Review: Pwned by Shannen Crane Camp

Title: Pwned

Author: Shannen Crane Camp

Publication Date: April 29, 2013
Rating: 3 Stars

Reagan West has a perfect life. She’s at the top of the high school food chain as co-captain of the cheerleading squad and she’s best friends with the most evil girl in Albany, Tawny Perez, which means she’s never on the receiving end of her wrath. The only trouble in Reagan’s perfect life comes from the constant threat of her dirty little secret leaking to her fellow classmates and casting her into a lifetime of ridicule. 

Reagan West is a closet gamer and hates her role as the evil cheerleader.

But, as any well versed teenager knows, it’s better to suppress your own nerdy tendencies than to submit to a lifetime of being shoved into lockers and so, Reagan bravely soldiers through life as a reluctant bully… until a boy from her guild moves to her school and becomes Tawny’s next target. The newcomer threatens to reveal Reagan’s nerdy little secret and force her to come to terms with who she truly is. Now Reagan has to decide if she’s going to defend her fellow geeks, or if she’ll continue to be a total troll.

 

***

My Thoughts

This was a short, kinda fun read. Not as good as I was hoping in regards to the actual plot. Reagan took too long to start acting. The whole thing was kind of trite. I really wasn't expecting anything new, but still not quite so stereotypical either. The only thing that saved it was the nerdy humor. That was really great, which is really why I picked it up in the first place anyway. So it did deliver xD

The surprise on the last chapter was a bit too much. Even though I kind of did see it coming, since it did explain a couple of things, it just didn't still quite work in my opinion. Major spoilers ahead, really shouldn't read it if you plan on reading this one. (view spoiler)

As I mentioned before the nerdy humor was really the saving grace for this book. Without it I would have given it 2 stars, but it gets a whole 3rd one just for the references. My favorite one:

"Sovay, I'm starting to think you're sabotaging us on purpose!", he yelled, starling us enough to make us pull away quickly. "You're a rogue! You don't pull a Jenkins and run into the dungeon before we're ready!"

I was laughing out loud at that one. If you don't get what's so funny then you are not going to really get the rest of it. Which means you'll be missing out on the best part of the book. Therefore, if you get the nerdy humor, by all means read this one, you'll end up enjoying it. If not, you could always give it a go anyway.

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