Review: Pants on Fire

Pants on Fire by Meg Cabot
3 stars


Reasons for reading: I really like Meg Cabot and have been meaning to read this one since it came out; Celebrate the Author Challenge author for February - her birthdate is February 1, 1967.

Description: "Katie Ellison is not a liar. But she can't exactly tell the truth, either—not when she's juggling two boyfriends, secretly hating the high school football team everyone else worships, and trying to have the best summer ever. At least Katie has it all under control (sort of). Her biggest secret, what really happened the night Tommy Sullivan is a freak was spray-painted on the junior high gymnasium wall, is safe. That is, until Tommy comes back to town. Katie is sure he's going to ruin all her plans, and she'll do anything to hang on to her perfect existence. Even if it means telling more lies. Even if, now that Tommy's around, she's actually—truthfully—having the time of her life."

First line: "'Oh my God, what's she doing here?' my best friend, Sidney van der Hoff, was asking, as I came up to the corner booth to hand out menus."

My thoughts: I chose Meg Cabot as my February author because I've enjoyed a lot of her books, plus she is the chick lit QUEEN, which is very cool (if she wrote a picture book, she'd have covered every single age group from adult to teen to kid to little kid). My favourites are her Boy Next Door trilogy, which are hilariously funny. I also enjoyed the first few Princess Diaries books. One of these days I'll get around to her Queen of Babble series. I have to confess to not loving Size 12 is Not Fat (mainly because I would kill to be a size 12, though I wasn't too fond of the mystery element, either), so I haven't read the rest of that series. But overall, Meg Cabot is way cool, so I wanted to celebrate her.

This book makes you want to do some serious kissing! Holy cow. About 1/3 of it is either Katie kissing one of her three guys or thinking about kissing them. It good fluffy read, fairly predictable but fun. The quahog-obsessed town was an interesting element and I liked the small-town feel. And the message of not treating jocks like gods was a bit heavy-handed but not a bad one. Tommy Sullivan coming back with amazing good looks on top of his original huge brain was a bit much - I don't think Katie would've done what she did if he'd been average-looking.

The verdict: Typical chick lit with a fairly snappy heroine who's capable of changing. And lots of hunky boys. And kissing.