided to move the family from Chicago back to their hometown of Boston in the middle of Emily’s senior year. Only Emily’s first real boyfriend, Sean, is in Chicago, and so is her shot at class valedictorian and early admission to the Ivy League. What’s a nice girl to do?
Then Sean dumps Emily on moving day and her father announces that he’s staying behind in Chicago “to tie up loose ends,” and Emily decides that what a nice girl needs to do is stop being nice.
She reconnects with her best friends in Boston, Josie and Lucy, only to discover that they too have been on the receiving end of some glaring Guy Don’ts. So when the girls have to come up with something to put in the senior class time capsule, they know exactly what to do. They’ll create a not-so-nice reference guide for future generations of guys – an instruction book that teaches them the right way to treat girls.
But when her friends draft Emily to test out their tips on Luke Preston – the hottest, most popular guy in school, who just broke up with Josie by email – Emily soon finds that Luke is the trickiest of test subjects… and that even a nice girl like Emily has a few things to learn about love.

Favorite characters, quotes/lines: Emily: I understood her motivations for her action, no matter how flawed they were; Luke: he was one of the most realistic guy characters I’ve read about… and I totally loved him!

When I finished this book I felt: I have to admit, I was really, really impressed with this book. Not only that, I totally loved it. The Book of Luke had a premise similar to the movie John Tucker Must Die, but it was totally better than the movie. When I started the book, I wasn’t really sure if I was going to like it… or if I was going to like Emily’s love interest, Luke. The book started a bit slow… and Luke seemed like too big of jerk to salvage as a good guy to fall for. O’Connell totally proved me wrong though!

Other books to read by this author: Plan B

I would recommend this book to: fans of teen chick lit…