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The Girl in a Cafe

Loving Books Since Before It Was Cool! All reviews can also be found on my main blog!

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Here Lies Bridget (Harlequin Teen) - Paige Harbison Here Lies Bridget is a book that needs no introduction. Every school has one. That girl in high school who made everyone's life miserable. From the outside, she has everything. But when it's on the inside that counts, is money, power and looks really everything?For Bridget, it is. She rules the school. Girls scatter in the hallways when they see her, boys want to be with her. Her teachers quake in her presence, and her step-mother is a bundle of nerves when it comes to dealing with darling Bridget. But Bridget is about to pay the price when her world starts tumbling down...I'm still having trouble processing my feelings for this novel. I absolutely loved Paige's other novel New Girl, and was excited to get my hands on her debut novel. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of in between life and death novels on the YA market these days, and I think you can either get it right or you don't. Here Lies Bridget, however, is one of these books that, for me, falls into the category of the 'in between'. I don't know whether or not love or hate it.Bridget, excuse my French, is a bitch. It's the only way to describe her character, and quite frankly, I'm surprised she's held onto her throne for so long with the way she acts. Her behaviour is appalling - not only is she rude and catty, but she has no regard for the feelings of others - including those who she counts on as friends. She thinks of no-one but herself, and doesn't care about the repercussions her actions have. Bridget is the type of girl that I would, at all costs, avoid like the plague. And because of her initial actions in the book, it makes it harder to like her in general, especially when she gets her comeuppance and realises what a cow she's been. It's the other characters that make me like this book. Like Liam, for example. Bridget's ex boyfriend, we get to see his thoughts on Bridget - as we do with most of the main characters. Liam isn't the typical good-looking popular guy that you find in most YA novels. I'm still trying to see what he saw in Bridget in the first place. Liam is kind, and caring, and sweet and utterly perfect. He never really gives up on Bridget, and is one of the few people that has actually seen another side of her. I think that is what I loved the most about him - is that he never gave up on Bridget. That's a quality I love in a guy. Then there's Bridget's friend Michelle. A girl who is trying to find out who she really is, Michelle is battling her own demons, and being friends with Bridget is definitely not helping. I loved Michelle's character development the most, as she really learns to finally make a change and stand up for herself. While others were quick to accept Bridget's sudden change in heart, Michelle was not, and recognised that words, albeit powerful, can't heal old wounds, and that only time could rebuild a fractured relationship. I liked that. It made her a strong woman.The more I think about it, the more I realise that my opinion of Here Lies Bridget is the YA version of Wuthering Heights. I hated Emily Bronte's book, mainly because of how horrible the characters are, and how angry their actions made me. The book itself is a fantastic piece of work, and I think the more of a reaction you get out of the book, the more interested in it you really are. There's a reason that what you read provokes so much reaction out of you, and the author has done her job, and done it well.So I guess really, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. Funny, how your perception can change will reviewing a book.