Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

Perfect Parker Fadley is crumbling. No more are her perfect grades, her role as role as cheer captain, and her relationship with the most popular guy in school. She’s taken up drinking in school, failing all of her classes and pretty much talking to anyone, unless of course it’s to tell someone to leave her alone.

All Parker wants to do is disappear into nothing, but ever since her parents placed her on suicide watch that’s impossible. Now the few friends she has at school are on high alert and the counselor and the rest of the school administration is breathing down her neck in search of the truth. 

Then she meets Jake, the new guy who just won’t leave her alone no matter how mean she is to him. From the very first day he arrived at St. Peter’s High she’s tried to tell him that she’s not interested and he shouldn’t be either, yet he’s still managed to fall in love with her. Now Parker’s starting to feel emotions again and life is spinning even more out of control.

Parker’s life wasn’t supposed to turn out like this and people find it harder and harder to understand this new Parker. Nobody will ever guess the truth though about what really happened that night that she changed. The worst part is, it just may have been Parker’s fault.

How to describe this book? Fabulous, dark, wonderful, unthinkable are just a few words that come to mind. I loved every aspect of the book from Parker’s depressed attitude (although there were times when I wanted to tell her to pull it together) to the intense feelings of suspense created by the author as to why Parker acted the way she did.

The author did a stunning job creating emotion in this book. With every pitfall characters experienced your heart felt for them. When they were happy you were elated by the fact that they found something to be happy in. It has honestly been a long time since I’ve read a book with such deep emotion, that I actually feel like I’m one of the characters, feeling the intense emotions and walking the halls with each character.

Overall I was extremely impressed with Courtney Summers’ debut novel and can hardly wait to read her future works. These book reminds me a lot of Laurie Halse Anderson’s novel, SPEAK, and I believe it might equally compare to it! While this a great book, due to the power of some of the topics this book is best suited for older teenagers and above.