The Julian Game by Adele Griffin

Amazon Description: "All new girl Raye Archer wants is a way into the in crowd, so when ice-queen Ella Parker picks her to get back at her ex, the gorgeous Julian Kilgarry, Raye is more than game. Even if it means creating a fake Facebook identity so she can learn enough about Julian to sabotage him. It's a fun and dangerous thrill at first, but Raye hadn't counted on falling for Julian herself-and igniting Ella's rage.

As Raye works to reconcile the temptress Elizabeth with her real-life self, Ella serves up her own revenge, creating an online smear campaign of nasty rumors and trashy photographs. Suddenly notorious, Raye has to find a way out of the web of deceit that she's helped to build, and back to the relationships that matter.

Adele Griffin's riveting novel explores the issues of generation Facebook: the desire to be someone else, real versus online friends, and the pitfalls and fallouts of posting your personal life online for all the world to judge."

My Review: The Julian Game is one of those books where I go back, and I'm like, What did I just READ? After it's all ended...it seems so pointless. I don't see the point of the book, of what I've just read. A complete waste of time---that's how I see this book. The plot is over halfway through the book, and the rest is just spent...ambling around, trying to sort out the rest of Raye's "problems" (which, to me, don't seem like real issues). She has no issues with her dad or dad's girlfriend. We find out that her mother died---but instead of making it an interesting point, Griffin completely glosses over it and we don't ever really find out how Raye feels about it or deals with it. Ella's relationship with Raye is just awkward, and I can never quite figure out: is Ella evil or good? Griffin HINTS that there may be more to Ella than just her evil actions...but she never really goes deeper. Raye's relationship with her best friend, Natalya, WOULD have been interesting---if we had ever gotten any information on it. And Julian...well, Griffin tried to make Julian seem all awesome and great, but he came off more as bipolar. One second he'd be awesome, the next second he'd be lame and spineless. And Raye didn't seem too heartbroken over him...considering she had been madly crushing on him forever? Hmmm. Not very solid writing there. Not very solid writing anywhere, really! Griffin had a promising plot---but she also had flat, emotionless, hard-to-figure-out characters and awkward, confusing relationships. Which made the book weird and, ultimately, forgettable.

Cover: The only good thing about the book! The colors on the girl are awesome, as are her clothes and the checkered background. It looks very Alice In Wonderland-esq, doesn't it?

Overall Grade: F