Review: Mascara by A. Palasciano

Mascara
Author: A. Palasciano
Publisher: A. Palasciano
Publication: February 11, 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
My Rating:

Meet MASCARA – which stands for Mara, Asher, Sue, Carmen, Amanda, Rachel and Adrianna, respectively. They are prep school Saint Lawrence Academy’s elitist clique of girls who have everything. Literally, everything.

Members of MASCARA have their own app (built by Asher’s tech magnate father who built Sutherland Enterprises from the ground up). They each hold a chair position like Social Media Chair, Fashion Chair, Community Chair, or Beauty Chair to keep them abreast at monthly meetings of what’s trending before it’s even trending. Translation? They know all of the best clothes, accessories, products, apps and events before they’re even out. They wear their signature cobalt blue mascara on a daily basis. They are the girls everyone at school wants to wake up and switch lives with.

Each year, MASCARA gives bids to incoming freshman to pledge for the upcoming vacancies left by graduating seniors. Girls know they’ve been picked if the cobalt blue mascara is taped to their locker. However, only girls blessed to have a first name starting with the letters in “MASCARA” are even given the chance. Pledging this clique is far from simple, rule-laden, and has seen a whole lot of awry-going – like using fake online dating profiles to flirt with the gym teacher or putting the school up for sale to the highest bidder.

This year, Jorie Carr, (attention-defecit, dreamer extraordinaire) who changed her name after a second grade bully couldn’t get enough of “Marjorie Carjorie,” and her best friend Abby Port enrolled in Saint Lawrence against all things logical and public school. Marjorie a.k.a. Jorie gets a bid (the cobalt blue mascara taped to her locker) and Abby doesn’t despite the fact that Abby was the one who told Jorie about it all in the first place. Life sure isn’t fair in high school and it gets a whole lot more unfair as pledging unravels.

Luckily, there are a few incentives to keep Jorie going. Namely, junior Derek Mackey. Oh, and the overwhelming desire to have hair like Asher Sutherland.

Explore Jorie’s quirky look at pledging a high school sorority through the eyes of a self-conscious freshman who just so happens to have had the good fortune to become accepted by the most popular seniors. It’ll leave you crushing on cobalt blue for always.

(A free copy was generously given to me by the author A. Palasciano in exchange for an honest review. This does not influence my rating and opinion of the book.)

This is a feel-good book. I didn’t expect it to be this hilarious, entertaining, and full of quirks. It made me LOL page after page, line after line.

The story is told from the perspective of thirteen year-old Marjorie Carr A.K.A Jorie, a girl who usually settles to live under the shadows of extraordinary students that surround her. When she was approached by the popular and It girl Asher and was recruited to join the school’s famous sorority group known as MASCARA, her boring life turned out ridiculously out-of-the-ordinary. Joining the so-called group means changing everything in her– including her boring wardrobe, fashion style, makeup preferences, her attitude, and her overall personality. Joining the sorority also means breaking her friendship with her childhood best friend Abby who also wanted to become one of the MASCARA but did not get the chance.

Not only is this book funny. It’s also something that teaches life lessons. It’s totally relatable especially to teens and high-schoolers who want to fit in their surroundings but don’t have the confidence. It also has girly feels so definitely you can expect it to be bombarded with makeups, dresses, boys, and stuffs like that.

I really enjoyed this book a lot. There were no dull moments. It’s a book that you definitely should pick up after reading intense, heavy, and too emotional reads. Or if you’re feeling stressed-out from a day’s work and if you want a good laugh, this should be your refresher. Highly recommended!

Rating: 4 Mascara Stars

(Buddyreading with Joy)

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