Review: Prom Impossible - Laura Pauling

Cassidy (most American name ever? quite possibly!) is coming into her senior year at school and she already has it all figured out. She's going to bag the man of her dreams this year, and she's going to the prom with him. There's just one catch, he doesn't know that yet, and because he's a nerd, he needs a good push to see the light.

Characterisation was massive in this book; Cassidy is a motor-mouth habitual liar with determination and a fair bit of wit. Some of her comments make you giggle aloud, and the situations she gets herself in seriously make you cringe. When they said it was a modern day Shakespearean comedy, they weren't joking, because there are love triangles and misunderstandings galore. Cassidy was annoying at first, especially when she tried to be funny and when she panicked about nearly everything, but the thing is, I remember being exactly the same at that age. I think this is a perfectly written teenage mind, just given very interesting circumstances to think on.

This was an impressively fast read that makes you think on it every time you have a second. You can't help but wonder what on earth Cassidy will do next, and how she's going to fix it, or make it worse as the case may be. The plot is fairly straightforward in the way that it leads up to the prom, and I loved the way as the year went on everything got more and more complex, and more stressful for Cassidy.

I thought Prom Impossible would be a typical teenage read with nothing really grounding it, but  it pleasantly surprised me by actually dealing with far more things issues than just boys. It actually thinks about what teenagers would think in a situation and gives them the reasons why. It teaches that sometimes parents and aunts do things because they care, not because they want to embarrass you or hurt you, which was something I sometimes needed to be reminded of as a teenager, though possibly not at 17-18. It also teaches that lying is really, really bad for you, especially when you lie and then try to cover it with more lies. This was something plenty of my friends needed to be taught.

As for romance, because essentially that is what you're reading this for, there are all types considered in this, from the fawning of a love not reciprocated to the pounding heart that is lust, to the soft, steady type of love that comes up on you when you least expect it. As for the men, Zeke was my favourite, as he's utterly supposed to be. The reformed bad-boy type with a penchant for turning up at exactly the right time is exactly what a teenagers dream of; they get the image without all the flaws.

A good, fun read with a lot of drama and a lot of cringey situations, perfect for teens and perfect for a lapse into your teenage self if you're not one. 8.5 out of 10, purely because the voice took a while to get used to and to actually like.

Prom Impossible on Goodreads

This book was gifted to me as a review copy via Xpresso Book Tours.