- Hardcover: 333 pages
- Publisher: Push (April 2012)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0545169178
- ISBN-13: 978-0545169172
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14.2 x 3.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 53,509 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
To say that this was one of my most anticipated books of 2012, I am really disappointed. As with Not That Kind Of Girl, I thought this book had the potential to be really good and I'm sure the author set out with the greatest of intentions... and yet this novel failed to deliver. And I think that was mostly because it tried too hard to be a number of different things and, by doing so, was stretched too thin and failed to achieve any of the initial goals.
I gave the rating that extra .5 star because the book has that compulsive readability, I can't be entirely negative about a novel that is so easy to read that you can easily lose a few hours without realising it. This is a novel about teenage girls and how different an experience high school can be depending on the way you look and who your friends are. How one moment - whether fortunate or not - can completely change the way you are seen for the next four years. I liked that Siobhan Vivian recognised that being labelled in a certain way can be a blessing or a burden, depending on the person involved.
The problem is that the author bit off more than she could chew. I don't usually enjoy books with more than one POV... this had eight. EIGHT! The eight POVs were the girls, two from each grade, who were labelled prettiest and ugliet of their year by the mysterious author of THE LIST. Vivian tackles bullying, anorexia, friend troubles, family troubles, boy troubles, being an outsider... great! Five stars for intention!! But the most any character got was six chapters from their POV and this wasn't enough to fully develop their story and an understanding of the way they felt. To fully explore all of those issues mentioned you'd need a full book on each, the idea was just too ambitious.
************************spoilers ahead*************************
But the worst thing that stopped me from giving this the three stars meaning "I liked it" was the lack of closure/solutions for most of the girls. Sorry for feeling the need to include these spoilers, but the ending told us nothing about more than half the girls. Will Bridget ever recover from her anorexia? She's still starving herself at the novel's end. What will Lauren do about her mum trying to pull her out of school? Accept it or fight for her right to a normal teen life? What's next for Jennifer? Will her and Margo ever smooth things over? Is Candace finally going to stop being the bitch she's always been?
There's just not enough! And there's not enough because there's too much... which is ridiculous, I know. Too many characters with their important issues that are never fully explored and never given any kind of closure. The ending was bizarre, I kept waiting for a big come-together in the last chapter that would either give me some hope that the girls would be okay or leave me with an important message that summed up what Ms Vivian wanted to say with this book.
If I was to describe this book in one word, it would be: unresolved.
I gave the rating that extra .5 star because the book has that compulsive readability, I can't be entirely negative about a novel that is so easy to read that you can easily lose a few hours without realising it. This is a novel about teenage girls and how different an experience high school can be depending on the way you look and who your friends are. How one moment - whether fortunate or not - can completely change the way you are seen for the next four years. I liked that Siobhan Vivian recognised that being labelled in a certain way can be a blessing or a burden, depending on the person involved.
The problem is that the author bit off more than she could chew. I don't usually enjoy books with more than one POV... this had eight. EIGHT! The eight POVs were the girls, two from each grade, who were labelled prettiest and ugliet of their year by the mysterious author of THE LIST. Vivian tackles bullying, anorexia, friend troubles, family troubles, boy troubles, being an outsider... great! Five stars for intention!! But the most any character got was six chapters from their POV and this wasn't enough to fully develop their story and an understanding of the way they felt. To fully explore all of those issues mentioned you'd need a full book on each, the idea was just too ambitious.
************************spoilers ahead*************************
But the worst thing that stopped me from giving this the three stars meaning "I liked it" was the lack of closure/solutions for most of the girls. Sorry for feeling the need to include these spoilers, but the ending told us nothing about more than half the girls. Will Bridget ever recover from her anorexia? She's still starving herself at the novel's end. What will Lauren do about her mum trying to pull her out of school? Accept it or fight for her right to a normal teen life? What's next for Jennifer? Will her and Margo ever smooth things over? Is Candace finally going to stop being the bitch she's always been?
There's just not enough! And there's not enough because there's too much... which is ridiculous, I know. Too many characters with their important issues that are never fully explored and never given any kind of closure. The ending was bizarre, I kept waiting for a big come-together in the last chapter that would either give me some hope that the girls would be okay or leave me with an important message that summed up what Ms Vivian wanted to say with this book.
If I was to describe this book in one word, it would be: unresolved.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
16 reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Excellent
1 April 2012
Format:Hardcover
I have read Siobhan Vivian's previous novel and was thrilled to read `the List'.
A few thoughts came to mind as I was reading this book. Firstly, Vivian's books are always so vivid and incredibly difficult to read (for me anyway). Why? Because they are so true - they touch the areas where I feel the most vulnerable and then, take the storyline even further - by playing out human nature's true self.
Wow! That sounded kind of deep, but that is how I felt when I read The List.
Can you imagine being a teenage girl in high school (which is hard enough to begin with) only to discover that some mysterious person has created the List. What is on this list? the names of 8 girls who have been ranked either pretty or not, in each class grade.
I can't imagine the horror of finding your name on that list - under the `ugliest' category.
However, the author takes it one step further and examines the lives of 8 girls who have been `put' on that list - the pretty ones AND the ugly ones. While you might think that the pretty ones `have it made', the author does an amazing job of showing us just how being labeled - one way or the other can affect who you are, how you feel and how you act.
I cringed as I read this book - because there is so much truth to the stories told here. The pretty girls discover that they may not be all that pretty after all and the ugly girls discover that there is more to life than just your face - actually, this is kind of the morale of the book, in a round about way.
What a wonderful book to read if you are a young adult who does not believe that you fit it anywhere. This book, while incredibly difficult, was also kind of uplifting in a way. The writing is frank and, at times, raw, which simply gives the author and her storyline all that much more credibility.
A few thoughts came to mind as I was reading this book. Firstly, Vivian's books are always so vivid and incredibly difficult to read (for me anyway). Why? Because they are so true - they touch the areas where I feel the most vulnerable and then, take the storyline even further - by playing out human nature's true self.
Wow! That sounded kind of deep, but that is how I felt when I read The List.
Can you imagine being a teenage girl in high school (which is hard enough to begin with) only to discover that some mysterious person has created the List. What is on this list? the names of 8 girls who have been ranked either pretty or not, in each class grade.
I can't imagine the horror of finding your name on that list - under the `ugliest' category.
However, the author takes it one step further and examines the lives of 8 girls who have been `put' on that list - the pretty ones AND the ugly ones. While you might think that the pretty ones `have it made', the author does an amazing job of showing us just how being labeled - one way or the other can affect who you are, how you feel and how you act.
I cringed as I read this book - because there is so much truth to the stories told here. The pretty girls discover that they may not be all that pretty after all and the ugly girls discover that there is more to life than just your face - actually, this is kind of the morale of the book, in a round about way.
What a wonderful book to read if you are a young adult who does not believe that you fit it anywhere. This book, while incredibly difficult, was also kind of uplifting in a way. The writing is frank and, at times, raw, which simply gives the author and her storyline all that much more credibility.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Should be required reading!
15 April 2012
Format:Hardcover
This book was so much better than I ever expected. The emotions were honest and real, not canned and sappy. Although the book is a YA novel, I think all women would enjoy it. It is not written in the childish, predictable style of so many other YA novels. The List should be required reading for every girl between 12 and 18. Women have such power over each other. If we worked together and valued each other instead of always being catty, we could accomplish so much!
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Realistic Look at High School
13 April 2012
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
Told from the perspective of eight high school girls named as either ugliest or prettiest, The List gives a extremely realistic look into the life of teenage girls. All eight characters are well fleshed out. None of them are one dimensional at all. While you might not necessarily feel empathy with all of them, you definitely get the sense that they could be a real person. Because this book is so realistic, you will dislike some of the characters and like others just like how you feel about real people.
This is one of the more realistic books about high school life that I have read. Not all the characters endings are wrapped up neatly, but that would be expected. In real life not everyone gets a tidy ending. It's a quick read that is definitely an enjoyable one.
This is one of the more realistic books about high school life that I have read. Not all the characters endings are wrapped up neatly, but that would be expected. In real life not everyone gets a tidy ending. It's a quick read that is definitely an enjoyable one.
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