Title: One Night That Changes Everything
Author: Lauren Barnholdt
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Published On: July 6, 2010
Source: own copy
A hilarious and sweet teen novel by Lauren Barnholdt, the author of two-way street.
Two years ago, when Eliza Sellman was in ninth grade, her dad found out he was being transfered and the family was going to move. Having always been shy and not so confident about her body, Eliza took that opportunity to start a list in her private notebook of all the things she planned on doing when she moved but had always been afraid to--like wearing a miniskirt and asking guys to dance; singing karaoke in front of strangers; posting a photo of herself on her Facebook wall in a bikini...you get the idea. New town, new Eliza, right? Well, she'll never know because the transfer fell through and they didn't move. But Eliza kept adding her goals and secret fears to the list in the notebook. Now it's two years later, and in that time Eliza has had and lost her first boyfriend. But this was more than your average breakup...turns out the sweet and cute Cooper was only dating her as a hazing stunt by a secret society. Eliza got her revenge by posting some pretty nasty (and only sort-of true) stuff about Cooper online. That posting has had major consequences and now Cooper and his buddies have stolen her private notebook and won't give it back until she performs all the things on her list in one night. It's torture...until Eliza steals something from the boys she knows they'll want to trade her notebook for. What starts out as a night of humiliation turns into a night of revelations as Eliza learns what Cooper was really thinking when they dated, the real reason he's stolen her notebook, and how freeing--and life-changing--it can be to do the things you fear the most.(goodreads)
My Thoughts:
Seriously, I love these kind of contemporary novels with a timeling that happened all in one night. You think they're nonsense but they're not and they're actually pretty good.
Eliza keeps a purple notebook where she wrote a list of things she's afraid to do. And her ex-boyfriend's frat (well not really but this lame group called 318s) has it and makes her do things from her notebook before they'll give it back to her lest they post the notebook. Yes, totally blackmailing. All because Eliza posted something about Cooper (the ex) on a site called Lanesboro Losers (a social media site her sister created) cheating which led him rejected from Brown uni. Tyler is the leader of this posse, and I really find him so stupid for leading this bunch of pranksters. Honestly, I think pulling pranks on people as your hobby makes you a lame person with nothing else better to do.
I actually liked Cooper. Sure, he made some lame choices in his life but if you're able to read how he made up for it, you can see how adorable he actually is. Eliza, on the other hand, is very admirable and brave. Tyler's group are real jerks and very ungentleman for making her do things she's afraid of. And Eliza's friends, who are with her the whole night were really good friends. Sure, they left her many times during the night but everyone has their own downsides. But despite that, they were with her. :)
The story is simple, but with good characters, the novel is really something. I love the tasks and the interactions between Cooper and Eliza. On the positive side, despite this prank, the outcome of it was pretty great. Plus, the ending was sort of nice.
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