Book Review: Surviving High School By Lele Pons

Ten million followers and I still sit alone at lunch. Lele is a bulls-eye target at her new school in Miami until, overnight, her digital fame catapults the girl with cheerleader looks, a seriously silly personality, and a self-deprecating funny bone into the popular crowd. Now she’s facing a whole new set of challenges—the relentless drama, the ruthless cliques, the unexpected internet celebrity—all while trying to keep her grades up and make her parents proud.

Filled with the zany enthusiasm that has made Lele into Vine’s most viewed star, this charming novel is proof that high school is a trip. From crushing your crushes (what’s up with that hot transfer student Alexei??) to throwing Insta-fake parties with your BFFs and moaning over homework (GAH) with your frenemies, high school is a rollercoaster of exhilarating highs and totally embarrassing lows. Leave it to Lele to reassure us that falling flat on your face is definitely not the end of the world.

After growing up in an all girls catholic school, Lele faces a whole new world when she moves to Florida and starts high school, their style. Lele is a fun, happy, awkward, out-going, confident girl with an extremely over-dramatic personality which makes this book so addictive as you just need to see what embarrassing thing she’s done next in front of everybody. We get to see how Lele deals with this new school, the friends she makes, the ‘frenemies’, and her high school crush, all while she’s balancing her newly famous life as a Viner. I wouldn’t say fame went to Lele’s head, however, fame was definitely an overwhelming time for her to deal with and she became a Lele that wasn’t so fun and was always so paranoid! The way she saw life and her humour seemed to dissolve away and it was quite saddening to see the quick transformation as we are so used to a happy Lele.

What I loved the most is the parts where Lele described certain situations that happened in real life, in which she then turned in to a vine, such as; setting her friends test on fire, when your friend can rock your outfit better than you, or how about that vine where her phone got battered so hard without smashing but as soon as Lele put it gently on to a table it smashed? That actually happened! It made it all the funnier knowing her real life situations were the inspirations for her vines, which have made her in to the huge success she is today. I’m going to have to admit that I totally sat throughout the whole book trying to figure out who was who with these made up names Lele had to make for the book. OBVIOUSLY Alexei is Twan, I mean… I just knew it! I knew it all along.It’s amazing to see how far they’ve both come as friends since their high school days and I still love seeing them both take part in each others videos.

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