REVIEW: Pretenders (Pretenders #1) by Lisi Harrison

Title: Pretenders
Author: Lisi Harrison
Series: Pretenders #1
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Date of Release: October 15th 2013
Pages: 304
Source: *Received from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

Three girls, two guys, five secret journals.

The five most popular students at Noble High have secrets to hide; secrets they wrote down in their journals. Now one of their own exposes the private entries...

I am leaking these because I'm tired and I know you are too. The success bar is too high and pretending has become the only way to reach it. Instagrams are filtered, Facebook profiles are embellished, photos are shopped, reality TV is scripted, body parts get upgraded like software, and even professional athletes are cheating. The things we believe in aren't real.

We are pretenders.

A strange and unusual story that I just did not get! Though I do like the cover, it is bright and immediately stands out; furthermore it is simple but effective and I love the idea of how the title and characters are made out of paper, symbolising how they write in their diaries.

Three girls and two boys, all from different backgrounds and personalities have their sercret journals revealed for all to see. We learn about their lives, their dreams and their present goals. Their secrets, their crushes, their loves and their fears. They are the Pretenders.

We are presented with five POVS… FIVE! Immediately I was confused. Who was who, who liked who and who was doing what; just confusing. They are: Sheridan, Duffy, Jagger, Lily and Vanessa. There were qualities they all appeared to possess of which I disliked:

1. They were all strongly self-absorbed.
2. They were immature.
3. Mostly boring.
4. Half of what they exclaimed was about who they liked and the other half was how horrible they were feeling. There were only few moments where something positive occurred.
5. They were over-the-top jealous.

There were suppose to be some ultimate secrets… I don't think I came across them at all! Except if their crushes and family problems were their secrets, I was just expecting a little more. There journal entries were shallow and rather boring, however I did like the way their writing styles were distinctive on occasions.

This was a story of which I finished, however I found was not exciting or engaging enough, with immature characters I sadly did not enjoy this book. The second instalment is: License to Spill.