Title: My Own Worst Frenemy (A Langdon Prep Novel)
Author: Kimberly Reid
Genre: YA
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corporation
Release Date: September 2011
Summary: Straight outta the Mile High City, Chanti Evans is an undercover cop’s daughter and an exclusing private school’s newest student. But Chanti is learning fast that when it comes to con games, the streets have nothing on Langdon Prep.
With barely a foot in the door, fifteen-year-old Chanti gets on the bad side of school queen bee Lissa and snobbish Headmistress Smythe. They’ve made it their mission to take Chanti down and she needs to find out why, especially when stuff begins disappearing around campus, making her the most wanted girl in school, and not in a good way. But the last straw comes when she and her Langdon crush, the seriously hot Marco Ruiz, are set up to take the heat for a series of home burglaries-and worse. . . .
Review:
Chanti is your average teenage girl from the hood who has gotten herself in to trouble because of the people she chooses to surround herself with. While her friends would rather be at parties, she would much rather be at home reading a book. Chanti’s mom is an undercover cop who moves Chanti to a new private school hoping things will change for the better. From the moment Chanti arrives at school, she is seen as an outsider due to the fact that she is a scholarship student and not wealthy. She quickly bonds with the two other scholarship students; a cute boy named Marco and Bethanie, a girl who’s past seems to be a huge mystery. After things start disappearing around campus and around town, Chanti quickly dives into teenage detective mode in order to catch the thief before she’s arrested.
In order for me to thoroughly enjoy a book, it needs to bring some sort of emotion to the surface. Unfortunately, this book did not bring any type of feelings out other than curiosity. It does hold the attention of the reader because while Chanti is being framed for crimes she did not commit, she spends a majority of her time trying to find out who the culprit is while bringing the reader along for the ride. When this book finally hits the climax, it is resolved quickly and unemotionally. There is also some gang activity and I felt that it wasn’t built up enough feel threatening to the characters involved. There was very little character development so I was never really able to get a feel for who they were, physically or emotionally. That being said, I do believe the overall plot was a good idea, I just would have liked to see a little more depth and development to the story.
