Promise Me Something(ARC) by Sara Kocek

"As if starting high school weren't bad enough, Reyna Fey has to do so at a new school without her best friends. Reyna's plan is to keep her head down, help her father recover from the car accident that almost took his life, and maybe even make some friends. And then Olive Barton notices her. Olive is not exactly the kind of new friend Reyna has in mind. The boys make fun of her, the girls want to fight her, and Olive seems to welcome the challenge. There's something about Olive that Reyna can't help but like. But when Reyna learns Olive's secret, she must decide whether it's better to be good friends with an outcast or fake friends with the popular kids. . . .before she loses Olive forever."

Promise Me Something by Sara Kocek
320 pages
To be released on September 1st, 2013

To be honest, I was pretty sure I was going to end up disliking this book. I'm happy to say that that isn't the case at all!

At first, I absolutely could not stand most of the characters. Take Reyna, for example. She is stuck in the past, for lack of a better way to put it. Her mother passed away when she was a kid and now her father was almost killed. By a car accident that his girlfriend, Lucy, caused by going past a stop sign. Needless to say, Reyna isn't a very big fan of her. Reyna's trying to make friends, but Olive isn't exactly what she's looking for... Sadly for Reyna, she'll just have to take what she can get.

Olive is the outcast of the school. She's a very big complainer and she's very bitter about everything. Even with Reyna's reluctance to be her friend, Olive is determined to stay.

Throughout the whole book, Reyna is wishing that she was with her best friends, at the high school that she was originally supposed to go to. What happens when Olive isn't as bad as she thought she was? And then there's that secret Olive's been keeping...

Reyna isn't really used to not having any friends. She has a group of best friends she's known since she was a kid. They've been together through good times and bad. What happens when Reyna's feeling left out, not a part of the group anymore?

The plot is probably my most favorite part of the whole book. I mean, some things were a bit obvious, but the main thing totally blew me away. Sara Kocek has written a very truthful and realistic story that you can't stop reading. The humor will have you grinning, you'll be feeling for the characters, and you'll read about something that's happening out in the real world. I love the topics discussed in this book and although I wanted more from the ending, I can't help but to give this 5/5 stars!